The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection 9780823264070

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The Metamorphosis of Finitude

Series Board James Bernauer Drucilla Cornell Thomas R. Flynn Kevin Hart Richard Kearney Jean-Luc Marion Adriaan Peperzak Thomas Sheehan Hent de Vries Merold Westphal Michael Zimmerman

John D. Caputo, series editor

E M M A N U E L FA LQU E

The Metamorphosis of Finitude An Essay on Birth and Resurrection

TR A N S L A T E D

BY

GEORGE HUGHES

F O RD H A M U N I VE R S I T Y P RE S S New York

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

Copyright ©  Fordham University Press The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection was first published in French as Métamorphose de la finitude: Essai philosophique sur la naissance et la résurrection, by Emmanuel Falque © Les Éditions du Cerf, . All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Falque, Emmanuel, – [Métamorphose de la finitude. English] The metamorphosis of finitude : an essay on birth and resurrection / Emmanuel Falque ; translated by George Hughes. — st ed. p. cm. — (Perspectives in Continental philosophy) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN ---- (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN ---- (pbk. : alk. paper) . Birth (Philosophy) . Resurrection. . Finite, The. I. Title. BD.F  —dc  Printed in the United States of America         First edition

Contents

Preface to the English Edition Preface: The Beaune Altarpiece, or “The Germination of the Resurrected”

ix xiii

Introduction: To Be Transformed §. From Death to Birth,  ■ §. The Dialogue with Nicodemus,  ■ §. The Heuristic Approach and Didactic Exposition, 



PA R T I : P r é c i s o f F i n i t u d e



1

Impassable Immanence §. The Immanence in Question,  ■ §. The Preemption of the Infinite,  ■ §. Christian Specificity and the Ordinariness of the Flesh, 



2

From Time to Time §. The Drift of Time,  ■ §. The Passage of Time,  §. The Burden of Time, 



3

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Is There a Drama of Atheist Humanism? §. The Death of God, or the Death of Christianity?,  ■ §. Atheism from the Theologian’s Viewpoint,  ■ §. The Forbidden “Why?”, 



vii

P A R T I I : To wa r d a M e ta m o r p h o s i s



4

Resurrection and the Over-resurrection of the Body §. The Debate with Nietzsche,  ■ §. Corporality in St. Paul,  ■ §. A Phenomenal Body-to-Body Confrontration, 



5

The Resurrection Changes Everything §. The Ordeal of the Father,  ■ §. The Apperceptive Transposition of the Son,  ■ §. The Holy Spirit as the Son Metamorphosed by the Father, 



6

The Incorporation of the Human Being §. The Monadologic Hypothesis,  ■ §. Incorporation in the Trinity,  ■ §. He Who Sees and He Who Runs, 



PA R T I I I : P h e n o m e n o l o g y o f t h e R e s u r r e c t i o n



7

The World Become Other §. The Earth and the Heavens,  ■ §. Creation and Separation,  ■ §. Another Way of Living the Same World, 



8

From Time to Eternity §. The Instant of Eternity,  ■ §. The Joy of Birth,  ■ §. The Birth and Knowledge of God, 



9

A Flesh for Rebirth §. Birth and Rebirth,  ■ §. The Fleshly Body and the Body Resurrected,  ■ §. Withdrawal of the Body and Manifestation of the Flesh, 



Conclusion: Waiting for Bodies to Arise



Notes



Index



viii

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Contents

Preface to the English Edition

The Metamorphosis of Finitude is part of a “triptych” of books. It was preceded by Le Passeur de Gethsémani (The Guide to Gethsemane) and is followed by Les Noces de l’Agneau (The Nuptials of the Lamb). What runs through all three books is the conviction that the theological truths of the Easter Triduum (the Passion, the Resurrection, and the Eucharist) need to be examined in the light of philosophical experience (agony, birth, and the body). French phenomenology, which has long been important in France, and is perhaps even better known on the other side of the Atlantic, has been a great help in this respect. But it has not been a question of following one particular current of thought, if indeed phenomenology can be regarded as a current of thought. The new, in philosophy as in theology, cannot be formulated except insofar as it arises from what was there before. That is why we need to make our way through tradition—and take full account of it—in trying to say what the resurrection could mean for us today. We must, however, take care. My “philosophical triduum” is not addressed solely to philosophers, theologians, or even just to believers. The basic statements of Christianity are also part of the unfolding of a more general culture. If we forget that, we risk losing our rootedness in the old Europe, as much as in what became the New World and its continent. The challenge for Christian philosophy is not just to make it possible to believe Christian dogma but also and above all to make it credible. What it tells us, in particular here concerning the act of resurrection or of “rebirth,” is ix

not simply that we need to “believe” in it but also that we will come to “know” it. Past centuries have spent a good deal of energy in unflagging attempts to formulate the resurrection, for their own time and with their own concepts (see, e.g., Irenaeus, Tertullian, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure). It would be strange today if we were to abandon this struggle for our own era simply because Christianity is more and more threatened, or because it is seen in some quarters as passé. The philosopher is found today in a new role, a challenging one for some readers certainly, but also a reassuring one for others. We can say that the era of the “philosophy of the threshold”—a philosophy that held itself back in the entrance porch of theology on the pretext that the philosopher is not a theologian—is today over and done with. It was certainly the strength of Bergson, Blondel, or Scheler, and even of Gabriel Marcel or Paul Ricœur, that they held back from theologizing, albeit leaving it to others to develop as theologians what they had not themselves considered (the mystery of the spiritual, for example, that Henri de Lubac was to develop from Maurice Blondel). Today, however, and particularly in France, the frontiers have apparently shifted, so that it has become important to reexamine one’s position. It has at last become possible, at least in certain places and in certain circumstances, to describe oneself as “at the same time” philosopher and theologian, and to take on due responsibility for such a claim. The fact is that anyone who does philosophy, anyone who takes philosophy as her or his employment, knows where and when philosophy is being done, particularly once she or he starts to theologize. The paradox remains: The more we do of philosophy, the better the theology. And this is true precisely as one comes to know or understand what can go together in the same book of philosophy and of theology. The real distinction to be made between philosophy and theology does not lie in a separation between works devoted specifically to their disciplines according to a separation of the corpus that is only too familiar in French phenomenology. It lies in the “joint practice” of the one with the other, where we are all the better assured of their differences because they are acknowledged throughout. What follows, then, for the reader of English in this book, is the translation of my Métamorphose de la Finitude—The Metamorphosis of Finitude. A reading of it should lead to the core, if not of all the mysteries of faith and its philosophical or theological formulations, at least to that of my “triptych.” Metamorphosis of Finitude (on birth and resurrection) can stand independently of Le Passeur de Gethsémani (anguish, suffering, and death) and The Nuptials of the Lamb (the body and the Eucharist). The book was conceived and written so that it could also be read alone, taking up and x

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Preface to the English Edition

redeploying a “summary of finitude” as the horizon for a possible transformation through resurrection. The reader of the present book need not be too concerned with what went before and what comes after—albeit the translation and publication in English of the two other wings of the “triptych” is projected to follow this one. It is hoped that readers can simply follow the path of the author, forging their way with reference to their own experience of life, as the writer has done before them, in the unfailing belief that the act of reading is a shared act of existence. A reading is shared between writer and reader certainly, but also perhaps with Him whose “metamorphosis” emerges as the turning point of Christianity—a notion at the heart of the present book. There would not be any reading without an act of passage, of transfer, and of transmission—an act that in this case is allowed to us by the translation. The teacher and translator George Hughes has enthusiastically taken on the project of translating my book. He has not only rendered it accessible to anglophone readers but also brought out its strengths, which are grounded in personal experience as much as in the rigor of the reasoning. The journey made by the author through the problems of finitude and resurrection was one that his translator was to undertake with him. I should like here to record my due thanks to my translator, in words that are inadequate to describe the friendship we share. Mettray,  May,  Emmanuel Falque Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy The Catholic Institute of Paris

Preface to the English Edition

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xi

Preface The Beaune Altarpiece, or “The Germination of the Resurrected”

The altarpiece in the Beaune hospice in Burgundy, France, says all that needs to be said, or almost all, on the subject of the “germination of the resurrected.” Art in general, or the painter Rogier Van der Weyden in this case, is able to give us the visual image of a mystery that philosophy and theology can barely represent: the Last Judgement understood as a moment of the “resurrection of the body.” I shall say nothing here, or almost nothing, of the painting overall, because the reader can easily go and see the altarpiece for himself or herself, and because the power of the image defies all attempts at conceptualization. But with the altarpiece in mind as a starting point for the present essay, I should like simply to note that the resurrected figures emerge naked from the earth itself, at the sound of the last trumpet. There is neither coffin nor tomb in this raising up, but simply an “earthly crust,” more or less fertile, broken up and transformed by the “resurrected ones” at the call of the Last Judgement. The humus— not only what engulfs us in death but also what closes all the horizon of our existence (i.e., finitude)—cracks and opens up under the upstanding resurrected. Could it be that in Christianity the resurrection of the dead is more than simply redemption from sin? Certainly the little figurines representing virtues (virtutes) and sins ( peccata), on the scales of the archangel Michael, surprise us in their attitude and in their expression (the lightness of the one and the allure of the other). But they are not the essential point, despite the originality of their commentary on the problem. The specificity of the image takes its force from the birth of the resurrected, which xiii

is greater than any literary or artistic conjecture in this strange (but how accurate) theological metamorphosis of the philosophic structure of the world. There is a cracking and opening up of immanence and temporality (the crust of our finitude), even though finitude may be impassable simply at the level of our existence as part of mankind. Neither another world nor an event in the world, the resurrection shows itself here in its own true daylight as a transformation of the world, and of human beings in the world: In Heidegerrian terms, it is an ontological and not an ontic event. For those who are resurrected, in the altarpiece as in the present work as a whole, it does not matter in what place or from what spot they spring from the earth. (In Van der Weyden’s picture, one can even be resurrected on the side of hell!) All that counts is the attitude of the body as it pulls out of the earth: turned toward God (to paradise), or turned in on itself (to hell). Could it be that the fleshly specificity of our resuscitated selves belongs more to the mode of being of our bodies than to their substance? Or could it be perhaps that our own resurrection is none other than the raising up and transfiguration of our manner of being in the world through our bodies here on earth? It is that manner of being in the world through our bodies by which we live and express our most intimate selves, so much are we, first of all, creatures of flesh and blood. In short, the altarpiece of the Master of Beaune obviously signifies more than the simple repetition of what is usually said or imagined concerning the resurrection of the body. It has inspired the author of the present essay for several years, and I hope that some of what it has inspired I can suggest to my reader. I hope to unite writer and reader, the one and the other, the one as much as the other, in the same enterprise, in the compelling necessity to say something about our resurrected being “not that it might be [completely] spoken, but that it might not be left unspoken” (St. Augustine). We may hope thus to avoid sinking into that silence that would destroy this mystery forever.

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Preface

The Metamorphosis of Finitude

Introduction To Be Transformed

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” ( Cor :–). To die or to be transformed, or rather for everyone to be transformed whether already dead or not, since only the last trumpet sounds here, is the universal metamorphosis proposed by St. Paul as a definition, no less, of the resurrection. And the resurrection is immediately of the Word made living body, and subsequently it is quite simply of human beings, at the Last Judgement. That the living Christ was transfigured—or, rather, literally metamorphosed—in the eyes of Peter, James, and John on a “high mountain, by themselves” is certain (Mt :). That he was, “as he said,” “raised from the dead” (Mt :–); that “God raised him the third day” (Acts , ); that his body “experienced no corruption” (Acts , ); and that he “appeared “to Simon” (Lk :) and “appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time” ( Cor :): Why not? These are so many episodes, although, when all is said and done, they concern only a few privileged disciples, spectators of a body that has been “transfigured” or metamorphosed (metamorphoo¯)—a body that they gaze at without experiencing for themselves what we call a “transformation.” But that “God raised the Lord, and will also raise us by his power” ( Cor :); that he will “transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory” (Phil , ); or, further, that “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in



a mirror are being transformed into the same image” ( Cor :): These are statements that cannot simply be taken for granted. There are two reasons why all this is not straightforward. On the one hand, there is a hesitation on the part of theology to believe that it should be concerned with what happened to the resurrected Christ. On the other, there is a burden of philosophical finitude that probably we cannot overcome and even less can hope to transform. The first problem for the theologian is in some way to “get into the picture, to get out of the auditorium and to throw oneself onto the scene,” something that would be worthwhile for every Christian, in particular when it is a question of the metamorphosis of one’s own finitude (resurrection). What belongs to God indeed often stays with God, and the divine heroism that his disciples accord to God has in reality no other end but to distance him from the ordinary condition of human beings. But as for the burden of finitude, if the philosopher starts to calculate what it involves, then he or she will rapidly give up waiting for any other arguments that might lighten the burden or, even less, that might transform it. When all is said or done, neither Christians nor philosophers are led to believe for themselves in their own resurrection. The former abandon this privilege to Christ alone, raised from the dead; the latter often suppress even the possibility. To insist on the suffering of the Son in its specifically finite aspect (anguish, suffering, and death) is then inadequate, and a phenomenological examination of the passion turns out to be a necessity from the start (see my Le Passeur de Gethsémani). Moreover we have to believe, to accept, and to welcome the notion of the resurrection, that a passage on this occasion could transform the ontological structure of this world and alter it from end to end. “We have underlined throughout that in enduring (i.e. suffering) this world, the Son communicates to the Father (i.e. passes on) the burden of the finite that he has experienced in his death, and begs him now that he will also deliver him from pain.” Understanding this passion is then the task, proposed in my earlier book but not yet accomplished, and that constitutes the object of the present enquiry, The Metamorphosis of Finitude. §. From Death to Birth Le Passeur de Gethsémani, to which The Metamorphosis of Finitude stands as a companion volume, concluded precisely with “an analysis of incarnation (finitude, suffering, and death) opening toward a difficult albeit possible analysis of the resurrection (birth and imperishability).” Man and his body lay claim in effect to a past (birth), a present (sexuality), and a future 

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Introduction: To Be Transformed

(death). In his incarnation, the Son of God takes on the radical corporality of the experience of man, even transforming that corporality the better to come to terms with it. He dies in being born (at Bethlehem), in making a gift of his body (at the Last Supper), and in dying (on Golgotha). I have shown elsewhere that the Son of Man suffers the corporal modality of the future—that is, of death—as a total rending apart and that suffering is consecrated precisely as the receptive space for the other that is the Father in him. He takes on fully the corporal modality of the present, or the gift of the body (which is the subject of the third volume in my “triptych,” Les Noces de l’Agneau [The Nuptials of the Lamb]) in the unique, almost conjugal, moment of the act of love, in which his body is given to the other: Hoc est enim corpus meum—“this is my body” (Mk :). It is the corporal modality of the past, or of birth, that we are concerned with in this book, and that opens paradoxically onto a new future, a “second birth.” There is something more fundamental in man and in God than death: birth. One can, after all, bring about one’s own death but not one’s birth. All heroism of the subject here definitively comes to an end, up to and including Nietzschean attempts to “bring oneself back to life.” Birth for the nascent (for those who are born) is not self-given but visited on us. It is with the living body as it is with one’s name, a thing not drawn from oneself and initially imposed on the self. From the passivity of the nascent we shall draw as paradigm the passivity of the resurrected. What goes for human beings in our own birth goes also most probably for the Son of Man. “Like man,” Tertullian suggests, “Christ loved his birth, he loved his flesh” and “sent down to die,” he writes in a later passage, “he had necessarily to be born also in order that he might die; indeed nothing dies but what is [first] born.” It is not enough, then, following the Heideggerian motif of my previous book, to underline that, “as soon as man comes to life [as was the case at Bethlehem], he is at once old enough to die [as at Golgotha].” I would echo Heidegger here (though he neglected to develop the point) that “the inauthentic Dasein [and thus also Christ in his humanity] exists ‘natively’ and it is ‘natively’ that he dies in the sense that he is a being for death.” In other words, if death, or corporal modality of the future, for human beings as for the Word incarnate, is not a simple accident of birth or of the corporal modality of the past, it always sends one back to “another ending,” probably more originary even though never analyzed as such, the first of all the beginnings—the “birth.” What is simply there “between” our birth and death constitutes in the first place the totality of our life, our pure being, which is inauthentic insofar as we are ourselves, for ourselves, the temporal extension of this beginning always oriented toward its own end. Introduction: To Be Transformed

