John Betz
Analogical Metaphysics
After Rationalism and Hermeneutics
Theme
Is the age of metaphysics over? And can it be over for Christians? After the indictments of Barth and Heidegger, many have thought so. Indeed, whatever else may divide the philosophers and theologians of the past century, this seems to be the general consensus. Adorno, for one, said of Thomistic philosophy,“That is now finished. Such an interpretation of meaning is no longer possible.” More recently, Jean-Luc Marion has claimed that “The ‘end of metaphysics’ is in no way an optional opinion. It is a matter of rational fact. Whether we accept it or not, it dominates us absolutely, as an overwhelming event.” And even Schillebeeckx is thought to have made a turn away from metaphysics to hermeneutics. Is there, then, any reason to think differently? If, in Schillebeeckx’s words, “the old metaphysical framework...no longer allows us to speak meaningfully to modern man,” is there a new way to talk about metaphysics that can? Picking up on the latest research on Schillebeeckx, this talk will re-examine the question of metaphysics in Christian theology and propose that there is such a way: that a renewed analogical metaphysics in the spirit of Aquinas, as articulated by Erich Przywara, SJ (1889-1972), the friend of mentor of Edith Stein and Hans Urs von Balthasar, is not only able to meet the challenges posed by the last century, and overcome today's divide between metaphysical and hermeneutical standpoints, but is needed in order to restore metaphysical depth to Christian doctrine.
Speaker
John Betz studied systematic theology in Tübingen, Germany, and completed his PhD in philosophical theology at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the modern German philosophical and theological tradition. His first article was on F.W.J. von Schelling, and his first book, After Enlightenment (2009), was on Kant’s friend and hometown rival, the prophetic man of letters, Johann Georg Hamann. Since then, his work has focused on recovering the work of the Jesuit Erich Przywara, who was a mentor to Edith Stein and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and arguably the leading German Catholic intellectual of the first half of the twentieth century. To this end he published with David B. Hart the first English edition of Przywara’s magnum opus, Analogia Entis--Metaphysics: Original Structure and Universal Rhythm (2014). This laid the groundwork for a number of articles on Przywara and further efforts to rehabilitate metaphysics in theology, culminating in Christ, the Logos of Creation: An Essay in Analogical Metaphysics (2023). He is also the co-editor (with Rik van Nieuwenhove) of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Apophatic Theology, and is currently working, with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, on a critical edition of Schelling's Original Lectures on the Philosophy of Revelation.
Program
16.00 Welcome and Introduction
Prof. Stephan van Erp
16.10 Lecture Prof. John Betz
17.00 Questions and discussion
17.30 Reception
Date: 10 October 2025
Time: 16.00-17.30
Location: Romero Room, Collegium Veteranorum 02.10
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven
Registration is required at:
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