Christ In Postmodern Philosophy

In the wake of Heidegger’s announcement of the end of onto-theology and inspired by both Levinas and Derrida, many contemporary continental philosophers of religion search for a post-metaphyisical God, a God who is often characterized as tout autre, wholly other.

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek is an exception to this rule. First, he clearly has another source of inspiration: neither Heidegger, Levinas or Derrida, but Lacan and the great thinkers of German Idealism (Kant, Schelling, and Hegel). Moreover, he does not aim at tracing a post-metaphysical God. His ‘turn’ to Christianity is the result of his concern to ‘save’ the achievements of modernity from fundamentalism, post-modern relativism and religious obscurantism.

The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo is an intermediary. His sources (mainly Nietzsche and Heidegger) seem to indicate that he aligns with those philosophers whose works are inspired by Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida. Indeed, Vattimo is also searching for the God who comes after metaphysics, but he explicitly rejects the wholly-other God. With Žižek, Vattimo shares a Christological interest, an attention for the event of the Incarnation and the conviction that the Incarnation amounts to the end of God’s transcendence. Both thinkers also defend the uniqueness of Christianity vis-à-vis natural religiosity. In this way, they seem to share at least some affinity with the views of the French-American literary critic and fundamental anthropologist René Girard, who has also defended the uniqueness of Christianity and claims that the latter broke away from the violent transcendence of the natural religions.

The book will investigate the Christological ideas of these three contemporary thinkers, focussing on the topics of the relation between transcendence and the event of the Incarnation on the one hand, and the topic of the uniqueness of Christianity on the other.

Introduction: The Question of Christology after the Death of God

1. Gianni Vattimo
   1.1. The Background of Vattimo’s Christology: How the Return of Religion Became Possible (Nietzsche, Heidegger)1.2. Vattimo’s Christology: Kenosis and Caritas

2. Slavoj Žižek
   2.1. The Background of Žižek’s Christology: Reading Hegel’s Christology with Lacan
   2.2. Žižek’s Christology
   2.2.1. The Deadlock of the Sacrificial Interpretation of Christ’s Death on the Cross
   2.2.2. From God as ‘Wholly Other Thing’ to God as ‘Barely Nothing’
   2.2.3. The Coming of Christ, the Death of the Divine Thing
   2.2.4. The Crucified Christ, the Ultimate objet petit a

3. René Girard
   3.1. The Background of Girard’s Christology: Mimesis and the Scapegoating Mechanism
   3.2. Girard’s Christology
   3.2.1. Girard’s Account of the Christ Event
   3.2.2. Girard vs. Nietzsche: Dionysus and the Crucified One – on the impact of the Christ Event in World History

4. Evaluations & Confrontations
   4.1. Vattimo’s Christology, a Return of ‘God Is Dead’-Theology
   4.2. Girard vs. Vattimo
   4.3. The Shared Inspiration of Žižek and Girard
   4.4. The Fate of Transcendence in the Work of Žižek
   4.5. Girard vs. Žižek
   4.6. General Conclusion: On the Transcendence of Love and the Uniqueness of Christianity

   Dr Frederiek Depoortere is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) at the Faculty of Theology, K.U.Leuven (Belgium) and a member of the research group 'Theology in a Postmodern Context'.