Many times throughout the book D and G mention that transcendence makes immanence impossible. This means that philosophy is impossible. On page 92, they write, "Perhaps Christianity does not produce concepts except through its atheism, through the atheism that it, more than any other religion, secretes." I don't know exactly what they mean when they say that Christianity secretes atheism, except perhaps that people reject it more. They claim that atheism and the death of God are not problems for the philosopher, and that "It is amazing that so many philosophers still take the death of God as tragic." Atheism is the triumph and the summation of philosophy, it seems.
I take issue with that (shocking!). D and G take for granted that there can be no Christian philosophy because of Christian transcendence, and then write off the Christian philosophers by claiming that they were acting like atheists. This is surely a questionable move. For one thing, there clearly seems to be Christian philosophy, and in fact many great philosophers were either Christians or theists or at least believed in some sort of transcendence. By D and G's definition, do we count out Kierkegaard, Descartes, Pascal, Aquinas, Augustine, Anselm, and even Plantinga? Clearly these people were or are philosophers, and so the problem, I think, lies if not with D and G's definition of philosophy, at least with their presupposition that all good philosophers must be concerned with this world only. If there is a clear instance of a referent that does not fit your definition, it is not the referent that should be explained away but your definition which must be broadened. If Christianity has produced no concepts, then I have no idea what a concept could be.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding or oversimplifying what D and G are trying to say, and maybe, like the debate over conceptual personae as having life, I am being misled by rhetoric. But it is obvious that D and G are waging a war against transcendence. But I would wager that this war has atheism as a presupposition rather than a necessary outcome. I just don’t see the causal link between transcendence and the impossibility of philosophy.
“Religions do not arrive at the concept without denying themselves,” say D and G. I don’t know what they could mean by this except that perhaps when religion deals with concepts it stops being religion and enters the realm of philosophy, but even then I don’t think we should draw an absolute distinction between the two. There are at least concepts which are about religion, aren’t there? Is “God” a concept? Is “transcendence” a concept? What about “grace” as Paul or Luther or Calvin have defined it? Depending on the answers to these questions, we are left with two possibilities: 1) If D and G answer “No,” they are begging the question and excluding religious concepts a priori to fit their definition. This is certainly not fair. 2) If D and G answer “Yes,” then they must admit that religion, if it does not create concepts, at least employs them, which they seem to want to deny. In which case, why are they so eager to cut Christianity out of the picture and trumpet atheism as the jewel on the philosopher’s crown? Surely “God” is the most important concept ever created (if created it was)? Even the atheist’s denial of God, even the death of God, could not exist without this necessary precondition.
Am I just totally missing the mark here?
I think an important point to consider here is the account D and G provide of the relationship between philosophy, the creation of concepts, and the identification/solution of problems.
ReplyDeletePhilosophy entails the creation of concepts. Concepts entail the identification/solution of problems. D and G remark that the death of god is not a problem for non-theological philosophers because the concepts they create won’t aim to diffuse the non-existence of god. The death of god is an unproblematic occurrence, there is no need to create concepts that would preclude this possibility. On the contrary, sustaining the idea that god exists is the aim of christian philosophy; all their concepts insist that god does in fact exist. The problem these concepts purport to solve then, is the non-existence of god, viz. atheism.
Side note: how might D and G characterize death of god?
(1)the deterretorialization of the territory in which the concepts ‘omnipotent agent’, ‘omni-benevolent agent’, ‘omni-present agent’, and ‘being’ cohabitate as a singularity. ‘God’ and ‘being’ are no longer circumscribed within a shared territory.
and
(2) the reterretorialization in which ‘omnipotent agent’, ‘omni-benevolent agent’, ‘omni-present agent’, and ‘non-existence’ emerge as a singularity defining a new territory. ‘God’ and ‘non’-being are now circumscribed within the same territory.
A philosophy is christian to the extent that it posits the existence of a god. Positing the existence of a god is the creation of a philosophical concept to the extent that it identifies and solves a genuine problem. Therefore, a philosophy is christian to the extent that atheism, the non-existence of god, is a genuine problem.
These relations present us with the dilemma: either atheism is a genuine problem, in which case the idea of an existing god confronts a genuine problem and is thus a proper philosophical concept, OR atheism isn’t a genuine problem, in which case the idea of an existing god isn’t a proper concept of philosophy.
