Giving Beyond the Gift

Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Religious, Judaism
Cover of the book Giving Beyond the Gift by Elliot R. Wolfson, Fordham University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Elliot R. Wolfson ISBN: 9780823255726
Publisher: Fordham University Press Publication: February 3, 2014
Imprint: Fordham University Press Language: English
Author: Elliot R. Wolfson
ISBN: 9780823255726
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication: February 3, 2014
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Language: English

This book explores the co-dependency of monotheism and idolatry by examining the thought of several prominent twentieth-century Jewish philosophers—Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas. While all of these thinkers were keenly aware of the pitfalls of scriptural theism, to differing degrees they each succumbed to the temptation to personify transcendence, even as they tried either to circumvent or to restrain it by apophatically purging kataphatic descriptions of the deity. Derrida and Wyschogrod, by contrast, carried the project of denegation one step further, embarking on a path that culminated in the aporetic suspension of belief and the consequent removal of all images from God, a move that seriously compromises the viability of devotional piety.

The inquiry into apophasis, transcendence, and immanence in these Jewish thinkers is symptomatic of a larger question. Recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition to construct a viable postmodern negative theology, a religion without religion, are not radical enough. Not only are these philosophies of transcendence guilty of a turn to theology that defies the phenomenological presupposition of an immanent phenomenality, but they fall short on their own terms, inasmuch as they persist in employing metaphorical language that personalizes transcendence and thereby runs the risk of undermining the irreducible alterity and invisibility attributed to the transcendent other.

The logic of apophasis, if permitted to run its course fully, would exceed the need to posit some form of transcendence that is not ultimately a facet of immanence. Apophatic theologies, accordingly, must be supplanted by a more far-reaching apophasis that surpasses the theolatrous impulse lying coiled at the crux of theism, an apophasis of apophasis, based on accepting an absolute nothingness—to be distinguished from the nothingness of an absolute—that does not signify the unknowable One but rather the manifold that is the pleromatic abyss at being’s core. Hence, the much-celebrated metaphor of the gift must give way to the more neutral and less theologically charged notion of an unconditional givenness in which the distinction between giver and given collapses. To think givenness in its most elemental, phenomenological sense is to allow the apparent to appear as given without presuming a causal agency that would turn that given into a gift.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This book explores the co-dependency of monotheism and idolatry by examining the thought of several prominent twentieth-century Jewish philosophers—Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas. While all of these thinkers were keenly aware of the pitfalls of scriptural theism, to differing degrees they each succumbed to the temptation to personify transcendence, even as they tried either to circumvent or to restrain it by apophatically purging kataphatic descriptions of the deity. Derrida and Wyschogrod, by contrast, carried the project of denegation one step further, embarking on a path that culminated in the aporetic suspension of belief and the consequent removal of all images from God, a move that seriously compromises the viability of devotional piety.

The inquiry into apophasis, transcendence, and immanence in these Jewish thinkers is symptomatic of a larger question. Recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition to construct a viable postmodern negative theology, a religion without religion, are not radical enough. Not only are these philosophies of transcendence guilty of a turn to theology that defies the phenomenological presupposition of an immanent phenomenality, but they fall short on their own terms, inasmuch as they persist in employing metaphorical language that personalizes transcendence and thereby runs the risk of undermining the irreducible alterity and invisibility attributed to the transcendent other.

The logic of apophasis, if permitted to run its course fully, would exceed the need to posit some form of transcendence that is not ultimately a facet of immanence. Apophatic theologies, accordingly, must be supplanted by a more far-reaching apophasis that surpasses the theolatrous impulse lying coiled at the crux of theism, an apophasis of apophasis, based on accepting an absolute nothingness—to be distinguished from the nothingness of an absolute—that does not signify the unknowable One but rather the manifold that is the pleromatic abyss at being’s core. Hence, the much-celebrated metaphor of the gift must give way to the more neutral and less theologically charged notion of an unconditional givenness in which the distinction between giver and given collapses. To think givenness in its most elemental, phenomenological sense is to allow the apparent to appear as given without presuming a causal agency that would turn that given into a gift.

More books from Fordham University Press

Cover of the book Ordinary Oblivion and the Self Unmoored by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Technicians of Human Dignity by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book The Reject by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Figures of a Changing World by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Bruno Latour in Pieces by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Imagine No Religion by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book The Unconstructable Earth by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Toward a Theology of Eros by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Roman Catholicism in the United States by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Of Elephants and Toothaches by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book In Dante's Wake by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book The House of Early Sorrows by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Redemptive Hope by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Gettysburg Religion by Elliot R. Wolfson
Cover of the book Mental Language by Elliot R. Wolfson
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy