God the Almighty and the Tenacity of Onto-Theology: Impasse in Merold Westphal’s God-Talk

Abstract

This paper argues that Westphal’s attempt to overcome onto-theology paradoxically collapses back into it—not through conceptual inconsistency but through a structural reinscription of the very hierarchy he seeks to escape. The argument begins by examining Westphal’s understanding of onto-theology and critically assessing his appropriation of Augustine and Kierkegaard (the latter via Levinas), culminating in his affirmation of “God the Almighty.” This critique is particularly warranted given that Westphal elevates Kierkegaard as the paradigmatic figure for overcoming onto-theology. Subsequently, by drawing on Derrida and Caputo, the study introduces an expanded understanding of onto-theology—encompassing the critique of theocentrism and the obsession with purity—to expose the lacunae in Westphal’s approach. While Westphal successfully avoids the production of a God to whom one cannot pray or offer praise, his project nonetheless remains entrapped within the orbit of onto-theology as theocentrism. The paper concludes by indicating that such attempts to overcome onto-theology risk regressing into a theocentric structure, with significant implications for how religious discourse shapes ethical and political life. Ultimately, it highlights that his hermeneutical approach to God remains firmly theological—indeed, all too theological—and unable to transcend the hermeneutics of religious life.

1. Introduction

Overcoming onto-theology is a significant undertaking that reflects a major trajectory in twentieth- and twenty-first-century continental philosophy of religion. From the more distant vantage point of Martin Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology to the more proximate work of philosophers who critically inherited his legacy—Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Yves Lacoste, John Caputo, Merold Westphal, and Richard Kearney—these thinkers have tried to rescue the notions of God and faith from their captivity within the concept of being in modern metaphysics. Among them, Westphal’s project is perhaps the most explicit attempt to separate God and faith from onto-theology, as evidenced by his monograph title itself—Overcoming Onto-Theology (2001). He sought to liberate the biblical God—the personal God who is praised and prayed to—from the impersonal conceptual matrix operating within the metaphysical system.

Onto-theology, a term Heidegger introduced in Identity and Difference to characterize Western metaphysics, denotes a theological concept of being—the highest being (summum ens) or self-caused cause (causa sui)—designed to systematically order all beings within a single metaphysical framework. Such a metaphysical concept is merely a construct of reason that bears no relation to the personal God in whom humans believe and trust, and who hears and answers prayer. As Heidegger (2002, p. 72) famously declared, before the causa sui, “man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god”. Following Heidegger, continental philosophy of religion has undertaken various projects aimed at overcoming the conceptual God of onto-theology.

Among these projects, Westphal’s endeavor to overcome onto-theology warrants scrutiny. He proposes a path for overcoming onto-theology more explicitly than any other thinker, sharply distinguishing, within the broader landscape of metaphysics, what constitutes onto-theology from what does not. In doing so, he renders the project far more concrete and precise, identifying exactly what must genuinely be overcome. Furthermore, unlike Heidegger, who offered no concrete alternative regarding what kind of God should emerge after onto-theology, Westphal demonstrates that the biblical God is a God worthy of the name, one that resists conceptualization. Drawing upon Augustine, Kierkegaard, and Levinas, he faithfully traces how these thinkers have articulated this God. His project thus represents a crucial test case for whether traditional theism can genuinely extricate itself from onto-theological structures.

However, this paper argues that Westphal’s attempt to transcend onto-theology paradoxically collapses back into it. The argument proceeds by first examining Westphal’s understanding of onto-theology and critically assessing his appropriation of Kierkegaard—a critique particularly warranted by his elevation of the “Socrates of Copenhagen” as the paradigmatic figure for this task. Next, the argument employs the deconstructive insights of Derrida and Caputo to expose the lacunae in Westphal’s approach, demonstrating that his project remains tethered to onto-theology. Ultimately, the analysis highlights how such attempts risk reinscribing the centrism critiqued by deconstruction, identifying this as a crucial cautionary point for future theological projects.

To clarify the nature of this collapse at the outset: it is not merely a conceptual downfall but a structural and hermeneutical regression. Westphal consciously seeks to overcome onto-theology; yet despite his explicit intentions, he reproduces the hierarchical structure of thought characteristic of onto-theology—specifically, what Caputo terms “theocentrism.” This mechanism becomes apparent precisely when Westphal, in his attachment to the biblical God, regards “God the Almighty” as the absolute voice to which the believer must unconditionally submit. In other words, the conceptual supreme being has vanished, yet a personal supreme being has been restored in its place, and with it the metaphysical hierarchy between this supreme being and the believing soul reemerges. This may be termed not so much an internal contradiction as a structural inevitability, for no matter how thoroughly we overcome the conceptual God, the very moment we posit an ultimate ground of thought and action, we thereby regress into “theocentrism” as a form of onto-theology.

The stakes of this critique extend beyond academic disputation alone. What Heidegger sought to demonstrate through his critique of onto-theology was not simply to redefine the nature of God. More fundamentally, it was an effort to expose the hierarchical structure of metaphysical thought that suppresses human thinking and ontological freedom—manifested in calculative rationality, technocentrism, and the distortion of faith through conceptual idolatry. Westphal, following this trajectory, seeks to present an authentic faith after onto-theology; yet if he inadvertently reinstates theocentrism, one cannot help but wonder whether this entails yet another hierarchy or distortion in the faith that follows. As will be demonstrated through the analyses of Derrida and Caputo, a faith demanding unconditional submission to “God the Almighty” as absolute voice risks legitimating hierarchical structures that foreclose critical inquiry—and this may yield serious ethical and political consequences. The present critique, therefore, is not a wholesale dismissal of Westphal’s valuable contributions, but rather an effort to identify what must be considered if the project of overcoming onto-theology is to be carried through more fully.

2. Westphal’s Critique of Onto-Theology

To better understand the God whom Westphal seeks to love, we must first examine the God subsumed within onto-theology—a God he cannot love. He begins by essentially accepting Heidegger’s famous declaration:

… that is the cause as causa sui. This is the right name for the god of philosophy. Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god. The godless thinking which must abandon the god of philosophy, god as causa sui, is thus perhaps closer to the divine God. The god-less thinking is more open to Him than onto-theo-Iogic would like to admit.

(Heidegger 2002, p. 72)

Here, Heidegger clarifies the fundamental distinction between the metaphysical concept of God and the divine encountered in religious faith and practice. Given the condensed nature of this critique and the absence of a fully developed alternative theology in Heidegger’s work, subsequent philosophers engaging with post-ontotheological thought must undertake their own interpretation and appropriation of his insights. Westphal observes that Heidegger’s critical analysis extends beyond traditional metaphysics to encompass the modern faith in technology that emerged following the “death of God.” As Westphal emphasizes, Heidegger maintains that “modern technology is so closely linked to metaphysics that the former can be called the completion (Vollendung) of the latter” (Westphal 2004, p. 23). This observation indicates that Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology functions not merely as an analysis of metaphysical discourse about God but, more fundamentally, as a critique of modern civilization itself. Consequently, Westphal understands onto-theology as having paved the way for a subsequent metaphysical faith characteristic of modernity: the elevation of technology and the world’s restructuring through calculative and representational thinking.

How, then, did this technocentric faith emerge? Although several factors contributed, one primary catalyst was the ascendancy of the calculative and representational style of thinking that is integral to modern technocentric societies, which fostered faith in technological capacity itself. Heidegger posits that modern technology engenders a calculative rationality (rechnendes Denken) that stands in stark contrast to “releasement (Gelassenheit), or meditative thinking (besinnliches Denken), or recollective thinking (andenkendes Denken), or the step back out of metaphysics [—] the notion is the same” (Westphal 2004, p. 36; cf. Heidegger 1966, p. 46; 1968, pp. 142–43).

These latter modes represent ways of engaging with the world that remain open to Being as meaningful disclosure. One notable consequence of this shift is the transformation in how natural phenomena are perceived. Rather than approaching elements within nature as entities that sustain and preserve life, the dominant modern perspective apprehends everything as standing-reserve (Bestand)—as a resource or exploitable component. Even life-sustaining entities such as the Rhine River come to be regarded merely as energy reservoirs. In essence, modernity reduces natural phenomena to quantifiable assets available for technological deployment. Crucially, as Westphal notes, this development should not be interpreted as a simple substitution of metaphysics by technology but rather as a further unfolding within metaphysical thinking itself—marking the emergence of a metaphysical spirit, or faith, grounded in technological progress.

The modern ethos, characterized by its emphasis on certainty and control, fosters a profound dependence on reason and calculation, as clearly illustrated by the reduction of natural phenomena to mere sources of technological capacity. In viewing the world from this technocentric perspective, the inherent mystery and dignity of beings become obscured. Aligning with and amplifying Heidegger’s critique, Westphal posits that the foundation of this reliance on calculative reason is deeply rooted in subjectivity—a central tenet of the modern spirit. He further elucidates that calculative reason emerged not in isolation but rather concurrently with the modern subject capable of such cogitation. As Westphal (2004, p. 32) observes, “[a]nother symptom of the technical interpretation of thinking is … the ‘dominance of subjectivity’ that constitutes modernity”.

