Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation
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SPEECH AND THEOLOGY God is Infinite, but language finite; thus speech would seem to condemn him to finitude. In speaking of God, would the theologian violate divine transcendence by reducing God to immanence, or choose, rather, to remain silent? At stake in this argument is a core problem of the conditions of divine revelation. How, in terms of language and the limitations of human understanding, can transcendence ever be made known? Does its very appearance not undermine its transcendence, its condition of unknowability? Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation posits that the paradigm for the encounter between the material and the divine, or the immanent and transcen- dent, is found in the Incarnation: God’s voluntary self-immersion in the human world as an expression of his love for his creation. By this key act of grace, hinged upon Christ’s condescension to human finitude, philosophy acquires the means not simply to speak of perfection, which is to speak theologically, but to bridge the gap between word and thing in a general sense. Responding to the works of Augustine, Husserl, and Heidegger through the lens of contemporary French phenomenolo- gists such as Derrida, Levinas, and Marion, Speech and Theology reconsiders the perennial theological challenge of speaking of God, as traditionally reflected by devotional poles of predication and silence and of confession and praise. In the process, it passionately asserts two central truths: first, that God demands the effort of speech – that we are compelled to speak of God because he, in the Incarnation, has first spoken – and, consequently, that theology cannot properly choose silence in the pursuit of worship in view of its urgent need of words to make God visible. From the revolutionary assertion that God’s incarnation is the condition of possibility not only for theological language but for language generally, James K. A. Smith creates a new Christian phenomenology where divine love ultimately functions as the ground for an affirmation of embodiment and materiality, and in which Christ’s bodily endowment of worldly signs with the full reality of his own infinitude signals the basis for an entirely new theology of the arts. James K. A. Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, and the author of The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (2000). RADICAL ORTHODOXY SERIES Edited by John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward Radical orthodoxy combines a sophisticated understanding of contemporary thought, modern and postmodern, with a theological perspective that looks back to the origins of the Church. It is the most talked-about development in contemporary theology. RADICAL ORTHODOXY edited by John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward DIVINE ECONOMY D. Stephen Long TRUTH IN AQUINAS John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock CITIES OF GOD Graham Ward LIBERATION THEOLOGY AFTER THE END OF HISTORY The refusal to cease suffering Daniel M. Bell, Jr. GENEALOGY OF NIHILISM Conor Cunningham SPEECH AND THEOLOGY Language and the logic of incarnation James K. A. Smith SPEECH AND THEOLOGY Language and the logic of incarnation James K. A. Smith London and New York First published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2002 James K. A. Smith All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-99527-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-27695-0 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-27696-9 (pbk) For Mom, who now knows that of which I speak CONTENTS Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xi PART ONE Horizons 1 1 Introduction: how to avoid not speaking 3 The violence of concepts and the possibility of theology 3 Method and the question of justice 4 Phenomenology’s other: the French challenge to phenomenology 7 Towards a new phenomenology 9 2 Phenomenology and transcendence: genealogy of a challenge 16 Transcendence in early phenomenology 16 Three phenomenological reductions: an heuristic 16 First reduction: the possibility of transcendent knowledge in Husserl 20 Second reduction: Heidegger’s critique of Husserl 24 The violence of immanence: the French critique 26 A third reduction to unconditioned givenness 26 The same and the other: Levinas 27 The “Saturated Phenomenon”: Marion’s critique of Husserl 32 Incommensurability and transcendence: the violence of the concept 42 A formalization of the question 42 Phenomenology as respect: Derrida 44 Thinking the concept otherwise: towards an incarnational phenomenology 50 PART TWO Retrieval 65 3 Heidegger’s “new” phenomenology 67 Towards a new phenomenology with the young Heidegger 67 vii CONTENTS Taking Husserl at his word: a phenomenology of the natural attitude 70 Horizons: Husserl’s phenomenological worlds 70 Critique: Heidegger’s factical world 75 Finding words for facticity: formal indication as a “grammar” 82 “Words are lacking”: the demand for new “concepts” 82 A factical grammar: the logic of formal indications 86 Religious experience, the religious phenomenon, and a phenomenology of religion 94 The return of the concept: Destrukting Being and Time 102 4 Praise and confession: how (not) to speak in Augustine 114 Lost for words?: the challenge of speaking for Augustine 114 Between predication and silence: how (not) to speak of God 116 Words and things: the incommensurability of signa and res 116 Use, enjoyment, and reference: Augustine’s phenomenology of idolatry 120 How (not) to speak of God: the icon of praise 127 How (not) to tell a secret: interiority and the strategy of “confession” 134 Interior secrets: on not knowing who we are 134 Silence and secrets: interiority and the problem of communication 136 Confession: the strategy of the interior self 140 PART THREE Trajectories 151 5 Incarnational logic: on God’s refusal to avoid speaking 153 The problem of theology 153 On (not) knowing the Wholly Other: a critique of revelation in Levinas and Marion 157 The appearance of the paradox: revelation in Kierkegaard 161 Analogy and respect: retrieving analogy in a French context 163 The specter of Platonism: reconsidering participation and incarnation 170 Index 183 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Augustine would often quote the Pauline maxim, “What do we have that we have not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7). That never becomes more apparent than in the completion of a work such as this in which I have incurred many debts, of which I can mention only a few here. First, I am grateful to Jack Caputo, for his shepherding hand and encouragement throughout these early stages of my career. His own groundbreaking work has cleared a path which has made this study possible, and his insights have provided important directions for not only this work, but many of my labors. I am also thankful that I can count Jack a friend in addition to a mentor. James McCartney and Anthony Godzieba both read the manuscript in its entirety and offered both helpful criticisms and encouraging support. Robert Dodaro and Tom Martin (re)introduced me to Augustine at a critical phase of my research, for which I am grateful. Jim Olthuis continues to be a treasured mentor and important dialogue partner for me, and Merold Westphal has been a generous source of support, exemplifying the model of a Christian scholar. And John Milbank and Graham Ward, whose work has provoked my own, have provided both encouragement and critical engagement which, I hope, have improved the book. My colleagues and students at Loyola Marymount University aided me in honing these ideas and provided a receptive environment for my work. Thanks especially to Bil Van Otterloo and Shannon Nason for their help with the manuscript in its various stages. I would also like to thank Kenyon Chan, Dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, and Joseph Jabbra, Academic Vice President, for their tangible support of my research, including a Summer Research Grant which enabled me to complete the book. I would also like to thank my new colleagues at Calvin College for welcoming me into the rich heritage of philosophy at Calvin – the heritage which spawned this book. The bulk of this manuscript was penned during our time in the Philadelphia area, where we were blessed to be part of a wonderful church community at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. I would especially like to thank Pastor Ron Billings for his warm encouragement and persistent interest in my work. David and Stephanie Burton, our Youth Pastor and Music Director, have also been sources of inspiration ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and have become cherished friends for us. Our Friday nights together with the “Magnificent Seven” kept me – and Deanna – sane and grounded. My family, my parents and in-laws, have all been a part of this process and project for a number of years. And I couldn’t have done it without them. The book is dedicated to my mother, to whom I owe so much, especially a confidence born of her praise and encouragement. But those who have borne the heaviest load throughout this project have been my own family: my wife, Deanna, and the kids, Grayson, Coleson, Madison, and Jackson.