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

It is no small matter from the point of view of the eternal engendering of the Son in the breast of the Father, but it falls to theology to recognize that for the Son of God to be born “in bands of cloth” (Luke :) is exactly already for him to start to die on the cross (Acts :). Not that life has been made only for death—a notion that in this context would be a serious philosophical and theological misinterpretation—but, insofar as to be born is already to proceed toward death, to live in the light of that end that must, I think, be either definitive (a nothingness) or provisional (resurrection). Although he took the form of “Being for death” [Sein zum Ende] at Gethsemane and on Golgotha, the Son of God had originally taken the form of “Being for the beginning” [Sein zum Anfang] at his birth in Bethlehem, or in his multiple apparitions to his disciples, witnesses at this time of a “new birth,” or “renaissance.” To pass from death to birth, or from the “twilight of the gods” to the “first dawn of things,” is then not only to enter into the experience of the Son suffering the burden of the world and its incomprehensible finitude but also to brave with him the passage he took toward what was most fundamental in his own life. We learn from him—that is, by his revelation and the supporting texts—how his “Being for death” breaks itself apart definitively on exposure to a “new Being for the beginning” provoked, or rather raised up by the Father, in him. If he was sown as “perishable” like all human beings, in his temporal birth at Bethlehem or wherever (not that this prejudices in any way either his eternal birth or his conception in the virgin birth), he was resurrected as “imperishable” but nonetheless corporal at Jerusalem and in all other places ( Cor :). The mystery of the Passion (anguish, suffering, and death) rejoins here the mystery of the Nativity (birth), which in turn joins the mystery of Easter (resurrection as [re]naissance): “They kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean” (Mk :). §. The Dialogue with Nicodemus If theology invokes a mystery here, however, we cannot ignore the need for dogma to be intelligible. In the history of theology there has surely never been as little discussion of the “final resurrection” as there is today. It is a safe bet that this is because we don’t know what, or what more, to say about it. Silence of this kind, which exists around the possibility of a “phenomenology of the resurrection,” does not spring from a weakness in theology—there are countless impressive discussions, in particular by the Fathers of the Church. It springs rather from the almost total absence of any reference to the original life experience of human beings in the act of 

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Introduction: To Be Transformed

birth. What is not discussed is the act of birth by which Christ and his disciples come (come anew?) to life and open another world or, better, a new way of being in this same world. In his conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus (John :–), however, Jesus puts us on the right track for such an existential analysis of the resurrection. It is common to emphasize, on the basis of this exchange with Nicodemus, that for us today to be resurrected is first of all to be “born of water and Spirit” (John :). Although that is true of baptism (a rebirth of water and of the Spirit), such a reading of the dialogue with Nicodemus is often used as a way of obscuring what is its ultimate sense: It is a first declaration and exegesis of the resurrection of the body—that also being a “new birth” (supposing that on the one hand one is “already born of the flesh,” and on the other hand that one can really grasp the sense of what is being said). When the purport of resurrection or of being “born again” is taken entirely in terms of baptism as spiritual renaissance, the tendency is to leave aside the final resurrection as a new birth of the flesh. The rejoinder of the sage, who comes by night to question the “master,” is thus of great pertinence: “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (John :). This is far from indicating the naïveté that is often attributed to Nicodemus. Like all men, he had in reality no other experience of birth than what was first and originally his own—what was most peculiar to him because at the same time it was nearest: the birth of his living body, drawn from his “mother’s womb.” And Jesus precisely understood this and seized on this, which suggests an analogic response where commonly we stick to false dualist ideas: “What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John :). This formula does not signify that flesh (sarx) and spirit ( pneuma) should be dogmatically opposed in the Greek manner, as though the rebirth of the one (the spirit) could not win out except by the death and destruction of the other (the flesh). On the contrary, it invites us, and rightly, to join in the silent corporal auto-comprehension of all human beings, to think analogically of what is brought forth in the resurrection, of the way in which this is lived in the act of birth for us all. Just as you know for yourself what birth is from the birth of your own flesh from your “mother’s womb,” or you know because in your turn you also have begotten by your own flesh, so, in the same way, you understand today what the “rebirth of the spirit” is, starting from the first experience of the birth of your flesh, or by your flesh. In other words, as flesh is born of flesh in the act of filiation, or of begetting, so spirit is born of spirit in the act of baptism and even more in the final resurrection. The latter (resurrection of the body) brings to the former (baptism) a corporal dimension that the former lacks and that must Introduction: To Be Transformed

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

nonetheless be written into every act of birth. To be reborn is not to “enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born”—which explains the very appropriate reply of Jesus to the Pharisee. It is to be born of water and of the Spirit, truly to be reborn of the body, just as I myself was born of the flesh and derive from another my own flesh—that flesh out of which our own bodies are always composed. This dialogue with Nicodemus, which serves as a motif through the present work, can be taken to justify the philosophical, and therefore human, interrogation of what is our actual experience of the birth of the flesh. And from this we arrive, in the guise of a believer’s interpretation this time, at the theological dimension of that other experience, of the resurrection of the body, lived through so far (at least according to Catholic dogma) by Christ and by Mary his mother. The passage from death to birth invites us to a “rebirth” that can never skip over the meaning, first of all phenomenological and descriptive, of the act of birth—because the act of birth serves as its guide and model. §. The Heuristic Approach and Didactic Exposition Before moving to the core of this “phenomenology of the resurrection” (part III of my argument in this book), I should first clarify what justifies the long journey down the nave that leads into it—the “précis of finitude” (part I of the argument)—and the transept that delineates within it the form of a cross: “toward a metamorphosis” (part II). One doesn’t naïvely reach the “joy” of a metamorphosis (part III) without first passing through the unbearable “burden” of what is to be transformed (part I) or without the “strength” of him who, after all, brings about the transformation (part II). In other words, the transcendental conditions of the resurrection have to be examined, in order to justify, if not the act itself, at least its novelty. The question of the “type of receptive medium [that Christianity supposes]” remains a decisive one in philosophy (see Kant), as in theology (see Rahner). It is not that we can reduce God to man (the false charge of anthropological reductivism): rather that we need to see in God how he makes himself the measure of human beings (kenose¯), and how he marks out a route for us toward the divine, starting from the human. Today as yesterday, I have no other route to God except by means of the person I am. And Christ, “having lived our condition of humanity in all things except sin,” teaches me first to look at myself in my humanity in order to reach him in his divinity. But to follow the humanization of the divine to its logical conclusion does not mean that we have to hypostasize man as a “transcendent being.” 

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In fact nothing seems more arbitrary, to me and to many others, than some kind of experience, given to us or proffered us, of the Infinite, above all when it is taken to be a kind of requisite deriving from some structure of humanity. Everything seems to indicate, at least when we take our “human condition” seriously (see Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and Deleuze), that the temporality, which gets called “ecstatic,” is nothing less than a finite temporality of which “the future is closed” and the “foundations nonexistent.” Only the closed horizon of our Being-there (finitude) convinces us in the first place, at least, that we exist—albeit in the tormented excess of the existence that is imposed on us. “We have not the slightest reason to be here, not one among us,” says Sartre’s Antoine Roquentin. “Every being, muddleheaded, vaguely worried, feels himself unwanted or superfluous [de trop] in relation to others. De trop: that was the only relation I could set up with these trees, these railings, these stones. . . . I was de trop for eternity.” As long as I am not dead but have a singular awareness of my certain future disappearance, I lay stress solely on its exact opposite, on the burden of my life and of my present appearance. In short, if we really want to take stock today of the “finitude of primordial time,” we need to stop deriving the “finite” from the “infinite.” It is, conversely, “only because primordial time is finite [that] the ‘derived’ time [can] temporalize itself as infinite.” But a whole branch of theology seems to have been pulled down in such a radical revaluation of our Being-there, seen simply as “between” birth and death. Creation, the call, redemption, the image of God in man, an opening up toward grace, or aspiration to the divine—all are forgotten. They are replaced only and almost literally by closure (of all futurity) and obsolescence (of all foundation). But the theological enterprise, in the great strength of its dogmatic tradition, will not be definitively wiped out by such a move, far from it. Theology comes back, on the contrary, with the resurrection itself, considered now as a transformation, as a transfiguration precisely of this ontological structure of our Being-there (part one of my argument). On the one hand, we stand on a different footing (the metamorphosis of finitude brought about by the Father and his resurrected Son [part II]); and on the other hand we open up toward a new future (with a new hope that bears up those without hope [part III]). To consider the resurrection as a “metamorphosis of finitude” comes down then, in the first place, to accepting that there is something to transform that is not of the order of sin. It is to risk holding fast either to the restoration of another world (the myth of the golden age) or to fulfillment in this world (completion without change). We cannot in this respect dissent from the well-known Thomist adage, which underlies the strongest of Catholic traditions, that grace “does not destroy nature but perfects it” Introduction: To Be Transformed

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(cum enim gratia non tollat naturam sed perficiat). I do not take this in the sense that grace could restore the qualities that are missing in nature, or that it perfects nature’s admitted potentialities, but rather as suggesting that it transforms these qualities at the same time as it puts the finishing touches to them: perficiat nisi transformans. Grace perfects nature or, as I would like to add, “at least transforms it.” Since I have discussed elsewhere how the structure of finitude cannot be derived solely from sin, I would like to put things in another way here, and suggest that it is the world itself, in this its most fundamental structure, that awaits metamorphosis. Resurrection is not and will not be a simple event of transformation in the world, but it is the event of the transformation of the world—ontologic and not ontic—supposing that the world, as it is, is entirely contained within the Word resurrected (Col :–), and modified by the Word (chapter , “The Incorporation of the Human Being”). Thus Jean-Luc Marion quite rightly asks: “Do the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Christ affect the ontological destiny of the world? Or do they remain purely ontic events?” To reply we need to describe what there is philosophically in the structure of this world (part I of my argument) that allows that structure to be theologically transformed by the irruption of the resurrected (part II) and allows it to be phenomenologically described in the accounts of his apparitions (part III). It is significant then for theology, as has been the case in philosophy at least since Descartes, that it does not confound a heuristic approach with didactic exposition, the one directed toward research and the other toward teaching. What we say, first of all, in a first phase, about the Beingthere of humankind (the impassable horizon of human finitude and Being-there) does not necessarily dictate that this will be the last word, the last phase of truth about human existence (the transfiguration of this same finitude through Christ). The resurrection can be seen as metamorphosis or transfiguration only insofar as what is to be transformed is first of all analyzed from the starting point of our humanity, and insofar as this is done independently of all consideration of the resurrected Son, or of the Father who created us. What was said at the start is not to be rescinded but metamorphosed and converted by the Resurrected One—albeit he himself is found at the end to be like One who had always been there, from the start. Far from disqualifying finitude (part I of my argument), resurrection as metamorphosis (part II) thus gives meaning to it, in the operation of transfiguration (part III). And so the resurrection changes everything, even the structure of discourse, above all when it is considered from a philosophical point of view.

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The era of great philosophical systems has of course come to an end, if not with Husserl and Nietzsche at least since Heidegger and numerous contemporary French phenomenologists (M. Henry, E. Levinas, J.-L. Nancy, H. Maldiney). “There when the world becomes conceptualized image [Bild], systems exercise their domination, and not only in the intellectual world.” But the act of systemization persists nonetheless in an influential fashion in contemporary theology, probably under the fertile influence of a type of Hegelian thought. Without entering into any sterile academic disputes, I should like to suggest, with some assurance, that the French method of practicing philosophy, and in particular phenomenology, can also find its place in theology. Only thus can we engender a new way of reading Gospel texts that is not solely restricted to their hermeneutic but that opens up on a descriptive and phenomenological experience. This is a practice that still awaits, if not its guidelines, at least its full deployment.

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Précis of Finitude Dread of limitation is dread of existence. —Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity

To propose a “précis of finitude” is not to serve up a new summary in the guise of a compendium of philosophy, as though one were furnishing the results for theology and insisting that it renew itself on that basis. It is rather to propose that the contemporary theologian, like the philosopher, needs to take finitude as the first given. Finitude doesn’t summarize a doctrine, but simply sums up the most ordinary existence of all human beings, including that of the Son of God, who was exactly “made man” (et homo factus est). One couldn’t in fact hypothesize any further than this, faced with the humanity of a divinity of which (or of whom) at first sight we have no experience. As I have emphasized above (§ ), the world as the “blocked horizon of our existence” belongs in the first place to our particular mode of being. Finitude [Endlichkeit], “the impassable limit of our life,” means that life is completely dominated by care [Sorge], and it makes of our Being-there [Dasein] a simple “between,” caught between birth and death. And thought in general has no other option but compliance with this most basic given, at the risk of unceasingly “lying to itself ” with a bad faith that would do it little credit. I know myself and I feel myself to be finite, and not to admit this is a way of beating a retreat in front of an evident “fear of existence.” If philosophy is “fundamentally atheist,” in that it questions the strictly finite modalities of our Being-there (Heidegger), it is in such a position that the believer also must find himself or herself, with the proviso that one accepts, at least from a heuristic point of view, that we come to pic

ture for ourselves first of all simply the incarnation of a man rather than the image of a God. Kant already foresaw this in his quasi-“Analytic of Finitude,” demonstrating very early on “the miscarriage of all philosophical trials in matters of theodicy” where the existence of God is assumed before we have in some way found him. “What else does reason have as a guide for its theoretical conjectures,” Kant states abruptly, “except natural law? For the rest, the philosopher affirms that, whether it is a question of the existence of God, or of the reduction of evil to the level of a first principle, or again of a system of rewards and punishments in the hereafter, these are things that one can very well invoke, but that it is strictly impossible to comprehend. The believer, however, doesn’t just give up. Today, as yesterday, he affirms that his God is “already there” in the world, even though he has no immediate experience of God. The necessity of understanding and not simply admitting or invoking, in contemporary faith even more than in the past, is not a matter of rationalism or fideism, as is often reproachfully suggested to both the philosopher and the believer. Comprehension “is itself the inmost essence of finitude” Heidegger insists, following Kant extremely closely, “insofar as it remains always taken up with finitude.” I do not understand the world as “the blocked horizon of my existence” when I try to take some kind of bird’s eye view of it, an endeavor that is as impossible as it is illusory. I remain on the contrary always taken hold of by, or included in it, as long as I only put it in place starting from my finite Being-there, and consider that it is, properly speaking, impossible to climb out of. The hermeneutic structure of reason thus also becomes its passion (in the sense of suffering rather than desire), once it starts considering itself as not only impassable but also insurmountable. One comes to understand, then, why “modern man” “is possible only as a figure of finitude.” “Our culture crossed the threshold from which we acknowledge our modernity on that day when finitude came to be thought of as an interminable self-reference.” Impassable immanence as opposed to any supposition of an immediate opening up to transcendence, the avowal of a finite temporality as opposed to its impossible derivation from an eternity of some kind, and the recognition of the possible depth of man without God: All these are characteristic features of such a concept of finitude. The believer, like everyone else, will come to question “man, simply man” at the risk of losing—in a supposed aspiration to the divine— what constitutes his shared humanity.