This “dominance of subjectivity,” Westphal argues, lies at the core of the modern spirit and constitutes its most articulate expression of onto-theology. It manifests itself as a subjectivity that represents and seeks to dominate the world, thereby transforming the spirit of modernity into a metaphysics of subjectivity. This transformation illuminates how the quest for certainty and control inadvertently reifies subjectivity as the bedrock of a new, technologically oriented metaphysics.

This metaphysics of subjectivity forms the core of modern metaphysics as a robust onto-theology, which Westphal, following Heidegger, critically examines. Heidegger characterizes modernity as the age of representational thinking, wherein the world is treated as a picture (Bild) laid out before the observer. He identifies Descartes as the pivotal figure inaugurating this perspective, critiquing him for establishing the ego cogito as the foundation of metaphysical certainty, thereby positioning human beings as subjects (sub-jectum) who underpin the intelligibility of other beings (Heidegger 1987, p. 96).1 As Westphal articulates, “Looking for something that can be its own self-grounding certainty and the basis for all other certainty, Descartes discovers the ego cogito. … It is subject, subjectum, hypokeimenon, that which is most basic” (Westphal 2004, p. 30). This Cartesian shift marks a pivotal moment in the development of modern metaphysics, solidifying the subject’s central role in onto-theological thinking and establishing the foundation for subsequent philosophical discourse on subjectivity and representation.

Furthermore, Westphal emphasizes that Heidegger’s critique of modernity—thematized under the “metaphysics of subjectivity” (Heidegger 1987, pp. 139, 147)—is not solely attributable to Descartes. Rather, he presents it as an inevitable outgrowth of Western metaphysics, originating with Plato and Aristotle and culminating in Nietzsche’s philosophy. For instance, Plato’s Idea of the Good beyond essence or being (epekeina tēs ousias) initially seems to transcend both human cognition and beings. However, Plato’s emphasis on recollection (anamnesis) as a capacity of human cognition implicitly allows beings to be regenerated through the human soul, thus paving the way for the later Cartesian paradigm. Similarly, Nietzsche’s conception of the Übermensch as one who affirms and creates the value of all beings aligns with this trajectory. Just as the Cartesian Cogito positions the subject as the ground of certainty, Nietzsche’s Übermensch becomes the ground of value: “for the supersensible God is replaced by a very sensible humanity, not as creator to be sure, but as The Subject, the Supreme Being in relation to which all else derives its meaning. … For Nietzsche this very earthly Subject is the will to power” (Westphal 2004, p. 26).2 Although Westphal partially rejects Heidegger’s narrative of philosophical history for being somewhat reductive,3 he recognizes its significance in illuminating the development of onto-theology and focuses on its implications for understanding the metaphysical underpinnings of modernity. In particular, Westphal seeks to appropriate the implications of Heidegger’s narrative of philosophy as it relates to the critique of onto-theology within his own context of theological discourse. We must, therefore, attend closely to the key elements in Westphal’s reception and interpretation of Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology. First, Heidegger’s critique targets divine concepts in traditional metaphysics grounded in the logic of representational thought that has descended from antiquity and reached its apogee in modernity. Second, reducing the personal and biblical God to a concept through representational thinking indicates that onto-theology not only confines God within metaphysical categories but also reifies the concept of subjectivity as the productive source of such categories. Thus, “the elimination or minimizing of divine transcendence is the elimination or minimizing of a significant mode of human self-transcendence” (Westphal 2004, p. 53). The central insight of Westphal’s assimilation of Heidegger’s narrative on onto-theology into his philosophy of religion is that, as humanity subsumes the divine within the realm of rationality, the notion of human subjectivity becomes constitutive of this very project.

Westphal extends his analysis beyond Heidegger’s framework to address the question of God after onto-theology. He argues that Heidegger himself, the originator of the critique, is not devoid of religious underpinnings. According to Westphal,

Perhaps the most sustained way in which Heidegger reveals the religious roots of his critique of onto-theology is the appeal to think the holy as mystery. Representational-calculative thinking cannot do this. … But constantly intertwined with his analysis and critique of this kind of thinking is the adumbration of another kind. Whether he calls it the thinking of being, or releasement (Gelassenheit), or meditative thinking (besinnliches Denken), or recollective thinking (andenkendes Denken), or the step back out of metaphysics, the notion is the same.

(Westphal 2004, p. 36)

Such thinking constitutes the furthest reach of Heidegger’s thought in overcoming onto-theology. In his attempt to surpass onto-theology, he remains content to attend to and reflect upon another voice—the voice of Being as distinct from that of beings.

Likewise, Heidegger offers no concrete articulation of the God who emerges after onto-theology. Westphal’s inquiry, thus, extends to pre- and postmodern philosophical and theological paradigms that lie outside the purview of modern metaphysical thought, aiming to examine the transcendent and absolute biblical God. By analyzing the human encounter with divine transcendence—an encounter that eludes human cognition—Westphal proposes the model of “the decentered self” as a representation of the believing soul, positioning it as “a central theme of postmodern philosophy” (Westphal 2004, p. 5). This exploration culminates in an examination of the beliefs and actions of the decentered believing soul, which has been displaced from its position as the locus of religious identity. Consequently, we are now poised to elucidate and critically assess Westphal’s response to the fundamental question: “Who is the God we can love?”

3. The God We Can Love: Augustine as a Precursor to the Overcoming of Onto-Theology

Before identifying the God we can love, Westphal endeavors to conceptualize God beyond the confines of onto-theology, positing that a deity restricted to immanence without transcendence cannot serve as an object of reverence or supplication. He contends that a divine entity conceived as causa sui within the limitations of human calculative and representational rationality may effectively substantiate a metaphysical system but fails to embody a trustworthy being to whom individuals can express veneration and adoration or confide their aspirations. Thus, God is reduced to an intramundane object susceptible to human cognition and conceptualization. Westphal (2004, p. 9) broadly categorizes this diminishment of God as pantheism: “Pantheism makes God wholly immanent by identifying the divine with the world as a totality”.

Pantheism does not distinguish or separate the divine from the world; consequently, God does not respond personally to prayer or derive pleasure from adoration. Instead, the divine is identified with an impersonal natural world (as in Spinoza) or with the self-actualization of the Spirit (as in Hegel). While exploring pantheistic God-talk along Westphal’s approach may be intriguing, the primary aim here is to investigate the God that cannot be reduced to immanence. Nevertheless, by examining one of the limitations and characteristics of pantheism that Westphal critiques, we can more closely approach his intended conception of God. Among the various limitations of the pantheistic deity, we can summarize its core deficiency—within the theistic framework Westphal maintains—as the negation of miracles and mystery. For instance, Westphal identifies Spinoza’s and Hegel’s philosophies as exemplars of modern pantheism. For Spinoza, “Belief in miracles arises from ignorance of real cause” (Westphal 2004, p. 51),4 while for Hegel, “in our knowledge of God there is nothing hidden, nothing secret. There is no divine mystery, except in that sense in which mystery signifies exactly the opposite of ineffability, namely that which is brought to intelligibility through speculation” (Westphal 2004, p. 82).5

This pantheistic perspective, which reduces the divine to an intraworldly entity, precludes the possibility of genuine transcendence and, consequently, of miracles and mysteries that surpass human comprehension. In contrast, Westphal seeks to preserve these elements, arguing for a God who transcends the limitations of onto-theological discourse and maintains the possibility of divine intervention and ineffable mystery. In sum, Westphal’s God—a deity on whom we can depend and whom we can love—stands as the precise antithesis of the onto-theological divine entity posited by pantheism. His articulation of the divine, thus, emerges as a critical response to the pantheistic reduction of God to an intramundane object, reaffirming the possibility of a transcendent, personal divinity capable of eliciting genuine devotion and reliance from believers. Westphal locates this transcendent and personal God within the traditional theistic context of the biblical idea of God, capable of performing miracles and responding personally to human prayers. This God cared for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and continues to care attentively for humanity, hearing and responding to our prayers. Westphal rediscovers this God who is already present in scripture by constructing his own philosophical narrative, thereby delineating a path to overcome onto-theology.

In essence, Westphal adopts a strategy of identifying the God-discourses of philosophers or theologians who serve as exemplars of thought beyond onto-theology, including figures such as Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Karl Barth, Levinas, and Kierkegaard. I focus on his interpretation of two figures: Augustine and Kierkegaard. Westphal views Augustine as embodying a premodern philosophical tradition that anticipates postmodern thought. He presents Kierkegaard as a preeminent and pioneering postmodern philosopher, best suited to explain the authentic meaning of loving God and neighbor. Westphal’s reading of Kierkegaard acquires its distinctive character through the mediation of Levinas, necessitating some attention to his interpretation of Levinas as well. In this light, I examine Westphal’s interpretations of Kierkegaard (via Levinas) and Augustine to rediscover the biblical God—an orthodox exemplar of divine transcendence and human self-transcendence beyond onto-theology. Consequently, Westphal’s conception of God can aptly be termed “God the Almighty.”

