supposed god is thereor consensus based on the a priori assumption that God cannot Be,
from Mark C. Taylor to Kearney and Caputo.^21 Despite some points
of internal discussion concerning Taylor’s a/theology, Caputo’s radical
or even more radical hermeneutics, and Kearney’s suggestion that
God who Is not, still “may be,” their theories are based on the same
formal argument, which in fact is rather simple: God cannot possibly
exist, since the concept of God is so different from the conceptual
definition of other beings, that God cannot be a being among beings.
The suggested alternatives span from a sceptic a/theology to the
confession of a God beyond Being, emphasizing spatially the beyond and
temporally the possible (in spite of its impossibility) as the origin and
telos of religious discourse.^22
Rhetorically, these definitions of God have much in common with
Derrida’s texts from the 1980s and 1990s, at least as long as “rhetoric”
is defined as a question of form (Husserl again), of strategies, of
different ways of expression. They all refer to God as the Other, as
possibility beyond the impossible; qualify God as Good beyond
Goodness, etc. Hence, they intend to leave the questions of onto-
theology behind and finally move beyond the closed history of
metaphysics. But that history has not been closed by an act of will and
will neither be closed by a particular rhetoric, nor by omitting the
wrong words. The right words have already betrayed the speaker, since
the expectance of the Other in Beyond and In Coming presuppose that
there is a God — after all. Moreover, this Other is a very precise Other,
confined by limits of goodness and weakness (passive and powerless)
and conforming to the ideals of liberal left-wing politics. He (or She)
is, in short, a prior I, the I every philosopher with a good heart would
like to be and/or could imagine to define a priori as a Good heavenly
Father (or Mother). Moreover, there is a strong fascination for and
influence by negative theology and the mystics — e.g. Dionysius,
Angelus Silesius, Meister Eckhart — and Kierkegaard!
- Cf. Richard Kearney, God Who May Be, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 2001; John D. Caputo, Radical Hermeneutics, Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987; Idem, More Radical Hermeneutics,
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000; Mark C. Taylor,
Erring: A Postmodern A/theology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. - Cf. Kearney, God Who May Be, 3–4.