Finding Grace with God: A Phenomenological Reading of the Annunciation

By Rose Ellen Dunn

Finding Grace with God: A Phenomenological Reading of the Annunciation engages in an interweaving of phenomenology, mystical theology, and feminist philosophy to unfold a theopoetic interpretation of the narrative of the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with a discussion of the foundational phenomenologies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and then moves to the more recent work of several French phenomenologists, including Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Louis Chretien, and Michel Henry. The interpretation is then expanded through the philosophies of Luce Irigaray, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jacques Derrida. Finally, the phenomenologies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger provide a means to interpret the Annunciation through theopoetics, as a text that is infused with possibility. Mary, filled with grace, is beckoned by the divine into possibility; responding in grace, she in turn beckons the divine into possibility. Transgressing the limits of language, this possibility slips into apophasis--into a moment of Gelassenheit, a mutual "letting-be" or releasement of Mary and the divine into a mystical union of love, a love that becomes manifest through a gift of life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1498226779
• ISBN13: 9781498226776
• Release Date: July 2014
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Length: 150 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"