Westphal presents Augustine as a premodern exemplar who anticipates the project of postmodern religious philosophy to overcome onto-theology (Westphal 2001, 2004). Augustine is conventionally perceived in some Christian theological circles as providing theological statements that form the foundation for specific doctrines, such as predestination or original sin.6 This represents one of the prevalent interpretations of Augustine. Indeed, the Bishop of Hippo did make such statements or doctrines (cf. Augustine 1992). Even more problematic in the context of onto-theology, however, is the existence of decidedly metaphysical assertions such as the following: “In you it is not one thing to be and another to live: the supreme degree of being and the supreme degree of life are one and the same thing. You are being in a supreme degree and are immutable” (Augustine 1991, Book I, vi [10]).

In such passages, Augustine makes metaphysical assertions regarding the immutability of being and the concept of supreme being. Yet, distinguishing between onto-theological statements proper and Augustine’s metaphysical pronouncements is crucial. The decisive difference lies in Augustine’s consistent framing of such assertions within the language of praise and confession. Metaphysical characterizations of the divine, such as causa sui, are not conceived for praise and confession. Trying to define God with such concepts ends up merely commenting on a speculative system or natural causes. An exclamation like “What a precise and stable system!” cannot capture human suffering and lamentation, nor the joy and anxiety of the soul. Augustine, by contrast, situates his metaphysical expressions within the context of confessing before God, thereby infusing them with precisely this pathos. In this sense, as Westphal (2001, p. 273) observes, “Augustine’s God transcends Augustine and Augustine’s time”.

Specifically, Westphal (2001, p. 274) notes that “Augustine begins his Confessions with two citations from the Psalms”: “’You are great, Lord, and highly to be praised (Ps. 47:2): great is your power and your wisdom is immeasurable’ (Ps. 146:5)” (Augustine 1991, Book I, i [1]). This language is evidently not that for conversing with a mere cause or supreme being, but rather that directed to One who is worthy of the highest veneration. Westphal (2001, p. 273) directly connects Augustine’s discourse on God, which begins in this manner, to Heidegger’s God beyond metaphysics: “The God who comes after onto-theology, who would be overcome by metaphysics (in Heidegger’s sense) and whose flourishing is thus the overcoming of metaphysics, can be the God of Augustine”. A God beyond onto-theology must be one before whom we can dance, sing, and pray. All these actions presuppose a God with whom dialog is possible—one who delights in the dance, listens to the song, and responds to the prayer. Augustine’s Confessions commences with a form of praise akin to song and unfolds entirely as a dialog with the One deemed worthy of such praise. Westphal posits that Augustine employs this tone to transform metaphysical statements into post-metaphysical ones, thereby guiding us toward a God beyond onto-theology.

Of course, the Creator, often invoked by Augustine as a primary name for God, could be perceived as a kind of causa sui. Moreover, metaphysical concepts such as the Immutable are employed alongside the notion of the Creator.7 However, according to Westphal, these names are articulated not to function as subjects of metaphysical propositions but to denote a personal being who stands in an existential relationship with humans. For Augustine, the concept of an immutable or unchangeable being does not signify a metaphysical unmoved mover in the Aristotelian sense. Rather, it emerges in the context of mutable reason’s inherent tendency to seek a stable foundation upon which it can rely. In other words, the Immutable evokes in mutable reason a sense of awe and dependence, revealing itself as the ground of mutable beings. Westphal (2001, p. 275) astutely observes that Augustine’s articulation of this dynamic resembles an act of praise: “We find Augustine looking for the immutable source”: “At that point it had no hesitation in declaring that the unchangeable is preferable to the changeable, and that on this ground it can know the unchangeable. … So in the flash of a trembling glance it attained to that which is” (Augustine 1991, Book VII, xvii [23]).

Ultimately, for Augustine, God as the immutable being and as the cause of our existence does not signify the causa sui or the primum movens immobile. Rather, it denotes a being who loves, protects, and ceaselessly cares for us. In place of a static or impassive source, the concept of God as cause implies a living and dynamic origin, one that bestows life upon us. Westphal (2001, p. 275) maintains that Augustine articulates this crucial insight through the medium of prayer: “We see how ontology is teleologically suspended in prayer when Augustine writes”: “In you are the constant causes of inconstant things. All mutable things have in you their immutable origins. In you all irrational and temporal things have the everlasting causes of their life” (Augustine 1991, Book I, vi [9]).

For Augustine, God as immutable is not articulated within a speculative framework but rather emerges within the context of prayer. Augustine presents God as the one upon whom we can unfailingly depend and trust. Westphal extends this notion, positing that the believing soul experiences self-transcendence upon encountering a God who can be loved. Love for God, he argues, transcends mere confession and expression in prayer; it effects a transformation of subjectivity itself. This point is crucial for Westphal, who maintains that while God must be a personal deity capable of being loved rather than a conceptually fixed object, God must not be reduced to an entity that merely fulfills our desires at our own behest. He cautions that even love for God can be an expression of self-serving desire circumscribed by the limits of our spontaneity: “[t]hey come naturally. I need no teaching, no discipline, no urging. … My spontaneity is guided by my preferences; I love what I want and need. There doesn’t seem to be much self-transcendence here …” (Westphal 2004, pp. 222–23).

Indeed, even a God who readily responds to our supplications can be the object of love, praise, and prayer within the confines of our own spontaneity. However, if the God beyond onto-theology is merely content with receiving adulation and attending to invocations, this deity, too, may risk being reduced to a construct confined within the parameters of our desires. Certainly, as adherents, humans may offer praise and prayer for self-gratification and the fulfillment of their aspirations. In contemporary practice, many believers articulate their needs and desires to a personal God and offer praise through melodies of their own selection. Venerating God according to our own desires and needs does bear similarity to onto-theology in that it reduces the divine to our expectations. However, it does not necessarily imply a longing for the God of philosophy, the conceptualized metaphysical deity.

Consider the biblical example of Hezekiah, who, upon receiving the prophecy of his impending demise, pleads for his life: “Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight” (Isaiah 38:3). This passage unequivocally expresses his will to live, an unvarnished outpouring of his desire directed to God. He addresses a deity to whom he can pray and in whom he can trust, a God he can love. Yet, this expression might be construed as love driven by his will to survive—love confined within the boundaries of his own spontaneity. For Westphal (and the believing soul), however, love for God must transcend the mere expression of our desires before Him. It must involve being transformed by God and obedience to the divine command. In other words, “[t]ranscendence takes place in a heteronomy, at once cognitive and moral, in which the other addresses, identifies, individuates, and claims the same” (Westphal 2004, p. 223).

Westphal’s statement precisely delineates the juncture at which he extends Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology. For Westphal, the God beyond onto-theology is not just a deity who merely receives prayers and delights in praise; more profoundly, this God issues heteronomous commands—instructing, transforming, and guiding individuals toward righteousness through divine injunctions. Such divine commanding appears in Augustine’s work: “O love, you ever burn and are never extinguished. O charity, my God, set me on fire. You command continence; grant what you command, and command what you will” (Augustine 1991, Book X, xxix (40), emphasis added). However, Westphal more emphatically seeks a God who actively summons us to act within our existential circumstances. This rationale underpins Westphal’s shift in emphasis from Augustine to Kierkegaard. This progression aims not to highlight the limitations of Augustine but to appropriate his insights into overcoming onto-theology in a more postmodern manner. Augustine occupies a firm position as the starting point and precursor for overcoming onto-theology in Westphal’s philosophical narrative, with Kierkegaard as his postmodern successor.

4. Kierkegaard: The Culmination of the Philosophical Narrative

One may offer the following reason for returning to Kierkegaard’s conception of God: the divine, while resembling Augustine’s God as personal creator, immutable being, and supreme being, is simultaneously a voice that intrudes upon “the radical loneliness of the individual” (Putt and Westphal 2009, p. 192). In essence, for Kierkegaard, ”God is not so much the Prime Mover as the Prime Sinngeber“ (Westphal 2004, p. 210).8

At this juncture, Westphal seeks to present Kierkegaard as mediated through Levinas because he maintains that such a reading more lucidly illuminates the notions of divine transcendence and self-transcendence articulated in Kierkegaard’s works. Levinas maintains that ethical transcendence for the human subject occurs in the encounter with the Other. However, this encounter encompasses not only ethical transcendence but also epistemological transcendence. For Levinas, the Other as other person is not reducible to something given as representation. The phenomenological tradition, which grounds Levinas’s philosophy, holds that phenomena are not simply mental representations. If we treated them as such, we would experience only images of things, not the phenomena themselves. Even Husserl’s use of the terms “representation” or “presentation” (Vorstellung)9 serves either to critique representation-centered epistemology or to use it with an alternative signification. Therefore, the mere reference to representation does not constitute the primary thrust of the critique against Husserl.