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

Impassable Immanence

§. The Immanence in Question We have no other experience of God but human experience. When I experience God, what sustains me is, at least first of all, God made human. No access opens toward the nonhuman—God, angel, beast, or demon— other than precisely through the human that I am. “We cannot go to other beings without passing through our own being, and we can understand ourselves only by understanding others in ourselves” (Blondel). One might think that all this is well established, in theology at the very least. Some theologians indeed agree today to recognize the “method of immanence” of Maurice Blondel as the solution to the problem of the link between the natural and the supernatural: It explains the aspirations of human beings on the one hand and the gift of God on the other. In short, this turn of thought, the object of much misunderstanding in its day, would seem to manifest the “moral courage” of those who look for a “golden mean” between partisans of what we might call “immanent-ism” and the champions of what we might call, on the other hand, “extrinsic-ism.” Blondel’s idea of a supernatural “as indispensable as it is inaccessible to human beings” seemed at one time to solve a problem that would henceforth be taken as closed in theology. What appeared to be intrinsically correct from a didactic point of view (that human beings were created by God and are naturally open to God) is, however, not satisfactory to us from a heuristic point of view (which 

would emphasize our experience of the closure of the world and of our own existence). I experience my finitude in the first place, even though this may not be the priority of him who first set me here—namely, God himself. Without accepting for a moment the hypothesis of a “nature without grace” (Baius), or of “pure nature” (Cajetan), we can understand that the experience of grace or openness to God is not given first (part I of my argument) but only afterward (part III). That is to say, it is mediated in and through the resurrection in Christ, who holds in him all creation, including us (part II). Although it is absolutely invalid from a dogmatic point of view, insofar as it rejects a divine creation, the conjecture of a “pure nature” retains here nonetheless a certain heuristic value. Human beings were not created without grace, but all the same we find ourselves first in nature (or better in finitude)—that is to say, independent of the evidence that will be the revelation of God. In this respect we return to our own humanity along with all of those of our contemporaries who are capable of living authentically without God (§). Contemporary philosophy thus finds, and in the shape of phenomenology in particular, what Catholic theology had thought already settled. The French philosopher Dominique Janicaud asks, “Is there anything that has so decisively distinguished French phenomenology for the past thirty years, since it was first introduced by Husserl and Heidegger, as its rupture with the phenomenalism of immanence?” After the interval of a century it seems that the debate over immanence deserves to be reopened today, not starting from Spinozism and immanent-ism this time (Léon Brunschvicg and Émile Boutroux) but sticking resolutely within the horizon of finitude and the impossibility of going beyond it (see Heidegger). In his time (November ), Léon Brunschvicg warned, “Modern rationalism has been led by the analysis of thought to take the notion of immanence as the basis and the very condition of all philosophical doctrines.” A “concealed postulate” operates in the writings of the young Blondel, according to his colleague Émile Boutroux, and works, albeit surreptitiously and more or less shiftily, through the entire philosophy of L’Action and thus through much contemporary phenomenology and theology: “The desire of the infinite: Isn’t that the starting point and the principle motive of all your research? And with the infinite in hand, it’s hardly surprising, is it, that you would clear up all the contradictions of the finite?” §. The Preemption of the Infinite The preemptive right of the infinite over the finite in Cartesian thought seems to have been carried over, like a preferential right gained long ago, 

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into a large part of contemporary phenomenology (from Emmanuel Levinas to Jean-Luc Marion or Michel Henry) as well as into theology (from Maurice Blondel to Karl Rahner or Hans Urs von Balthasar): “In some way I possess the perception (notion) of the infinite before that of the finite, that is, the perception of God before that of myself.” It is not my purpose to call into question or to oppose what is one of the great strengths of the Catholic tradition: the permanence of the supernatural at the heart of the natural, or the “deformation” rather than the “destruction” of the image of God in mankind after the Fall. But what counts here, as I have already tried to show (§), is priority, or rather the access of human beings to God, starting from our existences simply as man or woman—not knowing or experiencing when all is said or done any more than that, at least first of all. Let us agree that human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. And let us agree that we still carry in us the evidence of that creation like “the mark of the workman impressed on his work”—why not? But what cannot go without question today is the assumption that our dissatisfaction, or our predisposition toward happiness, is such that human beings have no other “way of being” than for us to open ourselves to God (who becomes thus necessary) or that God has no other way than to give himself to human beings (showing himself in the process as inaccessible). In a Christian way of doing philosophy, we too often confuse a “plane of immanence” with the “concept of immanence,” as though the horizon of finitude had always to be referred “to” other things, or to a somewhere else that did not allow it any longer to be presented as what it is. Finitude as an access to the Christian path of human beings, though not as the last word concerning that path, demands rather that we have the courage to loiter with all those who are our contemporaries, within the blocked horizon that comes from the simple fact of existing. “Religious authority,” Gilles Deleuze complains, talking of Christian theology, “wants immanence to be acceptable only locally or at an intermediary level. It is to be like a fountain cascading from level to level, where the water is briefly immanent at each level, but only on condition that it comes from a higher spring and will ineluctably descend lower down.” The fusion, or rather the confusion, of finitude and the finite—found in philosophy and more or less inescapable in theology—probably explains a constant drift from the territory of what is actually transcendence into immanence. Heidegger, forever rereading Kant, hammered at this problem in a way that has been important to me. He says, “It is not enough to cite randomly certain human imperfections to define the finitude of mankind . . . this path can only lead us at best to note that man is a finite Being.” In short, to continue speaking of man being “finite” as a delimitation, a Impassable Immanence

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parceling off, a striving toward an inclusive “Infinite,” in the manner of a Descartes, a Blondel or a Levinas, does not lead to finitude as such, far from it. And it is not sufficient to brandish “the positive infinity of the spirit” against the “defective mathematic infinity” (the indefinite) or the “negativity of the finite” (immediacy), in the hope of stepping over these last two. Only the positiveness of finitude, understood as realized within temporality by the future (death), and independent of all considerations of the finite (the insufficiency of man), or of the infinite (the plenitude of God), can tell us what there is of the Being-there of man (Dasein)—man described as one whose “future itself is closed” and who exists in his “ownmost nullity.” One point, however, holds and retains its Christian specificity—at least in the most elementary gift of revelation: The first words of Christianity (the impassable horizon of the finitude of man, or of his Being-there) are not its final word (the transfiguration through Christ of this same finitude). When humankind really can content itself with the blocked prospect of its own existence and simply with its own humanity, and when people can possess precisely that just and worthy faculty to “experience [their] proper being and the possibility of nonbeing without coming to speak of God” (Jüngel), then the Son of Man is not likely to satisfy them. But if the Son of Man can be recognized as far as his appearance is concerned—or, bet‒ ati) is concerned—as a human being, he is ter, as far as his behavior (schm nonetheless also revealed to us as Son of God who “became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Ph :). That is to say, he followed (but not exclusively) the most common law of his own corporal perishability. “Even more than necessary” (Jüngel), or in accord with a Desire that “never satiates but simply makes hungry” (Levinas), the Word incarnate revealed in the resurrection, and exclusively in it, that there is more in mankind than the pure and simple evaluation of himself by himself. It is precisely at this point that neither a Martin Heidegger, nor a Michel Foucault, nor a Gilles Deleuze would be able to follow us. The return to, or rather the securing in place, of an impassable immanence does not then signify a refusal of transcendence, far from it; it only implies that we must think of both the one and the other differently, think of them better, in the way that phenomenology has today revised these concepts: Immanence must be understood as “strictly confined within the bounds of internal experience” (Husserl), and transcendence as an “openness [horizontal] of subjectivity” and no longer as a “relation [vertical] of a subject to an object” which is exterior to it (Heidegger). The debate over immanence is thus far from closed in theology, starting in effect from the renewal of these notions in philosophy. And, at least in the first place, it 

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would probably be wrong to accuse whoever holds to the pure and simple given of our existence as human of sin (that is, to accuse someone of the breaking of a pact hypothetically settled beyond what is existentially lived). If the believer sticks simply to appearances as they appear (immanence), he or she will not run off, or only exceptionally, into the illusions of a discourse of the beyond—a beyond that would have to be quite artificial in that it offered no access to one’s own experience (the supposed infinite never being immediately shared out). Such a beyond would cut one off from the ordinary run of mortals (experiencing the anguish of their Being-there rather than, as might be thought, the naïve joy of self-abandonment). We need then along with Maurice Blondel, and not in opposition to him, to develop the method of immanence further—that is to say, we need to push it to its limits, just as one works out a thesis in radicalizing it further. §. Christian Specificity and the Ordinariness of the Flesh In holding then to the narrow limits of the phenomenon as it presents itself, one relies either on “a method of description of phenomena that is specific to Christianity” (Jean-Luc Marion), or else on ordinary life and the common fleshly humanity of the Son of God (our perspective here). In reality these two paths are far from contradictory: They complement one another. One of them (that of Marion) treats the incarnation, the resurrection, or the adoration of the Eucharist as “exemplary” expressions of a “saturated” phenomenon. The other (ours here) sticks strictly to the ordinariness of the daily life of him who not only joined human beings like us but also “truly became one of us” (Gaudium et Spes). The “banalization of Christ who comes in the shape of an ordinary man” is not then to be immediately “overridden by using it as a counterpoint to underline by contrast the extraordinary character of his acts and his conduct” (Michel Henry). What makes Christianity is not solely the extraordinary in Christ’s revelation of his glory (which would be an excess of the divine and a deification of the human): It is also and indeed primarily the sharing by the Word incarnate of our most ordinary human condition independently of sin (that is, human finitude and the humanization of the divine). St. Augustine, recalling the advice of his mother, Monica, says she did not say “There where He is himself, you are yourself also [ubi ille, ibi et tu]” but rather “There where you are yourself, He is himself also [sed: ubi tu, ibi et ille].” A recall to immanence. As a general beats a retreat without giving up the game entirely, trying to hold his troops within frontiers that can’t be crossed, so there echoes through the philosophical camp and there sounds out on the eardrums of theology the drumbeat of “problems of facticity— Impassable Immanence

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the most radical phenomenology, which starts from below in an authentic sense.” Phenomenology and theology done “from above”—if one goes along with this rather spatializing terminology—will not be convincing without passing first by way of a phenomenology done from below. It was appropriate for Nicodemus, as we have seen (§), to live and to understand what was meant by being born from below, before grasping the meaning of being reborn from above (see John :–). Phenomenology then also needs, if it is to avoid a “rather suspect theological turn,” to “forbid itself any speculation on the preexistence of the Word, on the link between kenosis and incarnation, on speaking in tongues, on the hypostatic union, and other questions of this kind.” This is a radical proposition and needs to be taken seriously—not out of respect for some version of Heidegger’s thought (and why worry if it is early or late Heidegger as long as it gives us food for thought today?) but in virtue of the great fundamental given of Christianity: the Word made flesh. It is like the disciples on the road to Emmaus seen at two moments that do not represent a contradiction (Luke :–). No doubt the disciples had “hearts burning” as they went on their way without recognizing Christ except as an ordinary man (phenomenology from below, or the ordinariness of the flesh): But also, as Marion points out, they could recognize Christ as extra-ordinary at the breaking of the bread, after which he “vanished from their sight” (phenomenology from above, or saturation of the phenomenon). In short, the dionysiac route of the “unthinkable eminence” at a distance that separates and preserves it from the idol can be counterbalanced by the path of Bonaventure, of a “god of supreme knowability” in a closeness between man and God, a closeness that is typically Franciscan. There are then two types of “phenomenality,” not in opposition or in conflict but starting off in very different ways: the saturation of divine revelation on the one hand and the ordinariness of the human given on the other. But they come together in agreement over the light of the resurrected. It is given to the former in the splendor of the divine (Denys) and is deciphered by the latter in terms of the poverty of the human: “The profundity of God made man, that is to say, the humility, which is so great that reason fails before it” (Bonaventure).

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

From Time to Time

Finitude, as I have tried to show (§), “is not an accident of the ‘immortal’ essence of man, but the foundation of man’s existence.” We need to admit, moreover, and to welcome the notion, that a “précis of finitude” would go so far as to give up taking some kind of eternity for granted. And this is precisely where the shoe pinches—at least from the perspective of certain believers. Of course one could happily acknowledge (a) that we have “no other experience of God apart from that of mankind,” which would be only from the standpoint of this world (§); (b) that we should give up assuming the preemption of the infinite over the finite and stick rather to a “cross-section of immanence” (§); and (c) that the fleshly ordinariness of humankind belongs by rights to Christianity more than, or at least as much as, does the saturation of divine revelation (§). But to say that the eternal, or perhaps first of all the a-temporal, is not, or is no longer, our appropriate starting point doesn’t seem obvious to the believer, and it threatens the whole edifice of theology. Resistance to this notion is all the stronger because it touches on the “validity,” and shakes the foundations, of a Christian life. If I do not come from or have my origin directly in a first principle that governs me, how shall I be able to rejoin Him to whom I am supposed to owe my birth, even my conception? The question of the origin or creation, as we shall see (§), goes along with that of the end of things or with the resurrection. The insistence of our contemporaries on temporality should, however, be treated with caution. The goal is always the same, even though the 

means used to get there may be different. All such thinkers, each in his own fashion—from the “living present” of Husserl, to “care” in Heidegger, and to the “durée” in Bergson—eradicate nontemporal experience, although nothing guarantees, apart from second-hand accounts, that they have really taken the measure of its reality. “Sentimus experimurque nos aeternos esse”—we feel and know that we are eternal (Spinoza). But this is a feeling that is no longer uniformly shared. Nor can we take it for granted that “time and eternity are not the same thing,” nor even that “eternity includes all times” (Thomas Aquinas). It is not that such solutions are worthless: far from it. But, as we shall see (§), they can only rely on the unique event of the resurrection. Only the resurrection is capable of breaking through the chains of both finitude and of temporality. Theological eternity, whether it is “a-temporal” (above time and including all time) or “intemporal” (an indefinite continuum of successive moments), should therefore be a direct consideration of time starting from time itself, and not the converse—not the view that only an “outside-time” can legitimate time. Martin Heidegger complained ironically to an audience of theologians at Marburg () about the way this had been done; and we must also start from his viewpoint today, now that all phenomenology, like all theology, works “from below” (§). Heidegger says: “The philosopher does not just believe. If he poses the question of time, he is determined to understand time starting from time. . . . Our approach is not theological.” To understand time is then in a way, and we ignore for the moment the redundancy in the phrase, taking the time to “understand time starting off from time.” To do justice to this formula is to show (a) how temporality was always derived from eternity in theology (§); to show (b) to what extent temporality is not itself comprehensible other than in its own terms and starting from itself in its own passage (§); and to show also (c) how the burden of time carries us into a future of care, whose load we have, above all, to carry (§). With all this under our belts, and only then, do we come to understand what it implies for the philosopher, as for human beings in general (while remaining “fundamentally atheist” [chapter ]), to pose the question of time, being ourselves in time. §. The Drift of Time “What did God do before making the heaven and the earth?” St. Augustine’s question is, from a theological point of view, highly pertinent. (It asks the meaning of a divine action independent of the created.) But from a philosophical point of view it remains meaningless, a petitio principii. Even to put the question to oneself is in a way to leave the world and 

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assume the existence of God without having searched for him or found him. In the terms used by Heidegger, albeit without specific reference to St. Augustine, “a question of this kind—from eternity to time—is justified only on condition that we know what eternity is and that we have a sufficient understanding of it.” And it is exactly knowledge (of eternity) that we most lack, and that is what prevents us, at least as far as research is concerned, from starting off from nontemporality. We are “in time” as we are “in the world,” and “our presence in the world must be our first consideration.” The theological idea of a “stable eternity that makes time future and time past,” or the idea of an “eternal creator of all time before all time,” is then nothing more than empty words, or flatus vocis, from a philosophical point of view, and probably for all human beings within the terms of our simple humanity. When all is said and done, we have no experience of what is in question (eternity), at least insofar as we start from time as “the form of the internal sense” that is “the formal condition of all phenomena whatsoever.” Here the drift of time points less to a “time that passes,” legitimately comprehended by everyone and therefore also by the philosopher (§), but rather to the act through which the theologian continues to “differentiate” or “draw” temporality from eternity, as though a kind of knowledge of the latter (eternity) could furnish a justification for the former (temporality). But the thesis that the philosopher cannot hold is that of a God “outside time” who would have created all time— past, present, future—at the same time as he produced the world. At least the philosopher cannot maintain this from a heuristic point of view (§), which recognizes nothing other than pure and simple temporality. The argument for an a priori eternity remains then always false from a philosophical point of view. And if it is necessary for theology, it has to be envisaged according to a new, or perhaps more ancient, perspective, buttressing creation as a dogma of faith rather than as a philosophical hypothesis. This is moreover the sense, although not the primary aim, of the rejection by Thomas Aquinas of all apodictic argument concerning the “beginning of the world” outside precisely that of faith, which alone can guarantee it. “That the world began to exist [unde mundum incoepisse] is an object of faith [est credible] but not of demonstration or science [non autem demonstrandum vel scibile].” The negative impossibility in which Aquinas found himself in order to establish a “beginning of the world” starting off simply from rational argument is a sign, positive this time, that such an origin cannot be affirmed other than from the position of a believer, if the origin is that of “creation” and not simply “nature.” But there are better and more helpful ways of looking at temporality and therefore at creation. It would certainly be useful today, as much in From Time to Time

