caa a22 4500 388114460 CHVBK 20180307125402.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130s1999 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0360966900031534 doi S0360966900031534 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0360966900031534 Baird Marie L. Duquesne University Emmanuel Levinas and the Problem of Meaningless Suffering: the Holocaust as a Test Case [Elektronische Daten] [Marie L. Baird] Johann Baptist Metz has exhorted Christian theologians to discard "system concepts” in favor of "subject concepts” in their theologizing. This revisioning of Christian theology recovers the primacy of the uniqueness and irreplaceability of the individual from totalizing doctrinal formulations and systems that function, for Metz, without reference to the subject. In short, a revisionist Christian theology in light of the Holocaust recovers the preeminence of the inviolability of individual human life. How can such a revisioning be accomplished in the realm of Christian spirituality? This article will utilize the thought of Emmanuel Levinas to assert the primacy of ethics as "first philosophy” replacing ontology, and by implication the ontological foundations undergirding Christian spirituality, with the ethical relation. Such a relation is the basis for a new Christian spirituality that posits the primacy of merciful and compasionate action in the face of conditions of life in extremity. Copyright © The College Theology Society 1999 Horizons Cambridge University Press 26/1(1999), 73-84 0360-9669 26:1<73 1999 26 HOR https://doi.org/10.1017/S0360966900031534 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0360966900031534 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Baird Marie L. Duquesne University NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Horizons Cambridge University Press 26/1(1999), 73-84 0360-9669 26:1<73 1999 26 HOR CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge