{"id":708,"date":"2015-03-18T23:01:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T23:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/?p=708"},"modified":"2015-03-20T07:52:21","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T07:52:21","slug":"the-situation-of-badiou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/?p=708","title":{"rendered":"The situation of Badiou"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post<\/a> about Homebrewed\u2019s Paul course, I complained a bit about feeling targeted by remarks about liberals and progressives. Another session, and I\u2019m not feeling less targeted \u2013 and it\u2019s going to get worse as we move onto Badiou\u2019s snarky remarks about Pascal\u2019s mysticism. Let\u2019s face it, I\u2019m a mystic as well. I do note that F.C. Happold<\/a> identifies Paul as a mystic, with the assumption that mysticism founded Paul\u2019s career, so sidelining that aspect may be a mistake.<\/p>\n

Time for some pushback, I think. I started this book (Paul, the Foundation of Universalism<\/a>) with some expectations \u2013 Badiou is, after all, a French public intellectual. What I therefore expected was an Atheist Marxist who tried hard to come up with some provocative remarks, dressed in a stack of obscure language \u00a0\u2013 and Badiou manages to be boringly conformist to this stereotype despite being somewhat dismissive of postmodern situatedness. His \u201cprovocative remark\u201d is to centre his fantasy on a theme of Paul on the Resurrection, which is clearly an entirely unacceptable idea to an Atheist Marxist, particularly a French one (as Atheism is pretty close to being the state religion of France \u2013 they haven\u2019t got over elevating reason to the status of goddess in 1792, a fairly short lived experiment but one which has coloured all French republics since then).<\/p>\n

Sadly, Badiou goes to some lengths to stress that it\u2019s an unacceptable idea, even a \u201clie\u201d. Paul, however, almost certainly believed implicitly in the resurrection (I reference the first talk), and I do not hear from Badiou any clever argument like Pete Rollins\u2019 in \u201cThe Divine Magician\u201d (where it is crucial that the thing wished for does not in fact exist) nor \u201cI know that it didn\u2019t happen like this, but I know this story is true\u201d to adjust the standard opening of some native storytellers.<\/p>\n

I say \u201cfantasy on a theme of Paul\u201d as in truth it bears as much resemblance to an analysis of what Paul actually said as do the Christian theologians who Niezsche\u2019s complained about in Taubes book, finding the cross in every mention of wood in the Hebrew Scriptures.<\/p>\n

For one thing, Badiou concentrates on the resurrection. However, what is clearly for Paul a \u201cscandal to the Jews and a foolishness to the Greeks\u201d is actually the crucifixion, not the resurrection (see 1 Cor. 1:23<\/a>). In fact, although to Badiou\u2019s atheist eyes the resurrection is the stumbling block, to the eyes of Jews and Greeks (or Romans) a resurrection or revivification wasn\u2019t an impossibility. Both traditions could accommodate such an event, and in theological developments over the next century or so, arguments were put forward which bent Jewish and Greek presuppositions minimally if at all.<\/p>\n

What was<\/i><\/b> an impossibility was a messiah who was crucified rather than leading the Jews to reestablishment of their nation in glory, or a son of God (like Caesar) who was put to death as an insurrectionary rather than elevated to rule the known world. It was absolutely scandalous that Jesus should die an ignominious death and not reign forever. Perhaps even more so that God would not intervene and save him, which has the potential still to be a scandal for about 90% of the Christians I know. God either does not care, does not wish to or cannot intervene? Not a popular sentiment in churches I\u2019m acquainted with.<\/p>\n

So, of course, his followers put that right by demoting the crucifixion to a temporary blip and (after some time) positing that he would return to do all the things which were expected of a Jewish Messiah or a Roman Caesar. If there hadn\u2019t been a resurrection, it would have been necessary for his followers to invent one.<\/p>\n

Oh, wait… the overwhelming probability is that they did \u2013 or, at least, that\u2019s what I\u2019d expect to hear from a psychoanalyst. Granted, the psychoanalyst might not go so far as Badiou and describe it as a “lie”, just as hallucinations brought on by cognitive dissonance reduction and wish fulfillment, perhaps with a side order of deindividuation. (I should maybe point out for my more conservative readers that just because we can identify psychological mechanisms which could well have produced resurrection experiences doesn’t actually mean there wasn’t more to them than that.)<\/p>\n

Badiou does, of course, mention Pauls main other shockingly transgressive set of statements<\/a>, but the French Marxist Atheist is not shocked by the dissolution of Jewish exceptionalism (by rendering circumcision and dietary laws irrelevant), abolition of patriarchal attitudes to gender or the denial of the master-slave relationship, which would have been truly shocking to Jew and Greek alike whereas resurrection, which Badiou is <\/i><\/b>shocked by, would maybe have raised an eyebrow or two. It was, indeed, sufficiently transgressive that the pseudo-Pauline epistles and the Fourth Gospel (in particular) did their utmost to undo Paul’s good work, to deny the event.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the French Marxist Atheist finds nothing particularly startling to mention\u00a0 in Jesus\u2019 proclamation of God\u2019s preference for the poor, women, children, lawbreakers, the irreligious and other contemptible people, even so far as religious opponents (the Samaritans) and outright enemies (including Romans). This, however, still has the power to shock. (In the USA not by any means least when couched as \u201caffirmative action\u201d.) Autre pays, autre moeurs<\/a>, as they say.<\/p>\n

I wonder, would Paul, today, say “In Christ there is no theist and no atheist”? Would Jesus say “Blessed are those who do not believe in anything”?<\/p>\n

Que M. Badiou soit beni.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my last post about Homebrewed\u2019s Paul course, I complained a bit about feeling targeted by remarks about liberals and progressives. Another session, and I\u2019m not feeling less targeted \u2013 and it\u2019s going to get worse as we move onto Badiou\u2019s snarky remarks about Pascal\u2019s mysticism. Let\u2019s face it, I\u2019m a mystic as well. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,3,26,12,6],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biblical-history","tag-christianity","tag-mysticism","tag-philosophy","tag-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":710,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}