John D. Caputo Interview | Alex Gilbert #274

John David Caputo is an American philosopher known for his work in continental philosophy and postmodern theology. He is Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. He published Specters of God (Indiana University Press, 2022).

Have you met Jean-Luc Nancy ?
John D. Caputo: We never met in person, but we corresponded due to a shared interest in Jacques Derrida. He reached out after I referenced something in my book Cross and Cosmos: A Theology of Difficult Glory that intrigued him.

I had written about how Heidegger, after returning from World War I, dramatically shifted his focus from scholastic logic and Husserl’s ideal grammar to what he called the hermeneutics of facticity. This was where he first used the term destruction, which he adapted from Luther’s Theologia Crucis — itself rooted in Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 1 about destroying the wisdom of the wise. The term moves linguistically from Latin (destructio), to German (Destruktion), and eventually to Derrida’s French déconstruction.

Nancy was intrigued by this lineage — from Isaiah to Paul, Luther, Heidegger, and finally himself — spanning five languages. He asked about the source, and I credited John Van Buren of Fordham, who first traced this connection in The Young Heidegger. That was the extent of our direct correspondence, though there was once talk of a joint conference that didn’t materialize due to scheduling conflicts.

In Converts to the Real: Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy, Edward Baring traces what Dominique Janicaud termed the “theological turn” in phenomenology—exemplified by figures such as Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion. Often associated with postmodern or “weak” theology, this movement offers a post-metaphysical alternative to classical theism. Slavoj Žižek criticizes this as soft, favoring Hegelian negation. Your work instead frames God as an event, not a being. How does this redefine theology beyond metaphysics and dogma?
John D. Caputo: Žižek, in my view, oversimplifies radical theology by reducing it to a Lacanian-Marxist framework focused on lack, which undermines rather than radicalizes it. Radical theology isn’t about destruction but reworking classical metaphysics into something new while retaining its theological essence. Žižek is engaging with Lacanian-Marxist philosophy, not radical theology, which should be acknowledged.

However, we agree on rejecting God as a supreme being. That concept belongs to mythology, not theology. I see “God” as an event—something that insists rather than exists, like Derrida’s idea of democracy. The Kingdom of God is not a place but a provocation, calling for a reversal of worldly values. “Weak theology” radicalizes classical theology by shedding dogma, viewing God as a theopoetic summons.

This is a stronger approach than Žižek’s. His Hegelianism misses Hegel’s idea that the “death of God” is a transformative moment in God’s life, shifting from transcendence to the immanence of Spirit, not mere negation. The phrase comes from a Lutheran hymn, expressing divine kenosis, not destruction.

Derrida’s said: “only justice is undeconstructible”. Is the event of God, as you describe it, a kind of justice—or something that exceeds our ethical frameworks?
John D. Caputo: Yes, that’s a key connection. Derrida’s idea of justice as undeconstructible shapes my approach to God—it’s a foundation for my theology.

Derrida applies undeconstructibility to concepts like justice, democracy, the gift, and hospitality, and I see God’s name working similarly. The kingdom of God, like justice, is undeconstructible. Justice, unlike law, has no force—it’s an “unforced force” that can be ignored. Similarly, God’s call is non-coercive; it invites without compelling.

I adapt this idea for theology: the name of God, like justice, carries no ontological force but still insists. This is the core of weak theology: it’s not about dogma or metaphysical authority, but poetic, provocative insistence.

Interestingly, Derrida didn’t use the term “undeconstructible” until his essay Force of Law. I asked him about it, and he confirmed it was likely its first appearance, marking a key moment for this theological direction.

