28 July 07
From my last proper post (on parallax theology) I wrote about the biblical narrative as a divided one which orbits around an eschatological presence existing within it, but not of it. Such an approach, I believe, can lead us to a more fundamental understanding of the phrase ‘Word of God’ than we find operating within the evangelical church today.
Generally it would seem that the evangelical movement deals with this traumatic eschatological kernel lurking within the text by attempting to disipate it in one of two ways,
(1) Either it attempts to do away with the central antagonism by affirming one narrative expression over the others (so that it acts as a master signifier). For example, in the story of Judas all other understandings of Judas and his motives are subservient to the one which describes him as a selfish lover of money
(2) Or it attempts to cover up the antagonism by attempting to create a master interpretation derived from the various available interpretations. Here the various interpretations which are given legitimacy from the text are reconciled together under a larger framework. For example the death of Judas is described both as a suicide in which he hung himself and as divine retribution whereby his stomach bursts open. In this approach the claim is made that the branch upon which Judas hung snapped in such a way that he fell and his stomach burst open
In opposition to this attempt at doing away with the unspeakable kernel (evidenced in popular evangelical literature which speaks of the bible as making up a whole or as a type of orchestral symphony with individual parts that compliment the entire piece) we must attempt to do justice to it. The ‘Word of God’ is neither the one true reading of the story, nor that which emerges from the merging of the various perspectives. The words themselves are not God’s Word, the ink and grammar are not sacred and the phonetic patterns are not divine. Rather the Word of God can be described as that dark core around which the words of the text orbit: the unspeakable antagonism within the text that cannot be reduced to the words. The claim that the bible is the Word of God, whether true or not, makes sense only if it refers to the gaps between the words; or more precisely, the space within the words. The Word of God thus lies within, yet outside, the multitude of words; the words which spring to life because of the unspeakable kernel around which they move, the words which exist only because of the event which exists in excess of them.
In response to those who would claim that the text is whole one must not merely affirm the opposite by saying that the text is partial, incomplete, and multiplicitous but rather draw out how the text itself testifies to an incompleteness within the complete and a multiplicity within the one (analogous to the way one looks at light). The properly theological stance here can thus be affirmed by showing that the narrative is wHole.
26 July 07
OK... it turns out I have to authorise posts now! Just in case any of you start trying to sell me viagra or something. Well all I can say is that it is news to me! Was beginning to think the rapture might of happened with so few comments... but then I remembered that the type of people reading my blog would have been left behind anyway!
Have just authorised a load of comments - THANKS!
You might want to go back to the last post to see them - the comment's on Driscoll are very very good and informative for me as someone on the other side of pond.
Just found out that it has been impossible to post comments on my site for ages! Sorry about this, I am really keen to hear what you think about my last comment(s) so if you wanted to say something please keep it in mind and come back in a couple of days to put it in. I am hoping this will all be sorted ASAP
25 July 07
In the book I am currently writing I am exploring the manner in which many key stories within the Bible possess a built in antagonism that places them into conflict with themselves (due to space I won’t mention any in depth, but the story of Judas presents one such example). There is something going on in these narratives which ensures that the stories are fractured from within, divided narratives which lack completion because of is an unspeakable void within them that cannot be reduced to words. One could describe this void as a stain on the narrative fabric that prevents it from being viewed with clarity, or alternatively as a hole within the narrative whole around which the stories orbit.
Here we witness what Slavoj Zizek might call a type of parallex structure within the narrative. In basic terms a parallex refers to the apparent shift of an object against its background which is caused by a change in the viewers position. Yet, philosophically speaking a parallax shift takes on a greater meaning than simply a different way of perceiving the same object, rather the shift in how you look at an object effects the object itself. A prime example of this in science would concern the makeup of light which, when viewed in one way appears as a series of waves, but which appears as particles when viewed in a different way. In the examples I am exploring in the book we can develop what could be called a theological parallax. A parallex which ensures that no one interpretation of a story reins supreme, nor that various interpretive approaches are blended together to form some kind of interpretive whole, but in which the story itself seems to shift and change depending upon the way one views it. Just as light seems to contain an impentrable core which defies observation (being rendered as wave or particle depending upon the way one looks at it) so these stories appear to point inexorably to a trumatic kernel which they are unable to penetrate. A kernel which prevents the stories from being rendered fully intellegible, a kernel witnessed to by the stories themselves, but in a radically negative way whereby they testify to it via their inability to recognise it.
Here we must reappropraite the common understanding of the term “eschatological”. Eschatology is often taken to refer to the idea that the present is open to a future which is yet to come. Christianity is eschatological in so much as looks forward to a future hope which is not yet here, something which we yearn for, long for, pray and prepare for. Here the eschatological is located in the not-yet of the future. However, within Christianity we find a much more radical view of the eschatological, not as the absence of something which is to come, but rather as the absence which indwells the already-here. Or rather the always to come of that which is already here. In philosophical terms this marks the difference between Kant and Hegel. For Kant there is a distinction between the phenonenal world (which we can speak of) and the numenal realm (which stands outside the phenomenal world and which cannot be grasped). Yet Hegel takes this numenal realm and situates it within the phenomenal world rather than outside of it. Is this not what we see with the concept of the transcendent within Christianity? In Christ the absolute Other of God enters into the mundane world and sets up a tent among us. Here God is neither reduced to the phenominal world nor remains in some external numenal space outside the world but rather ruptures the present with the future, fractues the finite with the infinite, tears through the temporal with the eternal. Here God’s Otherness is no longer to be contemplated as located in some eschatological realm beyond the present order of the world but rather in an eschatological realm which infuses the present realm, rupturing it and placing it into question. Here the razor sharp cut of Christianity is not that which forms a hairline gap between the present world and the world to come, but rather the one which slices through the present world with the spectral presence of a world that is to come. Is this not the divine logic of the incarnation?
In the next post I will outline how I think a parallax theology leads to a different understanding of the term ‘Word of God’
