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EUCHARIST AS the GIFT of POLITICAL LANGUAGE by Jason EUCHARIST AS THE GIFT OF POLITICAL LANGUAGE By Jason M. Smith Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Religion August 10, 2018 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Bruce Morrill, S.J., Ph.D. Paul DeHart, Ph.D. Ellen Armour, Ph.D. William Franke, Ph.D. Kimberly Hope Belcher, Ph.D. Copyright © 2018 by Jason Michael Smith All Rights Reserved ii For my parents and for Rachel, who taught me to speak, in their own way. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have many people to thank for the innumerable gifts they have given me, gifts without which this project would have never been completed. First, to the members of my dissertation committee I extend my thanks for their aid during this process. To my advisor Bruce Morrill for his friendship and extensive comments on this manuscript I give my heartfelt thanks. Thanks must be given also to Paul DeHart and Ellen Armour who have been my teachers since the Masters level, and who have in their own way influenced this project at its roots. Finally, I thank my outside readers, William Franke and Kimberley Hope Belcher, for their influence on this work through their scholarship and correspondence. My path to this degree has been lined by a vast number of kind people, the whole of which I have no space to thank here. I would like to specifically mention a few of those who have been central from my early days as a Hebrew Bible student to today. I would like to thank Richard Eliot Friedman at the University of Georgia for first setting me on this path through the study of Biblical Hebrew. I would like to thank members of the Theology Faculty at Vanderbilt University and Dr. Jimmy Byrd for allowing me to change my emphasis from Hebrew Bible to Theological Studies when I was admitted solely to the former program as a Masters student. I would like to thank my doctoral colleagues at Vanderbilt University for their friendship and conversation. I am particularly grateful to Andrew Krinks and Peter Capretto for their support and insight throughout the composition of this project. I am also especially grateful to the members of the Theological Studies colloquium who aided me in slowly refining the insights that drive the arguments to follow, particularly Lauren Smelser-White, Dorothy Dean, Chris Corbin, Amaryah Jones-Armstrong, Hillary Jerome Scarsella, and Zachary Settle. iv I also owe a great debt to the members of the “Emerging Critical Resources for Liturgical Studies” seminar at the North American Academy of Liturgy for their comments on portions of this manuscript. Particularly, I thank Kristine Suna-Koro, who convened the seminar, Gerald Liu, who took the time to craft an extended response to the submitted portions, and the members in attendance that offered their expert recommendations on means to improving my argument— Sarah K. Johnson, Gabriel Pivarnik, Rebecca Spurrier, and Layla Karst. Finally, I would like to thank those who have made my life beyond scholarship possible. First, I would like to thank the staff of Crieve Hall Church of Christ Preschool whose generous and gentle care of my daughter allowed me my daily work. Second, I would like to thank my mother-in-law Kathy Newsome who came to my rescue on more than one occasion when deadlines (and much of my sanity) were at stake. Third, I would like to thank my parents for their love and support throughout each degree. Their unfailing faith in my ability and sacrifice on my behalf are gifts I can never hope to repay. Finally, I am grateful beyond words to my wife, Rachel, for her unceasing support of my work at every possible level. She has helped me find my voice so many times and in so many ways. Without her, my life is unthinkable and the success of this project along with it. On the day I was informed I passed my qualifying exams, my daughter, Amelia, was born. She will be two years old at the time of its completion. This project began with the most profound gift my wife and I have ever received, and it will end after teaching my daughter to speak. The words to follow appear utterly paltry in comparison to what she has taught me in this time. Thanks be to God. Jason M. Smith Palm Sunday, 2018 v TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter Page I. Sacramentality and the Gift of Postmodernity ........................................................................... 11 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 11 The Unknowable God: Kant’s Critique of Metaphysics ..................................................... 13 The God of Being: Heidegger and the Problem of Onto-theo-logy .................................... 18 Marcel Mauss: The Beginning of a New Theory ................................................................ 25 Jacques Derrida: The Impossible Gift ................................................................................. 29 Derrida on Language: This is the Writing of God for the People of God ........................... 36 The Other to Come: Derrida on Apophaticism and Politics ............................................... 40 Conclusion: The Sacramental Horizon ............................................................................... 44 II. Chauvet on Gift and Language: Overcoming Metaphysics as a Sacramental Project .............. 48 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 48 After Ontotheology: The Humanity of the Triune God ...................................................... 51 The Conversation We Are: Chauvet on Language, Symbol, and the Sacraments .............. 57 Chauvet’s Philosophical Outlook: Heidegger and the Shadow of the Cross ...................... 63 Back to the Body: Language and the Symbolic Order ........................................................ 71 Chauvet on the Gift: Symbolic Exchange ........................................................................... 84 III. Chauvet on the Eucharist: The Politics of the Presence of Absence ..................................... 100 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 100 The Ontological Scandal of the Eucharist ......................................................................... 104 The Political Scandal of the Eucharist .............................................................................. 135 IV. Milbank on Gift and Language: The Sacramental Against the Secular ................................ 148 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 148 Milbank and Vico: The Roots of Milbank’s Doctrine of God .......................................... 151 Ontological Violence: Milbank’s Meta-critical Rescue Mission ...................................... 157 Heidegger made Strange: Theology beyond the Homology of Attitude .......................... 176 Milbank on Language ....................................................................................................... 187 Milbank on Gift ................................................................................................................. 193 Conclusion: A Trinitarian Ontology ................................................................................. 202 V. Milbank on the Eucharist: Socialism Made Strange .............................................................. 204 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 204 The Ontological Scandal of the Eucharist ......................................................................... 206 The Political Scandal of the Eucharist .............................................................................. 228 vi Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 266 VI. Eucharist as the Gift of Political Language .......................................................................... 269 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 269 Eucharist as the Gift .......................................................................................................... 275 Eucharist as the Gift of Language ..................................................................................... 284 Eucharist as the Gift of Political Language ...................................................................... 294 Conclusion: An Apophatic, Sacramental, Political Theology? ......................................... 306 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 308 vii INTRODUCTION SACRAMENTALITY, GIFT, AND LANGUAGE At the chaotic height of the 2016 election campaign several articles appeared in prominent
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