Some visceral reactions to “analytic theology”

I recently picked up the new volume Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology, edited by Oliver Crisp and Michael Rea and I have to say I am kind of stumped by what exactly the book is all about. As far as I can tell, for Crisp, the proposal of “analytic theology” is basically a plea to contemporary theologians to give analytic philosophy, and in particular, analytic philosophy of religion, another chance. In his essay Crisp fields a number of expected objections to the use of analytic philosophy in theology. He anticipates, for instance, the objection that “‘analytic theology’ might look like a Trojan horse,” an attempt to smuggle into “the citadel of theology potentially destructive alien ideas” (34). In response, Crisp reminds us that theology has always used the best available philosophical insights of the day (e.g., the patristics employed Greek philosophy, Thomas used Aristotle, etc.). Theology, in other words, has always employed philosophy as a “handmaid,” that is, theology has always made some “instrumental use of reason” for explicitly theological ends. Certainly this type of objection will be made, but it certainly strikes me as a strange one, for it seems more than obvious that theology never has nor can it escape or adequately avoid properly philosophical problems.

The real objections most theologians will have with this project will have little to do with the question of the use of reason in the theological task. Instead, it seems to me the objections will stem mostly from visceral reactions depending on how one feels about the current state of analytic philosophy in general and analytic philosophy of religion in particular. Although Crisp does not want to debate the merits or demerits of continental philosophy, this is unfortunately the central issue as far as I’m concerned. Most theologians have no real problems with drawing from philosophy for theological ends, but by and large theologians in recent times it seems have tended to find the “continental approach” to be more amenable to the theological task than the “analytic approach.” For whatever reason, this has been the case. Whether this is on account of the perceived “dry” nature of analytic philosophy or real objections to the starting point and methods of the “analytic approach,” this is just the reality of things.

Crisp tries to unpack a bit of what he thinks to be the “virtues” of the so-called “analytic approach,” but I’m simply not convinced that these virtues are somehow unique to analytic philosophy. Crisp doesn’t say that the named virtues of analytic philosophy, such as, “logical rigor, clarity, and parsimony of expression,” are somehow absent from continental philosophy but this seems to be what in the end is implicitly suggested. Let me just say that I am all ears here–I am open to hearing Crisp out. But, I have to be honest: all I can glean from Crisp’s proposal is the basic suggestion that theologians should actually read Swinburne even though he might be a little more boring than Zizek! Perhaps I am being totally unfair here. For the record, I read Crisp’s book on Christology and if it is any indication of what “analytic theology” is like than I am more than open to exploring the possibilities.

Zizek on capitalism and new age spirituality

I recently acquired Creston Davis’ The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic, which features articles by Slavoj Zizek and John Milbank and contains an introduction by Creston. If you’ve ever read Zizek you know how much he loves to rip into New Age spirituality. Here’s a gem from his article in the volume:

Postcolonial critics like to dismiss Christianity as the “whiteness” of religions: the presupposed zero level of normality, of the “true” religion, with regard to which all other religions are distortions or variations. However, when today’s New Age ideologists insist on the distinction between religion and spirituality (the perceive themselves as spiritual, not part of any organizationed religion), they (often no so) silently impose a “pure” procedure of Zen-like spiritual meditation as the “whiteness” of religion. The idea is that all religions presuppose, rely on, exploit, manipulate, etc., the same core of mystical experience, and that it is only “pure” forms of meditation like Zen Buddhism that exemplify this core directly, bypassing institutional and dogmatic mediations. Spiritual meditation, in its abstraction from institutionalized religion, appears today as the zero-level undistorted core of religion: the complex institutional and dogmatic edifice which sustains every particular religion is dismissed as a contingent secondary coating of this core. The reason for this shift of accent from religious institution to the intimacy of spiritual experience is that such a meditation is the ideological form that best fits today’s global capitalism.

Slavoj Zizek, “The Fear of Four Words: A Modest Plea for the Hegelian Reading of Christianity,” in The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic, ed. Creston Davis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009) 27-28.

On the financial crisis

A couple interesting articles on the current financial crisis: “Welcome to the faith-based economy” by Arjun Appadurai and Slavoj Zizek’s “Don’t Just Do Something, Talk”

Zizek on Democracy Now!

One of the best journalists in the U.S. Amy Goodman recently interviewed the so-called “intellectual rock star” Slavoj Zizek on Iraq, Bush, and the War on Terror. You can watch, listen, or read the transcript of Part I and Part II.

Zizek on Denkverbot

This is sort of a long quote to post, but I thought it was worth posting. Zizek does a good job of articulating the real obstacles revolutionary thought faces today. I think these are also the very obstacles that an articulation of a truly public theology faces in liberal democracies.

Fidelity to the democratic consensus means the acceptance of the present liberal-parliamentary consensus, which precludes any serious questioning of how this liberal-democratic order is complicit in the phenomena it officially condemns and, of course, any serious attempt to imagine a society whose sociopolitical order would be different. In short, it means say and write whatever you want on the condition that what you do does not effectively question or disturb the predominant political consensus. So everything is allowed, solicited even, as a critical topic: the prospects of global ecological catastrophy, violations of human rights, sexism, homophobia, antifeminism, growing violence not only in faraway countries but also in our megalopolises, the gap between the First and the Third World, between the rich and the poor, the shattering impact of the digitalization of our daily lives, and so on. There is nothing easier today than to get international, state, or corporate funds for mulitdisciplinary research into how to fight new forms of ethnic, religious, or sexist violence. The problem is that all this occurs against the background of a fundamental Denkverbot, a prohibition against thinking. Today’s liberal-democratic hegemony is sustained by a kind of unwritten Denkverbot similar to the infamous Berufsverbot in Germany of the late sixties; the moment one shows a minimal sign of engaging in political projects that aim to seriously challenge the existing order, the answer is immediately: “Benevolent as it is, this will necessarily end in a new gulag!” And it is exactly the same thing that the demand for scientific objectivity means; the moment one seriously questions the existing liberal consensus, one is accused of abandoning scientific objectivity for the outdated ideological positions. This is the point that one cannot and should not concede: today, actual freedom of thought must mean the freedom to question the predominant liberal-democratic post-ideological consensus – or it means nothing.

Slavoj Zizek, “A Plea for Leninist Intolerance,” Critical Inquiry 28 (2002) 544-545.

Slavoj Žižek “Resistance is Surrender”

Check out Slavoj Zizek’s latest provocative review of Simon Critchley’s new book in the London Review of Books.  In this article he mounts a scathing critique of various popular anarcho-Leftist movements.