Abstract
“My God is a wounded God,” writes Halík in this theologically probing volume (5). Consistent with his numerous other writings on faith in a post-religious and post-secular age, H., a Czech Roman Catholic priest, offers a series of meditative reflections on finding faith amidst our personal, interpersonal, and social wounds. Refusing to offer instructions on how to overcome all the harm we inflict upon one another, including ourselves, and avoiding any romanticization of suffering, H. urges a “nonindifference” and a “courage to see,” a willingness to fully inhabit our shared wounds as occasions for transformative grace (63).
In dialogue with such figures as St. Paul, Eckhart, Luther, Bonhoeffer, Metz, Sölle, Altizer, Kearney, and above all Nietzsche (“my first philosophical love” [68]), H. interweaves personal anecdotes and pastoral insights with philosophical and theological reflections in a series of short, thematically focused chapters. While the chapters, read in succession, occasionally grow repetitive, the overall effect is a beautiful and challenging account of a Gospel-inspired faith that highlights the extreme paradox of God becoming flesh, and thus a God who indwells our creaturely vulnerability without reserve. Frequently returning to Nietzsche’s announcement of the “death of God,” and responding with post-metaphysical styles of philosophy and theology that emphasize divine kenosis, H. continues his long-standing dialogue with contemporary atheism and agnosticism through appeal to a God who welcomes our doubts and questions, who hears our laments and protests, and who touches (and is touched) by our wounds.
Given the meditative and pastoral approach of the text, readers should not expect extended engagements with doctrinal reflection or philosophical disputation. In this sense, the text wears its considerable learning lightly. H.’s predilection for existential and postmodern sensibilities is characteristic of his overall work, and a clear strength. Yet, some readers may wonder what an engagement with a broader range of figures in Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions might contribute to the conversation—voices that are also keenly focused on questions of creaturely fragility and suffering, and with pastoral intent, but which are more at home with classical and metaphysical styles of theology and philosophy.