Fourteen essays by leading scholars from around the world explore the theological, philosophical, and historical connections between the three Abrahamic faiths and ethics. Timely reading for students of religion, philosophy, and ethics.

The term Ethical Monotheism is an important marker in Judaism’s tumultuous transition into the modern era. The term emerged in the context of culture-wars concerning the question of whether or not Jews could or should become emancipated citizens of modern European states. It appeared in arguments whether or not Judaism could be considered a Religion of Reason—a symbolic, motivational representation of a universal morality, and in debates about whether or not Judaism could or should reform itself into a Religion of Reason. This book is both a decisive departure from such discussions and an attempt to add a further, post-modern, statement to their ongoing development. As departure, it refuses to take for granted a philosophical conception of Religion of Reason as the standard for Ethical Monotheism according to which Judaism was to be evaluated or reformed. As continuation, the book undertakes a phenomenology of Jewish modes of ethical religiosity that allows it to inquire what kind of ethical monotheism Judaism might be. Through sophisticated analysis of select "snapshots," or "fragments of a hologram," guided by a robust theory of religion, the author discloses Judaic ethical monotheism as an ongoing wrestling with the meaning of justice. By closely examining five main "snapshots" of this long process—the Bible, rabbinic Judaism, Maimonides, The Zohar, and the modern philosophers, Buber and Levinas—the author offers his own constructive philosophy of Judaism and his own distinctive philosophy of religion. Ethical Monotheism offers a new way to think about Judaism as a religion and as a coherent philosophical debate, and demonstrates the need to integrate philosophy, history, cognitive psychology, anthropology, theology, and history of science in the study of "religion."

In this volume, renowned experts in psychoanalysis reflect on the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion, in particular presenting various controversial interpretations of the question if and to what extent monotheism semantically and structurally fits psychoanalytic insights. Some essays augment traditional religious critiques of Freudianism with later religio-philosophical theories on, for example, femininity. Others explore the relation between psychopathology and morality from the Freudian premise that psychopathology shows in an excessive way aspects or mechanisms of the human psyche that constitute our subjectivity, moral capacities, and behavior.Contributors: Andreas De Block, KU Leuven-University of Leuven; Fethi Benslama, University of Paris Diderot; Sergio Benvenuto, ISTC, Rome; Gohar Homayounpour, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran; Felix de Mendelssohn, Sigmund Freud University, Vienna; Julia Kristeva, University of Paris Diderot; Lode Lauwaert, KU Leuven-University of Leuven; Siamak Movahedi, University of Massachusetts; Wolfgang Muller-Funk, University of Vienna; Gilles Ribault, University of Paris Diderot; Céline Surprenant, University of Sussex; Inge Scholz-Strasser, Sigmund Freud Foundation; Herman Westerink, University of Vienna; Joel Whitebook, Columbia University; Moshe Zuckermann, Tel Aviv University

Why are religious tolerance and pluralism so difficult to achieve? Why is the often violent fundamentalist backlash against them so potent? Robert Erlewine looks to a new religion of reason for answers to these questions. Drawing on Enlightenment writers Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, and Hermann Cohen, who placed Christianity and Judaism in tension with tolerance and pluralism, Erlewine finds a way to break the impasse, soften hostilities, and establish equal relationships with the Other. Erlewine's recovery of a religion of reason stands in contrast both to secularist critics of religion who reject religion for the sake of reason and to contemporary religious conservatives who eschew reason for the sake of religion. Monotheism and Tolerance suggests a way to deal with the intractable problem of religiously motivated and justified violence.

This book develops a thorough account of the sphere of human moral action in sustained dialogue with Jürgen Moltmann. By examining God's role as promise-giver, particularly in the Christian understanding of resurrection, this work describes the occupancy of both history and space in moral terms. This leads to an understanding of Jesus' description of 'the kingdom of God' to feature prominently in describing both the possibility and content of human moral action. By offering an account of each of the main doctrines found in Moltmann's corpus - the role of the future, the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and anthropology - this book locates how each contributes to the understanding of ethics from a Christian perspective and subsequently applies these findings to the contemporary issue of poverty and global economics.

In the spirit of Dietrich's work, essays by colleagues and former students of the Brown U. professor emeritus explore the boundaries of ethical monotheistic religion historically and as a constructive resource for contemporary religious and ethical thought. Ethical monotheism, the view that monotheistic religion developed toward the prophets' central concern with individual and corporate moral behavior, has dominated modern religious thought since Kant. Dietrich traced its development in Jewish and Christian contexts in his classic monograph Cohen and Troeltsch and other works. c. Book News Inc.