American Academy of Religion

Impossible God: Derrida's Theology by Hugh Rayment-Pickard

Review by: Victor E. Taylor
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 74, No. 1, On the Future of the Study of
Religion in the Academy (Mar., 2006), pp. 227-229
Published by: Oxford University Press
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Book Reviews 227
content and Russian
religious thought.
This is a
particularly strange
omission
coming
from someone who is a
specialist precisely
in Russian
religious thought.
A second
puzzle
is that Kornblatt
queries why
Jews
would convert
specifically
to
Russian
Orthodoxy,
with its
antisemitism,
rather than another form of
Christianity--as
if antisemitism were not
something
that
historically
existed to an
equal,
if not
greater, degree
in Protestantism and Catholicism
(though perhaps
antisemitism is
stronger
in Russian
Orthodoxy
than in other Christian confes-
sions
today). Finally,
students of
comparative religion might
wish for a
deeper
engagement
with the theoretical literature on conversions.
Despite any shortcomings,
however,
the book
provides provocative insights
into the nature of
religious
versus ethnic
identity
and the
fluidity
of
multiple
identities in a
postmodern
world,
as well as
deepening
our
understanding
of
Soviet
Jewry.
The book will be of interest to a broad
range
of students and scholars
interested in
Jewry,
conversions,
and Russian
religious history.
doi:10.1093/jaarel/1fj036
Scott M.
Kenworthy
Advance Access
publication January
10,
2006 Miami
University
Impossible
God: Derrida's
Theology. By Hugh Rayment-Pickard. Ashgate
Publishing Company,
2003. 185
pages.
$84.95.
Impossible
God: Derrida's
Theology appears
in
Ashgate's "Transcending
Boundaries in
Philosophy
and
Theology"
series. The
monograph represents
a
continued
engagement
with continental
philosophy
of
religion by Rayment-
Pickard whose works include
Philosophies of History
(Blackwell
Publishers
2000)
and The
Myths of
Time
(Darton,
Longman
& Todd London
2004).
The volume's
introductory chapter
entitled
"Death,
Impossiblity, Theology:
The Theme of Derrida's
Philosophy" provides
a useful
comprehensive
sketch of
Jacques
Derrida's
poststructuralist theory
as it relates to
perennial
issues of
"truth and
reality"
in the western
theo-philosophical
tradition. More than a
repackaging
of
previously published commentary, Rayment-Pickard
shows the
key
elements of Derrida's
thought
in the context of
writing philosophy
in a
post-
modern
age.
The author
insightfully
notes in this first
chapter
the
significance
of
Derrida's "difficult"
prose,
which
many
of his critics have too
quickly
seized
upon
as an
opportunity
for intellectual
impeachment. Quoting
Derrida
Rayment-
Pickard
begins
with a line from The Post Card in which Derrida
ironically
states
"I would like to write to
you
so
simply,
so
simply,
so
simply"
(1).
The "so
simply,"
through
its
multiplication
and
repetition, provides
a
complexity
that
Rayment-
Pickard
rightly
sees as twofold: "a structural
complexity
that arises because of
the
way
Derrida believes
language
functions;
and a
conceptual complexity
that
arises as he tries to indicate the
unstable,
paradoxical
and
impossible
character of
all foundational ideas and realities"
(2).
It is this
"paradoxical
and
impossible
character of all foundational ideas and realities" that forms the cornerstone of
Rayment-Pickard's study. By examining
a
"Derridean,
poststructuralist theory
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
228
Journal
of
the American
Academy of Religion
of
language"
and its
implications
for
conceptual analysis,
the author offers a
per-
spective
on "Derridean
theology"
that embraces an
apophatic approach
to reli-
gious inquiry.
This makes the volume a valuable contribution to the current
interdisciplinary scholarship
about the
(im)possibility
of God and
engages
directly
or
indirectly
the recent
writings
of Mark C.
Taylor,
John
D.
Caputo,
Jean-Luc Marion,
Kevin
Hart,
Richard
Kearney,
Carl A.
Raschke,
and other con-
temporary figures
in
"religious theory."
If
language,
in
general,
functions in the absence of
stability
and
foundation,
then what can be said of
theological language
in
particular?
This is the inexhaustible
question
of
postmodern theology
that
begins
in the late 1970s with the works of
Carl A.
Raschke,
Mark C.
Taylor,
and Charles E.
Winquist. Rayment-Pickard's
contribution to this four-decade
long
discussion is to re-visit these earlier theo-
philosophical breakthroughs
in the context of Derridean
"impossibility,"
which
Rayment-Pickard
views as an ideal
space
for
theological inquiry.
While not
orig-
inal to
Rayment-Pickard's
book,
Derridean
"impossibility"
does find a new
sym-
pathetic
treatment in this
work,
especially
in the later
chapters.
In his
analysis
of
this earlier movement around deconstructive
theology
the
author,
I would
point
out,
could have
provided
more context for his
argument.
The eminent
literary
scholar
Rodolphe
Gasch6
appears
in the text as a source for his
reading
of
Derrida;
however,
the connection between Derrida and
theology
rests almost
solely
on
the work of Mark C.
