Violence, Mysticism, and René Girard

Astell, Ann W.

doi:10.1177/0040563917698560

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…Among the ancient writings, 'only the Bible speaks of the victim as victim.'" 66 Girard's "Way" allows us to detect and respond to the various ways we have reconfigured our ethos according to a violent and dominative conatus essendi. Intoxicated by the will to power, we are often blind to the signs and intimations of a creative power beyond our control.…”

Section: René Girard: the Way Of Revelationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“In Despair, Despair Not”: Ways to God for a Secular Age

Duns

2020

Theological Studies

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While theological reflection on the question of secularism has been illuminating, it has not always provided resources for those still seeking to encounter God. By responding to Karl Rahner’s paradoxical counsel—“in despair, despair not”—this article engages William Desmond and René Girard to uncover two distinct, yet complementary, “Ways” capable of returning seekers to God. When undertaken as a theological meditation, these “Ways” can awaken us to the graced order, the “order of charity,” in which we live.

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Section: René Girard: the Way Of Revelationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“In Despair, Despair Not”: Ways to God for a Secular Age

Duns

2020

Theological Studies

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Beyond Contagion of Violence: Passionate Love and Empathy in the Thought of René Girard and Max Scheler

Strączek

2021

Hum Stud

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In his last book René Girard depicts apocalypse as disclosure of mimetic violence that is world-ending. He claims that in times of violent pandemic we are not called to fight for this world, but follow Christ in his withdrawal from the world. However, such an assertion creates serious theoretical and practical issues for the effort to heal interhuman relations from the virus of mimetic hostility. I argue for the importance of restoring a foundational distinction between passionate love and acquisitive mimetic desire from the forgotten regions of Girard’s oeuvre. With Max Scheler’s interpretation of Stendhal’s concept of l’amour passion, I explore in each thinker a fundamental insight about possibilities of transforming violent contagion through empathy and loving commitment to the world. I conclude that respective “passive” and “active” approaches to the contagion of mimetic rivalry and violence are necessary and equally valuable.

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Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness

Palaver

2020

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Studies into religion and violence often put religion first. René Girard started with violence in his book Violence and the Sacred and used the Durkheimian term 'sacred' as its correlate in his study of early religions. During the unfolding of his theory, he more and more distinguished the sacred from saintliness to address the break that the biblical revelation represented in comparison to early religions. This distinction between the sacred and saintliness resembles Henri Bergson's complementing Emile Durkheim's identification of the sacred and society with a dynamic religion that relies on individual mystics. Girard's distinction also relates to the insights of thinkers like Jacques Maritain, Simone Weil, and Emmanuel Levinas. This element explores some of Girard's main features of saintliness. Girard pleaded for the transformation of the sacred into holy, not their separation.

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Violence, Mysticism, and René Girard

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

“In Despair, Despair Not”: Ways to God for a Secular Age

“In Despair, Despair Not”: Ways to God for a Secular Age

Beyond Contagion of Violence: Passionate Love and Empathy in the Thought of René Girard and Max Scheler

Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness

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