Jean-Luc Nancy and the Deconstruction of Christianity by Tenzan Eaghll A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto ©Copyright by Tenzan Eaghll 2016 Jean-Luc Nancy and the Deconstruction of Christianity Tenzan Eaghll Doctor of Philosophy Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto 2016 Abstract This dissertation is a study of the origins and development of the French philosopher Jean- Luc Nancy’s work on the “deconstruction of Christianity.” By situating Nancy's work in light of the broader Continental philosophical analysis of religion in the 20th Century, it argues that what Nancy calls the "deconstruction of Christianity" and the "exit from religion" is his unique intervention into the problem of metaphysical nihilism in Western thought. The author explains that Nancy’s work on religion does not provide a new “theory” for the study of religion or Christianity, but shows how Western metaphysical foundations are caught up in a process of decomposition that has been brought about by Christianity. For Nancy, the only way out of nihilism is to think of the world as an infinite opening unto itself, for this dis- encloses any transcendent principle of value or immanent notion of meaninglessness in the finite spacing of sense, and he finds the resources to think this opening within Christianity. By reading Christian notions like "God" and "creation ex nihilo" along deconstructive lines and connecting them with the rise and fall of this civilization that once called itself "Christendom," he attempts to expose "the sense of an absenting" that is both the condition of possibility for the West and what precedes, succeeds, and exceeds it. ii Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Abbreviations vi Introduction 0.1 - What is the Deconstruction of Christianity? 1 0.2 - The Scholarly and Philosophical Context of the Present study 3 0.3 - Nancy's Intellectual Context and Development 8 0.4 - What Follows 18 Chapter 1: Between Heidegger and Nancy: Deconstructing the Metaphysics of Religion 1.1 - Introduction 22 1.2 - Heidegger 1.2.1 - Influences and Divergences 23 1.2.2 - Religion 33 1.2.3 - Christianity 40 1.3 - Between Heidegger and Nancy 49 1.3.1 - From Being to Being-With 50 1.3.2 - From Disclosure to Exposure (or, Creation ex nihilo) 60 1.3.3 - From the Nazi Myth to Myth Interrupted 64 1.4 - Nancy 1.4.1 - From Destruktion to the "Judeo-Christian" 76 1.4.2 - Towards an Inoperative Faith 83 1.5 - Conclusion 92 Chapter 2: Between Bataille and Nancy: Overcoming Religion with Atheology 2.1 - Introduction 94 2.2 - Bataille 2.2.1 - Influences and Divergences 95 2.2.2 - Religion 101 2.2.3 - Christianity 109 iii 2.3 - Between Bataille and Nancy 2.3.1 - From Atheological Community to Atheological Abandonment 117 2.4 - Nancy: Towards an Unsacrificable Sovereignty 132 2.4.1 - Sovereignty 133 2.4.2 - Sacrifice 136 2.4.3 - Unsacrificable Christianity 141 2.5 - Conclusion 146 Chapter 3: Between Derrida and Nancy: Deconstructing Religion with Christianity 3.1 - Introduction 148 3.2 - Derrida 3.2.1 - Influences and Divergences 150 3.2.2 - Religion 163 3.2.3 - Christianity 174 3.2.4 - The Future of Religion/Christianity 179 3.3 - Between Derrida and Nancy 3.1. From Technē to Touch 185 3.4 - Nancy 3.4.1 - From Incarnation to Areality 199 3.4.2 - From Resurrection to Retreat 206 3.4.3 - Adoration and Salut: Bringing Derrida and Nancy Back Together Again 214 3.5 - Coda 219 Chapter 4: Nancy’s Atheological “History” of the West 4.1 - Introduction 223 4.2 - The Flight of the Gods and the Entry into Signification 228 4.3 - Polytheism, Monotheism, Atheism, and the Closure of Nihilism 236 4.4 - Christianity and the Atheizing of God 4.4.1 - The Emergence of Christianity 242 4.4.2 - Christian Theism as the Embodiment of this Atheologizing of God 247 4.4.3 - Philosophy as the Continuation of this Atheology 250 4.4.4 - What Remains of Christianity 254 iv 4.5. From Globalization to Creation ex nihilo 257 4.6 -. Conclusion 263 Conclusion 5.1 -Summary of findings and the importance of the present study 265 Bibliography 272 v Abbreviations Nancy A Adoration, The Deconstruction of Christianity II. Translated by John McKeane. New York: Fordham University Press 2013. Orig. L'Adoration, Déconstruction du christianisme, 2. Paris: Galilée, 2010. BP The Birth to Presence. Trans. Brian Holmes et al. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. BSP Being Singular Plural. Trans. Anne E. O'Byrne and Robert D. Richardson. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Orig. Être singulier pluriel (Paris: Galilée, 1996). C Corpus. Trans. Richard Rand. New York: Fordham University . Press, 2008. Orig. Corpus (Paris: Metailie, 1992; augmented ed.2000). CW The Creation of the World, or Globalization. Trans. François Raffoul and David Pettigrew. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. Orig. La création du monde ou la mondialisation (Paris: Galilée, 2002). D Dis-enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity. Trans. Bettina Bergo, Gabriel Malenfant, and Michael B. Smith. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007. Orig. La déclosion: Déconstruction du christianisme I (Paris: Galilée, 2005). EF The Experience of Freedom. Trans. Bridget McDonald. Foreword by Peter Fenves. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Orig. L’expérience de la liberté (Paris: Galilée, 1988). FT A Finite Thinking. Ed. Simon Sparks. Trans. Simon Sparks et al. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. GI The Ground of the Image. Trans. Jeff Fort. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005. Orig. Au fond des images (Paris: Galilée, 2003) and Visitation (de la peinture chretienne) (Paris: Galilée, 2001). GT The Gravity of Thought. Trans. Francois Raffoul and Gregory Recco. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1997; 2nd ed., 1999. H Hegel: The Restlessness of the Negative. Trans. Jason Smith and Steven Miller. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Orig. Hegel: Linquiétude du négatif ' (Paris: Hachette, 1997). IC The Inoperative Community. Trans. Peter Connor. Foreword by Christopher Fynsk. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990. Orig. La communauté desoeuvrée (Paris: Bourgois 1983; 2nd, augmented ed., 1990). NM "The Nazi Myth." With Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. Trans. Brian Holmes. Critical Inquiry 16, no. 2: 291-312. Orig. Le mythe nazi (La Tour d'Aigues: L'aube, 1991; 2005). NMT Noli me tangere: On the Raising of the Body. Trans. Sarah Clift, Pascale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Orig. Noli me tangere: Essai sur la levée du corps (Paris: Bayard, 2003) and Au ciel et sur la terre (Paris: Bayard, 2004) . SV "Sharing Voices." Trans. Gayle L. Ormiston. In Transforming the Hermeneutic Context: From Nietzsche to Nancy, ed. Gayle L. Ormiston and vi Alan Schrift, 211–59. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. Orig. Le partage des voix (Paris: Galilée, 1982). SW The Sense of the World. Trans, with a Foreword by Jeffrey S. Librett. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Orig. Le sens du monde (Paris: Galilée, 1993). Heidegger PRL The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Translated by Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010. Orig. Gesamtausgabe, volume 60: Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens, edited by Matthias Jung, Thomas Regehly, and Claudius Strube (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995). Bataille TR Theory of Religion. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Zone Books, 1992. Orig. Theorie de La Religion 1973 Paris: Gallimard, 1973. Derrida OT On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy. Translated By Christine Irizarry. California: Stanford University Press, 2005. Orig. Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy (Paris: Galilée, 2000). FK “Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of "Religion" at the Limits of Reason Alone.” In Acts of Religion. Edited by Gil Anidjar and translated by Samuel Weber. New York: Routledge, 2002. Orig. "Foi et savoir: Les deux sources d e la 'religion' aux limites de la simple raison." La religion. Sous la direction de Jacques Derrida et Gianni Vattimo. Paris: Seuil, 1996. All Bible passages quoted from NRSV: The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books(NRSV). Edited by Attridge, Harold W. New York: HarperCollins, 1989. vii viii Introduction 0.1 - What is the Deconstruction of Christianity? What the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy has announced as the "deconstruction of Christianity" is a study of how Western religious and philosophical foundations are caught up in a process of decomposition that has been brought about by Christianity. In his vast body of works that span over forty years and numerous topics, Nancy, professor of philosophy at the Université de Strasbourg, and one of the leading intellectuals in France today, has argued that Christianity has provided the "exit from religion" (A 49). In this dissertation, we will unpack the meaning and implications of this "deconstruction of Christianity" by situating Nancy's work in light of the broader Continental philosophical analysis of religion in the 20th Century. It will be argued that Nancy's work has nothing to do with destroying Christianity or religion, but rather with furthering the broader deconstruction of metaphysics that philosophers like Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille, and Jacques Derrida have taken up in the past. For all of these thinkers, metaphysics is that branch of philosophy that involves the question of "first principles," such as being, God, substance, time, and identity, and they suggest that it is important to disassemble and unravel these first principles in order to open the world beyond theological, rational, political, economic, and technological enclosure. For these thinkers, metaphysical assumptions are nihilistic because they reduce the heterogeneity of existence to homogenous paradigms and principles that have no foundation in the world, and they limit the infinite value of each and every human relationship to a logic of equivalence that governs everything from doctrines of salvation to capitalist models of exchange.