Rather, Levinas’s phenomenology affirms Husserl’s critique of the representational theory of perception. However, Westphal contends that Levinas sought to advance beyond this position. Specifically, while Husserlian phenomenological epistemology contributed significantly to overcoming representational knowledge of objects and led to the development of methodologies for apprehending phenomena precisely as they present themselves to us, it failed to recognize the transcendence of the Other (Autrui) and the transcendence of that which arrives from beyond particular phenomena. Indeed, we are presented with entities, such as logical and mathematical concepts, ideal objects, and objectifying acts pertaining to ordinary things, that can be fully grasped intuitively. However, ideal objects and ordinary objects do not exhaust the domain of what appears to us. The Other also appears to us, and this appearance cannot be apprehended in the same manner as other phenomena.

From a Levinasian perspective, the Other cannot be apprehended as an entity that is known through the adequation of thing and intellect (adaequatio rei et intellectus)—that is, through evident cognition occurring under the intentional gaze and its intuitive fulfillment. Were the Other to be known in this manner, their transcendence—specifically, their unique character that transcends the epistemological horizon of experience—would inevitably be compromised. However, from Levinas’s perspective, Husserlian phenomenology offers no scope for conceptualizing such transcendence because all givenness is primarily givenness to consciousness, and nothing that appears transcends this framework:

… the appearance of the object, representation, is always in proportion to consciousness. It is the adequation between ego and non-ego, Same and Other. Once represented, the Other equals the Same. … Descartes expresses this essential equality when he affirms that by itself the ego can account for all things. … Consciousness will always remain the source of meaning, for in the meaning that characterizes the object, the strangeness or the heterogeneity of being takes on the measure of consciousness. … What exceeds the limits of consciousness is absolutely nothing for that consciousness.

(Levinas 1998, p. 127)

Westphal (2004, p. 190) emphasizes that Levinas critically identifies this aspect of traditional phenomenology as the “triumph of subjectivity” in Husserl’s phenomenology, or “the triumph of immanence over transcendence”. This critique is particularly salient because consciousness, functioning as the criterion for receiving all phenomena, subsumes everything—whether the alterity of the Other or the alterity of the divine—within intentional acts as transcendence within immanence, without exception. Thus, “the being of the object is such that there is nothing about it that in principle exceeds the power of consciousness to define it. It is totally accessible and has no other meaning than the reduction of its heterogeneity to the measure of consciousness, a reduction that can always be continued even if never completed” (Westphal 2004, p. 188).10 This observation encapsulates the central thesis of Levinas’s critique of Husserl as interpreted by Westphal, while simultaneously highlighting a distinctive characteristic of Western philosophical thought: its systematic privileging of immanence over transcendence.

Consequently, Westphal observes that Levinas, building upon this critique, delineates the distinctive characteristics of the Other’s epiphany that exceed the powers of consciousness. According to his interpretation, in Levinas’s thought, the Other appears to us as a revelation that manifests itself autonomously, transcending our expectations and intentional gaze: “the other is present without the mediation of my Sinngebung and my horizons that the other is present in person” (Westphal 2004, p. 194). Indeed, this constitutes one of Levinas’s (1979, p. 25) central theses: “infinity overflows the thought that thinks it.” As suggested by his juxtaposition of totality and infinity, what fundamentally ruptures the totality of thought is not representation or meaning-bestowal but rather the advent of the exterior that exceeds the horizon of my thought. Levinas designates this exterior as the Other and endeavors to demonstrate what, if not an act of cognition, transpires in the encounter between it and the ego. This encounter, he argues, constitutes an event of transcendence—more precisely, ethical transcendence—that surpasses my epistemological constitution and, conversely, demands and transforms me. As Westphal (2004, p. 193) aptly describes, “the very transcendence of the other becomes the condition of the possibility of my experience”. This phenomenological analysis reveals a fundamental reorientation in understanding the relation between subjectivity and alterity. The Other’s epiphany as revelation—“Its infinition is produced as revelation, as a positing of its idea in me” (Levinas 1979, p. 25)—suggests a radical reconceptualization of the phenomenological framework, moving beyond traditional epistemological paradigms toward an ethical metaphysics.

In the Levinasian framework, although the revelation of the infinite Other’s face could potentially precipitate various phenomenological events, Levinas specifically characterizes this encounter as ethical transcendence. He maintains that the Other exercises authority over us through a commanding voice that imparts ethical instruction—a mode of teaching that transcends mere cognitive apprehension. According to Westphal (2004, p. 195), “teaching comes to us from a ‘height,’ a ‘transcendence,’ an ‘infinity of exteriority’ that is the ‘face of the Master’”. Furthermore, Levinas states that “It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught. The relation with the Other, or Conversation, is a non-allergic relation, an ethical relation; but inasmuch as it is welcomed this conversation is a teaching [enseignement]” (Levinas 1979, p. 51).

This teaching manifests as a command that imposes ethical responsibility upon the self. For instance, the expression that Levinas (1979, p. 199) presents as the Other’s primordial utterance—“‘you shall not commit murder’”—is itself inherently imperative. Beyond the fundamental prohibition against killing the Other, when they present themselves in hunger and nakedness, their very vulnerability demands not a calculated assessment through cognitive faculties but rather an immediate response of the ego’s responsibility. In this context, Husserlian intentionality is transformed in Levinas’s thought into what Westphal (2004, p. 192) terms a renewal of intentionality—“the key to ethical transcendence”.11 The Other confronts us not as an object of vision but as a meaning-bestower through a voice that demands hearing rather than seeing by an intentional gaze. Westphal captures this essential characteristic of Levinasian philosophy—namely, the emphasis on voice transcending vision—with precise articulation: “Levinas’ philosophy of transcendence as ethical alterity is most fundamentally a philosophy of language. Vision, the dominant metaphor of the knowledge he calls ontology as the reduction of the other to the same, is trumped by the voice” (Westphal 2004, p. 196).

In sum, Levinas sought to demonstrate the significance of ethical transcendence originating from the Other as a breakthrough in transcending the philosophical framework that legitimized Husserl’s privileging of immanence over transcendence. This theoretical endeavor systematically demonstrated that the genuine meaning of transcendence manifests in the Other’s voice as moral teaching—one that imposes upon the ego an ineluctable responsibility toward the Other. The assertion that this ethical transcendence necessarily entails epistemological transcendence through a fundamental inversion of intentionality is paramount in Westphal’s exegesis of Levinas.

Although Westphal acknowledges the efficacy of Levinas’s work in revealing the ethical dimension of transcendence, he notes its lack of explicit theological discourse. Sands aptly observes, “[t]hough he argues that revelation, via Levinas, can happen in the encounter with the other, he ties this to Kierkegaard’s Christian concept of revelation and that God can and has revealed God’s self to humanity” (Sands 2016, p. 11). Accordingly, Westphal utilizes Levinasian transcendence—characterized by both the suspension of cognitive operations in the face of the Other and the decentering of subjectivity through responsive engagement with the Other’s moral imperative—as a theoretical bridge toward a more comprehensive elucidation of Kierkegaard’s divine transcendence. This leads him to pose the following question: “[E]thical transcendence occurs in the mysterious self-revelation of the other who calls my freedom into question by making an unconditional claim upon me. And what if that other were God?” (Westphal 2004, p. 200, emphasis added).

For Westphal, Kierkegaard’s Other as God elicits transcendence in the Levinasian sense. Naturally, because this transcendence occurs in relation to God rather than the human ego (unlike in Levinas), it precipitates the believing soul’s decentering (religious transcendence) within faith prior to ethical transcendence. Westphal demonstrates this religious decentering primarily through Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, which illustrates the event of faith through “the story of Abraham’s (almost) sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22)” (Westphal 2004, p. 203), retold by the pseudonymous author Johannes de Silentio. According to Westphal (2004, p. 202), “faith is [Silentio’s] name for self-transcendence in the face of divine transcendence”.

This statement is crucial for understanding Westphal’s overall argument about God-talk. Praise, prayer, and confession toward God emerge not spontaneously but, rather, only after this self-transcendence as faith occurs. In this regard, Kierkegaard’s God as the meaning-bestower who calls upon us effects transcendence in a more fundamental way than God as the object of confession, such as praise and prayer. First and foremost, according to Westphal (2004, p. 203), Silentio’s retelling of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac aims “to rescue the discussion of faith and reason from its longstanding captivity to the model of Plato’s divided line”. That is, he seeks to subvert the traditional hierarchy between faith and reason—the Platonic epistemological model that regards belief or opinion (doxa) as inferior to episteme. Indeed, from a purely rational perspective, the divine command to Abraham was absurd because it called for the murder of a son born through divine promise. To explain how divine command contradicts reason can effect transcendence as faith, Westphal (2004, p. 204) maintains that we must observe “Abraham’s faith” as “an encounter with the mysterium tremendum”12 and understand that there is nothing here of the secure serenity in which the thinker grasps the full intelligibility of being”. The transcendent character of the voice as God’s command inherently possesses qualities that cannot be reduced to human intelligibility. In other words, when confronted with an overwhelming and absurd command, what a believing soul experiences is not rational comprehension but fear and trembling itself. Reason is inadequate to explain the phenomena that accompany this event of faith. In sum, the mysterium tremendum is primarily, and for the most part, the “’pathos’” that “signifies the affective dimension of the self” (Westphal 2014, p. 209).