St. Augustine said, “He who is humble is not afraid to be corrected.” Does your theology of vulnerability and exposure reflect this humility? And are you connected to Gianni Vattimo?
John D. Caputo: Good question. Let me clarify: there’s a book edited by Jeffrey Robbins called After the Death of God, which is a dialogue between me and Vattimo. In that book, I explore The Weakness of God, drawing from Derrida’s weak messianic power, which itself goes back to Walter Benjamin. So the lineage is more Jewish. Now, I appreciate Vattimo’s idea of the weakening of metaphysics into hermeneutics, and the weakening of law into justice. That’s very Derridean, and I agree with it up to a point. But The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Philosophy of Religion) was written without any reference to Vattimo. In his case, the concept is very Christocentric, and it’s hard to separate it from supersessionism—the idea that Christianity replaces Judaism. What he says about the weakening of metaphysics into hermeneutics—I think that’s true. And the idea of law weakening into love also resonates with me. I actually think all of that is true. I also believe it has deep Jewish roots. It goes back to Jesus, who was himself Jewish. When he spoke of the Kingdom of God, he was referring to the God of Israel. So, I do think that Vattimo has a Christocentric problem, whereas my understanding of the “weakness of God” is more messianic in nature.

The new pope, Leo XIV, was one of your students. Could you tell us how his Augustinian identity connects with your theology of the event?
John D. Caputo: Yes, he was one of my students in a course I taught for Augustinian seminarians at Villanova University. The seminarians, who were part of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA), had to complete a rigorous philosophy curriculum, and one of the required courses was mine: German Existentialism and Phenomenology.

In that course, I taught Kierkegaard and Nietzsche in the first half, then Husserl and excerpts from Heidegger’s Being and Time in the second half. He was part of a sharp group, including Robert Dodaro, who became a leading Augustine scholar. Dodaro and a few others were more vocal, while the future pope was more reserved—he listened more than he spoke.

That trait became significant later when the cardinals explained their choice: he’s a good listener. People feel heard in his presence, which enhances his communication. His focus on synodality, a model of church leadership based on community and dialogue, reflects this. I remembered it from class, and when he was elected, I checked my old attendance books—sure enough, he was there. Others spoke often; he listened carefully. He was a good listener from the start.

How important is the Augustinian spirit at Villanova?
John D. Caputo: The Augustinian spirit is central at Villanova, and it influenced my teaching. I often connected Kierkegaard to Augustine, pointing out that existentialism has its roots in The Confessions of Saint Augustine, which I presented as a genuine philosophical lineage. This helped introduce students to Continental Philosophy, which, while not tied to Thomas Aquinas, resonates deeply with Augustine, especially The Confessions.

The City of God is more of a public defense of faith, but The Confessions is personal, revealing the self before God, coram Deo. This is where we see the emergence of the modern, existential subject, linking Augustine to contemporary thought.

A key moment in my intellectual life was my early interest in Derrida, long before he mentioned Augustine. When I first read Of Grammatology in the late ’70s, Derrida was controversial. I argued he wasn’t attacking universals to tear them down, but to affirm the unique and marginalized, much like Augustine’s focus on the particular, not scientia but sapientia.

Then, in 1991, Derrida’s Circonfession blew me away. It was his life story through the lens of The Confessions, confirming my view of the connection between Derrida and Augustine.

I later organized conferences at Villanova with Derrida, including one dedicated to The Confessions, bringing together Augustine scholars and Derrida. This marked a convergence of my work on Derrida and Augustine. All of this happened after the young pope Prevost was my student in 1977, when I was just starting to explore Derrida’s work. He wasn’t exposed to it in my classroom, but he did encounter Augustine as the pre-modern precursor to the post-modern—a helpful way to understand their continuity.

Can you explain that?
John D. Caputo: Augustine, in many ways, predates the rise of metaphysics as we know it. In his time, theology wasn’t a scientific discipline but a pastoral engagement with Scripture, aimed at articulating the faith within the community. The idea of theology as a structured discipline didn’t emerge until the 12th century.

Augustine didn’t have to “overcome” metaphysics—he was never shaped by it. Though he engaged with Neoplatonic ideas, he wasn’t an academic or university professor. He was a bishop, focused on pastoring and teaching, and didn’t make a sharp distinction between philosophy and theology.

For Augustine, theology was a way of life, not an academic field, giving his thought a pre-metaphysical quality. He didn’t move beyond metaphysics; he was never part of it. That’s why I see a resonance between the pre-modern and the post-modern, as Augustine’s pastoral, existential thinking connects to postmodern concerns by not being bound by later metaphysical theology.

