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THE “OPEN COUNTRY WHOSE NAME IS PRAYER”: APOPHASIS, DECONSTRUCTION, AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE
Author(s) -
LAIRD MARTIN
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
modern theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.144
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1468-0025
pISSN - 0266-7177
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0025.2005.00279.x
Subject(s) - contemplation , philosophy , prayer , postmodernism , deconstruction (building) , situated , theology , aesthetics , epistemology , ecology , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology
While much has been written on the dialogue between postmodernism and the Christian apophatic tradition, there has been little focus on the role of what lies at the heart of this tradition: the practice of contemplation. By looking at contemplative authors such as Evagrius Ponticus and others, this article shows that contemplative practice, situated in a life of contemplation, relates closely to postmodernism's critique of ontotheology. Contemplative practice deconstructs the epistemologically constituted self that knows itself as knowing and God as known (to paraphrase Mary‐Jane Rubenstein).