Reexamining Deconstruction and Determinate Religion: Toward a Religion <i>with</i> Religion

Reply 1. Thinking More Positively...and Indeed Why Not? — A Response to Stephen Minister

113 Chapter2,Reply1 Thinking More Positively. . . and Indeed Why Not? —A Response to Stephen Minister JeffreyHanson tephen Minister’s incisive engagement exposes with devastating force the weaknesses of John Caputo’s weak theology and ethics. My response to his critique will largely echo the fundamentals of his concerns while offering complementary considerations . First I take it that Minister is incontestably correct to regard Caputo’s project as just another form of theological and ethical reasoning , not a true alternative to the necessity of theological and ethical reasoning, which in turn entail difficulties that can neither be foregone nor consigned to die the death of a thousand qualifications. Equally indisputable is the concession that no one knows for sure what we are talking about when we talk about religion—though I prefer to limit this concession to talk about God more than talk about religion, and in either event, this concession can be cheerfully made without elevating it to the level of constitutive principle, as Caputo and his mentor Derrida do. Minister is right, too, to point out that “we all have theological and ethical positions, which is to say that our lives and actions express beliefs about God and ethical values,” though he does not spell out the important point that undergirds this S 114 Jeffrey Hanson assertion: such issues cannot be a matter of indifference; we can make all the hesitations and qualifications we like, but at some point we have to live out and live with our choice. Similarly I echo the recognition that our religious conceptuality and vocabulary are inevitably human products and thus have to be susceptible to revision. But I find it odd that Minister, echoing Caputo, argues of determinate religious traditions that “at their worst they become ends-in-themselves, replacing God as the object of our love.” I do not know that this ever actually happens, and I certainly find it strange to claim that anybody “worships a religious tradition.” What believer of even the most pious orthodox conformity would countenance being told that they worship not God but Judaism? Or Lutheranism? The problem Minister and Caputo have in mind is imprecisely formulated. Furthermore, while I acknowledge the danger of idolatry, I question the one-sided presumption that historic tradition is susceptible only to such decline. As we learn from Marion, a concept can of course operate idolatrously, but our concepts can also be iconic.1 The fact is, we cannot eschew such traditions and linguistic structures, and indeed they are often enough the iconic means of grasping, to whatever extent we can, the ungraspable. Failing to admit this fact does not do justice to the experience of religious believers or to the power of human creativity and expressiveness. Another deep reservation I have about the material that Minister endorses in Caputo is the presumptive association between determinate religious tradition and violence. This cliché is surprising only for its durability. I fail utterly to understand how it is that sincerity of belief is meant to be linked to disposition to violence. If we were to adapt Slavoj Žižek’s distinction between the inauthentic and authentic fundamentalist, we could consider the Taliban government in Afghanistan’s decision to dynamite the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001 as an example of how less-than-firm conviction leads to violent aggression. The Taliban’s action was motivated not by firm belief in Allah as the one true God but by secretly self-suspect commitment to monotheism. If Allah really is the one true God, how could the impassioned adherent to Islam regard the statues of the Buddha with any attitude more malign than bemusement? They need to be destroyed only if their mere existence represents a genuine threat to the shaky faith of the extremist Muslim. The authentic fundamentalist Thinking More Positively 115 as Žižek calls him, by contrast, is convinced of his own belief so much so that the unbelief of others does not drive him to a frenzied envy of the jouissance of the nonbeliever, which is for him the object of cool indifference.2 Furthermore, it seems to me underlying the alleged association of religious belief and violence is a suppressed premise, one that is never made explicit. The belief that “I am right about my religious views” does not in any way entail the belief that “I can do violence on you because you do not share my religious...