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The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? (Short Circuits)

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Interesting conversation between a committed Marxist atheist and a committed orthodox theologian about what parts of Hegel and Christianity they hold in common - and which they do not. Zizek starts with an essay where he outlines how Hegel has the most to contribute to contemporary theology - namely, the frank admission that God is dead and is now incarnated in the community of radical believers that work against modernity and global capitalism. Milbank agrees, but argues that a paradoxical view of reality - one that recognizes that opposites exist precisely at the same time without resolution - is both more faithful to how reality works and to the vision of Christianity itself, as opposed to Hegelian dialectics. Zizek returns and clearly outlines his commitment to materialism and to the Protestant principle of negation which Milbank eschews. Both thinkers' commitments are clearly and unapologetically evident, and yet their respect for the other person's thought is evident. A fascinating - if philosophically dense - resource for anyone concerned about the runaway abuse of ultra-modern capitalism and the reality of religious resurgence in 21st century society.

In reviewing any book, the first question that should be answered is, "Is this book worth reading?" My answer is, "It depends." If one is perfectly comfortable in one's theology, believes Christianity is on the right track and that all is well with the world other than a few blemishes and rough spots here and there, and one is intellectually lazy besides, then I recommend skipping the hard work that this book demands.

Maybe a book with the catchy title, The Monstrosity of Christ, already warns the reader that this will not be a simple apologetic or `isn't Christianity nice' tome. `Monstrosity' comes from Hegel's use of the word to mean something so outlandish, so beyond the normative, consensual reality of everyday as to constitute a break, a schism, so to speak, that invites a renewed apperception of `The Real' - the fabric of Reality (all there is) - as opposed to that portion of Reality that is apprehended through empirically derived data (e.g. scientific experiment that is performed on just a portion of all there is). Thus, for both Zizek, an avowed `Christian' atheist and for Milbank, an avowed `Orthodox' Christian, theology must start with the monstrosity of Christ. This is the foundation of Christianity.

Great book - Z and M lay out their positions so clearly a confessor couldn't ask for more. I shall not recap the debate but throw in some of my own thoughts, for what they're worth, in the hope that they help clarify for those who has already read the book. If you haven't read the book - do so - it is well worth the small effort.

1. Dialectic involves resolving analytic contradictions. Thesis X - and antithesis (not X) form a classic analytic contradiction that resolve themselves through the process of the dialectic to a larger perspective of the world. This activity is strictly within the Kantian Idealist framework - the movement involved is the processes of the empty cogito - and hence firmly Cartesian.

Paradox is NOT an analytic contradiction but empirical facts or events that the cogito trips over and must take account of. As such it is NOT purely analytic or Kantian Idealist. This is my understanding as to why Milbank considers Zizek's Hegelianism to be "too conservative and Cartesian".

2. The Zizekian "abyss" is the end point of the "Via Negativa" process of Theology, which predates modernism, late-stage-modernism or post-modernism (whatever you want to call it) by centuries but yet is the basic, though unrecognized, program of modernism. The Milbankian conception, for me is closely related to the "Via Positiva".

In the Via Negativa, the main activity to show what god is NOT; to separate the sacred from the profane, to prove how things and customs and traditions and people are NOT divine or sacred but in fact their opposite. It casts god out of the world, out of our souls and ultimately the universe itself. God becomes distinct from all things, beings and attributes and becomes "just a word". So the correct attitude of one engaged in Via Negativa when confronted with a painting or music or any art is the iconoclastic one - to deny the religious aspect of such things and in fact to place them in opposition to the sacred or the transcendent. Thus all things become "merely human" and trapped in the concreteness of the pragmatic, finite world - and as such - simply objects of economics for exchange.

This impenetrable wall between the secular and the sacred set up and sustained by the Via Negativa marks the world of both the atheist and the fundamentalist. For the atheist, the only thing in the sacred domain is the empty-set - a void - an inexpressible which pragmatically, therefore, does not exist. Similarly for the fundamentalist - since the sacred is inaccessible, the only way the sacred exists is in a concretized and static human artifact form - as words on paper. All three monotheisms have their "sola scriptura" - which rather than identifying god beyond words - in fact codifies and constructs god within the human Lacanian Symbolic realm. That's why atheists and fundamentalists are sometimes both referred to as "a-gnostics".

In Via Positiva, there is no separation between the secular and sacred. Here the correct attitude of being human is not commerce but worship. In recognition of our finitude, all things are viewed not as obstacles but as pointers or invitations to the transcendent. Art becomes sacramental rather than an ironic stance. The world and everything in it contains a unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let us wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring us back to the transcendent with a twitch upon the thread.

3. For me, its also a simple matter of aesthetics. Zizek advocates that since god is not, but an abyss, an unfathomable void - that only the person qua abyss is truly in the image and likeness of god.

Now I'm not opposed to "the abyss" or The Real, or whatnot. In fact I'll pay good money on tickets to see a really good abyss. I'm even dutifully grateful for the freedom that the pure contingency of the abyss gives us.

Its just that Zizek's "the Abyss" can only be viewed as the final point of collapse of an exhausted late-stage modernism, having reached its final dialectical and deconstructive omega point. It can go no further - RIP.

Conversely, I delight in the green shoots and renewed life of the return of philosophy to theology, Augustinian in particular - to a univocal understanding of the lived-in world. In their rejection of the "supernatural", late-stage modernism has denied us the world as it is and only left us with the "subnatural" - a few mathematical equations here and there - and the abyss.

If you are a Hegelian and like Zizek's work, this volume has your name on it. I loved Zizek's first essay, and liked the second. The Milbank piece is a waste of time, in my opinion, but it serves at least as a good foil for the response essay.

Zizek continues a theme in his later texts, like The Puppet and the Dwarf, namely the meaning and significance of Christianity. His approach offers the materialist or atheist an alternative to the mundane crude materialism of Harris and Dawkins. Zizek argues in favor of the internal transcendence that he finds in Hegelian dialectic, and the not-all of Lacan.

This book purports to bring about a dialogue between rationalism and theology, represented by Zizek and Milbank. The works of Hegel, Heidegger and Christian theologians are discussed.

I'm thoroughly disappointed by the maze of evasive verbiage in this book. Neither Zizek not Milbank produced anything radical here!

Don't get deceived by Milbank anyway. Does his kind of #radical-orthodoxy helps at all in struggles against capitalist nihilism [or it's derivatives such as postmodernism]? Well - perhaps this is somewhat better in contrast with the far more deceptive #post-liberal-theology!

Anyway coming back to the very question - why this book at all? Perhaps because we believe that there is a need for resurrecting the #real and the #absolute from the mutilated and rotten body of postmodernism? A need that has been never so urgent as now, when an atmosphere of intellectual subterfuges is widespread (though I also agree that there were some useful contributions among the less pretentious participants).

Well - to me Zizek appears so dull - specially with his patchy knowledge about "Orthodoxy" and many other things - to make any positive impact. No positive comments for Milbank and his anti-materialist dilettantism anyway :-)

If the world was given to us as something "enigmatic and unintelligible", then what is the task of thought? Making it more enigmatic and more unintelligible - what this book does or the reverse? Well - the reverse is done in the sciences, and in serious commentary on human affairs. I don't know of any relevant contributions of theology (whether pro/anti-materialist) other than constructing vague ideas with vague images.

The book is much exaggerated, and you shouldn't take it seriously. There is no point taking Hegel or Eckhart that seriously as well.