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writing theology as in giving university courses on the subject, to go back behind the ancient and harmful separation between creation and eschatology. Since Peter Lombard’s Four Books of Sentences, which have been the subject of so many commentaries (more than one thousand four hundred of them recorded in medieval history from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries onward), the treatise on the creation (part II) precedes and, so to speak, separates off, or drives away, the treatise on the resurrection or on the final end of things (part III). It is as though, in a certain medieval and classical reading of theology, God the Father had produced a world in the beginning (creation), which he would then give to his Son to mend (passion and resurrection), because of the disobedience of human beings—a world that, if not to be cured, was at least to be saved (from sin). This reading is so well known that it is unnecessary to rehearse it here. But simply deploring automatic readings of this kind is not enough to remedy them: We need to propose an other and new model capable of starting off differently. It is my hypothesis, then, that it is appropriate to place at the origin or the beginning not simply the Creation (as in St. Augustine, or St. Thomas Aquinas), not even when it is along with the Incarnation (Irenaeus), but we need also and above all the Resurrection as transformation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer emphasizes, in a close commentary on Genesis that is still too little known, that “The God of the creation, the God of the absolute beginning is the God of the Resurrection.” “Since the beginning,” Bonhoeffer says, “the world has been under the sign of the resurrection of Christ from among the dead. Even more, it is because we know of the resurrection that we know also the creation by God.” The resurrection, therefore, must be placed, from the start, as the transcendental condition of every entry into Christianity and of what the phrase “created being” tries to express. There is no (Christian) creation outside this new creation that transforms and brings the light of a new day to the ancient creation—though we risk here remaining in pure Judaism (creation without resurrection or exclusively in the expectation of a coming resurrection). The resurrection, cornerstone of Christianity, is ontologically the first principle of everything or, better, of the whole, including the creation itself projected by God. We need to recall this when the Resurrected Word in his metamorphosis appears as he who carries the burden and brings forth monadologically our own transformation (§) and incorporates us into the Trinity (§). From before the creation, the Son, “firstborn of all creation,” takes his place in his resurrection, in the guise of the “firstborn from the dead.” “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created . . . All things have been created through him 

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and for him. . . . He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything” (Col. :–). Creation and resurrection come together in a single entity in the Son incarnate and resurrected, in such a way that the Heideggerian accusation of the “drift of time” (from eternity to time) has no sense here except in a linear temporality (creation–incarnation–resurrection), which is very different from the true sense of Christian temporality as the unity of all time in the “instant of eternity,” which is God himself (§). §. The Passage of Time The difficulty that the theologian has in “understanding time” in a way that is first of all immanent, without “deriving” time from eternity (“from time to time”), increases considerably when it is a question of speaking of time’s “passage.” Our only access to time, and to a discourse on time, is through temporality itself. “What, then, is time?” (Quid est ergo tempus?) St. Augustine famously asks himself in his Confessions. Provided that no one asks me, I know. If I want to explain it to an inquirer, I do not know. But I confidently affirm myself to know that if nothing passes away, there is no past time, and if nothing arrives, there is no future time, and if nothing existed there would be no present time. The “passage of time” is then experienced rather than demonstrated. And whoever tries to put it into words sees at once the inanity of what he has said, insofar as the three dimensions of time (past, present, and future) roll through the fingers of those who try to seize it like “droplets of mercury.” “How can they [past and future] be when the past is not now present and the future is not yet present? Yet if the present were always present, it would not pass into the past: it would not be time, but eternity. . . . We cannot truly say that time exists, except in the sense that it tends toward nonexistence.” My aim here is not to perform or to perform again an exegesis of a text that has been amply and brilliantly discussed by many of our contemporaries: That would be a purely historical exercise that, when all is said and done, would distract from our essential project, namely, to go “from time to time,” albeit also in theology. Nonetheless, the Augustinian impossibility of putting the passage of time into words does still show, at least negatively, that the objective measure of time (clock time) says nothing about its subjective truth (lived time). A “watch,” for example, which is supposed to show [montrer in the French language], hardly deserves its French name [montre]. What does it show us in fact—if not that what we live of time—that is to say, its passage—cannot be shown? The continual rotation of a watch hand around From Time to Time

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a fixed point on a watch face, or worse the incessant parade of numerals on a screen, gives us the illusion of a time that passes, but in reality it measures only a “succession of nows,” which say nothing of the manner in which I live time. Such a presentation of time, as false as it is objective, not to say crude, allows human beings to think we are “in” time, as we think sometimes, perhaps always, that we are “in” the world. St. Augustine, however, already in the fifth century warned us at least as far as temporality is concerned that “time is simply an extension of the mind [distensio animi].” In the same way that we are not “in” the world but, as we shall see (§b), open to the world, so we are not so much in time as we make time. To show this we have only to think of the body of our subjective experience of time, which can make what is objectively short (waiting for a bus) seem palpably long. And it can make short what is long (a performance at the cinema). But is it enough, to go “from time to time,” to think of time solely from the “present”? Can we think, as St. Augustine so forcefully says, that “there are three times, a present of things past [memory], a present of things present [vision], a present of things to come [expectation]”? Nothing is less certain. And Martin Heidegger denounces this turning of time into the present, denouncing it as a reduction of the present to presence and as the making of the instant into substance, as though Being, as substance or “existence of what is present,” could determine what time must be. “If nothing existed [si nihil esset],” St. Augustine insists, “there would be no present time.” But we must reject the notion that something or other has to be, or to exist, in order for time to be, and not the other way around. Otherwise we reduce temporality to substantiality. To avoid such a making present, or “presentification,” we need, according to Heidegger, newly and entirely to orientate time toward the future: “The essential phenomenon of time is the future.” This philosophical choice, because it responds to the most ordinary human experience, is not so arbitrary as is sometimes thought, and as theologians claim. We need to make it to rethink eternity, seen no longer as starting from itself and as preceding time(s) but as the transformation of temporality starting from the single resurrection. The future dimension is in fact what makes us ourselves and gives us our dimension as part of mankind. The anguish in the face of death that Christ shares with us (as I have shown in Le Passeur de Gethsémani) is not simply agitated recoil before a projected death (fear of death) nor simply the consequence of our sins (theology of redemption without grounds for solidarity). Rather it poses a question about the meaning of life, for Christ, as for all human beings, asked from the point of view of what he has lived as much as from that of what remains for him to live. In Le Passeur de Gethsémani I cited John’s Gospel—“It is finished” [telestai] (John , )— 

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and then asked: “Wouldn’t this be for him also, first of all and only in its first phase, ‘This is the end’? At least it is of his existence as it has been, and of any heroic claim to leave some kind of trace of his life in his act of death.” Sin, in this sense, is less a question of finitude as such than of the way in which we have of living finitude. To say along with Heidegger (“the concept of time”) that we cannot go “from time to time” is, then, to recognize that it is “in the Being of Dasein” that “the ‘between’ which relates to birth and death already lies.” Not that my way of life is only a “between” the two objectively stated (birth and death) but simply that I am myself this “between,” which I have to live to give meaning to it. Unlike St. Augustine, who unceasingly links our Being-there to sin, for Heidegger the Being-there, which is between the poles of “birth” and “death,” remains axiologically neutral. Either one or the other pole assumes importance according to the burden of time, or to the burden of “care,” from which the Being-there cannot escape. §. The Burden of Time What is most disturbing in this new Heidegerrian denial of St. Augustine (a disjunction this time of sin and finitude, following that of eternity and time), is that the philosopher now finds in Augustine’s work that, while it is prophetic of the extension of time starting from the present, it gives primacy to a tension toward the future, a tension that can most properly be called “care” (Sorge). Heidegger acknowledges, concerning his own subject, that “the way in which ‘care’ is viewed in the foregoing existential analytic of Dasein [in Being and Time], is one which has grown upon the author in connection with his attempts to Interpret [sic] the Augustinian (i.e., Helleno-Christian) anthropology with regard to the foundational principles reached in the ontology of Aristotle.” To put things another way, it is as though historically only Christianity could say what temporality was, on condition, however, that it was freed from what Augustine continued to link it with intimately: creation on the one hand, sin on the other. The debate here takes on (quite rapidly) a certain technical character, which has at least the merit of making us all see the amplitude of the task and the turn taken by modernity. According to the Christian conception of life, in fact, “there is [certainly] no serenity,” so that life’s insecurity is “not fortuitous but permanent.” The First Letter to the Thessalonians bears witness to another way that St. Paul already has of going “from time to time”: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a From Time to Time

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pregnant woman, and there will be no escape” ( Thess :–). But this positive disquiet of the Christian, which, as I have shown elsewhere, determines his “being on the alert” in the expectation of the Second Coming (Le Passeur de Gethsémani), is coupled with a negative disquiet, according to St. Augustine, when it does not lead to the Christian’s close dependence on God, as at the end of time. In book  of the Confessions this is expressed in questions: “Is not human life on earth a trial (temptatio)? Who desires troubles (molestias) and difficulties (difficultates)? You command that they should be endured, not loved. No one loves what he endures, even if he loves to be able to endure it. Although he is glad that he can endure it, he would prefer that what he endures should not be there.” This is where the decision of the philosopher (Heidegger) in comparison with the saint (Augustine) comes in, crucial in its fundamentals and in its innumerable consequences for theology. The philosopher of Fribourg, unlike the Bishop of Hippo, does not restrict “care” (Sorge)—or “difficulty” (molestia)—to the Christian in his particular relation to God. He “disconnects” the Christian from his determination, originally theological, to describe the mode of being of all men, no matter what there is in it of God: “Permanent insecurity is also that which is characteristic of the fundamental signification of the inauthentic life.” In other words, although the notion of “care” points in an exemplary fashion to the Christian modality, even to the sinfulness, or (negative disquiet), of our existence “in front of God” (coram Deo), it is not necessary, or it is no longer necessary, to link “care” to transgression in order to characterize what is “quite simply” human. We are generally oriented towards the future or towards death as our own second coming. To “do without God” and thus also without the link between finitude and sin (the latter being solely grafted onto the former without establishing it as such) appears thus to be the condition for a widening of “care” to the whole of humanity. And it thus becomes fundamentally constitutive of our temporal condition. The idea of inauthenticity, or of the inauthentic life, contains in this sense “more than the simple idea of finitude,” precisely in that the limits of the latter (finitude as “limitation of our existence”) reproduce here the modality of the former (inauthenticity as “mode of being of Dasein”). The inauthenticity of time as the modality of my existence oriented towards the future (and thus oriented by death) is above all that which weighs on me “quite simply” as one of mankind. Oneri mihi sum—“I am a burden to myself ” St. Augustine insists, though he says also “because I am not full of you.” And this is exactly the lesson that philosophy has not learnt, at least as far as the second part of the proposition is concerned (“because I am not full of you”). Nothing in fact will ever find rest, according to Heidegger’s 

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reading of inauthenticity in St. Augustine, insofar as Augustine’s anxiety (or dis-quiet) is always, philosophically speaking, constitutive of his being, independently of all sin, as of all redemption. Heidegger stressed that “St. Augustine saw in the inquietum cor nostrum the serious and incessant anxiety of life. This anxiety took on a completely originary aspect, not simply a theoretic one, but he lived in it and he expressed it.” However, we should admit, at least to do justice to the truth and historicity of these texts, that “Book X of the Confessions does not simply show an anguished spirit but also a tendency towards a calming down that eludes Heidegger almost entirely.” Should we then deplore such a disdain, clearly intentional, on the part of Heidegger, in his rejection of theology? Or, on the contrary, should we make use of it as a fulcrum for a new departure? Isn’t it quite appropriate in fact for mankind to trust itself first “without God” (sine Deo) as St. Augustine also tried to do—though he interprets this solely in the perspective of sin, and then comes to understand himself, exclusively through the resurrection, “with God” (cum Deo), or better, “before God” (coram Deo)? Is it enough to suggest right away an existential atheism “not at all incompatible with the elaboration of a philosophy of religion?” (J. Greisch). Will this save the day and truly do justice to those who dare newly in the history of philosophy to go “from time to time”? At least it should be borne in mind that these questions arise. Because Heidegger himself warned from the start of his address which was, as it happens to, the Society of Theology at Marburg (), that “the following reflections have nothing in common with philosophy except that they are not theology.” Also the idea of a “drama” of atheist humanism (see Henri de Lubac), which is commonplace these days in theology, as in Christian thought in general, needs to be called into question. What Heidegger proposes is to enter on the one hand into a dialogue with this world “without God,” a world which becomes my own world, without simply trying to understand it in order to refute it, letting myself be transformed by it and making my way, on the other hand, through this humanity which has been unjustly taxed with being “fatherless,” in order to discover in myself the splendor of the resurrection. This is, paradoxically, the groundbreaking invitation proffered by the philosopher Heidegger in front of an audience of theologians. But it is also a route that we shall have to quit, as Christians this time, once we have made our way through it (if, that is, we are able to do so). “From a theological point of view, and you are free to understand it as such, this approach [from time to time] cannot but make more difficult the question of eternity, of preparing it reasonably, and posing it truly.”

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Is There a Drama of Atheist Humanism?

Atheist humanism in its time was famously stigmatized as a “drama” by one of the great theologians of the twentieth century (Henri de Lubac). This was not simply a conservative reaction—to suggest that would be to misunderstand both the man and his writings—but first of all it was done out of a concern for understanding: “I have tried here to bring into the open the double character [of the rejection of God and the crushing of the human individual], considering that simply to offer an account of it would be the most efficacious of refutations.” And so, although it was expressed in the guise of a precaution, not to speak of a real taking into account of differences, the claim was nonetheless clear: Christians, who were called on to read and study Auguste Comte (positivism), Marx (communism), and Nietzsche (nihilism), had to enter into a “full awareness of the spiritual situation of the world with which they are engaged.” Behind the analysis, in short, rests a judgment that makes atheism into a “drama” in the plainest sense of the term—that is to say, it makes it “a kind of immense deviation.” The exegesis depends, it seems to me, on the sense that was given in the past, and that one can give today to the repeated cry of the madman in Nietzsche’s work: “God is dead! God remains dead!” §. The Death of God, or the Death of Christianity? Heidegger’s interpretation of “the phrase of Nietzsche ‘God is dead’ ” is well known and much celebrated. The death of God is directly identi

fied by Heidegger (as indeed by Nietzsche himself ) with “the Christian belief which was also the belief of Plato that God is truth, and that truth is divine.” In other words, as Jean-Luc Marion says, taking up Heidegger’s statement, the “death of God” is that of a “conceptual idol,” or is a principle that we construct rather than receive, springing as much from Platonism as from Christianity: “ ‘Idol’: product of god/God (Plato/Christianity) from truth, from the will to truth as a form of the will to power.” But Marion does not stop here. As a Christian philosopher this time, and thus against Heidegger, he opposes the idol, as the concept of a “God” who is dead, to the icon of the cross—because the God “without inverted commas,” the God of Christians, precisely dies, and so fulfils in a sense through his life the conceptual gap opened up by Nietzsche’s phrase “God is dead.” “Provisional thesis: Jesus, as the Christ, who dies on the cross, offers perhaps the unavoidable figure, even for Nietzsche—or above all for him—of the inescapable challenge that man faces in his encounter with the divine.” That God is dead is then not, or is no longer, a simple profession of atheism, but it is the highest truth in a Christianity properly understood—that is to say, in one centered on the mystery of the death and the resurrection of Christ. Some people, however, will see this recycling of the famous phrase as a kind of trick. Against Heidegger first of all: Nietzsche was a convinced, not to say a militant, atheist. Could he really have been content with the murder of a “concept” in his mad cry? Only “living things” are killed, not “ideas”: They are always already essentially dead. Next, with regard to Jean-Luc Marion: How can we actually justify that “even for Nietzsche,” and “especially for him,” Jesus dying on the cross “offers perhaps the unavoidable figure.” But this is not, after all, the essential question. Recycling or no recycling, the strength of the hypothesis (from idol to icon) gives us at least food for thought, in that the question of the “death of God” remains decisive for the atheist as for the believer. And the atheist can at once connect his own atheism with that of his contemporaries, which is no small benefit. But the debate shifts ground, or rather gets a boost, once one is truly attentive to the double echo of the mad cry of Nietzsche. Not only “God is dead”—the formula that confirms the truth both of conceptual atheism (Heidegger) and Christian theism (Marion)—but also “God remains dead.” What does this mean? How can God, supposed in Christianity to overcome death through his resurrection, actually remain in death—and that forever, in the eyes of Nietzsche? We cannot explain this away as the cathartic effect of a certain use of atheism, or not in this case. The death of God cannot be purified in a negative way by identifying it with the death of the concept of God (Heidegger), and then shifted from this in a positive Is There a Drama of Atheist Humanism?

