THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ECONOMIC THEOLOGY Edited by StefanSchwarzkopfLondon: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2020. Pp. xxii + 396. Cloth, $250.00.

This paper looks at the development of certain Foucauldian concepts and themes within the work of the Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. Where Agamben is well-known for his critique of biopower in Homo Sacer, his recent work a more complex engagement with Foucault both in terms of his subject matter, governmentality and economy (oikonomia), and his critical methodology, most notably, his reaffirmation of the value of Foucault’s archaeological method. Focusing on three of Agamben’s recent publications, Signatura Rerum: Sul Metodo, Il regno e la gloria. Per una genealogia teologica dell'economia e del governo and What is an Apparatus?, the article looks first at Agamben’s development of Foucault’s archaeological method within his own concept of the signature. It then goes on to consider Agamben’s identification of an economic theology in contradistinction to Schmitt’s political theology and how Agamben’s discussion of collateral damage might be related to Foucault’s notion of security as developed in Security, Territory, Population. Finally, the article considers how Agamben links Foucault’s notion of ‘dispositif’ [apparatus] to an economic theology of government, calling for the development of counter-apparatuses in a similar way to Foucault’s call for ‘resistances.’ The article concludes by considering both the benefits and the limitations of Agamben’s engagement with Foucault.

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383 and After

10.1093/oso/9780199668977.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Andrew Radde-Gallwitz

Keyword(s):

Holy Spirit ◽

The Other ◽

The Holy Spirit ◽

Economic Theology ◽

The One

This chapter shows how developments outlined in previous chapters informed Gregory’s later works, focusing especially on On the Deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit and the Catechetical Oration. In particular, it demonstrates connections between To Ablabius and On the Deity, as well as links between Epistle 3 and the anti-Apollinarian works on the one hand and the Catechetical Oration on the other. It shows how the economic theology developed there reflects Gregory’s sense of liturgical time and examines the Catechetical Oration’s two Trinitarian sections. One of these treats the doctrine under the topic of the baptismal mystery, while the other detaches it from this context, offering an analogy for the Trinitarian unity meant to persuade Greek and Jewish interlocutors, but in fact treating them as stand-ins for Christian heresies. Thus the chapter claims that Gregory’s notion of Trinitarian orthodoxy is strongest when framed as an account of baptism.

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