(Ir)religiosity

I’ll put all my cards on the table:  I think Kierkegaard is unfortunately habitually misread today.  The common reading as dictated by the philosophical and theological canon and undoubtedly displayed in undergraduate intro. courses couches (and caricatures) Kierkegaard as a prime example of religious fidelity gone awry.  His “teleological suspension of the ethical” represents all that is wrong and dangerous with religion after the Enlightenment and such a position is decidedly irrational, lacking the proper grounding in ethical reasoning.  That is one reading.  To be sure, it is important and one that should be not ignored, but it is, however, not the only one nor is it, in my view, the best one.

I was re-reading some articles and interviews by John Caputo in preparation for Emergent Outliers’ first book club meeting tonight (you should join us!) when I ran across an interesting reading of Kierkegaard that avoids that usual, banal approach and obliquely offers a critique of modern ethics.  Commenting on Derrida’s reading of Fear and Trembling, Caputo writes that:¹

“Responsibility is the issue of the singularity of the situation of the responing subject (for which “Abraham” is a place-holder) standing alone before the “wholly other” (for which “God” is a place-holder) while the demands of the “other others” (for which Isaac is a place-holder) press in upon and interrupt the intimacy of this exclusive tête-à-tête ["head-to-head"].  Thus, to decide responsibly is always a matter of sacrificing “Isaac,” the ones who hold the Isaac position, by which he [Derrida] means, of sensitizing oneself to my responsibility to all the other others who also lay claim to my responsibility, even as I respond to the other one before me.  Unlike de Silentio, Derrida’s analysis does not turn a suspension of my ethical duty in the face of the religious call that overrides it, but on the conflict of ethical duties that structures every ethical choice, which makes the paradox of the akedah [the binding of Isaac] the paradigm of everyday ethical decisions right on down to the smallest detail….”

Interesting.  So instead of fixating on Abraham’s suspension of ethics perhaps it is helpful to read the narrative in a different manner, one that recognizes the sacrifice and conflict that is inherent in every ethical decision.  One must always, in every situation (even the most mundane and seemingly insignificant), chose between opposing responsibilities as there always other others.  That is the paradox of ethics and a paradox that most popular approaches to ethics (the deontological, utilitarianism, etc.) seem to avoid precisely because they are impermeable systems conceived in the abstract, demanding fidelity to a certain set of presupposed to premises which may or may not relate to the situation at hand.  I suspect that this is what Caputo is getting at in his book Against Ethics (though I have not read it in it entirety) and I believe that this is what the usual readings of Kierkegaard miss:  that modern ethical systems, while helpful as guidelines, will always be deconstructible insofar as they posit a set of disembodied propositions that must be applied to situation that always already has other cards that have been played ahead of time.

Such a critique virtually renders moot the tiring discussions we’ve all had over which ethical system is the best because all systems are in agreement that the most proper approach should be conceived in the abstract, relying on the so-called impartiality of Reason and  constructed outside palpable relations with the wholly Other and other others.  But the  true ethical dilemma is the one that catches us by surprise as we realize the impossible choice we must make between two responsibilities, two others who have already laid claim to us.  Such an event, not at all unlike the one faced by Abraham, simply cannot be solved by a intangible system alone.

That is, I believe, an unsung lesson of Kierkegaard and one that Caputo and Derrida can both return to after the desert of modern criticism:  that there is always already conflict inherent in every ethical situation, conflict that cannot be fully resolved and conflict that demands a choice between rival responsibilities and irreconcilable others.

1. The quotation is taken from an article Caputo wrote in the 2002 Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook titled, “Looking the Impossible in the Eye: Kierkegaard, Derrida, and the Repetition of Religion, pg. 8-9.  Caputo writes on the same subject at length in The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida:  Religion without Religion, but the article provides the most concise and lucid description of his larger, more complex argument. [↩]

There is a lot of talk in the emergent/ing church — and postmodernism at large — about the project of deconstruction, mainly as a critique of modern models of “doing” church and theology, but also, though often not as popular, as offering a constructive response to those systems.  In even narrower conversations, there is talk of what can and cannot be deconstructed.  So for Derrida, “justice” is the undeconstructible nucleus (though he would surely object to that word) of the “law,” which seeks to be justice, but can always be deconstructed.  Likewise, Caputo speaks of the church as the deconstructable sign pointing toward the kingdom, which is undeconstructable.