In addition to arguing for faith as pathos,13 Westphal argues that Silentio’s narrative demonstrates the need to understand faith as a paradox irreducible to understanding. In the face of the absurd command demanding Isaac’s death and sacrifice, Abraham did not know but rather believed and acted according to his faith, not his reason. “In Silentio’s version, Abraham believed that he would get Isaac back in this life, and he believed this ‘by virtue of the absurd’” (Westphal 2004, p. 205) because, as Silentio states, “I cannot shut my eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd…. For my part, I presumably can describe the movements of faith, but I cannot make them” (Kierkegaard 1983, p. 34). That is, the absurd cannot be explained but can only be proven through belief and action. At this point, Westphal seeks to invoke his distinctive religious hermeneutics, the hermeneutics of finitude. Specifically, human beings, being incapable of understanding and explaining the absurdity of this divine command, demonstrate their incapacity for human calculation in relation to it. The more we rely on calculation and understanding, the more we only discover “a human calculation from which God has been excluded” (Westphal 2004, p. 205). Thus, faith occurs only through believing and acting upon the absurd, and the event that forms such faith is precisely the hearing of the divine voice.

Furthermore, Westphal (2004, p. 206) interprets Abraham’s faith—demonstrated through believing in and acting on the absurdity of the voice—as the enactment of a private language game: “Abraham’s God relation involves a private language game”. This argument underscores a crucial point: beyond belief in and obedience to the absurd and paradoxical, the self that is summoned by the divine voice is a radically individuated religious self. Just as in Levinas, where the I called to responsibility is an irreducibly singular self, divine transcendence similarly implies an interpellation that precludes any retreat into the anonymity of community. The Kierkegaardian private language game signifies precisely this radical individuation before God. Abraham’s internal faith and corresponding outward action can be neither comprehended nor undertaken by another on his behalf. As Westphal (2004, p. 207) observes, “[i]n Silentio’s version, Abraham does not tell his wife, Sarah, his servant Eliezer, or his son Isaac, what the trip to Mount Moriah was all about, … they could not imagine how the sacrifice of Isaac might be the right thing to do. As a matter of fact, Abraham can’t speak because no one could understand him”. In short, Abraham decides to believe and act on the command within his radically individuated and decentered selfhood.

Thus, by participating in the transcendent event of being commanded by God’s voice, the believing soul achieves decentering as self-transcendence through faithful trust in and acceptance of revelation’s absurdity. The decentering of the subject manifests as an act of faith and obedience to God’s voice that exceeds reason, occurring as a private language game between the self and God that admits no substitution. This interpretation elucidates why Westphal regards Kierkegaard as a thinker who anticipated postmodernity’s valorization of faith and alterity beyond human intelligence. Now we must address “faith as a virtue, but not as an intellectual virtue”—one that is “tied to both its courage and its humility” (Westphal 2004, p. 209).

Through this Levinas-inspired reading of Kierkegaard, Westphal arrives at the divine Other as an absolute voice—a God whom we not only love and praise but must also obey. He presents the conclusion of his God-talk as follows: “Let us remember our Levinasian heuristic: What would it look like if we think of God as the voice of transcendence that addresses us from on high? Silentio’s answer: It would look like Abraham. For Abraham, God is above all a voice; with or without audible sound, God performs speech acts, and with or without physical hearing, Abraham knows himself to be addressed from on high” (Westphal 2004, p. 209, emphasis added).

According to Westphal (2004, p. 210), these speech acts comprise “promise and command”. Thus, for Abraham, the divine voice manifests not only as a command, thereby eliciting his obedience,14 but also as a promise to bless him and his descendants for his obedience.15 Ultimately, “[v]is-à-vis the promise, faith is trusting acceptance. Vis-à-vis the command, faith is obedience” (Westphal 2004, p. 210). Thus, the God that Westphal discloses through his interpretation of Kierkegaard is the biblical God as an absolute voice that bestows both promise and command.

Although Augustine’s and Kierkegaard’s notions of God have thus far been presented separately, both point to the biblical monotheistic God as traditionally understood. Through this resonance between premodern and postmodern thought, Westphal presents a conception of God beyond onto-theology, one that constitutes an excellent articulation of the biblical God, assuming an intriguing form that encircles modern metaphysical onto-theology from both sides by leveraging premodern and postmodern thought. Thus, I propose to designate this biblical God, rediscovered through Westphal’s work, as God the Almighty or Almighty God. This designation is not arbitrarily introduced but is found in the works of Kierkegaard and Augustine and has been cited by Westphal himself.16 Significantly, the expression God the Almighty or Almighty God appears frequently in confessions of faith and aptly represents the personal God that Westphal advocates—the God of the Christian faith, irreducible to metaphysical concepts. Indeed, Westphal (2014, p. 102) establishes a connection between the Almighty God appearing in the Book of Common Prayer and the God described by Silentio: “In The Book of Common Prayer, the collect for the fifth Sunday in Lent could bring Silentio to mind”. In making this point, he quotes the following prayer:

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(Episcopal Church 1979 [The Book of Common Prayer], p. 219; Cited in Westphal 2014, p. 102)

Thus, Westphal identifies God as voice with the Almighty God—the biblical God to whom the faithful direct their prayers during communal worship on Sunday. Moreover, we readily find similar declarations or confessions in Augustine: “… in me you, almighty God …” (Augustine 1991, Book V, x [18]; See also Book III, vii [13]; Book IV, xv [24]; Book VII, v [7]; Book X, xxx [42]; Book XII, vii [7]). Thus, God the Almighty is regarded as the God of dialog to whom I confess in prayer and whose commands I obey—the God to whom Augustine and Kierkegaard both confessed.

Westphal provides another reason for this designation by demonstrating, in reference to Kierkegaard, that God being the absolute voice entails almightiness, for that voice itself implies the complete power and infinitude of the personal God. Whether for Augustine, Kierkegaard, or the others whom Westphal considers similarly exemplary thinkers, they posit God as the absolute and transcendent God of scripture, that is, “God the Almighty.” This designation derives not only from the fact that all these thinkers affirm God’s almightiness, but also, more significantly, from Westphal’s explicit intention to interpret these religious thinkers in precisely this manner.

For example, Westphal argues that Pseudo-Dionysius designates God as cause not because he is an onto-theologian, but because, in Westphal’s reading, he regards God as the personal and almighty foundation of reality (cf. Westphal 2004, p. 5). In this connection, Westphal cites the following passage as particularly significant: “The Good returns all things to itself and gathers together whatever may be scattered, for it is the divine Source and unifier of the sum total of things. … In it ‘all things hold together’ [Col. 1:17] and are maintained and preserved as if in some almighty receptacle. All things are returned to it as their own goal. All things desire it” (Pseudo-Dionysius 1987, p. 75 [The Divine Names, 700A–B], emphasis added). He then concludes that, for Pseudo-Dionysius, “God is called “omnipotent” because … [c]learly no being can be properly understood apart from its relation to the Highest Being” (Westphal 2004, p. 103), as evidenced by the following passage: “He founds [the world]. He makes it secure. He holds it together. He binds the whole universe totally to himself. He generates everything from out of himself as from some omnipotent root, and he returns all things back to himself as though to some omnipotent storehouse” (Pseudo-Dionysius 1987, p. 119 [The Divine Names, 936D]).

As such, Westphal does not hesitate to employ expressions that convey God’s absolute power, such as “God the Almighty” or “omnipotent,” and even contends that such designations bear no relation to onto-theology. This contention applies not only to Kierkegaard but to all the Christian thinkers whom Westphal situates within the genealogy of overcoming onto-theology, although, significantly, Kierkegaard is foremost among them.

5. God the Almighty and Onto-Theology as Theocentrism

To sharpen a central critical point, I highlight the typical signification of “God the Almighty” that Westphal intends. In elucidating the characteristics of this term, I demonstrate how Westphal’s advocacy of “God the Almighty” or “Almighty God” inevitably leads to a regression into onto-theology or the metaphysics of presence in some form. Furthermore, I indicate that his definition of onto-theology was somewhat narrow from the outset.

