Slow down

“The singular and irreducible role of philosophy is to establish a fixed point within discourse, a point of interruption, a point of discontinuity, an unconditional point. Our world is marked by its speed: the speed of historical change; the speed of technical change; the speed of communications; of transmissions; and even the speed with which human beings establish connections with one another.... Philosophy must propose a retardation process. It must construct a time for thought, which, in the face of the injunction to speed, will constitute a time of its own. I consider this a singularity of philosophy; that its thinking is leisurely, because today revolt requires leisureliness and not speed. This thinking, slow and consequently rebellious, is alone capable of establishing the fixed point...”

—Alain Badiou, Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 38.

St Paul and philosophy in Vancouver

The most exciting and most événementiel theological conference of the year – “Saint Paul’s Journeys into Philosophy,” 4-6 June 2008 – now has its website up and running, and it’s open for registrations (early bird until 15 April). Here’s a note from the organiser, Doug Harink:

Join us for a conference which explores the critical appropriations of Saint Paul by recent and contemporary Continental philosophers, including Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jacob Taubes, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj Žižek, and others. An international group of philosophers, theologians, biblical scholars and literary theorists will present papers on a wide range of themes arising from this recent philosophical appropriation of Saint Paul. Plenary speakers include Stephen Fowl, Paul Griffiths, Travis Kroeker and J. Louis Martyn. There will also be presentations by Creston Davis, Neil Elliott, Paul Gooch, Douglas Harink, Chris Huebner, Mark Reasoner, Jeffrey Robbins, Gordon Zerbe, Jens Zimmerman and others. To register, or to get travel and accommodation information, visit the website or email Doug Harink.

So don’t be an animal, be a subject – be there for the event!

Conference announcement: Saint Paul's Journeys into Philosophy

The brilliant Canadian theologian Douglas Harink is organising what promises to be a superb conference on “Saint Paul’s Journeys into Philosophy.” The conference will be held at the Vancouver School of Theology on the campus of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 4-6 June 2008. Speakers will include Stephen E. Fowl, Paul J. Griffiths, J. Louis Martyn, P. Travis Kroeker, Douglas Harink, Chris K. Huebner, Mark Reasoner, Gordon Zerbe, Jens Zimmerman, and others.

Proposals are invited for papers that address aspects of the appropriation of the work of the apostle Paul by recent philosophy, in particular by Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Jacob Taubes and Slavoj Žižek, as well as their precursors, such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. Papers may address the subject from the perspectives of biblical studies, philosophy, political theory and theology.

Proposals must be no longer than 300 words, accompanied by the proposer’s name and institutional affiliation. All proposals are due by 15 January 2008, and should be emailed to Doug Harink. You can also contact Doug for details about registration and accommodation in Vancouver.

This definitely looks like it will be one of the best and most important theological conferences of 2008.

Two things

Two things worth reading: Aric discusses the evil of theological slogans, and Jason talks about Barth and Badiou. If you’ve never read Badiou’s Ethics or Saint Paul, then you should drop everything and read them right away!

Alain Badiou and the truth of the Christian legacy

“In terms of recent theory, … the insistence on the superiority of Christianity (a very Hegelian claim) is peculiar to Badiou and Slavoj Žižek. Such a position clearly flies in the face of liberal pluralism; either you accept the truth that can be extracted from the Christian legacy, or you are wrong…. The doyens of difference start to hear alarm bells at this point. In my view Badiou’s defense of this argument is unassailable: what is at stake in reclaiming the truth of the Christian legacy is the very status of the universal itself; it is not a question of asserting the superiority of a closed coterie of true believers, for the Christian claim is precisely what challenges the closed community.”
—Liam A. O’Donnell, “St. Paul: Apostle, Militant, Communist,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 2:1-2 (2006), p. 347.

“The fundamental question is that of knowing precisely what it means for there to be a single God…. Here Paul confronts – but also renews the terms of – the formidable question of the One. His genuinely revolutionary conviction is that the sign of the One is the ‘for all’, or the ‘without exception’. That there is but a single God must be understood not as a philosophical speculation concerning substance or the supreme being, but on the basis of a structure of address. The One is that which inscribes no difference in the subjects to which it addresses itself. The One is only insofar as it is for all…. Monotheism can be understood only by taking into consideration the whole of humanity. Unless addressed to all, the One crumbles and disappears.”
—Alain Badiou, Saint Paul (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 76.

St Paul's journeys into philosophy

When Paul looked back on all his prior privileges and achievements, he could only exclaim: “I’ve lost all that now, like worthless shit, in order to gain Christ!” (Phil. 3:8).

Occasionally, one has moments like that in thought – when everything you had ever learned or known suddenly appears like mere “shit” (σκύβαλα) in the light of some new discovery, some unexpected gift or insight. That’s how I felt when, years ago, I first read Calvin; and I felt that way again when, a few years later, I picked up a dusty old book by someone named Karl Barth (it was his explosive early collection, The Word of God and the Word of Man). Suddenly and unexpectedly, everything I’d ever known was placed under judgment. As Bob Dylan puts it, “I got new eyes, everything looks far away.”

And I must admit, I felt a similar sense of shock and disruption and alienation – in a word, a profoundly disturbing awareness of theological σκύβαλα – when I recently read Alain Badiou’s astonishing little book on Saint Paul. My brain is completely submerged in Badiou’s works at the moment, and I’ll no doubt be posting more on him in future.

But for the time being, I was delighted to hear that Doug Harink – author of the brilliant study, Paul among the Postliberals – is organising a conference to explore the theological significance of the new readings of Paul by contemporary philosophers (e.g. Agamben, Badiou, Žižek) – and of Paul’s “readings” of them! The conference will be entitled “St Paul’s Journeys into Philosophy: Contemporary Engagements,” and it will be held in Vancouver, 4-6 June 2008.

Theology with Alain Badiou

At the moment, I’m using every spare moment to read the philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou – and they’re blowing my mind.

I really wish I had read Badiou sooner. His little book on Saint Paul is an astonishing tour de force – an atheist reading of Paul which is far more profound (and far more theological) than most recent theology!

In particular, I’m wondering whether Badiou’s conceptions of “the event” and of “universal singularity” might provide a useful way of understanding Jesus’ resurrection. Is anyone else out there interested in Badiou at the moment? And does anyone know of any contemporary theological work which engages with his thought (apart from Milbank)?

Anyway, here’s a quote from Saint Paul – a critique (spot on, in my view) of the concept of “mediation”:

“With Paul, we notice a complete absence of the theme of mediation. Christ is not a mediation; he is not that through which we know God. Jesus Christ is the pure event, and as such is not a function, even were it to be a function of knowledge, or revelation…. Christ is a coming; he is what interrupts the previous regime of discourses. Christ is, in himself and for himself, what happens to us. And what is it that happens to us thus? We are relieved of the law. But the idea of mediation remains legal…. [This idea is] a muted negation of evental radicality” (pp. 48-49).