Mystical Theology and the Four Discourses
A Theology of Failure May 7, 2019 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.5422/fordham/9780823284078.003.0007
Summary
This chapter argues that reading Dionysius the Areopagite's Mystical Theology through Jacques Lacan's four discourses, as developed by Slavoj Žižek, enables a materialist interpretation of apophatic (negative) theology and Christian identity. It contends that apophatic theology is both the condition of possibility and impossibility for cataphatic (affirmative) theology. Christian identity, under this view, is not a commitment to specific answers or harmony but to a particular problem: what it means to be faithful to Christ.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | A Žižekian materialism allows apophatic theology to be understood as the condition of both the possibility and impossibility of cataphatic theology, with Christian identity grounded in the logic of drive as commitment to a problem rather than to answers. |
Abstract
In this chapter I suggest that a rereading of Dionysius’s Mystical Theology through Jacques Lacan’s four discourses illustrates how a Žižekian ontology makes possible a materialist reading of apophatic theology and Christian identity. Slavoj Žižek’s work offers the possibility of repeating Dionysius differently, under the aegis of a Žižekian materialism within which apophatic theology is the condition of both the possibility and the impossibility of cataphatic theology. In such a materialist theology, Christian identity can be understood according to the logic of drive: that is, not as a commitment to a particular set of answers or a particular vision of harmony, but precisely as the commitment to a particular problem, the problem of what it means to be faithful to Christ.