"The God Who May Be": Ch. 4-5

Now for some advanced preparation for the 2007 Theological Conversation.

The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion: by Richard Kearney, Chapters 4-5.

by James R. Getz Jr., a Doctoral Candidate at Brandeis University.

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Kearney's fourth chapter is on 'Desiring God.' This chapter moves from  an interpretation of the Song of Songs, to a discussion of the Song of  Songs by Levinas, to a discussion of Levinas discussion by Derrida and  Caputo. It progresses from summation, to metaphysical reading, to  phenomenological reading and finally to deconstructive reading.  Through this discourse on interpreting desire the question turns on  what the desire of God is, who desires whom, and what kind of desire  it is.

Kearney begins with a truncated exposition of the Song of Songs  itself. He is not shy: the Song is about sex. It is about desire. It  is about longing of the other. It culminates in Song 8:6: "Place me as  a seal upon your heart/ like a seal upon your arm/ for love is as  strong as Death/ ardor as is as mighty as the Grave/ the flashes are  flashes of fire/ a flame of Yhwh." (my translation). Kearney surmises,  "unlike Platonic love, this incarnational love of the Bible does  involve all the senses, sound, odor, touch, sight, taste, but unlike  the old pagan rites of sexual fusion and sacrifice, it resists the  phallic illusions of totality, finality or fullness." (p. 59) It is "a  desire that desires beyond desire while remaining desire." (p. 60)

This desire is then contextualized and analyzed in light of the two  predominant metaphysical categories in the book: onto-theology and  eschatology. The onto-theological reading of desire is tied to an  inner lack, an inner desire to know absolutely. It is a desire to  storm the heavens and find the certainty that would render faith  unnecessary and make God less dangerous. The eschatological reading of  this desire is a hope of the future, a response desiring the God that  has first desired us.

The discussion and preference for the eschatological, a preference  seen through out Kearney's work, brings about an analysis of the work  of Emmanuel Levinas. It is from Levinas that Kearney appears to take  his ideas of the eschatological. Levinas himself formulated this idea  in rejection to the grand Hegelian system of history. Levinas sought  to break this system with an eschatological desire from outside of  time, eschatological over teleological. Levinas played Hegel's  concept of desire against itself. He saw the object of desire as  voluptuousity of the other which brings about fecundity through a  transcendence of paternity. That is to say, desire leads and engenders  a gift that transcends the initial desire. However, Derrida and Caputo  would see this last step as impossible.

Derrida and Caputo work with a deconstructive reading of desire. This  desire desires an other that is tout autre, every other. In Derrida's  summation, this other is not conscribed merely to human or divine but  includes everything. Caputo interprets this as a desire rooted in  importance of every specific other. Yet, this is a desire that Kearney  shies away from. He holds instead that there needs to be something  that allows us to recognize the object of our desire. Kearney in the  end concludes, "While God's lovers will always continue to seek and  desire him whom their soul loves, they have always already been found  because already sought and desire by him who their soul loves." (p.79)

Kearney's fifth chapter is entitled "Possibilizing God."  The title  comes from Mark 10:27 where Jesus states that with God all things are  possible. Kearney's goal in this chapter is to chart a new  metaphysical course that allows for the eschatological notion of the  possible, the possibility of the impossible. To this aim he interacts  with recent attempts to reexamine the possible in the works of  Husserl, Bloch, Heidegger and Derrida. A quick summary of these  theories are in order. While Kearney ultimately finds all four of these scholars' religious  understandings of the possible wanting, he holds that they all point  to the possible as something more than the actual. He ends the chapter  by summarizing his understanding of the Possible God.

"1) It is radically transcendent, guaranteed by the mark  of its "impossible-possibility." 2) It is "possible in so far as we have faith in the promise of advent." 3) It calls and solicits us. 4) And, finally, the eschatological May-be unfolds not just as can-be  but as should-be, already, now, and not yet, is always a surprise and  never without grace. (p.100)

In his conclusion "Poetics of the Possible God" Kearney ties two  general premises of the book together. The first is his attempt to  retrieve an alternate hermeneutic of the possible; and the second is  the concept of Godplay in this possibility.

First, Kearney looks at various philosophers from Averroës to Cusanus  to finally Shelling in an attempt to explain the possible in a way  that allows for the eschatological hope of the possible. Kearney sees  "the divine Creator transfiguring our being into a can-be", a being  capable of creating and recreating anew meanings in our world, without determining the actual content of our creating or doing the  actual creating for us." (p.102). This openness of God is revealed in  a new hermeneutical understanding of the trinity, "The Father might  thus be re-envisages as the loving-possible which transfigures the Son  and Spirit and is transfigured by them in turn." (p. 106)

This inner Trinitarian transfiguration plays finally into Kearney?s  understanding of Godplay. God and humanity are in an eschatological  play of possibility, the possibility of the Kingdom never fully  possessed. The Trinity is understood in the Eastern Church as a sacred  dance or perichoresis. Kearney holds that this dance is the  God-play into which the Triune invites humanity to partake.

Comments

[Dan McClain]

Sorry, James. I mistakenly called you Geoff.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

hey dan,

I think it is worth mentioning that during the Emergent Theological Conference, Caputo, speaking about the history of said onto-theology, noted that it is improper to accuse the Church Fathers or even much of medieval theology of onto-theology. Caputo said that only modern theology is tempted by onto-theology, b/c before that theology had not lost its wonder and mystery, and was addressed as a prayer.

I think this is quite right, and most who throw around "onto-theology" in a disparaging manner near the Fathers usually have not read either Heidegger (who came up with it all) nor the Fathers.

[Jaosn Hesiak]

Well that was a neato conversation between Dan and Geoff! Hearing folks talk about onto-theology lately, I either actually heard folks disparging "onto-theology," or figured it likely happened often. I figured it was kind of a dumb critique, in the particular sense discussed above - and I haven't read a heck of lot of Heidegger, nor am I an expert on medieval theology. I just got the sense that folks were misunderstanding analogia entis, since the per-spective by which folks see is now more like pro-spective. Not being an expert, though, I never said anything. Now someone, more expert than I, has said something.

Jason

[Dan McClain]

Geoff, I think that Caputo's admonition that theology remain prayerful (though I'd prefer doxological), is great. My biggest concern with this, however, is Caputo's and Derrida's rather limited-in-scope (and probably homogenous) definition of prayer. Moreover, I'm not sure its entirely helpful to say this era was not prone to onto-theology for x reason, but everyone after is. This is almost exactly the same generalizing tendancy we see in modern philosphers of religion - like Eliade - who shove all religions into this broad category and then proceed to speak definitively about them as if their difference were of no import. Caputo's broad-sword approach to onto-theology strikes me this way, as if he read one or two theologians of a period and applied this modern approach in the reading.

Speaking of not-very-articulate, I guess I should go have dinner.