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way to the death of the Son on the cross (Marion), without leaving out the essential point of the dead God: “To pronounce the death of God is not the same as announcing the resurrection. [Nietzsche’s] death of God is not that of the Son who is resurrected to sit at the right hand of the Father.” The second part of the cry is “decisive”: God “remains dead.” Not that this part of Nietzsche’s cry is entirely unconnected with Christianity (to suggest that would first be to free the icon by denouncing the idol); but it is, on the contrary, that “this death, excluding all prospect of resurrection, concerns him whose Son dies for our sins and is resurrected for our redemption.” In other words, and theologically speaking this time, the definitive agony of God “remaining dead” points less to the death of the Son resurrected by the Father than to the death of the Father and of his supposed power of resurrection. The hypothesis of the “death of the [Father’s] power over death” then takes over, in the most virulent and least rewarding way, from the Hegelian philosophical theme of the Son’s “death of death.” That God should be dead, then, and that God should remain dead, in this new reading of contemporary atheism indicates that “he is no longer the living entity that one can encounter when existence plunges through its own transparence.” The “dead God” is not only the death of God but also the death of Christianity itself, of which it touches the heart: the power of the Father to resurrect his Son and with him to give us the Holy Spirit. The attack is severe and entirely in accord with the sense of the “drama” (of atheist humanism). Times have changed, however, and the supposed adversity of yesterday appears paradoxically more straightforward today when it has been further discussed—setting itself less against Christianity through its slogans (God is dead) than attacking it in its central dogma (God remains dead). But we should not fool ourselves here. If many of our contemporaries, including many Christians, share the feeling that Christianity is dying, at least in the West, we need to question the fundamentals of the religion and not just continually deplore its inanition. “In what follows we shall try to oppose this sentimental theology with a thoughtful theology.” We still lack, even in Christianity, a new understanding of this “coherent atheism,” not just to condemn it (Henri de Lubac) but to some extent also to justify it, and to question ourselves with respect to the validity of such a humanity “without God,” proclaimed at times by those who are closest to us (family, friends, etc.). The theologian Erberhardt Jüngel tells us: “It is not inevitable when one has the experience of one’s own being and of the world confronted with the possibility of non-being, that one comes to talk of God. . . . Man is no less human when he remains in anguish [not because of what he lacks, but out of anxiety at the prospect of a lack] than when he is definitively freed from this anguish.” In short, 

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to come to an understanding of “man without God,” in the double sense of entering such a person’s thought processes and feeling empathy for one who holds to such a view, entails incessantly taking up the challenge. It is a challenge not to destroy this atheism but to learn from it, avoiding definitively this time seeing it only through Christian eyes, and thus condemning it de facto as a “drama.” §. Atheism from the Theologian’s Viewpoint Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his famous lecture at the Collège de France (“In Praise of Philosophy”), which was almost contemporaneous with the accusation of the “drama” by Henri de Lubac (), already criticized such attitudes among Christians. “One bypasses philosophy when one defines it as atheism,” Merleau-Ponty pertinently stressed. “This is philosophy as seen by the theologian.” The reproach is clear and needs to be remembered today. The phenomenologist does not accuse the theologian here of reading and practicing philosophy. He rather stigmatizes that false attitude, explicitly denounced with regard to Henri de Lubac (though perhaps it is found also among certain believers today), which consists in carrying on “as if philosophy, when it is not theological, is reduced to the negation of God.” In short, it is not a good idea to go directly from the “nontheism” that exists in philosophy as elsewhere to the pure and simple negation of God in an “antitheism” or militant atheism. In other words, and this time giving both sides of the argument the benefit of the doubt, we can say that the blinkered view of the theologian appears particularly narrow and cramped when he reads and criticizes philosophy, just as the philosopher seems limited and constricted when he does and judges theology. The difficulty, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty understands it, is not that one can see things differently—and philosophers even more than theologians agree today in thinking that to see differently is not necessarily to misconstrue or totally misunderstand. Phenomenologists, who boast of having eyes to see, however, recognize that they often don’t see what others see, which contributes all the more to the richness and plurality of phenomenologies. Only the false attribution to another of an insight that one hasn’t actually shared, and that the other has even perhaps explicitly denied (Heidegger’s idea of breaking with immanent phenomenality, for example [see chapter ]), can, when all is said and done, provoke debate and historically bring things into question as far as the interpretation of a philosophical doctrine is concerned. The avowal made by the phenomenologist Jocelyn Benoist to Jean-Luc Marion is in this respect typical not simply of an internal dispute in French circles but of the kind of argument Is There a Drama of Atheist Humanism?

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that pits the openness of one (the atheist) against the integrity of the other (the Christian). “Dear Jean-Luc Marion,” Jocelyn Benoist writes, “I am an atheist: you are not. . . . There is nothing particularly legitimate in this interpretation of things, given what you believe you see—that is to say, given the belief in which your seeing is rooted and that orientates your seeing. It simply remains a fact (enigmatic, incomprehensible—we shall come back to that) that one can see differently, that I and others do see differently. . . . That is so for me, to whom atheism has always simply been an obvious fact . . . , for whom it has been an existential attitude and not a theoretical certitude.” The supposed certitude of Christianity as a stance of belief for many Christians corresponds then to the no less striking obviousness of atheism, as an existential stance, for many of our contemporaries. The legitimacy of one (the believer) cannot be said to hold the field at the price of a condemnation of the other (the atheist). This is particularly so when, as Marion emphasizes, “atheism cannot any more be taken as the special privilege of atheists, just as theism cannot be taken as the special privilege of believers. The claims of the first are no less excessive than the affirmations of the second.” But most astonishingly—though I would not suggest that there is a real paradox here—it was seeing differently that would become the leitmotif for John Paul II in his search for a “grammar in common” to be shared with our contemporaries—at the risk, on the other hand, of cutting oneself off from them completely: “We need a new apologetic turned toward the needs of today,” he announced to the bishops of Canada. “Such an apologetic would have to find a grammar in common with those who see things differently, and who do not go along with our affirmations, so that we do not end up by speaking different languages, even when we use the same language to do so.” To speak and not to remain silent, that is then the first and most necessary imperative of a Western Christianity that does not resign itself to its supposed annihilation. But also, Christianity needs to (re)learn to speak. Not that it lacks the words and the language, but its problem is that it has a grammar—that is to say, a disposition of its concepts—that does not make sense today, or does not necessarily make sense. The appeal to a grammar in common is an invitation, proffered to the Christian, of a real comprehension of what there is in this new atheism, an atheism that is less virulent than “coherent” in its foundations. But we should remember here Feuerbach, legitimately denouncing the fusion of love and faith: “[Christ] was not the proprietor of love as he is represented to be in all superstitious conceptions. . . . The idea of love was by no means first introduced into

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the consciousness of mankind with and by Christianity,—is by no means peculiarly Christian.” There is no need to have faith in order to experience love, and one group of people (the Christians) do not have a monopoly over the heart in contrast to others (the humanists). It certainly goes without saying that one only has to be human to love—if not as God loves us, at least with simple “passion” and “com-passion” for those who are close and for those who come to be close to us. When the lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor [ ple¯sion]?” Jesus responded by citing the action of the Good Samaritan who “came near [ proserchomai]” the wounded man (Luke .–). But before we go off into an allegorical exegesis of the figure of the Messiah here, and of his care for humanity, we should recognize first an experience that is quite simply general for human beings and that can be given a topological or moral interpretation. A reading of the scripture is never more spiritualizing than when it is first humanizing, though we do not, however, have to stick to this interpretation. What is at stake here first of all is not apostolic, it is above all conceptual. We can’t call a halt to the tired cliché of the end of Christianity and other cataclysms except by the “deepening” and the “preservation” of Christian doctrine “in a way that responds to the demands of our time.” And to enter with intellectual integrity into the hypothesis of an end of Christianity is probably the sole means of not letting it be condemned to its end. We need to dare to see differently a new mode of being of atheism (the surpassing and the relinquishing of God, rather than a combat with God). We need to appropriate it before we condemn it, and we need to see it not simply from the point of view of the certitudes of faith. We shouldn’t stick doggedly to principles and pit philosophy and theology against each other. It is important today to use the one and the other, to take up a new position such that the Christian, more receptive to difference, will be precisely transformed in his true capacity to differ. There will then be no drama of atheist humanism, no resigned or despairing apprehension of a world definitively going astray. There will simply be a question addressed to both the philosopher and the theologian—at least insofar as the two often come together in the integration of the same life experience. Do atheism, and the positive affirmation of finitude that goes with it, have something to say to Christianity? Is that something independent of all falsification, of all stratagems or appropriations? These are the questions that we need now to examine in detail, bearing in mind this time the real possibility for the Christian thinker to take on board the questions of the atheist philosopher, and not simply his positions. Simone Weil, whose affection for human beings we know of through her experience as a factory worker, says: “Be-

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tween two men who have not had experience of God, he who denies God perhaps comes closer to Him. . . . Religion as a source of consolation is an obstacle to true faith: In this sense atheism is a purification.” §. The Forbidden “Why?” Going through and beyond Heidegger—who for me represents not a doctrine but a vision of the world starting from things as they are—leads me in the present work not simply to a consideration of death, or simply of the end (see my Le Passeur de Gethsémani), but to birth or to the origin, insofar as it speaks also of the resurrection. Against the final impossibility confronting the Christian (an impossibility that for us has always been already realized as well as overcome), of having access to the anguish of death in an “interpretation of ‘life’ ” that has “always kept death in view,” we can place the original prohibition against asking ourselves the question “why?” The prohibition includes asking ourselves about the sense of our origin, insofar as it implies a creation. “For example, anyone for whom the Bible is divine revelation and truth,” Heidegger says, “already has the answer to the question ‘Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?’ before it is even asked: Beings, with the exception of God Himself, are created by Him. . . . One who holds on to such faith as a basis can, perhaps, emulate and participate in the asking of our question in a certain way, but he cannot authentically question without giving himself up as a believer with all the consequences of this step. He can act only ‘as if’—.” Let us sum up the argument so far. (a) “Those for whom the Bible is divine revelation”—that is, believers—will not have access to the “why” of the question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” They always already, as it were in advance, have given the answer—even before asking themselves. For them beings are a matter of God the creator (the origin), or of being created (dependent in this on the origin). (b) If they hope nonetheless to participate in putting the question (of “why”) they have to “give up on themselves as believers,” at least in order to have access to and stay with an authentic questioning. (c) But, as they are believers, they can’t do otherwise than bracket off their faith and always suppress it as such, not having access to the question of “why” other than in analogical fashion, on the lines of “as if,” but without ever entering into it in its absolute nullification. One cannot then be clearer or, shall we say, harsher. The dogma of creation prevents the Christian from having access to the question “why?” which is the preserve of atheists. Only atheists are in a position to remain faithful to the starting point of every phenomenological approach—in a position, that is, to “parenthesize everything . . . which [the natural at

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titude] encompasses with respect to being”—that is, to perform the phenomenological reduction (epoche¯). The force of the proceedings against him will encourage the theologian to plead his defense point by point. (a) The theologumenon of creation remains totally impenetrable for Heidegger. He identifies creation always and falsely with an act of production. Creation as a “principle” prevents access to the “why,” certainly, but not if it is thought of as a “bringing into play” (mise en œuvre) in the artistic sense of the term (which gives us the word creation). (b) The idea of insisting that the believer renounce his faith is as absurd as asking the philosopher to forget his philosophy—both faith and philosophy representing a mode of being rather than a dogmatic content. (c) The presupposition that the theologian cannot have access to the “why” of nothingness other than in the analogical fashion of an “as if ” rests on the assumption of a didactic and downward-directed theology incapable of following the heuristic and upward-directed movement that the Christian paradox of the incarnation presupposes. The incarnation always reveals itself to mankind from “below.” (See § and §.) The plea of the theologian in his defense here appropriately calls up the indictment of the philosopher. And the judge in a court of law, or in the “tribunal of reason,” would have some difficulty in deciding one way or the other: philosophy and/or theology. In spite of the depth of the arguments, which serve, after all, as matters for primary consideration among Heideggerians, this is not an essential question for us here. Moreover Heidegger makes plain for those who might not yet have understood: “By referring to safety in faith . . . we are not saying that citing the words of the Bible, ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth etc.,’ represents an answer to our question. Quite aside from whether this sentence of the Bible is true or untrue for faith, it can represent no answer to our question, because it has no relation to this question.” What is at stake here, then, if it is not creation as an “answer” to the question “why?”—creation of ourselves as of the world? That it has “no connection” with the question does not show that the answer is necessarily false. (Theologians are free, after all, to decide.) It shows only that this type of response—creation as “beginning,” if it is a question here of “foundation”—does not answer the question, which is in reality quite different. It is not that the answer is false, but that the question is different. This is what I mean here by referring to a new way of understanding a “coherent atheism.” But what then is the question—supposed to be “fundamental in metaphysics”? Let’s return to its original form: “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” We know that Heidegger is developing Leibniz’s arguIs There a Drama of Atheist Humanism?

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ments in a radical fashion, and that he anticipates Sartre’s interpretation. This is not simply a matter of doctrines, despite his necessarily complex argumentation. When one asks oneself (following Leibniz) whether it is sufficient to give as a reason that things are such as they are rather than other (“It is the case that P rather than not P” [principle of sufficient reason]), Heidegger, on the other hand, asks why there is “a thing” and not “nothing”—that is to say, first of all a “nothingness of things” (the question of nothingness). In other words, Leibniz looks rather at causes, while Heidegger poses questions concerning things. But nothingness as such does not take us to the heart of the question. And Heidegger marks himself off right away from what will become the Sartrean nothingness. In fact, while Sartre places the “nothingness” of things as the base that underlies Being, Heidegger questions himself concerning the “way” of what makes the “Being” or “nothingness” of things their base. “Running into the question means not only hearing and reading the interrogative sentence as uttered, but asking the question, that is, taking a stand on it, posing it, compelling oneself into the state of questioning.” Heidegger’s problem and the problem of this type of “constructive” rather than “destructive” atheism that we are examining here is not to decide for or against the nothingness of things but simply to hold up to question he who questions—that is to say, the man questioning, who becomes “for himself ” his own question (mihi quaestio factus sum). “Still, it is remarkable,” Heidegger notes, “that one being always keeps coming to the fore in this questioning: the human beings who pose this question.” But here again, it is not enough to point to the man or the men who put the question—at least not if they are reduced simply to the rank of being(s) questioning the world. They are, on the contrary, themselves and for themselves the question insofar as they put it, and they have access in doing this to their own humanity. “Why this why?” This is the “shock of recoil” (Rückstoss), of the questioned (why?) back onto the questioning (why this why?). And it is this that makes of the question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” the “fundamental question of metaphysics.” It is a question that is respectively and progressively the most vast (concerning all beings and not just a particular being), the most profound (touching the depths beyond depths of what has no fundament), and the most originary (turning back to the origin of he who puts the question himself: man as questioning being). In short, one comes to understand, because that is what is for us essentially at stake, that the “proscription of why” is aimed not at things but at man, who questions the “why” of things. Or, to put it in a technical way, the “why” concerning the being-ness of

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things gives rise to a being that cannot be reduced to any being-ness: man as Being-there (Dasein) or “refuge” of the totality of beings. We come back to the condemnation of the theologian, at least in his suspect access through creation to the “fundamental question of metaphysics” (the “why the why?”). This cannot be summed up in a point-by-point response to the accusations of the philosopher—which would be the best way, after all, of neither following nor understanding Heidegger but of reducing his philosophy to a simple body of doctrines. What the philosopher criticizes here in reality is less faith as such; it is rather a certain a priori posing of the creation, a posing that makes the believer someone who “hangs” on to the principle rather than simply “rests” on it. The criticism is that the believer does this to an extreme degree, since he forgets his humanity, which, heuristically, should always come first (§). Let’s assume that God created the world. The question is then rather ontic than ontologic. But it is not simply obvious that man could have access himself to the “why” of his being created, and so it is here that the Christian has to question himself: “The idea of ‘transcendence,’ ” according to a part of Being and Time that we need now to consider, the idea “that man is something that reaches beyond himself—is rooted in Christian dogmatics, which can hardly be said to have made an ontological problem of man’s Being.” The urgent necessity that believers may feel to undertake ontological questioning is not dismissed out of hand by Heidegger—that is, if those who say they “have faith” don’t make their faith a place of “security” that prevents them from asking any questions as to the meaning of why or as to the absence of a basis for their faith. “On the other hand, if such faith does not continually expose itself to the possibility of unfaith, it is not faith but a convenience [Bequemlichkeit]. It becomes an agreement with oneself to adhere in the future to a doctrine as something that has somehow been handed down. This is neither having faith not questioning, but indifference—which can then, perhaps even with keen interest, busy itself with everything, with faith as well as questioning.” We come back here to the “care” or the “dis-quiet” of the Christian, though this time by another route. The philosopher who earlier learned from St. Augustine the care (cura) or the trouble (molestia) of man without God, extending this, however, to the entire human condition independent of sin (§), recalls to theologians that not one of their concepts coming from “above” can be accepted a priori if they are not first taken from “below.” The believer, like the Son of Man, has no soft pillow on which to “lay his head” (Mt :). It is not that he sleeps uneasily but simply that the atheist never ceases to wake him up—to stop him dropping off to sleep.