Onto-theology refers to a series of attempts to rigidly conceptualize God through reference to metaphysical being and its attributes, an approach from which Westphal clearly seeks to distance himself. In this context, the concept “almighty” also appears to differ in connotation from typical “omnipotence,” which carries implications of metaphysical attributes, thus aligning with Westphal’s intention to elevate the traditional biblical God while rejecting metaphysical conceptualizations thereof. Of course, as Westphal’s interpretation of Pseudo-Dionysius’ thought demonstrates, he seeks to reinterpret “omnipotence” not as an abstract metaphysical concept but rather as something akin to goodness or power manifested in a personal relationship with the world—thus aligning it with the meaning of “almightiness.” Thus, he aims to employ the concept in a manner approximating “almighty,” which emphasizes the personal dimension of God, rather than its typical metaphysical signification.

Indeed, whereas discussion of omnipotence in many cases appears to focus on divine power somewhat abstractly (Thiselton 2015, p. 357), the almightiness—or omnipotence properly understood—that Westphal intends is “not … a matter of self-evidence or necessity” but “a matter of faith. It belongs to the very core of Christian faith to believe that God, the sole source of all truth, goodness and beauty, is almighty, rather than the forces of falsehood, evil and ugliness” (van den Brink 1993, p. 5). This description presumably approximates the substantive meaning that Westphal sought to convey through “Almighty God,” or even through his use of “omnipotence.”

In this way, although “Almighty God” carries to some extent the logical and abstract connotation of divine freedom of action, for Westphal, divine almightiness is understood as manifesting primarily in relation to a believing soul’s faith and trust in God—analogous to Abraham’s position before both the command to sacrifice Isaac and the promise of blessings therefrom. For instance, “Silentio tells us that Abraham ‘knew it was God the Almighty who was testing him’” (Westphal 2004, p. 209, n. 21),17 which indicates that Abraham’s knowledge of God constitutes an understanding of God the Almighty—who could restore Isaac even if sacrificed—rather than a typical apprehension of “omnipotence” or power as a metaphysical attribute. The distinction here is not one of capacity but of relationality: whereas “omnipotence” as a metaphysical attribute abstracts divine power from any personal engagement with creation, “almightiness” for Westphal denotes God’s sovereign power as it is encountered and trusted within the concrete situation of faith. Within this theological framework, Westphal’s biblical designation “God the Almighty” evidently signifies One who possesses the sovereign capacity to effect all things toward human flourishing, irrespective of possible variance from the believing soul’s egoistic desire. More specifically, for Westphal, this faith in the Almighty God is expressed as trust in the One who is the source that fulfills the promise of flourishing and issues the command of obedience, as confirmed in his interpretation of Kierkegaard via Levinas. In conclusion, this interpretation, as Westphal himself acknowledges, constitutes an attempt to overcome onto-theology by emphasizing the moral attributes of God: “Talk of ethical and religious transcendence is inescapably personal and, as such, resists onto-theological games and gestures. … Revelation is an asymmetrical I-Thou relation in which the Thou has precedence over the I” (Westphal 2004, p. 202); “what have traditionally been called the ‘moral’ attributes of God need to have priority over the ‘metaphysical’ attributes” (Westphal 2004, p. 231).

Here again, given that Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology points to a God who operates purely conceptually while lacking personal relationality, the almightiness of a personal God—as manifested through absolute fidelity to promises and the issuance of binding commands—appears to effectively represent the God who arrives after this critique. This characterization of divine almightiness, demonstrated through personal sovereign authority, seems particularly apt for articulating Westphal’s distinctive conception of the biblical God. In particular, for Westphal, the appellation “Almighty God” or “God the Almighty”—which maintains a constant presence in both ecumenically recognized credal formulations and common liturgical prayers across denominational boundaries—demonstrates coherence with his religious objective of preserving “the ‘mere Christianity’ that is the common core of the revelational faith shared by the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant traditions of Abrahamic monotheism” (Westphal 2017, p. xxi).

Notwithstanding these merits, the extent to which Westphal’s articulation of God the Almighty achieves a genuine disentanglement from onto-theology and its analogous metaphysical configurations remains subject to critical scrutiny. I elucidate this problem by returning to the onto-theological critique advanced by Heidegger (and subsequently by Derrida and Caputo): “When metaphysics thinks of beings as such as a whole, that is, with respect to the highest being which accounts for everything, then it is logic as theo-logic. Because the thinking of metaphysics remains involved in the difference which as such is unthought, metaphysics is both ontology and theology in a unified way, by virtue of the unifying unity of perdurance” (Heidegger 2002, pp. 70–71).

Thus, onto-theological nomenclature regarding the divine encompasses not merely causa sui but extends to the summum ens. Of course, while Heidegger certainly situated the highest being within an all-explanatory logical framework, Westphal would presumably contend that his philosophical and theological use of “the highest” as “Almighty God” resists such systematic categorization. Indeed, to emphasize this distinction, he frequently returns to apophatic theology and mystical traditions. A deity functioning as an all-explanatory principle would necessarily require epistemic accessibility sufficient for human comprehension of its explanatory totality. However, the divine necessarily conceals some things from human epistemic access. This interpretation, as Westphal (2004, p. 100) articulates, stems from a kind of apophatic principle that “[t]he Highest is higher than our comprehension can take us”.

At this juncture, Westphal connects his distinctive hermeneutics of finitude with negative theology. The intentional negation of determinate predicates about God paradoxically affirms that God exists beyond human comprehension, revealing the limitations of our finite cognitive capacity. From Westphal’s perspective, we can, therefore, distinguish the biblical God from a supreme being who merely serves as an explanatory principle or the highest term within a speculative system—a God who functions solely to ground metaphysical totality rather than to engage personally with creation. However, insofar as Westphal still positions God as the ultimate ground for interpreting our lives and actions, our concern lies in how we integrate God into a believing soul’s way of life as the ultimate ground of religious existence—a move that may potentially threaten our judgment and existence.

Recall that Westphal’s Kierkegaardian God bestows promises and commands as an absolute voice upon a believing soul. As the recipient of these promises and commands, the believing soul would explain the rationale for their way of life and actions by citing the voice of God as the supreme being. Even in contemporary times, although representing extreme cases, many individuals have sought to legitimize their acts of violence as responses to divine imperatives. In this regard, onto-theology is problematic not merely because it produces a God we cannot love or because it imprisons God within our intellect, but, more fundamentally, because it may distort our way of life and our existential attitudes.

One might legitimately question whether this represents an excessive expansion of the concept of onto-theology. Here, I adopt Caputo’s definition, employing onto-theology not in its strictly circumscribed sense but rather in its broader conceptual framework. While in its narrow sense, onto-theology merely objectifies God as an entity of metaphysical inquiry, in its expanded conception, “this [criticism of onto-theology] extends to all the various ‘centrisms’ by which we have been visited in metaphysics—both geocentrism and heliocentrism, theocentrism and anthropocentrism, logocentrism and phonocentrism, phallocentrism and ethnocentrism, and so on—just in virtue of their metaphysical centeredness” (Caputo 2022b, p. 241, emphasis added).18

Thus, centrism—while prominently manifesting in metaphysical thought but without explicitly donning its mantle—imposes the status of outsider, foreigner, or strange other upon that which deviates from the central framework. Such deviation is treated as heretical or abnormal unless it becomes centralized. This idea of Caputo’s represents the expanded meaning of onto-theology, and as Heidegger applied it to his critique of technocentrism, we can employ it across various dimensions. Marginalizing the personal God while centering beings or reason follows the same pattern, which was precisely what Westphal’s critique aimed to demonstrate. In particular, he demonstrated how to decenter subjectivity as the center of the intelligible world by seamlessly connecting divine transcendence with self-transcendence—just as Kierkegaard’s believing soul, through divine command, steps beyond the rational self and enters into subjecthood as one who obeys that command.

However, Caputo includes “theocentrism” among various forms of centrism. Drawing from this observation, I propose a reexamination of Westphal to clarify that what emerges after the decentering of the subject is none other than the Almighty God, who displaces the decentered subject from the center and assumes that position itself. Westphal does not deny that traditional metaphysical characteristics inhere in the Almighty God. He illustrates this point as follows: “In other words, what have traditionally been called the ‘moral’ attributes of God need to have priority over the ‘metaphysical’ attributes. This does not mean that the latter must be denied, for it may very well be that the infinite, eternal being of God is beyond the reach of our finite, temporal minds” (Westphal 2004, p. 231).

Westphal emphasizes the personal relationship between God and humanity, focusing on the promises and commands of a personal God who decenters human beings. However, if this deity remains God the Almighty in the traditional biblical sense, while metaphysical statements and attributes may be redefined, the metaphysical character of the Almighty as an infinity unbound by any constraints and capable of all things persists. Here, Heidegger may remind us: “the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement” (Heidegger 1998, p. 250). More significantly, the metaphysics of subjectivity has been supplanted by a theocentric metaphysics.

The distinction lies in that this God differs from the metaphysical deity of modern onto-theology by being a God but one who can be loved, who delights in praise, and who issues commands to us, rather than a purely conceptual one. Despite the magnitude of these differences, it is difficult to deny that Westphal’s God-talk bears the characteristics of onto-theology as theocentrism, possessing a hierarchical nature established from the highest divine entity. Thus, the theocentrism that emerges following Westphal’s attempt to decenter the subject through divine transcendence poses a fundamental problem, directly impacting our religious existence.

