Editor's Note: High theory, both historicist and formalist, has ignored religion as a means of significance and meaning for the last 30 years. Since the halycon days of Keneth Burke and Northrop Frye, theorists have focuse on categories of gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, race, nationality and others to the exclusion of religion. Since the begining of this decade (and certain historical events that loom large at the begining of said decade) theorists have slowly begun to return to theological questions, and their impace on literary and cultural theory. In this section we are interested in committed and critical analysis of religion and literature, especially as they relate to the wider culture, and the questions of literature and philosophy.
Derrida writes in The Gift of Death that faith is constituted by sacrifice and aporia. Everyday is a living sacrifice, in which I encounter God and make my gift of death like Abraham- a choice between fidelity to the mysterious tremendum and wholly Other that is God or betrayal of God and fidelity to one’s kin. Abraham, in choosing to be faithful to God, betrays his own son and makes the gift of death to God as his living sacrifice. Faith is thus constituted by the aporia of simultaneous faith and betrayal, fidelity to the sacred and treachery to the worldly or ties of kinship. Faith is constituted by hatred, a hatred of one’s own kinship that enables one to make the gift of death towards God. Faith is a double gesture of love of God as wholly other and hatred of one’s own kin that enables one to make a gift of death towards God. Faith is thus a double gesture of love and betrayal. One has to betray in order to be faithful, to make a gift of death as a living sacrifice, to die to world and self in order to display fidelity and duty towards God.
As Derrida puts it on responsibility:
The moral of the fable would be morality itself, the point where morality brings into play the gift of death that is so given. The absolutes of duty and responsibility presume that one denounce, refute and transcend, at the same time, all duty, all responsibility, every human law. They call for a betrayal of everything that manifests itself within the order of human generality, and everything that manifests itself in general, the very order and essence of manifestation, namely essence itself, essence in general to the extent that it is inseparable from presence and from manifestation. Absolute duty demands that one behave in an irresponsible manner (by means of treachery or betrayal), while still recognizing, confirming and reaffirming the very thing one sacrifices, namely the order of human ethics and responsibility. In a word, ethics must be sacrificed in the name of duty. (Derrida, 1995:67)
Abraham thus makes a sacrifice that is both responsible and irresponsible – it is absolute duty to God but irresponsibility and a betrayal of his son. It is a duty that transcends human law- devotion to God demands sacrifice and treachery towards the human. Faith is thus paradoxically both love and betrayal.
Derrida writes that responsibility is constituted by an aporia as well, it is simultaneously being held accountable to a general law and a unique and singular act of personal decision. It is thus simultaneously the submission to general ethics and a singular act of personal decision, both being subsumed by a general purpose and a singular decision that exceeds the general. Abraham as a knight of faith acts out of duty to God and yet makes the personal decision to make a living sacrifice of his son, thus dying to the self and acting singularly on the other hand. As an act of faith this constitutes a simultaneous death to self and singularity of decision, it is both submission to a general law and duty and a singular choice and decision, thus constituting a paradox. As Derrida puts it:
Such is the aporia of responsibility: one always risks not managing to accede to the concept of responsibility in the process of forming it. For responsibility (we would no longer dare speak of “the universal concept of responsibility”) demands on the one hand an accounting, a general answering-for-oneself with respect to the general and before the generality, hence the idea of substitution, and on the other hand, uniqueness, absolute singularity, hence nonsubstitution, nonrepetition, silence and secrecy. (Derrida, 1995:62)
Responsibility is thus both accountability to a general law and a unique singularity of purpose, it is paradoxically a dying to self and a taking up of a singular purpose.
In the opening chapter of the book, Derrida deconstructs the relation between the sacred and the demonic. Religion defines itself by what it is not – the demonic, and thus only exists in a differential relation between the sacred and the demonic. Religion can only be defined in opposition of a mysterious tremendum to a demonic other, and thus can only exist in a relation to this demonic Other, the animal as opposed to Spirit. Religion is only encountered once the demonic secret has been surpassed into the secrecy of the Sacred. Religion thus proceeds by negation – defining itself in opposition to the demonic and thrives on the existence of this opposition to maintain its life and integrity.
Faith is thus constituted by paradox- it is a double gesture of love and betrayal, a dying to the self and a singular purpose, it exists only in negation of what it is not- the demonic. In the final chapters of the book Derrida writes of a central paradox that Jesus elucidates- to love your enemies and those that persecute you. It is thus assymetrical and exceeds economy. Faith is a gift- to love those that do evil to you and thus exceed the bounds of utility and reciprocity. Faith is a gift that surpasses rationality and exchange. Derrida thus captures the essence of Christianity in his characterization of faith as a gift- a gift of love and a gift of death, it has to exceed reciprocity and to exceed self and world, towards the wholly Other and mysterious tremendum that is God. Faith is paradoxical; it is both love and betrayal, a death to self and a singular choice, a negation of the demonic, and a relation that exceeds reciprocity as a gift.
Bibliography:
Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death . 1992. Trans. David Wills. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995