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“The disquieting hypothesis of a humanity that is content to live ‘without God in the world’ (Eph :) must then be taken seriously. Atheism is not just a theoretical problem, it is first of all an a priori of existence.” The constant “possibility of falling into unbelief ” is not a danger for faith but, on the contrary, its true condition. “He who would aspire to have the faith, to be capable of believing, would certainly not believe.” From immanence (chapter ) to temporality (chapter ), and from temporality (chapter ) to atheism (chapter ), we do best then to stick to what is most basic, because we experience ourselves first of all as beings of the “very low”—that is to say, not as coming from God, even were He the “Very Low,” but as belonging to the “world,” to “time,” and as “simply man,” as a kind of précis or abstract of finitude (part I), waiting to be transformed or metamorphosed by the resurrection (part II).

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PA R T

II

Toward a Metamorphosis Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep . . . God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. He took [Adam] by the hand and raised him up, saying, “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” —Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday (anonymous) in the Liturgy of the Hours

Our précis of finitude, seen not so much as the condensation of a doctrine but as of existence itself, has enabled us to arrive at three objectives. () Immanence remains impassable for all, including Christians. These latter, requiring first from all methods (of immanence) that they are taken to their limit (§), and then rejecting any preemption of the infinite over the finite, insist finally that we accede to the imperatives of a phenomenology, or a theology “from below” (§). () Taking this route, which is that of the ordinariness of the flesh as opposed to a phenomenology of the extraordinary, requires us then to pass from time to time and no longer derive time from a supposed eternity (§). It requires us to recognize on the other hand that, theologically, there is no creation other than the creation anew (resurrection [§]). And we need to avow finally that the burden of time is such for us that our temporality is primarily a question of the future—whatever that might imply for us in respect of sin (§). () This two-pronged enquiry into immanence and temporality therefore necessitates a return to what we have referred to as the drama of atheist humanism. The death of Christianity proclaimed by Nietzsche (“God remains dead”), rather than that of God himself (“God is dead”), bypasses any vision in the form of a “drama” once we stop viewing all non-theism as an a-theism or anti-theism, and once we accept the need for a common grammar and the possibility of love without faith (§). Rejoining our contemporaries on the basis of our common humanity means considering the implications, as an a priori of existence, of atheism, or of the hypothesis of humanity “without God in the 

world” (Eph :). We shall refuse nonetheless to allow the “why” of the philosopher or atheist, to prohibit a “why” from the theologian or believer. This follows from the fact that neither the one nor the other (neither atheist nor Christian), at least in the first place and from a heuristic viewpoint, can make the arbitrary position of a God-creator, and the aspirations of human beings with respect to him, into the norm of all true existence. Believers, above all because they partake of humanity and because they see themselves within mankind before professing their faith, do have right of access to “the widest” and “most profound,” that “most originary” of questions: “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” One can see here, and it is not simply wordplay, that the summary, or précis, of finitude is as precise, as exactly poised as the precision of the watchmaker who coils a watch spring: The spring on one side (finitude as immanence and finite temporality) is counterbalance to the strength and force on the other (resurrection as metamorphosis of the structure of world and time). We must not, however, fool ourselves, and this is essential in what follows in this book as throughout all my argument: “Metamorphosis” is not a kind of guarantee of “finitude.” It is not like the praeambula fidei of Thomas Aquinas which prepares us for the faith. We must try to avoid an approach that emphasizes a purely intrinsic structure of continuity, like the method of immanence, which brings things to a conclusion, or restores them as they were before, without truly transforming anything. And at the same time we must avoid a completely extrinsic approach that sees a Deus ex machina (as we shall see, the method of Barth or Bultmann), where God is so exterior to the event that there is little or no reason for the why of the transformation. We are concerned here again with metamorphosis as a birth, applied analogically to rebirth (see the dialogue with Nicodemus); but there is a new perspective this time: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John :). In other words, metamorphosis, as with birth, and as it will be with resurrection (§), happens and is seen through its effects rather than as an actual moment of transformation. And it is there that we find the breath of the Spirit, as also the lived experience of the flesh. They are found not in a basic opposition or on different sides of a struggle but in a bringing to light of the already born, which springs from our Being-there, almost despite or in ignorance of it: “I do not know who put me into the world,” Pascal says, passing on to us how he is “terribly ignorant,” “nor what the world is, nor what I am myself.” Nonetheless, we shall not give up the search. This learned ignorance concerning birth, like ignorance concerning the carrying out of the resur

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rection, is certainly a constitutive part of the act in question. The early Christian painters hesitated to draw Christ “resurrecting,” preferring to show Christ “appearing,” and in this way they went along with “evangelic discretion,” which said nothing of the act of resurrection itself (the exit from the tomb). This not-knowing (of what “actually took place”) does not, however, prevent us from probing the causes or measuring the effects, at least in the judicial sense in which a lawyer pleads his case (for the defense) concerning what has been done (or accomplished). Fully carrying out and “pushing to the limit” the transcendental conditions of an ontology of the Resurrected One (see part I, “Précis of Finitude”) means also that we have to take on board, both philologically and theologically, techniques that “our age demands” (§), that is, a Cur Deus resurrexit?—in the double sense of causality (why?) and finality (for what?): “Why [for what] is God resurrected?” (part II, “Toward a Metamorphosis”). We need not draw back at the thought of the extent of the task, as long as we understand what it involves at this point. There is no question, as we go forward, of reviving or reactivating the old disputes of a kind of theology of satisfaction, or theology of glorification, although certainly there will be allusions to these disputes here and there in what follows, in particular as we look at the original position of Duns Scotus (glorification), less well known in practice than that of St. Anselm (satisfaction). Manuals of theology are full of this, and it is not our purpose to add to them here. To go “toward a metamorphosis” is on the contrary simply to recognize that a “resurrection” of this kind takes place, in Christian terms, and not in a Nietzschean super-resurrection (chapter ). This resurrection “changes everything” in finitude (chapter ) and incorporates us in the Trinity (chapter ). At this cost, and only at this cost, the précis of finitude (part I) and the need for metamorphosis (part II) come together to make up a phenomenology of the resurrection. In so doing they justify the validity of a Metamorphosis of Finitude as a paradigm for, and as part of the deep meaning of, the Christian resurrection.

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Resurrection and the Over-resurrection of the Body

§. The Debate with Nietzsche An appeal to metamorphosis—or to the transformation of the self—is by no means restricted solely to Christianity. In fact it is in the work of the sworn enemy of Christianity, Friedrich Nietzsche, that the dispute over metamorphosis offers the most food for thought, at least in relation to the setting up of arguments on both sides of the debate. If we want to unravel the theme of the resurrection, then, the debate with Nietzsche on the topic that is summoned up here is not just optional: It is probably more arduous and more basic than the debate over the “death of God” (§). One cannot but be astonished, to say the least, at the theological swerve toward the topic of the death of God, which is not that recent (see Vahanian [], Robinson [], Cox [], Hamilton []), and which, moreover, reaches complete deadlock on the topic. Deconstructive Nietzsche is not the key to all his thought. Apart from the Orthodox theologian Nicolas Berdiaev, whose radical intuitions on the topic of the “Overhuman” and “creation” as the “work of man” have not received enough attention, there have been relatively few theologians who have tried to pick up the challenge implied by such topics in Niezsche’s thought. However, the metamorphosis of the young convalescent shepherd in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra recalls, in several respects, what we find in the metamorphosis or in the resurrection of Christ. Zarathustra prophesies: “Far away he spat out the head of the snake—and then sprang up. No longer shepherd, no longer human—one transformed 

[metamorphosed], illumined, who laughed!” Peter at Pentecost says, “God raised him up [amiste¯mi], having freed him from death” (Acts :). While Mark says in the episode of the transfiguration, “And he was transfigured [literally metamorphosed—metamorpho¯] before them” (Mark :). And so we find the same, or almost the same (along with, as we shall see, major differences) in the vision of the enigma of Zarathustra, and in the resurrection of Jesus: a standing up and transfiguration of man into Overhuman on the one hand (Nietzsche); a raising up and metamorphosis of man into God on the other (Christianity). The analogy between Nietzsche’s writing and scripture could not be clearer. Let us say it is there for anyone who looks. And a transcription or, better, a transposition by Nietzsche of the New Testament revelation is neither a question of chance nor accidental. We have only to think of the comparison between St. Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus and the revelation, to Nietzsche on the road to the lake of Silvaplana, of the idea of eternal return (Ecce Homo, chapter on Thus Spoke Zarathustra, §). Rather than a simple affair of vocabulary or of doctrine, or of fights in philosophy, what is at stake here is the “Christianity” of Christianity—its essence and its credibility: the resurrection itself. The recent statement and argument of the French Nietzsche scholar Didier Franck is directly to the point: “The [Christian] resurrection of the fleshly body in a spiritual body, of the earthly body in a heavenly body, does not do justice to the true power of the body. It is a false resurrection or a resurrection to a false life. . . . It is by God’s power of resurrection that the power deployed in the eternal return must be measured.” How then does the idea of the eternal return offer for our contemporaries an alternative to the above-mentioned Christian resurrection? And what is the real capacity of resistance of the latter (Christian resurrection) in the face of the assaults of the former (the Nietzschean eternal return), other than accusing it simply of being a “drama”? This is the challenge we have to take up, less to attack Nietzscheanism because it has usurped our metamorphosis than to test the mettle of our own Christianity, in particular the Kantian version, against the severity of the blows landed on it. To take up such a challenge is a matter not simply of refusing to flee the question but also of accepting a debate from which both parties will emerge, if not cleansed, at least convinced that the contest was worthwhile. What makes up the triple attack by Nietzsche is an accusation (a) of the passivity of the subject, (b) of the will to go on and on, and (c) of the projected uniformity of the body—all to be found in the Christian version of metamorphosis, and therefore in the resurrection. But:

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(a) despite the singular contrast between the discretion of the apparitions of the resurrected Christ (to Mary Magdalene, for example) and the fracas when Nietzsche’s young shepherd spits at and conquers the heavy black snake (against the vain temptation of immortality), the business of reviving or “recovering” oneself (anisthamai) comes up for one, as it does for the other. The shepherd, like Christ, appears “metamorphosed” (metamorpho¯) or, rather, transfigured. The difference between Nietzsche and St. Paul is not then in metamorphosis as such; metamorphosis is insisted on by the one as much as the other: It is in the actuality through which it operates. “You need to learn to stand up by yourselves,” Nietzsche says, “or you will fall.” The metamorphosis of the shepherd is active and not passive, or received from another (the Father); it is “auto-transformation,” a victory of one’s own will over death. It does not celebrate the resignation and what is, all things considered, apathy toward death, the apathy found in stoicism, but it raises the ego to the highest degree of its “all-powerfulness” and its mastery over the self (heroism). Allowing that you are to some degree capable of “living in such a way that you must desire to revive,” Nietzsche rails that you will wish not simply for the return of the events that constituted your life (from “the slow spider that crawls beneath the moon” to “the moonlight itself ”) but also and above all the “return of yourself ” and of your present way of “deciding your life.” And so, “when you return one day,” the philosopher goes on, “it will not be to lead a new life, but to lead the same life—identical with what you decide upon now, in the smallest as in the greatest of things.” It depends less, according to Nietzsche—in this respect disparaging what we know as the Christian resurrection—on the prospect of a new life, better or equal to the present one, than on the desire for a return of the will itself and of the body of decisions that constituted it. It depends on the force that makes my life rather than on the simple events that make it up. “I shall return to life eternally, not to another life, but to this same life and this same world and at the moment I decide, and this eternal resurrection shall be my way of life.” It suits him thus to oppose the Christian dogma of the resurrection of the body (§), with its “will to powerlessness” and inability to “stand up by oneself,” to his Nietzschean eternal return, seen as what “permits the Overhuman to act for himself, to get up and to rise up, to return to life actively and not to be resuscitated passively.” The Nietzschean raising up in the law of the eternal return must therefore be seen as an over-resurrection—that is to say, “resurrection of the self by the self, resurrection of the body to and by itself.” (b) The accusation of a will to go on and on—in other words, of a flight from the world by Christian resurrection—carries on the auto-affirmation

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of the subject that is part of Nietzsche’s over-resurrection. According to Nietzsche, the same will to believe and a quest for the stable are what innervate Christianity and Judaism as well as the whole of the philosophical tradition: “Life is based on the presupposition of a belief in something lasting—the resort to logic, rationalisation, systemization as auxiliaries of life.” What is true of Descartes, the cogito as “something already constant,” applies first of all to the prophet Isaiah in Judaism (“If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all” [Isa :]). And it applies to St. Paul in Christianity (“You stand only through faith” [Rom :]). In other words, and in the terms of the evangelist Matthew this time (Mt :), the disciple who “built his house on rock” in reality showed himself unable to tolerate the sand, only organizing a cosmos out of fear and flight from chaos. “The necessity of the formation of the flock lies in fear,” Nietzsche maintains, and, “from its Jewish character, Christianity gave Europeans this Jewish sickness that turns inward toward itself, the idea that interior anxiety is the human norm.” Nietzsche’s courageous idea of the will to return, contrary to a popular, but false, interpretation, refuses to perpetuate such a desire to go on and on. Rather he returns to the dogma of the resurrection of bodies, precisely because he cannot accept the idea of the destruction, or putrefaction, of all fleshly matter, of the making eternal of a temporality that dies because it is not eternal, of the giving a chance to the earthly or material body by transforming it into a celestial or spiritual body ( Cor , ). He insists that “to transfer the purport of life outside life is to take away the purport of life.” Where the Christian is driven, on the one hand, only by fear—in his will to go on and on—and on the other hand by a wish to escape and make an irresistible leap into another world, the Nietzschean Overhuman shows both courage in his assumption of perishability and an attachment to the earth in his love of the moment as a “unique form of all life.” The eternal return has its source in what is the sole imperative for Schopenhauer: “the present” as “the form of life or reality”; it has its source in his nunc stans, or “eternal noon,” as the sole form of the manifestation of the will. (c) In its apparent opposition to Christianity, the whole business becomes more serious or, rather, weightier. A certain Christian idea of the uniformity of the body, Nietzsche says, must be overcome by a new way of regarding the body, this time less archaic and dated. A debate that was once characteristic of Platonism, as of a certain tendency in Christianity, and that maintained the “immortality of the soul” in contrast to the “destruction or degradation of the body” (soul-body), shifts now to a contrast between a certain type of corporality that is opposed to another type of corporality: active corporality (Nietzsche) versus passive corporality 

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(St. Paul). In other words, in the shift, which the Nietzschean dialogue permits us, from surpassing metaphysics (Heidegger) to the overcoming of Christianity (Franck), the debate has all at once centered on a face-to-face (or body-to-body) confrontation. It is a body-to-body confrontation that Christianity would be wrong to ignore, in focusing solely on its rejection of immortality—as though simply criticizing the perpetuation of the soul could rescue the notion of the resurrection of the body. Nobody doubts that the resurrected body in Christianity is different from the immortal soul in Platonism. It has become trivial nowadays to affirm this. But what Christianity has not faced up to, and what it must envisage facing up to, if only to oppose the notion, is that the mode of corporality conferred by resurrection may be no less than a new “metaphysical interpretation” founded, () on the one hand, on a naturalization and substantification of the body, and (), on the other hand, on a making uniform and an integration of all bodies into one sole body. () The naturalization and substantification of the body in St. Paul derives, according to Nietzsche, from two arguments. First, the metaphor of the seed used by the apostle to explain the resurrection of the body: “Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies” ( Cor :). This classically conserves the notion of corporality as permanence by virtue of its being the “substratum” and makes death nothing but a “passage.” For the dead to regain life there has to be something that remains, be it by burying (the seed), that will spring up. And for a metamorphosis to take place, it is also agreed that the time limit can’t be the end of the world but just the moment of the negation of a new affirmation, which guarantees it dialectically an assumption and a passage. We can recognize here Hegel’s famous dialectical scheme that ensures, or almost always ensures, “theological” understanding of the resurrection—and of which one is unsure sometimes whether it actually derives from the paradigm of germination in St. Paul or just applies in this case. A second argument springs from the previous one, but this time, rather than in dialectical mode, it is purely oppositional and nihilistic. The notion of the “glorious body” is, according to Nietzsche and his commentator Didier Franck, nothing but the negation of the “fleshly body.” That of the “future eternal life” is the negation of the “fleshly life of the present”: “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable” ( Cor :). The “god” that Paul creates is thus the “negation of god” for Nietzsche in a conception that this time is not Hegelian but negative— Deus, qualem Paulus creavit, dei negatio. And the Christian dogma Resurrection and the Over-resurrection of the Body

