Tuesday, August 12, 2008

what lies behind deconstruction 1

Deconstruction, which must be considered the interior drive of twentieth-century theology rather than an alien agenda, is in the final anaylysis the death of God put into writing, the subsumption of the "Word" by the "flesh," the deluge of immanance
Carl A. Raschke, from the essay 'The Deconstruction of God' in the book 'Deconstruction and Theology', p. 3


subsume (root for 'subsumption)

1. to consider or include (an idea, term, proposition, etc.) as part of a more comprehensive one.
2. to bring (a case, instance, etc.) under a rule.
3. to take up into a more inclusive classification.

'Immanance' is more difficult, at least as he Raschke seems to want to use it here, but considering that he basically says tha that the "Word" is taken up into the "flesh", or that the "Word" is put under the rule of the "flesh", then I suppose it's like to mean something like this.

immanance (it's a long encyclopedia entry, so not all of it will be here, please read all of it)

The term "immanence" is usually understood to mean that the divine force, or the divine being, pervades through all things that exist, and is able to influence them. Such a meaning is common in pantheism and panpsychism, and it implies that divinity is inseparably present in all things. In this meaning immanence is distinct from transcendence, the latter being understood as the divinity being set apart from or transcending the World (an exception being Giovanni Gentile's "Actual Idealism" wherein immanence of subject is considered identified with transcendence over the material world)...

...the term has been utilized by the Kennesaw School to elucidate the emergent nature of communalized relationality and the potential for becoming within an Age of Globalization.


Trying to get one's head around this is not easy, and I'm not so sure I have done very well at it. But some parts are pretty clear. It's not the first time I've come on the "death of God" thought that tries to disguise itself as Christian. I think Caputo puts it as the "death of the God of sovereignty", substituting instead a "God of weakness".

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