The Paradox of Authenticity

by Eric E. Hall

Book cover: The Paradox of Authenticity

Extent: 223 pages

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Subjects: Philosophy, Religious Studies

Series: Religion in Philosophy and Theology

Series volume number: 80

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(August 2015)

ISBN: 9783161538636

6.06 x 9.06 inches

Price: $99.00

In stock

In this book, Eric E. Hall takes up the question of the meaning of a vigorously used concept in the liberal west: authenticity and the pursuit of personal originality. By uncovering this idea’s uses within three deepening contexts – the ethical, the ontological, and the theological – the author unfolds authenticity’s origins and implications. To the degree that authenticity seeks in all contexts freedom from social horizons, the conclusion renders attempts to embody this ideal secularly impossible. The goal requires a total transcendence that only the divine could fulfill. Human authenticity thus emerges in creatively imitating God’s self-sacrificial expression on the cross, which both transcends and revalues the horizons of this world.


In this book, Eric E. Hall takes up the question of the meaning of a vigorously used concept in the liberal west: authenticity and the pursuit of personal originality. By uncovering this idea’s uses within three deepening contexts – the ethical, the ontological, and the theological – the author unfolds authenticity’s origins and implications. To the degree that authenticity seeks in all contexts freedom from social horizons, the conclusion renders attempts to embody this ideal secularly impossible. The goal requires a total transcendence that only the divine could fulfill. Human authenticity thus emerges in creatively imitating God’s self-sacrificial expression on the cross, which both transcends and revalues the horizons of this world.

  • By (author) Eric E Hall