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of the resurrection of the body paradoxically has no other end in his view but the “dis-incorporation” of all bodies. In short, the body remains (would remain) always at the level of a substratum for St. Paul, who, “having perhaps learned his Greek too well,” was not able to give metamorphosis its true sense of being “over-resurrectional.” () As to the making uniform of all bodies into one sole body, Paul affirms that “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal :). To affirm this with him will thus be the same as incorporating the “self of the believer” in “another than himself,” in the form of a unity of “equal members.” It will be to lose oneself in a single will of equalization and uniformity, although they are what, in the affirmative power of constructed hierarchies and intensification, make up what is singularly human in each body: racial difference (Jew–Greek), political difference (slave–freeman), sexual difference (man–woman). As we shall see later (§), to accept, as the Christian system maintains, that one does not resurrect oneself by oneself leads (must lead) to giving up on oneself as subject, as well as to giving up on the power of mastery over one’s own body. And that is supposedly done by resigning one’s power in a cowardly way to another, who progressively dissolves away our energetic impulses. Having reduced and assimilated all the active powers of their corporality into a single passive corporality, believers will (must) renounce their own powers at the same time as they renounce their difference: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” ( Cor :). Such a formula consecrates (would consecrate) the loss and the fusion of the great self of the body into the single undifferentiated body of the Church, of which Christ only is the head and all believers the submissive members. It will be apparent that the Nietzschean eternal return is not simply content with proposing another model besides that of Christian resurrection. It throws out a challenge to it and calls into question the legitimacy of Christian aims as well as the Christian version of metamorphosis: The evident obsolescence of the one (the Christian sense of the resurrection) makes possible and lies behind the novelty of the other (“the eternal return” in the Nietzschean sense of that term). The characteristics that, according to Nietzsche, mark out negatively the features of a resurrected Christian corporality are that (a) the subject barely takes responsibility for himself;

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(b) the will to go on and on is an escape from the world; and (c) archaic notions of corporality are found in a renunciation of the self and of one’s own distinctive drives. And so, according to my understanding, another reading of corporality in St. Paul is necessary, if not to defy Nietzsche at least to take up his challenge. §. Corporality in St. Paul One would be hard-pressed to find in Nietzsche’s writings a harsher critique than the one he directs at Christianity—something that once again calls into question any (false?) strategies that aim to retrieve his philosophy for Christianity (§). “It is necessary to say here whom we feel to be our antithesis,” the author of The Anti-Christ drums into his readers. And he specifies as his antithesis “the theologians and all that has theologian blood in its veins—our entire philosophy.” Paul, “the epileptic” under the false sway of the “Holy Spirit,” is incapable of living as a “free spirit” and triumphs or takes revenge against the relentless system of atonement in Jewish law, a system under which he is, by his own account, incapable of living and being his real self: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I want is what I do” (Rom :). The resurrected Christ intervenes, then, according to Nietzsche, and appears to the apostle on the road to Damascus, like a deus ex machina come to proffer a law that Paul prefers, after all, to abolish rather than to fulfill. In order not to come to terms with it, the Apostle of the Gentiles, an “exhausted Jew,” thus frees himself from himself, as from his own weakness, and as from the race that he cannot stand (neither Jew nor Greek). The corporality of the resurrected Christ, far from heralding a surpassing of the self, leaves its “metamorphosis” at the stage of a kneeling camel (“Thou shalt”), without reaching even that of a roaring lion (“I want”) and even less that of the child who “says yes.” The force of this attack is unequalled in the literature of thought, and it will be something if we come to understand and confront this particular “drama” without necessarily setting ourselves up in opposition to it (§). At the threshold of such a confrontation, then, we find the profound sense (and the great merit) of corporality in St. Paul, which needs to be analyzed, and which leads us very precisely along the route of the distinctively Christian significance of metamorphosis. As we have seen, St. Paul opens a body-to-body confrontation at the heart of the philosophical and theological debate, “according to the flesh” (sarx) and “according to the spirit” ( pneuma). He does this in a way that is radically distinct from the Greek dualism of body (soma) and soul ( psyche¯). We need to take account of this

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if we are to go ahead in the face of his charges against St. Paul, which we can’t put off and thus let drop. (a) The first point in favor of St. Paul’s version of corporality is that he makes the resurrection and our relationship with God the site of a close relationship with the “body” (soma): “The body is . . . for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” according to the First Letter to the Corinthians ( Cor :). The Letter to the Philippians adds: “Christ will be exalted now as always in my body” (Phil :). The body as “openness to the self ” is thus at the same time “openness to God” or, more strictly speaking, “openness to God which, as such, is the openness of the self to the self.” We can add Leibniz’s words to those of St. Paul himself: “God is closer to me than my body is. . . . My body is my own because it is the property of my God.” (b) The second point in favor of the corporal in St. Paul is that “flesh” (sarx) and “spirit” ( pneuma) appear principally as lived modalities of the “body” (soma) in the Pauline epistles, just as “stone” and “flesh” are modalities of the “heart” in the prophet Ezekiel: “I will give them one heart. . . . : I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek :–). For those who live “according to the flesh” (sarx), by analogy “their god is the belly,” Paul insists in addressing the Philippians (Phil :). While those who live according to “the Spirit [ pneuma]” live according to God ( Cor :). “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God” (Rom :). This does not imply that the flesh is in revolt against the Spirit but that it is itself the rebellion of the body, which is turned against God and so turned back toward itself. And we “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit [ pneuma]” (Rom :). It is not that we must flee the path of the body but that “the Spirit” shows us the way of the body eminently and positively oriented toward that of which we “are the members” ( Cor :). In distinguishing, then, between the “physical body” and “the spiritual body” ( Cor :), St. Paul distinguishes “two relationships of man with God, two ways of being of the body. The antagonism between the mortal flesh and the living spirit has the body for its site.” (c) The third point in favor of the corporal in St. Paul is that the distinction of different kinds of flesh is made not according to their substance but according to their quality, or their “glory” [éclat]. The First Letter to the Corinthians tells us that the “flesh for human beings” is different from the “flesh . . . for animals” or “for birds” or “for fish” ( Cor :). Their difference is not that of substance (terrestrial or celestial), as we shall see later (§), but rather of quality or “glory”: “There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another of the 

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moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory” ( Cor :–). In short, and contrary to the charge that is sometimes laid against St. Paul, the body in the resurrection is thought of in terms not of substance or ontology but of “glory” and of different modes—that is to say, phenomenologically. Life and death, then, must be “thought of above all not in the biological or Greek sense (throughout the Bible) but in relation to the word of God, which places before all men a choice of the one or the other. ‘See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity’ (Deut , ).” And in this sense, according to St. Paul, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies” ( Cor :). This is said as if to underline that the resurrection only indicates a new relationship of the human body with the body of God—Christ “head over all things for the church, which is his body” (Eph :–). And so the flesh and the glory are “corporal qualities whose changes do not destroy the body. A body can cease to be flesh in order to become in glory without losing its being as a body, and my body can be resurrected different from what it was.” The features that constitute and characterize Pauline anthropology, those on which the Christian dogma of the resurrection of the body is founded, are (a) the body (soma) as site of a relation with and openness to God, (b) the flesh (sarx) and the spirit ( pneuma) as modalities of the body (soma), and (c) the distinction between the kinds of “flesh” (sarx) according to the quality of their glory rather than according to their substance. And it is from these features also, I believe, that we can arrive at a possible conceptualization in terms of the metamorphosis of finitude. So we may conclude, according to the famous but rarely expressed tripartite formulation of Paul, that “your spirit [ pneuma] and soul [ psyche¯] and body [soma] may be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” ( Thess :). It is apparent at least that the spirit ( pneuma) here remains a modality of the body (soma) while at the same time, and exceptionally this time for a quasi-Greek model, it indicates a modality of the soul ( psyche¯). After all, the number and quality of the quantifications of “body–flesh–spirit or “spirit–flesh–body” are not important here. The essential feature of the Pauline system is that the flesh (sarx) always appears as a manner of being (admittedly negative or turned away from God) of the body (soma). And this manner of being does not condemn the body (soma), which for this reason also is identified with Christ, who is the Church. As for the resurrection of the body, then, we can return to a hypothesis that is modern but nonetheless rooted in the Pauline analysis (§), to say that it is less its substance as such that concerns us than the modalities of Resurrection and the Over-resurrection of the Body

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its being, or of its movements (Husserl), according to how they are turned toward others (following the spirit) or turned in on the self (following the flesh). Christ resurrected and appearing to his disciples is recognized by them less through his fleshly structure (which is hardly recognizable or even unrecognizable, since it is not recognized by everyone immediately, and not in the same way). He is recognized through lived experience, or the manner of being of his body, which is quasi-familiar to them: “Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord” (John :). In the same way and, as we shall see, in an analogical fashion (§), it is through the manner in which I experience my body today that I shall be able to recognize the manner in which tomorrow it will live in God, because that is what constitutes it today (the flesh [Leib], in Husserl), and that is also what will constitute it tomorrow (resurrection of the flesh without which the symmetry of the philosophical [Leib] to the theological [the flesh resurrected] would be simply fortuitous). Giving us “flesh” (sarx) as “true food” (John :), God gives us at the same time his manner of being through his body, something that believers proclaim themselves able to share, welcoming divinely the fleshly mode of the being of God in his metamorphosis or resurrection (chapter ). Neither John nor Paul, nor any apostle or evangelist, has then denigrated the body. They see it rather as the fleshly mode of God. Only a false Neoplatonic reading of the New Testament has led to the mistaken belief of a disparagement of the flesh in the Christian system: “If there had been no resurrection of the flesh,” the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar underlines, “gnosticism would be correct, along with other forms of idealism such as those of Schopenhauer and Hegel, according to which the finite must actually perish to become spiritual and infinite. But the resurrection makes sense of what poets say in a definitive way. The aesthetic schema that allows us to grasp the infinite in the figure of the finite—seen, understood, seized upon spiritually or whatever—is the truth. That is why we have to choose between myth and revelation.” §. A Phenomenal Body-to-Body Confrontation The positive characteristics of corporality for St. Paul (the body as connection to God, the body and spirit as modality of the body, and the distinction of different kinds of flesh according to their quality of “glory” [§]) will serve, then, as a main theme in refuting, or rather in questioning, the limits of Christian metamorphosis according to Nietzsche (which include passivity of the subject, the will to go on and on, and the projected uni

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formity and substantification of the body [§]). A veritable “phenomenal” body-to-body confrontation takes place between St. Paul and Nietzsche, not so much to extract the soul from the body and thus make it abstract (immortality) as to consecrate a certain Christian type of resurrected bodiliness—according to the spirit ( pneuma) or in the way of openness to God—and thus to make that resurrected bodiliness incarnate here. (a) Certainly one cannot hold to the idea of an “auto-resurrection” or “over-resurrection” of the self in Christianity. As opposed to the heroism and activism of the philosophical subject claimed by Nietzsche, the Gospels maintain clearly a quasi-defeat and passivity of the believing subject, incapable of raising himself by himself. But what is true for human beings in our relationship with God is also true in exemplary form of the relationship of the Son with the Father. I have tried to show, in Le Passeur de Gethsémani, the triviality of the proposition according to which “nobody resurrects himself ” [“God raised him up” (Acts :)]. It derives not only from our recognition of the immanence of a difference, or alterity, as the basis of all identity but also from our humble and necessary acknowledgment of the annihilation of the self in corruptible flesh. It is annihilation also for God in his quality as Son of Man. And it is an annihilation that takes place to the extent that an other (his Father) takes on, for his Son first of all, and for the whole of creation with him, the decision to bring about a raising up or recapitulation. Nietzsche’s argument against St. Paul, which takes Paul to task for one of the characteristics of Pauline corporality, then rebounds against Nietzsche himself. In demanding a raising up of the self by the self, the philosopher envisages here the modality of the “body” according to Paul’s notion of the “flesh.” He makes the in-curving of the self in its own self-overcoming (sarx) the site of a renunciation of any appeal to openness to the other—to any such appeal that might lead to escape of the self ( pneuma). But the spirit in Christianity ( pneuma), as the “connection” of our bodies (soma) to God, finds in the order of the resurrection what Thomas Aquinas already affirmed of the creation: “Creation places something in the thing created according to relation only [secundum relationem tantum].” As we have seen already (§), creation is a new creation only as far as the resurrection, as a relationship lived in our own corporality with the resurrected God, gives us “faith” in creation as an originary relationship. It is something of which we do not in the first place have any experience— except precisely in and by this metamorphosis (of resurrection) performed in us through God. (b) The will to go on and on, as a “wish for belief and wish for stability” is not, as I have tried to show (§b), solely a prerogative of Christianity (as in the “man who built his house on rock” [Mt :]). It is found in Resurrection and the Over-resurrection of the Body

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Western philosophy in general (in the concept of substance or cogito, for example), and not least in Judaism (“ If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all” [Isa :]). What is particularly characteristic of “Christian flight,” however, according to Nietzsche (and in this he has understood Christianity better than a good number of our contemporaries, including many Christians), is not simply the desire to escape. That is a mistaken accusation that draws falsely on instances such as that of St. Theresa of Avila, or St. John of the Cross, and on statements like St Theresa’s: “Life on earth is a continual bereavement: The true life is only in heaven. Allow me, my God, to live there.” Christian flight, more commonly, is true to the body-to-body struggle instituted by Nietzsche against St. Paul. It consists less in a flight of the spiritual from the material (Plato) than in a dogma of resurrection that does not acept the destruction or putrefaction of the flesh (giving an opportunity and a spiritual body to the earthly or material body [see  Cor :]). The escape from the tomb has for too long in Christianity been taken as the raising of a biological body (something we see represented in Gothic sculpture and, on the other hand, something that explains much contemporary silence about resurrection of the body). According to Nietzsche, this Christian view comes down to denying or refusing to accept the familiar law of entropy, which applies to all living things. Plato himself could not deny the evidence (putrefaction of the body / immortality of the soul). And this is unlike the interpretation in St. John’s Gospel (nonputrefaction, or reconstitution, of the body itself ): “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. . . . Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life” (John :–). The accusation of “flight,” which seemed easy to block, by the simple rejection of Platonism in the Christian affirmation of the body (no escape into the spiritual outside the bodily), shows itself here to be weightier, even implacable. A refusal of a flight into the spiritual by an authentic Christian would not witness an attachment to the bodily but rather a nonassumption of biological corporality—a wish to be transformed without either letting oneself be putrefied or losing sight of the body. One wonders how this can be done—I can only say for the moment that what follows in this essay attempts to give an answer to the problem (§). Does it really make obsolete any perspective on the raising of the body if we invoke evidence of human putrefaction? Without a veritable distinction at the heart of corporality (between the organic body [Körper] and the body of lived experience [Leib]), the Christian today does not know what to say about the resurrection of the body (or the flesh). But what revives of me, 

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as I have said above (§), and as I shall discuss further (§), is not my biological or organic body but the manner that I have of living through this same body. In short, the body that is most truly my own, but that is the property of God more than myself (§), is what God resurrects at the heart of my inner self. And so one cannot be satisfied with a purely biological interpretation of the body in Christianity. The “dead body” that appears from the tomb is, according to John, not so much our mortal and cadaverous body as our flesh, which allows our being either to be attentively connected, or to be deaf, to the “voice” of the Son of God (§). (c) The accusation against St. Paul, and thus against Christianity in general, of the making into a substance or substantification of the body founders probably of its own accord, or at least in light of the third trait of the corporal that we have brought out: the difference in quality or glory of the body. Paul was far from proposing a reification of the body: The apostle to the Gentiles wrote in a way that is truly distinctive of a whole Greek tradition that he had certainly learned (and we should not say here “learned too well”). In his writings a veritable phenomenality of the flesh resuscitated is brought into play. We need to separate this out through a close reading, which is at once complex and difficult, of the First Letter to the Corinthians ( Cor ), in order to speak of our “condition as resurrected.” Everything starts with a configuration of alterity, of which a distinction among the kinds of flesh (sarx), rather than among bodies (soma), makes the specificity apparent: “Not all flesh is alike,” certainly, but also “there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish” ( Cor :). Moreover, the positive alterity of the kinds of flesh (sarx) is then coupled with the difference of bodies (soma). “There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies” ( Cor :). This implies that only the living animal can call itself fleshly (sarx), in that it comes to terms at least with certain movements and lived experiences of its own body (of human beings, of cattle, of birds, or of fish). The letter adds immediately: “But the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed star differs from star in its glory” ( Cor :–). To put it in another way: The difference of bodies (heavenly and earthly) is coupled this time with an otherness of “glory” in their phenomenal intensity (the glory of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the stars among themselves). This otherness (of glory) is found in earthly and heavenly bodies (“the glory of the heavenly [bodies] is one thing, and that of the earthly is another”), even though that of the heavens above (the sun, the moon, the stars) appears to serve as a paradigm for that of the earthly (earth, mud, or silt). In Resurrection and the Over-resurrection of the Body