Specifically, in Westphal’s hermeneutics of religious life, God appears to be introduced as a methodological means for understanding our existence. Returning to Westphal’s interpretation of Kierkegaard, God is the absolute who bestows promises and commands with an absolute voice upon the believing soul. This believing soul inevitably invokes the voice of God—as the supreme being—to justify their actions. However, the specific commands and promises that God issues, as exemplified in Abraham’s offering of Isaac, may violate existing conventions or moral laws. In this context, we justify our existential actions by relying not on an abstract concept of God but on the power of the Almighty God—a reliance that may prove even more perilous. The believing soul who voluntarily obeys the commands of the divine voice despite their apparent injustice must depend on God’s almightiness or the presupposition of divine omnipotence.

Thus, God, who makes all things possible, becomes the foundation of faith. In other words, for Westphal, faith presupposes the absolute credibility of the voice delivered from the highest realm. Through this understanding, he ultimately arrives at extolling trust in the supreme being as follows: “The highest height of God’s transcendence is that of the voice that calls to faith, where faith is understood as welcoming the voice by trusting the promises and obeying the commands it hears from on high. From on high!” (Westphal 2004, p. 229). This quotation precisely constitutes Westphal’s theocentrism, and it assumes a form closely resembling onto-theology insofar as it represents both an absolute trust in the supreme being and a metaphysical hierarchical mode of thought.

To be sure, Westphal explicitly denies that his position constitutes onto-theology: “Is this not onto-theology? No, it is not. For onto-theology is not merely the ontological claim that there is a Highest Being who gives unity to the whole of being; it is, above all, the epistemological claim that with reference to this Highest Being, we can render the whole of being fully intelligible to human understanding” (Westphal 2004, p. 103).

While this perspective encompasses his position on onto-theology and demonstrates a sophisticated grasp of its principles, it remains inherently limited. To elaborate, this represents Westphal’s constrained interpretation of onto-theology, viewed primarily through the prism of his theoretical framework—specifically, his epistemological transcendence anchored in the hermeneutics of finitude. Indeed, the conceptual propositions regarding divinity in onto-theology manifest as endeavors to grasp the divine realm comprehensively through human intellect. Were this to constitute the complete scope of onto-theology, it would suggest that Westphal merely needs to validate divine transcendence beyond human cognition—namely, epistemological transcendence—which he identifies as the fundamental achievement of philosophers such as Augustine and Kierkegaard. Nevertheless, a crucial inquiry emerges regarding the methodological soundness of positing such a clear demarcation between ontological assertions and epistemological claims.

To reiterate, onto-theology is problematized not merely for its epistemological character but for its propensity to impose ontological hierarchies. Indeed, the crux of the critique of onto-theology as theocentrism advanced by Derrida and Caputo (cf. Derrida 1995; Caputo 1997, 2009) is that God, positioned as the ultimate ground that bestows meaning upon our thoughts and actions, may operate as an unforeseen and pernicious force in one’s religious life.

For instance, Derrida suggests that onto-theology might be realized most dramatically precisely when it summons something distinct from or transcendent to being: “it is still a matter of saying the entity [étant] such as it is, in its truth, even were it meta-metaphysical, meta-ontological. It is a matter of holding the promise of saying the truth at any price, of testifying, of rendering oneself to the truth of the name, to the thing itself such as it must be named by the name, that is, beyond the name. The thing, save the name. It is a matter of recording the referential transcendence of which the negative way is only one way, one methodic approach, one series of stages. A prayer, too, and a testimony of love, but an “I love you” on the way to prayer and to love, always on the way” (Derrida 1995, p. 68).

For Westphal, “the entity” manifests as an almighty voice emanating from the most elevated position. Westphal’s Almighty God essentially functions as a type of “hyperbole” in Derrida’s sense, invoking epistemological transcendence. Derrida argues that even when such naming appears to evade human cognition and all ontological predicates, it remains “faithful … to the originary ontotheological injunction” because it merely summons another, the highest one beyond being—“some superessentiality, a being beyond being” (Derrida 2008, p. 147).

Derrida’s critique of onto-theology, which connects to his critique of the metaphysics of presence, revolves around the assertion that all attempts to emphasize God’s incomprehensibility by positing him to be beyond or different from being actually invoke a supreme being. This mode of naming God represents the primary characteristic of negative theology. This perspective aligns precisely with Westphal’s understanding of negative theology. He presents Augustine’s divine transcendence in relation to negative theology: “[n]egative theology affirms the divine incomprehensibility by denying the adequacy of our images and concepts of God. This is an attempt to overcome onto-theology or, to put it more positively, to explore the possibilities of a post-metaphysical theology” (Westphal 2004, p. 99).

Negative theology simultaneously instructs us in both negative and positive ways of speaking about God. More precisely, it teaches that we must not reduce God to what is intellectually conceivable, which manifests in refraining from speaking about God within the dimensions of our understanding. It can also teach us ways of speaking that differ from our conventional standards of discourse. For Westphal, this materializes not in metaphysical conceptualization but in confessional utterances of praise and prayer. Augustine exemplified this achievement particularly well. “We encountered this simultaneity when Augustine affirmed the ultimate goodness, power, mercy, and justice of God, only to insist immediately that God remains hidden, incomprehensible, and indescribable” (Westphal 2004, p. 114, emphasis added).19 This finds its precise validation in Augustine’s discourse on God, as evidenced in the following: “Most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet most intimately present, perfection of both beauty and strength, stable and incomprehensible, immutable and yet changing all things, never new, never old, making everything new and ‘leading’ the proud ‘to be old without their knowledge’ (Job 9:5, Old Latin version)” (Augustine 1991, Book I, iv (4), emphasis added.).

While Westphal and Augustine reject the notion of God as an ontological concept, they affirm divine names that express the highest and ultimate good or omnipotence. However, whether described as the incomprehensible one, the highest good, or the omnipotent, the concept of God remains oriented toward the supreme, because it constitutes an affirmation of the highest, or super-being, even though it may differ from and transcend being. In essence, as long as they orient God toward the highest being as super-essence, they cannot escape Derrida’s critique of onto-theology or the metaphysics of presence—their God still embodies the essential characteristic of onto-theology: the differentiation between the superior and the inferior.

Although Westphal demonstrates an awareness of Derrida’s expanded critique of onto-theology, he interprets it narrowly: “Derrida distinguishes deconstruction from negative theology, not only because the latter begins with prayer, but also because that prayer is accompanied by encomium. … When we are content to let God’s being remain a ‘mystery’ rather than a ‘theorem,’ onto-theology is replaced by doxology” (Westphal 2004, pp. 118–19). This response is overly simplistic, for Derrida’s critique holds that the God who receives praise and prayer still functions as a super-being, thereby fulfilling, at least partially, the essential characteristics of onto-theology. In support of this perspective, Schrijvers argues that such an interpretation fails to adequately address the onto-theological problem:

Westphal, for instance, distinguishes between theology and the language of prayer and praise in order to at least safeguard the latter from the accusation of ontotheology. Westphal notes that the critique of ontotheology concerns the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ of our God-talk. In this sense, for Westphal, the critique of ontotheology is directed more to the primacy of theory rather than to the practice of praise. Here we have a bad theological response to a good philosophical question, in that it lets a kind of fideism emerge at the expense of all rationality and the seeking of reasons for the Christian faith.

(Schrijvers 2011, p. 23)

Accordingly, Westphal’s response to onto-theology merely extols the value of doxology while reverting to fideism. Furthermore, supplementing Schrijvers’ critique,20 we must append to Westphal’s theocentrism and fideism his commitment to divine commands qua commands. Before characterizing God as “God the Almighty,” a believing soul must either affirm and elevate divine transcendence through prayer and praise or submit to divine commands. Thus, absolute faith in God is required for prayer, praise, and obedience to be possible. Consequently, our expressions of prayer, praise, and commitment to promises revert to a form of strong theology or faith. That is, as seen in Kierkegaard’s retelling of Abraham’s story, God the Almighty demands increasingly profound and authentic prayer or praise, alongside deeper and stronger faith. Derrida’s critique of onto-theology implies that it can engender a dangerous form of faith that justifies hierarchical structures between the super-being and human being. More specifically, the faithful person who must obey the voice of God the Almighty merely submits to that which resides in the highest realm, thereby operating within a hierarchical structure.

Such a conception of God might demand from us an uncritical faith. The Almighty God whom Westphal trusts and advocates might occasionally demand even that which defies our comprehension. Rather than voicing dissatisfaction with such demands or commands, Westphal would likely advise us to either praise and pray like Augustine or submit like Kierkegaard. In this context, what becomes of our post-critical faith? If we were to encounter deceptive voices masquerading as divine, what criteria could we employ to discern their authenticity?

