The Ethical Significance of the Infinity and Otherness of God and the Understanding of Man as »Inspired Subject«. Emmanuel Levinas as a Challenge for Christian Theology

Abstract

The thinking of E. Levinas deeply influences the actual debates in Christian systematic theology. In catholic thinking, we know the norm of the Lateran Council in 1215: You cannot discern a similarity between God and man without discerning a greater dissimilarity between them. Do we take this norm seriously in our metaphysical ontology and theology? The otherness and goodness of God is the main problem in Levinas's philosophy and with regard to the catastrophes of the two world wars and the Shoa in the twentieth century he asks, what the significance of the talking about God in present times could be. Ethics has to become the »prima philosophia« because all our thinking and acting has an ethical significance and thus we may not forget this. Therefore, infinity and otherness receive an ethical meaning and constitute our responsibility as »inspired subjects« for the whole world. In the tradition of Jewish thinking, Levinas combines the unicity of each man and the universality of human responsibility for all people. In the face of the other, who is suffering, we are confronted with the face of God himself. What can we learn from Levinas today?