Tuesday, November 16, 2004
(11:23 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Role of Theology
The role of theology is to allow us a language to talk about "black box" phenomena, what in current philosophical parlance is called "the impossible." Derrida's late popularity in theological circles owes no doubt to the homology between Derrida's talk of the impossible and the task of theology -- both seek, Kierkegaardianly (or, if we want less drama with our philosophy, Kantianly) to "think what cannot be thought." And we could perhaps discuss Kierkegaard's sympathy with Plato, the generally positive reception of Platonism in the Christian tradition -- up until "Greek thought" was basically blamed for the Holocaust and declared to be radically absent from any authentic Christianity -- and Kojeve's characterization of Platonism as "theological" in his schema of philosophical types in Introduction to the Reading of Hegel -- cool diagrams, Lacan before Lacan.I know that Kojeve is supposed to be a misreading of Hegel, but his contrast of Hegel's "atheistic" philosophy with the theological moves of Platonism is perhaps helpful: the Hegelian gamble is to go through theological thinking (in terms of his own biography, both in its literal sense and in the sense that Kant is "kind of" theological) and come out the other side with the realization that there was no black box in the first place. We already knew how the supposed black box worked all alon, just as consciousness was already out among the "things as such" all along. This does constitute, as Zizek says, a fundamental loss. Remember: it was Hegel who first said that God was dead.
What role does this leave for theology once it has been superceded by atheistic Hegelianism? I don't know. Maybe it just needs to be there; maybe it is necessary for the progress of the idea that there still be theologians around, even if those "theologians" are "abstruse French literary theorists." Remember: the whole Hegel thing is a process. Once it becomes dogma, it ceases to be dialectic. As Zizek says, perhaps it is necessary to undergo the Christian experience (or, I would say, some homologous thing -- Heideggerianism, maybe) in order to be a dialectical materialist.
I continue to believe, without much evidence as of yet, that my daliance with theology -- which shall perhaps continue, even for the rest of my life -- has been worth it. It has been productive. Perhaps I'd be better off cutting to the chase, getting the real stuff of Marxism/psychoanalysis (which, of course, I've already substantially gotten). I don't know. I've taken a liking to St. Paul, as I have to the oh-so-unstylish Derrida -- and if one day I end up having to leave those two behind, I'll miss them terribly.
[This was all in response to a comment thread from my sister site.]