Joseph Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict XVI, was influenced by Martin Heidegger. Do you see a connection between St. Augustine and him ?
John D. Caputo: Yes, but Ratzinger represents a traditional theological stance. Though he didn’t start that way, he became a deeply conservative thinker. His engagement with Augustine is conventional, not radical, and the same goes for Jean-Luc Marion. Despite his sophisticated, phenomenological approach, Marion ultimately reinforces a classical, neo-Platonic Christian framework.

Radical theology, however, operates on a different level. It’s not present in Ratzinger or Marion. Marion’s use of phenomenology, especially the concept of the saturated phenomenon, feels like a transcription of von Balthasar’s aesthetics—God’s glory expressed as an excess of presence. It’s a theology of plenitude and affirmation.

In contrast, radical theology, like Derrida’s deconstruction, embraces unknowing, absence, and the apophatic. It’s not about the glory of what is, but feeling about in the dark for what might come—an event that could be redemptive or catastrophic. This openness is missing in thinkers like Ratzinger, Marion, or von Balthasar, whose Christocentric theology is rooted in theological confidence—God as a rock.

While their theology is sincere and rich, it’s not radical in the way I mean: it doesn’t deconstruct metaphysics or push theology into postmodern territory. It sustains rather than disrupts tradition.

Do you find this in Paul Ricoeur ?
John D. Caputo: No—Ricoeur is quite different. While he’s a Christian and, in that sense, Christocentric, his stance is far more open and vulnerable than thinkers like Ratzinger or Marion. His theology acknowledges uncertainty, fragility, and doubt in a way that feels more honest—not because others are dishonest, but because Ricoeur doesn’t rely on metaphysical certainty.

He distances himself from theological authoritarianism. For Ricoeur, faith must pass through disbelief—what his student Richard Kearney calls anatheism, a return to God after God. It’s not a simple reaffirmation of belief, but something that arises on the far side of rupture, after the death of God has been faced.

Ricoeur treats theology as narrative—a way of speaking about what ultimately escapes us. His thought retains a real sense of risk. I feel close to him on that point. But even so, he doesn’t go as far as I would. His “second naiveté,” that post-critical return to faith, still stays within the bounds of orthodoxy. Ricoeur remains firmly Christian.

I, by contrast, see Christianity more symbolically. Tillich called it a symbol of the unconditional. The German idealists put it well: “God is the unconditional, but the unconditional is not God.” That’s central to radical theology. “God” is one name—rooted in a particular tradition—for the unconditional, but it doesn’t exhaust or contain it. The unconditional is always beyond our grasp. We have no concept—no Begriff—that can capture it fully. And that’s what keeps theology radical: open, unfinished, and always reaching beyond.

What about Heidegger’s Black Notebooks ?
John D. Caputo: I wrote Demythologizing Heidegger in 1993, during the Heidegger affair. I had spent 20 years studying him, and Heidegger emancipated me from my dogmatic Catholic upbringing. I was raised in a deeply Catholic world and was a member of a French religious order, founded by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, for four years. It was through Heidegger that I found my way out of that world.

I wrote two books on Heidegger and religion, the first on his connection to Meister Eckhart, which I shared with Reiner Schurmann, a contemporary of mine, who I met. Later, I wrote a book on Heidegger’s relationship to Thomas Aquinas and seinsvergessenheit, the forgottenness of being. I also worked on Radical Hermeneutics in 1987, trying to connect Derrida with Heidegger.f

In the same year, Farias’s book on Heidegger’s Nazi ties came out, which shocked me. Initially, I didn’t believe it, but as more books emerged, it became clear that Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism was real. Before that, I had believed Heidegger’s account of being briefly involved with the Nazis and then distancing himself. The more I researched, the more I concluded that Heidegger’s nationalism and anti-Semitism were tied to a mythological “spiritual” connection between the Greeks and Germans, which was just German mythology.

In Demythologizing Heidegger, I separated Heidegger’s philosophical contributions from his nationalistic and anti-Semitic beliefs, focusing on his hermeneutics of facticity and his later, poetic thoughts on being. I still believe this side of Heidegger can be separated from his darker views.

