After Heidegger and Marion: The Task of Christian Metaphysics Today

Without denying legitimate criticisms of metaphysics that have been made since the time of the Reformation, the purpose of this essay is to challenge prevailing assumptions in continental philosophy and theology since Heidegger that the age of metaphysics is now over and should be replaced as “first philosophy” either by some version of phenomenology, such as that offered by Jean‐Luc Marion, or by a pragmatic linguistic approach in the spirit of Wittgenstein, such as that offered by Kevin Hector. Notwithstanding the genuine merits of their proposals and concerns, it is argued here that metaphysics is not so easily dismissed, and that there is, in fact, a way to do metaphysics otherwise – a way that was taken by Erich Przywara, whose analogical metaphysics is characterized not only by an analogy between God and creation, the analogia entis , but also by an analogy between philosophical and theological metaphysics. In this, form, it is argued, not only is metaphysics impervious to the standard criticisms of “onto‐theology,” it also turns out to be, at its core, nothing other than a Christological metaphysics.