Time and Money: Philosophy of Religion and the Critique of Capital

Large, William ORCID: 0000-0003-0447-5364 (2008) Time and Money: Philosophy of Religion and the Critique of Capital. Journal for Culture and Religious Theory, 8 (3). pp. 50-66.

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Abstract

The highly speculative argument I want to follow in this paper is that religion is not a matter of metaphysics, but of politics. Not just in the sense that it is an alternative, or merely an addition, to the other political discourses of our time that are secular, but that capitalism itself is a religion, since it has its own rituals, values and pieties. For this reason alone, it cannot be dislodged by democratic thought, however important its insights are, because it has, and will increasingly make, government irrelevant. The only answer to capital is life. Only to the extent that religion redeems life does it offer us a new way of thinking. But how are we to oppose life to capital? Capital offers us an illusion of a future without end which in reality is the end of the future. Against this nihilism of time, I contrast a messianic temporality whose future is the interruption of the present, rather than its endless repetition.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	REF2014 Submission.
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts
Research Priority Areas:	Culture, Continuity, and Transformation
Depositing User:	Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited:	21 Sep 2015 09:11
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2023 08:56
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/2512

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