I don’t think Derrida is tainted by this. He is interested in a more radical Heidegger, questioning metaphysical assumptions. Derrida, a Jewish thinker who suffered from anti-Semitism, is deeply influenced by Jewish thought, particularly the messianic, and is also close to Levinas and Benjamin. The claim that deconstruction is tainted by anti-Semitism is simply a rhetorical attack and doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Figures like Alexander Dugin use Heidegger’s philosophy for extreme, Nazi-like rhetoric, even calling for the destruction of “parasites” in Ukraine.
John D. Caputo: I’m certainly alarmed by this, as Heidegger exposed himself to such appropriation. It’s tragic, as it undermines his significance as a thinker. Some even call for his books to be moved from philosophy sections to the National Socialist section, which he brought upon himself. Heidegger’s far-right leanings were evident even when he was a young Catholic, an ultramontane who supported papal infallibility and was a radical conservative.

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon once declared, “Heidegger is my man,” while Pope Leo XIV’s brother, Louis Prevost, remarked that he had served alongside him in the army!
John D. Caputo: Oh, really? Well, Bob Prevost knows better—he got his Heidegger from me. Bannon’s talk about the “deconstruction of the deep state” misuses the term. Deconstruction is about keeping the future open, not promoting nihilism. It’s based on careful reading to uncover the tensions within a text, the opposite of reckless interpretation. Interestingly, “deconstruction” originally referred to analyzing sentence structure in grammar, which aligns with how it reveals hidden tensions in texts, not to destroy them but to keep them open.

French President Emmanuel Macron contributed to the book of Paul Ricœur, La Mémoire, l’Histoire, l’Oubli and maintains a close relationship with contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer also obsessed with Heidegger, René Char and Paul Celan. We should introduce them to the Pope, but is Leo XIV still interested in philosophy?
John D. Caputo: After leaving Villanova, I had little contact with him. He went on with his career, returning only once in 2014 for an honorary degree. He had a broad, liberal education—attending regular classes with other students, not being taught by priests. He then pursued theology at the progressive Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, during the years following Vatican II before Pope John Paul II reversed its spirit. Bob received a progressive education that emphasized the Church as the people of God, not just the hierarchy. He’s moderate, so I don’t expect to see any radical changes like ordaining women or allowing same-sex marriages. He’ll share Leo XIII’s progressive social values, especially concern for immigrants, the poor, and a pastoral approach to women and LGBTQ issues. Like Francis, but possibly a bit more centrist and cautious—don’t expect him to say, “Who am I to judge?” He’s a thoughtful, progressive mind with degrees in science and math, and taught high school science for years.

Catholicism in New York has deep roots, shaped by Irish immigrants and saints like Francesca Cabrini and Elizabeth Ann Seton. Figures like Cornelius Heeney and Andrew Morris helped build landmarks like St. Patrick’s. It’s a rich but often overlooked part of American religious history.
John D. Caputo: Today’s U.S. Catholics are fewer and more conservative, often aligned with the opposition to abortion rights, helping elect Trump. The film Cabrini tells the story of Frances Cabrini, sent by Pope Leo XIII to aid oppressed Italian immigrants in New York—rejected not just by Protestants but by Irish Catholics too. Cabrini fought for their dignity and founded global charities. While Irish-Italian tensions have faded, today’s struggling Catholics are largely Hispanic immigrants. Bishops back Trump on the abortion issue.but clash with him over immigration, since immigrants now sustain the Church. In Ireland today, it’s mostly Polish immigrants attending Mass—native Irish have distanced themselves from the Church due to its troubled past. When Leo XIV was elected Pope, I posted that he’d been my student. I expected backlash, and got some—they seemed to think I was identifying with the official Catholic teachings on women and sexuality, and they criticized me for teaching Nietzsche and Heidegger, who they simply want to write off as Nazis. The Church’s single-minded concentration on the abortion issue and its support for Trump has hurt its image in the U.S. I believe democracy requires respecting others’ choices, which many conservative Catholics ignore. That’s why I’m drawn to radical theology.

As for French philosophy, yes—after Derrida and Nancy, thinkers like Meillassoux and Badiou remain deeply compelling. My last course at Syracuse was on Quentin Meillassoux, and I hosted a conference with Badiou and Zizek. Agamben’s work on St. Paul, influenced by Benjamin and Taubes, is especially powerful.