When Deluze and Guattari refer to atheism as a problem, they mean to say that religion itself serves at as a kind solution to a world without a transcendent being, a god. A concept of religion then, would not be a concept as Deluze and Guattari would define it. Religion is entirely formed, easily broken by the mere suggestion of it the problem it aims to solve. Further, Christianity “has not yet acquired consistency and depends upon the way in which it is figured or even dissimulated*”(92). Pascal and Kierkegaard’s notions of belief count as proper concepts as it “is connected without being projected.” In other words, it fully explicates the problem, securing exoconsistency, and is internally consistent in its arrangement of concepts which inhabit it. Christianity simply imprints an impresa, a device, a motto, over the top of the problem of atheism without offering a viable solution. To embrace atheism is to accept its consistency and disregard the notion that it is a problem to be solved thereby identifying religion as an improper object for philosophy. In Deluze and Guattari’s terms, Christianity requires a figure, a paradigmatic, vertical, hierarchical, projective, referential guide that allows only for one perspective, and one way in which to think about world. The sciences and arts are different because”they emancipate a particular level so as to make it into new planes of thought on which, as will be seen, the nature of the references and projections change.” In other words, arts and sciences offer windows by which to explore possibilities of viewing the world whereas religion merely cracks the blinds of the attic window.
ReplyDelete*Dissimulation is a form of deception in which one conceals the truth. It consists of concealing the truth, or in the case of half-truths, concealing parts of the truth, like inconvenient or secret information.
Thanks for the help guys, I really am just trying to understand what they're saying. A few things though:
ReplyDelete1) What do we mean by "problem" here? Why would atheism NOT be a problem? This is merely asserted, and they show no familiarity with theistic arguments for the problems inherent in atheism.
2) "Religion is entirely formed, easily broken by the mere suggestion of it the problem it aims to solve." What does this mean? If it means that Christianity crumbles at the mention of atheism, this is demonstrably and outrageously false. In fact, as we know, the predicted death of Christianity by the atheist philosophers of previous generations has not occurred. Instead, Christianity has seen an amazing comeback as a defensible, rational philosophical system and shows no sign of slowing down.
3) "Christianity simply imprints an impresa, a device, a motto, over the top of the problem of atheism without offering a viable solution." What in the world could be meant by this? What is this impresa or motto they're talking about? It makes me think they aren't familiar with sophisticated Christian theology or philosophy at all...
But where I think the biggest misconception occurs is in the idea that Christianity provides no basis for viewing the world, or that all Christian philosophy deals strictly and formally with God's existence. Rather, much Christian philosophy offers God as a presuppositional framework from which to view and evaluate the world, and asserts that the world looks better and makes more sense (or even only makes sense) from that framework.
Because of this, we take Christianity not as the one answer to the universe's questions, but the light by which we look through the windows.
And what about my actual arguments?
1) There seem to be many people who we know to have been Christian philosophers. How does this fit D and G's definition?
2) Why exactly does transcendence negate philosophy?
3) What about the two questions at the end? Which one is it?
I'll jump into this discussion to make just one point of clarification: "believing in God/being a Christian" is not necessarily or logically incompatible with a philosophy of immanence. (See: Spinoza)
ReplyDeleteThe conception of God as "transcendent" is but one conception of God, which (as Ben points out above) creates-- and subsequently "solves"-- its own kinds of problems.
It may be compatible with belief in God, but not with being a Christian. God's independence from the universe is an essential Christian doctrine that can't be reconciled with any kind of Spinozism.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's exactly my question: if it creates and solves its own problems, as you say, what is it about this conception of God exactly that negates philosophy? Is it just that it takes it outside the realm of discourse that D and G want to talk about?
This is mostly a response to Charlotte and the whole part of the Conversation of religion solving it's own problems.
ReplyDeleteIf creating and solving its own problems is a problem, then we would have to throw out Existentialism. After all existentialism is a philosophy built on an unproven idea of free will, and it uses this assumption of freewill to answer all of it problems or objections to it. It does the same thing as Christianity. If i remember correctly Sartre would often say we know there is no God because we have freewill. They circularly run around to prove freewill based on these assumption.
In addition that belief in God, or at least a christian God, is a metaphysical concept that also attempts to solve ethical and metaphysical questions. It is no different than existentialism. I may be misconstruing existentialism. But from my understanding everything in existentialism is based of an assumption of freewill and does everything it can to prove it exists. Take Dostoevsky, who argued that if we had a fate we would do everything we could to go against it. In reality if we were destined, that wouldn't matter. It creates its own concepts and runs around to solve them. It does the same thing with determinism that Religion does with a God. Existentialism also runs around in internal circles.
Once again i may be misconstruing thing, or misunderstanding the conversation, but I think Existentialism would fall into the same problems Charlotte points out.