Differences, like instrumental tones, provide us with the recognizable univocity that makes up the melody of the True. p. 106
Badiou shows that Paul presents us with a schema of discourses. In Paul's thought world, both 'Jew' and 'Greek' operate as subjective dispositions or regimes of discourse: ways of thinking and speaking in others words. Jewish discourse is the discourse of the sign, the demand for miracles. On the other hand, the Greek discourse is the discourse of the logos, the demand for wisdom/rhetoric. The Jewish discourse is about election and exception; the Greek one is based on cosmic order and nature.
Paul's profound idea is that Jewish discourse and Greek discourse are the two aspects of the same figure of mastery. For the miraculous exception of the sign is only the 'minus-one', the point of incohernece which the cosmic totality requires in order to sustain itself...the Jew is in exception to the Greek. Neither of the two discourses can be universal, because each supposes the persistence of the other, ...and secondly, that the two discourses share the presupposition that the key to salvation is given to us within the universe, whether it be through the direct mastery of totality (Gk wisdom) or through mastery of the literal tradition and the deciphering of signs (JEwish ritualism and prophetism).
Humanity is riven in two, inevitably, on either conception.
The announcement of the gospel, that word about an event, is made without wisdom or depedence on sign (thought it is not the absolute destruction of either). The event of Christ's resurrection subverts both of these two discourses by not being dependent on either. It is the language of 'naked event', not of proof. Paul does not prove his gospel: he preaches it.
Paul sets up Christian discourse only by distinguising it further from a fourth possibility: the mystical 'discourse of non-discourse'. It is interesting to me that Badiou shows Paul repudiating this apophatic way, given its recent resurgence in those theologians interested in Derrida in particular.
9 comments:
This makes good sense of what Paul says about there being neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free etc. in Christ. (Something Zizek picks up on too, I believe).
The Derrida comment is interesting, seeing as he always distances himself from negative theology, while conceding that his writing looks 'almost indistinguishable' from it.
It is the language of 'naked event', not of proof. Paul does not prove his gospel: he preaches it.
I guess thus it requires a response - even Paul's preaching is a response - but the event of the resurrection returns in the hearing of it.
Well that's spot on. BTW, thanks for putting me on to Badiou, Drew!
Theologians are busy making all sorts of connections with Derrida despite his own protestations, I am afraid.
Neither of the two discourses can be universal, because each supposes the persistence of the other ...
A pregnant little comment.
Michael what you summarised sounded very interesting, but also (partly for the same reasons) too neat and schematic. I take it this guy is more concerned with providing a "reading" of Paul than in getting at "what he's actually saying", if I can make that distinction?
Where does "According to the Scriptures" fit into this schema? How does the covenant corollate with the naked event?
please explain? it is not a non-verbal thing if that's what you mean. It is a declaration inviting a response, following an event. Sounds pretty covenantal to me.
I was wondering about the extent to which the language of 'event' tends to be ahistorical. I agree that it implies covenant but my question is more in reference to a realistic view of history. Badiou seems to be following a subjectivist line or at least highlighting those aspects of Paul much like German Idealism with a Lutheran flavour has for a couple of centuries.(sorry anon)
But if anything is historical, it is the event. A history is thinking about the 'eventness' of an event...
Well not necessarily drew.
If something happens it is temporal and spatial but to be historical is something more.
To be historical an event is an action and/or reaction to other space-time phenomena. More importantly, in Christian terms, it is an aspect of the economy of salvation that is governed by the perfecting work of the Spirit. This means that God has and is working before, during and after to move creation to its goal which is the universal Lordship of Jesus (Eph.1:9&10).
I do not detect from the little we have been shown that Badiou has this kind of scenario in mind. His seems to be much more the "moment of existential crisis.' Though these occur in space and time they cannot be anticipated nor otherwise anchored in the kind of history I have been describing.
To be historical an event is an action and/or reaction to other space-time phenomena
Thanks for fleshing out your thoughts - I'm very much interested in ways of understanding history.
On the above, you still need the 'eventness' to begin with, otherwise it isn't historical - it's some kind of simulacrum, whose replication is historical, but lacks that 'eventness' in the beginning. It's a myth.
On the history of the gospel - the gospel, to my mind, forms a kind of secret history. It cannot be recognised as such in historical events until one has responded to, well more than the event, that is, I guess, one has made the event real in one's own life.
(thinking off the top of me head here...)
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