Speculative Grace: A Local Plurality

In previous posts, I've set the stage for the following question: if we were to port grace into the context of a non-theistic ontology, what modifications would the concept need to undergo? 

In the first post, I attempted to lay out in broad terms the nature of the experiment. In the second post, I tried to articulate at least one reason why we might want to conduct such an experiment. With this post, I'd like to turn my attention to offering an initial (though admittedly abstract) formulation of a non-theistic conception of grace.

First issue: what would be required for a non-theistic ontology?

A non-theistic ontology would depend minimally on the axiom that reality is fundamentally multiple.

As an axiom, this claim – like, I think, its counterpart that reality is fundamentally One – must be assumed rather than proven. But this does not prevent us from investigating and comparing the relative merits of the consequences of these axioms or their consonance with the facts at our disposal.

Back, though, to the axiom itself. If an ontology holds that God, as the Creator, is the original, single unifying source of reality, then it is theistic. Further, I want to claim that any ontology founded on the axiom that reality is ultimately “One” (whether this basic unity shows up as a governing principle, a macro-totality, a micro-uniformity, a transcendental horizon, an eschatological unification, etc.) remains essentially theistic. Such ontologies have simply substituted a philosophical avatar of original unity for “God.”

To be clearly and decisively non-theistic, our proposed ontology will need to break fundamentally with this traditional assumption of basic, original unity. Rather than accounting for how localized multiplicity comes from an original unity, it would have to account for how various localized unities emerge from an original multiplicity.

An important consequence immediately follows from this axiom of multiplicity for our conception of “transcendence” and, thus, for our conception of grace.

Traditionally, grace is defined in relation to God’s supernatural transcendence and, traditionally, this transcendence itself depends on God’s being an unconditioned and absolute One. Transcendence names that supernatural, ontological gap between an unconditioned and original One and the created, contingent multiplicity of everything else. 

Here, grace is understood as a manifestation of God’s being an excessive, enabling, and unconditioned exception to the rest of reality. 

However, if there is no such original One, if reality is fundamentally multiple, then God cannot be described as an ontologically and supernaturally transcendent exception and, in turn, grace cannot be defined in terms of such a transcendence or confined to what originates from that single point of origin.

In the absence of a single, transcendent anchor point for all of reality, a generalized immanence is the rule. However, in order to avoid being Spinozists, it is essential to characterize this immanence in terms of multiplicity. I will say more about the nature of this immanence in next week's post, but for now the following point will suffice.

In order to be immanent and fundamentally multiple, reality must be characterized by a multiplicity of differences that are fundamental and irreducible. These differences in turn necessarily entail a multiplicity of diffuse, localized, non-supernatural “transcendences” that mark the ontological discontinuities that are constitutive of reality. This diffusion of a single, universal transcendence into plural, local transcendences functions as a confirmation of the ubiquity of immanence.

It is this dislocation — a dislocation of transcendence from its status as a founding and singular ontological exception to its immanent dispersal as what characterizes the multiplicity of reality — that simultaneously marks the dislocation and distribution of grace. Grace, rather than stemming from a distant, founding exception, is embedded in the localized plurality of an immanent multiplicity. Or, to paraphrase Stephen Gould on the subject of Darwin's insight about natural selection: rather than being an unavailable, “unknowable, large-scale cosmic force,” grace would instead be given as a ubiquitous, “testable, small-scale force.” 

In a non-theistic ontology, grace would be operationalized as the immanently given multiplicity of what is actually at hand.

Comments

[will]

Adam, so you must think that somehow it's possible to get outside of creation (as created & sustained by a Creator), and to a place which is also not that Creator (i.e. God). Would that be true? If so, how could that be? Even 'Hell'--if there is such a 'place'--has something to do with the Creator, doesn't it? ...and I wonder what the relevance of 'grace' (your topic) might be there. Not a bad thought exercise, but somehow I don't think that's your project.

[Adam Miller]

Will,

Thanks for the note. As you point out the project is hypothetical. I'm not claiming that reality isn't ultimately one or that God isn't a name for that original Source or One.

But, experimentally, it certainly seems to me to be thinkable (a) that God does not exist and, hence, that reality would not be grounded in a transcendent One, or (b) that God does exist but as a being among other beings - rather than as Being or the extra-ontological source of all Being.

In the case of either scenario, I'm interested in whether grace is still thinkable and in what way.

And, if it is, I'm interested in seeing if what can be learned about grace would still be applicable whether or not one operated within a theistic or a non-theistic ontology.

[Troy Polidori]

Adam, in regards to your comment about the non-existence of God being thinkable, have you come across Eberhard Jungel's work that claims that God is ontologically beyond necessity? My own work is involved in trying to reconfigure a theological metaphysics that falls under the Lacanian "feminine sexuation" via a more Barthian track (Jungel and McCormack especially), or what you might call the self-organized complexity of immanence.

[Adam Miller]

Troy, I'm unfamiliar with Jungel's work but it sounds interesting. Is there anything in particular you'd recommend?

Also, your work on "the self-organized complexity of immanence" sounds right up my alley. I'd be interested to learn more.