Taylor
and leaves out some of the
important writings
of the
early "postmodern theologians" previously
mentioned.
Rayment-Pickard's
argument certainly
is not in error without
them,
but
including
these
important
figures
in the
history
of ideas in
postmodern theology
would have made for a
richer
work,
especially
as it relates to
poststructuralist
theories of
language,
death,
and
theological
discourse
presented
in the later
chapters.
In
addition,
an
examination of these
earlier,
Derrida
inspired postmodern theological
works
would have served to mark the differences between a
philosophical
Derrida and
a
theological
Derrida that is critical to the author's overall
analysis.
One of the
many significant aspects
of this book is the excellent discussion of
Derrida's indebtedness to Edmund Husserl and Martin
Heidegger. Chapters
2, 3,
and 4
provide
astute and innovative
readings
of
phenomenology
and deconstruc-
tion,
especially
as it ties
together
various
philosophies
of
language,
time,
and death.
These
patient
discussions of
phenomenology
and its aftermath in continental
phi-
losophy
vis-a-vis deconstruction
provide
a valuable reassessment of the tension
between
cognition
and revelation. The central concern
throughout
the
chapters
is
Derrida's
attempt
"to make a
phenomenon
of the
impossibility
of a
phenomenol-
ogy"
[ 119].
The theme of
impossibility
allows
Rayment-Pickard
to
closely
examine
the western
philosophical
tradition as a meditation on death. With an
emphasis
on
Derrida's
reading
of
Heidegger, impossibility appears
as an
"aporia"
or
"chias-
mus"
that marks the
impossibility/possibility
of God. This line of
argument pro-
ceeding
from the earlier
chapters
is
concisely
made in the final two
chapters
entitled
"Theological Impossibility"
and
"God,
this
Subject, Entity,
or
X."
Philosophy's
recent turn to
deconstruction,
according
to
Rayment-Pickard,
begins
with Husserl's
negation
of "false certainties in the field of
perception"
(123). This is followed by Heidegger's negation of "false
certainty
of ontic
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Book Reviews 229
perception" (123),
which
prepares
the
way
for Derrida's "radical
uncertainty
of
diffirance" (123).
The
general trajectory,
then,
is summarized as the
following:
"Each
operates by identifying
and
dismantling
a false
apodicity, showing
the
play
of shadows for what it
is,
like the
prisoners
in Plato's cave who releases the
blinkers on the others"
(123).
The
key question
that troubles the remainder of
the book comes from Mark C.
Taylor's
1992
essay
"nO nOt
nO"
in which he
asks "is his
[Derrida's]
nonsaying
a
saying?
A
denegation?"
(123).
Rayment-
Pickard's
response
to this difficult
question
is to
posit
a series of
responses
that
begin
with a consideration of
Jacques
Derrida as a
"negative theologian" (John
D.
Caputo)
and ends with the
possibility
of Derrida as a "Kantian idealist" a la
Kevin Hart. Between these two
theological poles
lies,
of
course,
the
"khora,"
which serves as an
impasse, making
a conclusive
exposition
of Derrida's theol-
ogy impossible.
This
impossibility,
however,
is an
"apophasis
of
khora,"
which
invites
speculation
on a
"Christological heterology"
(163)
as well as other
figurations
of the
multiple
that do not
compromise
the
radicality
of Derridean
anti-theology.
This final meditation on the failure of
closure/completion
and the
primordial
status of the "chiasmus" as the other
figure
in
philosophy
offers a careful reasser-
tion of the deconstructive
principle
of
indeterminacy.
Herein lies the
signifi-
cance of
Rayment-Pickard's
title: Is Derridean
"indeterminacy" theology's
impossible
God? One could
argue,
as the author
does,
that it is.
With its clear discussions of
Husserl,
Heidegger,
and Derrida and its reas-
sessment of
philosophical impossibility through
the lens of
theology, Impossible
God is an
important
addition to current discussions in
religious theory.
doi:10.1093/jaarel/1fj037
Victor E.
Taylor
Advance Access
publication January
9,
2006 York
College
of
Pennsylvania
and
The
Johns
Hopkins University
The
Invention
of
World
Religions:
Or,
How
European
Universalism
Was
Preserved in the
Language ofPluralism. By
Tomoko Masuzawa.
University
of
Chicago
Press,
2005. 359
pages.
$19.00.
In this ambitious work on the
nineteenth-century
science of
religions
Tomoko Masuzawa makes the "the world
religions
discourse"
part
of the critical
theorist's
anatomy
theater
(xiv).
On the surface the
patient might
look
healthy
enough-the
inherited talk of ten to twelve world
religions
no more than an
honest
attempt
to reckon with the
global plurality
of faiths. But the anatomist
knows
better,
and the knife will
expose
the
malignancies
within the
discourse,
the hidden racial and
imperial presumptions
of
European universality.
Some-
times the demonstration
proves spectacular,
"the current
epistemic regime"
exposed,
if not excised
(xii);
at other times the exhibition
proves painful
to
watch in its blunt execution.
Masuzawa
positions
her work within the
larger
turn toward historical
analy-
sis of the discourses that have
shaped
the
study
of
religion
from the seventeenth
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