Of course, Westphal also emphasizes the importance of faith that has passed through understanding or doubt. He possesses the hermeneutics of suspicion as an instrument for critical faith (cf. Westphal 1998). However, this hermeneutics may not function properly when applied to Kierkegaard’s conception of God, according to which the voice of the biblical God must be obeyed. Abraham resolved to trust in the omnipotent God and submitted to His will, leaving little room for the operation of a critical hermeneutics of suspicion.

In this regard, Westphal appears to operate contradictorily in speaking of faith that has undergone critical examination. To this end, he even attempts to positively incorporate atheistic insights. However, if God is absolute transcendence and the voice that comes from the highest realm, then God becomes not an object of criticism but a command that, for the most part, requires obedience rather than critical examination.

To understand why the God of onto-theology is problematic, we must recall Derrida’s critique of the obsession with purity implicit in his criticism of the metaphysics of presence and onto-theology. Beyond producing a concept of God that cannot be praised or prayed to, onto-theology engenders an uncritical acceptance of the purity of what is deemed highest. Whether what is considered pure is a gift, grace, or divine voice,21 a hierarchy is established between what is deemed natural being or super-being and those elements that cannot belong to it, whereby the pure and absolute is valorized while other elements are marginalized. While Westphal correctly identifies that human rationality’s finitude prevents us from purely apprehending things as they are, how such finite rationality can uncritically accept the purity of the voice remains unclear. To appropriate Derrida’s conceptual apparatus, this manifests as an uncritical adherence to “phonologism.”22 Drawing upon Baring’s astute interpretation of the philosophical intent underlying Derrida’s critique of phonologism helps situate it within our theoretical framework: “In his famous deconstruction of speech and writing, Derrida explicitly opposed the ‘theological’ understanding of the divine voice, which was then merely signified (imperfectly) in written form. Rather, he endeavored to show that the movement of writing, a non-self-presence, was already at work in accounts of the voice, for which reason, the latter could not make good on its claim to purity. So too there was no absolute alterity that was originally good and subsequently betrayed by the thought of the Same” (Baring 2019, p. 136).23

Such a fixation on the pure voice as the guarantor of meaning may engender a blind faith in the hierarchy between the caller and the listener—a “situation in the philosophical hierarchy (high/low)” (Derrida 1981, p. 53). This dynamic is predicated on an onto-theological premise wherein those situated in the lower position must submit to the voice emanating from the highest. The nature of such faith within this theological or philosophical hierarchy is definitively elucidated by Derrida’s following assertion: “If we refer to faith, it is to the extent that we don’t see. Faith is needed when perception is lacking; when I see something I don’t need to have faith in it. For example, I don’t see the other, I don’t see what he or she has in mind, or whether he or she wants to deceive me. So I have to trust the other, that is faith. Faith is blind” (Derrida 1999, p. 80).24

The God trusted by Westphal—the God after onto-theology—still appears to occupy the apex of a hierarchical structure. From this position, God’s voice addresses us, and in response, we must embrace the blind obedience exemplified by Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. In Silentio’s retelling, God may intervene to justify the leap of faith. However, this intervening God, though perhaps not the cause of being itself, still operates as a cause descending from above—grounding the decision of faith and justifying the act of belief, as the ultimate origin of these events remains the Almighty. Consequently, at the source of our blindness stands God as the supreme being—or, in Westphal’s terms, God the Almighty as the unquestionable object of trust. An Almighty God who not only accepts our worship but also directly intervenes in human affairs represents the God of onto-theology in a broader sense. On this point, we may cite Caputo, who observes: “For a God who, upon being pressed by our prayers, alters natural processes is every bit as ontotheological as the causa sui of metaphysical theology” (Caputo 2022a, p. 37).

Consequently, even if Westphal’s God has surmounted onto-theology in its restricted definition, it remains onto-theological in its wider implication. Such a view seemingly necessitates an uncritical faith in the Almighty God as an absolute, supreme being. If we seek to overcome onto-theology in a broader sense—one that subjects even this uncritical faith in the almighty God to critical scrutiny—we must adopt a more expansive understanding of onto-theology than Westphal offers. As Caputo argues: “… on my accounting, the broader and distinctively contemporary critique of ontotheologic not only criticizes privileging the ‘onto’ over God, or the excessive rationalism of its ‘logic,’ but it also criticizes the privileging of the ‘theo’ in ‘ontotheologic.’ It is only when all three ingredients in the expression are given their due weight that we can come to grips with this critique in its distinctive sense” (Caputo 2009, p. 111).25 Unfortunately, rather than grappling more thoroughly with this privileging of the “theo,” Westphal too quickly and readily settles for God as the absolute voice—the biblical God exalted by Augustine and Kierkegaard.

6. Conclusions

Westphal sought to overcome metaphysical onto-theology by reflecting upon the biblical God and the meaning of faith in that God from the foundation of the orthodoxy upon which he stood—a foundation that might be represented as mere Christianity.26 Although his project appears successful at first glance, he seems to fall back into the trap of onto-theology by reintroducing a personal theocentrism that existentially governs the life of the believing soul.

Of course, Westphal employed hermeneutics to better understand the divine will or intention. However, his hermeneutics may not imply a deconstruction or critique of God as the Almighty super-being. Rather, the God beyond onto-theology whom Westphal attempts to establish remains undeconstructible and, indeed, beyond the reach of interpretation. The object of praise and prayer must eternally remain precisely an object of veneration, and we must fundamentally respond to this being with absolute trust. Particularly when hearing the absolute voice as super-essence, we appear to be overwhelmed not by interpretation but by revelation itself. Therefore, what is required before the givenness of the absolute voice is not interpretation but dedication or decision within faith itself. As Westphal states, “[o]ur highest duty is obedience to God and our highest good is loving union with God. This union is always on God’s terms, not on ours, and this love has its origin in God and not in ourselves” (Westphal 2004, p. 118). Before the Almighty God, our duty is obedience, and our highest good is union with Him. What room for interpretation could exist here?

What Westphal discovers through Kierkegaard is precisely this absolute obedience to and absorption in the voice of the Almighty God. “We have seen in Silentio and Climacus a denial of knowledge in the service of something transcognitive, namely faith. It is belief, to be sure, but wholly absorbed in the service of trust in the divine promise and obedience to the divine command” (Westphal 2004, p. 219, emphasis added). How can critique or interpretation be possible when one is “wholly absorbed”? At this point, Westphal tends to revert to strong theology rather than maintaining a critical hermeneutics of religious life. Particularly when referencing the following, he appears to be engaging in theology—an all too theological hermeneutics—rather than a religious hermeneutics possessed of a critical spirit: “Metaphysical incomprehensibility is but an aspect and anticipation of this deeper truth, its τέλος and proper home. ‘I shall never want to define You, O God, for I cannot worship what I comprehend.’” (Westphal 2004, p. 231).27 Ultimately, despite its more modest presentation, Westphal’s position culminates in a theocentric orientation that elevates the biblical God and a fideistic disposition that submits to the absolute.

Following Hent de Vries, I emphasize that religion should not be equated with Westphal’s fideism. According to de Vries, “[r]eligion must first of all be affirmed in a sense that is not to be confused with fideism. Religion is related to the ethical and the political—to history even—by a complex and contradictory inheritance” (de Vries 2002, p. 159). A valid hermeneutical approach to Christian religion and faith must move beyond mere faith reinforcement toward a more dispassionate examination and critique. This imperative stems from religious faith’s inevitable entanglement with the complex matrices of our world, particularly at the level of human agents and institutions. Despite the putative power of the divine voice, its discernment requires careful navigation utilizing not only faith but also philosophical rationality and alternative criteria.

However, the hermeneutics of suspicion and finitude—cardinal components of Westphal’s hermeneutics of religious life—become attenuated in the face of revelation. The hermeneutics of finitude, highlighting human finitude vis-à-vis divine revelation, merely privileges the believing soul’s modest attitude before the divine voice, rather than engaging in a fundamental interrogation of the finite structure of human existence. While critical hermeneutics retains a position within Westphal’s philosophical framework, it remains perpetually belated, manifesting only subsequent to the holistic personal appropriation of revelation.

If our faith is inscribed within the structure of our life as finite human beings-in-the-world, it must be reinterpreted within and remain open to ethical and political spheres, as well as other modes of secular life. If such interventions were unnecessary, mere fidelity to and glorification of the divine voice would suffice. However, Westphal’s God-talk, characterized by this attitude, appears to avoid one difficulty of onto-theology—conceptual idolatry as the production of a God to whom one cannot pray or praise. Yet, an expanded critique of onto-theology (derived from Derrida and Caputo) shows that it returns to a blind affirmation and trust in the “super-being,” and in doing so, distances itself from the concrete problems of life. In this regard, I have affirmed that his hermeneutical approach to God remains theological—indeed, all too theological—and thus fails to transcend the hermeneutics of religious life.28