marius timmann mjaaland
Despite several similarities with Maître Jacques, two aspects of his
reflections are remarkably absent in the American discourse. One is
the formalization of the problem, the abstract reflection on different
possibilities and thus the destabilization of one’s own position. There
is thus a coincidence between the strong a priori I defined in terms of
intensive infinity, and the rhetorical I defining a prior I in the image of
God, and I cannot imagine that it is entirely coincidental. No wonder,
therefore, that e.g. Richard Kearney complains about an alterity which
is too strong, since the principal reflection on a strong alterity interferes
with and disturbs his argument for an incarnate God who “may be.”^23
Derrida’s alterity is not strong, but neither is it stable or predictable.
And this instability disturbs Kearney and Caputo, not primarily their
concept of God, but their concept of human Self. That is where we
find the blind I of their hermeneutic procedure. But if the formal and
principal aspects of that alterity were to be pursued rigorously, the
consensus would fracture from within.
The second aspect which seems to be overlooked is the spacing of the
discourse, notably as analyzed in Derrida’s text on Khora in Plato’s
Timaeus, but recurring in a series of other texts on language and
negativity, e.g. “How to Avoid Speaking?” The spacing of the discourse
establishes an attempt to reflect upon the “third term” in philosophy,
neither mythos nor logos, neither Being nor Non-being, neither
cosmos nor chaos, which eludes temporal definition and therefore
opens up a space for thinking otherwise, even on that which is not
graspable: God, Totality, Origin — and of Oneself (facing death).
Ambiguities
In Derrida’s texts, the question of God never comes to rest, thus a
return to the scission between polemics on the one hand and possible
repetitions of the Name on the other, will open the text for a third
reading, based on an interior dis-sense and a dissension.^24 Derrida does
in fact not only criticize the reference to God’s existence (as ousia and
parousia), but also the argument against God’s existence. Thus he seeks
- Kearney, God Who May Be, 76–77.
- Cf. Derrida, Writing and Difference, 38.