I think these sort of conversations are very helpful.  We can’t stop deconstruction our own systems and ideas.  Sometimes I think part of my personality is naturally deconstructive.  Which is good…and bad.

What do I mean?

I’m wondering if sometimes, in our efforts to deconstruct “something else,” we miss the opportunity to let ourselves be deconstructed.

For example, for a long time now I have categorically rejected Augustine and his writings.  Original sin, latent — or not so latent — misogyny, sex as utility only, I could go on.  For all these reasons I simply wrote Augustine off completely.  Not that those aren’t good reasons.  I believe they are.  And I still disagree with Augustine about them.

But recently I’ve rediscovered Augustine’s mysticism and his ascent into himself in search of God who is beyond his comprehension.  And in doing so, I’ve been deconstructed.  I’ve allowed myself to be worked over by a tradition I had previously dismissed.

All this has to be done in moderation of course. Because we can just import Augustine uncritically into 2009.  But I wonder if sometimes we are too critical and miss the opportunity to have ourselves criticized?  I wonder if sometimes, under the auspices of deconstruction, I undermine the very heart of the deconstructive project.

That is not to say that I reject the deconstructing of historical figures or systems of thought.  Not at all.  I’m only suggesting that perhaps there is a tension between our deconstruction and our being deconstructed.  The key is learning to live and embody that tension well.

What to do you think?  Have you had similar experiences? Or am I just blowin’ smoke?

I finally got around to picking up a copy of N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope and I’m almost done.  His deconstruction of the typical concept of heaven as something “up there,” or, as I’ve said, an orgy of eternal bliss, really resonates with me.  Instead of some sort of physical place that persons are transported to after death, heaven, according to Wright, is the ultimate culmination of God’s process of restoration and recreation, a process that began with the Resurrection.  I like that.

I am a little unsure about the cosmological implications of his argument and how some of these things work practically, especially viz. his assertion of actual, physical, bodily resurrection.  He makes it clear that everything, at least in his opinion, hinges upon this.  I’m not so sure.  But that does not at all negate the usefulness of his questioning and reformulating some traditional Christians ideals.  Personally, I think the questioning and re-appropriating can be done without insisting on some of the supposition that he does.  But that’s a different post.

Like I said, the case that Wright makes boldly denounces some of the themes and elements that the Christian Right has latched onto over the last 20-30 years, things like the rapture, the second coming (though Wright plays with that a bit, rather than simply rejecting it), dispensationalism — all those sort of Left Behind Type things.  This is great and I think it needs to be done.  In many ways I’m willing to go even further than Wright does by jettisoning some of these concepts altogether. Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting take:

[L]et us debate about sex and marriage rather than war and violence. Let us concentrate on the bedroom rather than the war room. Let us liberals get trapped — as always — on the right side of the wrong question. I write this in protest against that deviation from what fundamentally concerns the Bible, the biblical God, and Jesus, namely, that escalatory violence that by now threatens our world with destruction.

I think he does have a point.  But — I can see this line of thought leading us to ignore the problem altogether.  And we don’t need that.  We have enough religious people using the bible and religion in general as a weapon to deny persons their civil rights; we need more religious people actively challenging that position.  And yes, maybe even more religious people to say enough with the bible for a while.

To be fair, I don’t think that is what Crossan is suggesting.  He is simply trying to demonstrate how absurd it is that we are even having the argument over same-sex marriage and gay rights at all.  And like I said, that is a valid observation.  But I think we have to be careful that we don’t ignore those that are being marginalized in the meantime by sweeping the problem under the rug.  It should be faced head on.  Those that use religion as a wedge to separate “us” from “them” aren’t afraid to do that.  It’s time that those of us who believe in the “we,” of which all the great religions of the world bear witness, saddle up as well.

What do you think?

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