Metaphysics

“This book does nothing less than to set new standards in combining philosophical with political theology. Pabst's argument about relationality has the potential to change debates in theology, philosophy, and politics.”

John Milbank

“I have waited for Adrian Pabst's Metaphysics for a long time, and, my goodness, it does not disappoint. The range of its material and the breadth of its historical scope are breathtaking, and Pabst's analysis is as sharp as frost and just as penetrating. At the moment political theology is fashionable, but this book does not just examine something fashionable; I predict it will become a classic and lead the current trend in a new direction. It needs to be read by theologians, but I want it to be read also by political scientists because for many of them the necessary metaphysical foundations of the political will be profoundly unsettling; so too will its theological gravitas. At the book's theological core is a vision of relationality that is -- and can only be -- a vision of God. If we need anything today that can transform our political landscapes, it is that vision.”

Graham Ward

“In this marvelous book Adrian Pabst gives perhaps the fullest account to date of why Christianity is closely allied to Platonism and why this alliance came unnaturally unstuck, with disastrous consequences for the realm of practice as well as the realm of thought. . . . This is a significant work.”

Catherine Pickstock

“This erudite and lucid work presents an engaging, ambitious, and persuasive defense of the priority of relation over substance. It offers rich resources for those concerned with the contested place of metaphysics and its contemporary renewal, for those interested in the fertile space between metaphysics and theology, and for those engaged with the no less urgent problems of political theology.”

William Desmond

“This bold new study argues for the pivotal importance of the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and the theology of participation in the development of western metaphysics and political thought, and explores their subsequent degeneration and decline when, in modernity, these teachings were forgotten or discarded. A clarion call to recover the economy of love, grounded in the gift, and a welcome new voice in political philosophy.”

Janet Soskice

“Metaphysics challenges both metaphysicians and theologians to find a more effective way of working together in a revivification of some Trinitarian religious life in the world, under what it calls a new imperative of relationality, to counteract the absolutization of individuality. . . . This is a book that should interest not only metaphysicians and theologians but also all those who find themselves cut off from any need to transcend their human condition as isolated individuals caught in a struggle for survival.”

Oliva Blanchette

“An extraordinary survey of Western metaphysical doctrine from a political-theological perspective. Pabst . . . takes the current debate about theology and metaphysics to a new level, while exploring how conceptions of relationality and individuation impact on how we conceive the political. No scholar or student of theology, philosophy or politics could fail to benefit from reading this book. It is a brilliant contribution.”

Wayne Hudson