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short, a close reading of the text of St. Paul does not deny the earthly body a phenomenal corporality but rather gives it a model in heavenly bodies. The otherness of the kinds of flesh (human beings, cattle, birds, fish) is not touched by any kind of phenomenality (or glory) except to the extent that the flesh of mankind itself—and solely that of mankind—unlike animal flesh (cattle, birds, fishes), is given the attribute of the glory of bodies (earthly and heavenly). The flesh of human beings thus phenomenalizes a light that, if it does not come from the body itself (as it does in the case of the heavenly bodies), shines nonetheless ( phainomenon) by the body and through the body. “So it is (auto¯s kai) with the resurrection of the dead.” ( Cor :)—Paul explicitly describes human beings here by analogy with heavenly bodies but as remaining nonetheless earthly. A reading of the resurrection of the dead thus emerges from the Pauline corpus that is neither solely Hegelian (dialectical) nor nihilist (of pure negation) but is phenomenological (or “phenomenal”). In this reading, the glory of the body alone is what makes the resurrected being. To say, in effect, that it is “thus” for the resurrection of the dead is not simply to use the metaphor of the seed or the sower, as though it contained in it, and only in it, what there is in the resurrection ( Cor :–); it is, rather, to take up again what was said about the glory of the heavenly bodies (sun, moon, stars), to apply it this time to what is par excellence an earthly body (the mortal body). But it is to do this within the differentiation of different flesh that now properly defines it: mortal pointing here to human beings and not to cattle, birds, or fish ( Cor :–). In short—and we need to understand this so as not to add to the complexity of a passage that is often left out of discussions exactly because it is complex—the current emphasis on historicizing the metaphor of the seed in accounts of the resurrection should not allow us to forget that it is as much, if not even more so, the phenomenological glory of the resurrected body that constitutes it. Moreover, the medievals who attributed to the resurrected body not only the characteristic of incorruptibility (incorruptibilitas) but also that of clarity (claritas), subtlety (subtilitas), impassibility [that is, incapacity for suffering, not subject to pain] (impassibilitis), and agility (agilitas) had the right idea. The body-to-body confrontation of St. Paul and Nietzsche thus appears to be properly phenomenal, this time in the etymological sense of the term ( phainomenon), insofar as the resurrection implies a metamorphosis of transfiguration (glory) and not solely one of “transformation” (the seed). The fleshly battle of giants between Nietzsche and St. Paul, opposing one type of corporality with another, shifts, then, in my view, to the advantage of the apostle. It is he of the two (and Christianity with him) who makes 

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the body—fleshly (sarx) or spiritual ( pneuma)—the actual site of phenomenality, and not unilaterally that of strength or impulse. Irenaeus tells us that “the light of the Father burst into the flesh of our Lord. Then in shining from his flesh, it came into us, and so man acceded to incorruptibility, enveloped as he was by this light of the Father.” Let us hope that our flesh, like all flesh, be found worth to convey him (the Resurrected One)—to show him as himself to himself first of all, and let us hope for us to carry on, ourselves hidden.

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The Resurrection Changes Everything

“The Incarnation changes everything”: The phrase comes not from a theologian but from a philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Having made, along with Husserl, philosophical incarnation the center and the heart of his thought (“es wird Leib”) and after having himself challenged the above-mentioned “drama of atheist humanism” (§), Merleau-Ponty here calls on theologians: And it is a little too much to forget that Christianity is, among other things, the recognition of a mystery in the relations of man and God, which stems precisely from the fact that the Christian God wants nothing to do with a vertical relation of subordination. He is not simply a principle of which we are the consequence, a will whose instruments we are, or even a model of which human values are only the reflection. There is a sort of impotence of God without us, and Christ attests that God would not be fully God without becoming fully man. Claudel goes so far as to say that God is not above but beneath us—meaning that we do not find Him as a suprasensible idea, but as another ourself, who dwells in and authenticates our darkness. Transcendence no longer hangs over man: he becomes, strangely, its privileged bearer. One can’t emphasize sufficiently how much our understanding of the Christian mystery can turn out to be better or differently deployed by those who do not share it—surprising though it may seem. Probably this is one aspect of its vocation of universality (catholice). And it is the more 

striking in view of the contemporary withdrawal of a number of believers into a certain fundamentalism (biblicism), or spirituality (devotion), that may leave out the heart of the matter: the incarnation, or, rather, God’s becoming man. Merleau-Ponty’s demand for a withdrawal from all the “overhang of transcendence,” in philosophy as in theology, avoids a facile parallel between phenomenological incarnation (Leiblichung) and theological incarnation (Menschwerdung). Not that the former cannot clarify the latter, as we shall see below (§), but that it is not only “becoming flesh” that makes up God’s “becoming man.” German in fact uses two terms— Inkarnation (incarnation) and Menschwerdung (becoming man). French, in the Latin tradition, possesses only one term to cover the same reality: the “Word made flesh”—incarnation (in-carnatio). In short, and despite a philosophico-theological debate that this is neither the time nor the place to reactivate, it is nonetheless likely that in reconciling philosophy and theology too closely one will lose the specificity of phenomenology (the fleshly lived experience of the body of man) as well as that of theology (the flesh of Christ as a history of God becoming man). So it becomes necessary to replace the philosophical appeal to theology—the “incarnation changes everything” of Merleau-Ponty—with a theological appeal to theology. Albeit this must also be one that works with the tools of philosophy: “The Resurrection changes everything.” After we had shown that “we have no other experience of God than that of man” (part I, “Précis of Finitude”), it seemed appropriate, following on from partial salvage of Pauline corporality in the face of the Nietzschean assault (chapter ), to show how the Son of Man takes on and “transforms” this same finitude (part II, “Toward a Metamorphosis”). As Rudolf Bultmann has said “The being-aware of God is first a being-aware that man has of himself, of his limits. And God is considered as the power that breaks these limits [or rather, in my view, that transforms them] and brings man to his authentic being.” To take into account this affirmation—that is to say, both to accede to it (to share it) and to judge its validity (to take it on board)—comes down to assessing the load of finitude—this time not just for human beings (see part I) but also on the side of God (part II). We need to take into account the side of the Father, in that he accepts the ordeal of the flesh by the Son (§), and that of the Son in that he passes on his suffering to the Father (§), and that also of the Holy Spirit in the act of transformation of the Son by the Father. At this measure, and at this measure only, can the “Christian metamorphosis” (resurrection) break through the nullity of all attempts at transformation of the self by the self, when it is imagined as independent of he who is All-Other (Eternal Return). The Resurrection Changes Everything

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§. The Ordeal of the Father Why is God resurrected—Cur Deus resurrexit? The great medieval question that we brought up at the start of this section, the question of the appropriateness of the resurrection, along with that of the incarnation, confronts us again forcefully here. This time I want to put it within the context of contemporary concepts. It goes almost without saying that the first response to this question will often cite the redemption from sin “for our salvation.” I have shown in Le Passeur de Gethsémani that sin, defined as “the self-enclosing of the self by self, engrafted or joined to a finitude that is not in itself the sinner,” is precisely what Christ came to liberate us from. In short, my aim is not to deny the reality of sin and of salvation as the center and heart of the Christian doctrine. But nonetheless my argument here is quite different, and it completes the program first put forward in my previous book. Once we focus on how God is made flesh also “for us men,” it is necessary for a coherence in the economy of salvation, as also for a theology that is to be animated by philosophy, to consider Christ’s assumption of manhood “quite simply”—not independent of sin but going beyond it. In other words, the process of salvation by God cannot be complete unless it manages to take in charge (independently of sin, which, however, is always grafted and joined on to it) our nature—not uniquely as sinners, but as alive, and therefore mortal. The burden carried by God is thus identical with that carried by human beings, since God is made man, and we do not have in the first place any access to God other than through his “quite simple” humanity (see part I). The horizon of pure immanence (chapter ), the passage from time to time (chapter ), that the need for God may not be evident (chapter ), and even the problem of imaginary “back worlds” [arrière mondes] (chapter )—all these are therefore nonsinful traits, shared by all human beings, and therefore also in a certain way by the Son of Man, even if he cannot be reduced to them. The problem remains, however, of defining what it is then that the Son delivers himself from, or rather allows himself to be delivered from, so that we are at risk of never being able to explain the “necessity of resurrection,” not even its necessity for us today. Since mankind, in its pure immanence, can to some extent content itself with “humanity without God” (chapter ), to the point of holding back on accusations that atheism is a “drama” (chapter ), what reason or reasons can there be for trying to extricate oneself from the drama? What reason can there be if there is no longer a drama to be extricated from? In other words, doesn’t the self-satisfaction, in the sense not of sin but of the pure and simple sufficiency of the “simply” human, definitively prevent access 

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to the divine, and even its necessity? In calling to God, who is “more than necessary,” as Jüngel does, or in looking to the order of desire and not of need, as Levinas does, are we not making obsolete—and quite rightly— any appeal to God that contents itself directly with the simple fruits of the earth? The danger of a God who intervenes as a deus ex machina, which we have already seen as an overstatement, returns here with a vengeance. If we resist the attractions of intrinsic-ism (Aquinas), don’t we risk falling into extrinsic-ism (Barth or Bultmann)? To try to resolve this conflict—between extrinsic and intrinsic—we need to return as far as methodology is concerned to a shift in the terms used. In other words, and it will be necessary to come back to this, since the point is of central importance (chapter ), God does not intervene either from outside or inside human beings in a pure “vis-à-vis” human– divine relationship—a relationship that would be closer to Judaism (Levinas) than to Christianity. On the contrary, we are taken through the Holy Trinity to the nature of God, monadologically (i.e., indivisibly) contained in himself, rather than to a juxtaposition of one part with another: “All things have been created through him and for him. . . . In him all things hold together” (Col , –). Probably there is no other way to cut short the objection that we are proposing a deus ex machina than to think of the metamorphosis of finitude as an intra-divine event—starting from the ordeal of human beings (birth), transformed and modified by the ordeal of God (the resurrection). Human beings certainly suffer from the burden of finitude and of death, because its weight is, when all is said and done, unbearable. But we can’t simply base the existence of some kind of God on our wanting to escape this feeling. As we have seen in following Nietzsche’s thought, we can’t have recourse to God through a simple will to last, to go on and on, even supposing that were required by the rebellion of our own bodies (health as opposed to sickness). The resurrection is then not principally an affair for human beings, even though it is also for human beings: It is an affair of God’s—of him, in him, and by him. Apart from the classic theologies of satisfaction (Anselm), or glorification (Duns Scotus), completely oriented toward salvation as redemption rather than solidarity, a current hypothesis reinforces the necessity of resurrection. It is a hypothesis of the assumption (Hegelian), which perhaps is better described as the Aufhebung, or raising up, of extremes into God. The Son of Man alone, precisely because he is God, and because he is God who shares the life of human beings, cannot tolerate a distance between his humanity (finite) and his divinity (infinite). Subject to that death that is life, and in the grip of that pure immanence that is transcendence, or prisoner of the temporal that is the Eternal, he The Resurrection Changes Everything

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“[shared flesh and blood] so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death” (Heb :). The truth of this argument is certainly undeniable, and it is the common basis of all theologies of the resurrection. The dialectical model of the death of God as “the death of death” has proved fruitful, and there is no reason, after all, that it should not be fruitful here. The annihilation of nothingness in the Absolute is what legitimates a new affirmation of the Absolute.All the same, it is difficult to give “meaning” to this scheme today, insofar as a model of this kind always presupposes that the infinite includes the finite, even for God himself (§, “The Preemption of the Infinite”). We can’t really assess the truth of the argument simply by the way in which it has been received. The model of a perennial philosophy ( philosophia perennis) seems to have been replaced here, albeit in different order, by the model of a perennial theology (theologia perennis). And nonetheless doubts remain. Is it enough to apprehend the finite (the Word incarnate) as the contrary of the infinite (the [same] Son begotten not created)? I have underlined above (§) that finitude is not simply derived from the infinite but is the end-stopped horizon of our existence and so also of his, the Son’s. Otherwise we risk separating him off from our common humanity. The Hegelain model of the metamorphosis of finitude, the assumption of the finite into the infinite, was not removed but simply passed over (if one can pass over what is itself a kind of overcoming). But we come back again forcefully to our opening question: Cur Deus resurrexit?—“Why is God resurrected?” It is the death of God as an ordeal for the Father, and not in the first place for the Son, that puts us on the right track. The theologian Jürgen Moltmann tells us that “the Son suffers death: The Father suffers the death of the Son.” What is being expressed here? Not simply that the son dies, or that the “death of death” operates through him, but that the Father suffers from not dying of the death that the Son dies of. Who, then, humanly and analogically speaking, undergoes the greater suffering: The son who dies? Or the father who suffers that death? The father, it goes without saying, who survives an event (the death of his son) of which he would prefer to die—even by way of substituting himself for his own son. In short, the death of the son, albeit it is that of the Son of God, can and must remain the death “quite simply” of a man—though we risk here losing sight of all we gained at the start or our “summary of finitude” (pure immanence, the path from time to time, and the possibility of being man without God). It is true nonetheless—and the point is crucial—that this ordeal (or test) of man becomes also an ordeal (or test) for God, in and for the faith that the Son maintains in his relationship with his Father. “Father, into your 

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hands I commend my spirit” (Luke :). Better, it is precisely because of this faith that the Son remains truly the Son, in that he never unties his relationship with his Father—even though his death seems like the complete abandonment that some have wrongly defined as an abandonment of God by God. The “ordeal of God” does not then signify here that the human death of the Son, as a man, has (in some new swerve from ordinary humanity) another sense than the human one. It simply means that this ordeal lets the unbearable burden of this death, which is so “fearfully” human, and which is above all ordinary, like that of all men (the weight of finitude), pass on, originally toward the Father, because together Son and Father are God. The true test or ordeal is thus not only that of the Son but also that of the Father. The suffering of the Son (Le Passeur de Gethsémani) appears then as a pathway to the Father (Metamorphosis of Finitude) not as a flight from or negation of the Son’s Passion, but as a transfer of the mode of being (fleshly) of the Son to the mode of being (spiritual) of the Father. It is not a question here of negation, and even less of “negation of the negation” for a new “affirmation” (Aufhebung), but rather what has been called, after Husserl, the “apperceptive transposition” of the other. The Son possesses this exemplary characteristic (of apperceptive transposition), which in this context constitutes him as Son. It is the ability to transfer fully to the Father, into his experience of consciousness (as spirit), what he himself has undergone in his lived experience of the flesh (as body). It should be obvious here that our model is not opposed to the Hegelian model but different from it. The question for us is not whether the infinite has the capacity to become finite in order to realize a new infinite. It is solely to ask ourselves if and how the Son, in the lived experience of the flesh, as an offering of himself to the Other of his Father, can operate this apperceptive transposition. The transposition he has to accomplish is that of his lived fleshly experience into the lived experience of consciousness of his own Father. §. The Apperceptive Transposition of the Son What happens when “I—the thinking I—reduce myself through the phenomenological epoche¯  to the absolute of my transcendental ego?” Behind this complex question of Husserl’s, taken from the famous fifth Cartesian Meditation, hides a reality that is accessible and well known—the famous objection that what he is proposing is solipsism. Taking the path toward the transcendental ego, have I not in fact, Husserl goes on, “become solus ipse”—that is, myself alone? We do not need to develop here the ins and outs of a phenomenology that I have explored elsewhere. Let us note The Resurrection Changes Everything

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simply that a necessary but impossible apperceptive transposition of my “here” (hic) to the “there” (illic) of the other makes possible our joining up or pairing (Paarung), through a common experience—or perhaps it would be better to say a “sphere in common.” This transposition is necessary because only “the freeing of my own perspective and the transfer to another perspective” allows me to accede to the other as another version of myself. What the other experiences I myself could also experience if I were in the other’s place. Merleau-Ponty takes as an example the following: “I am watching this man who is motionless in sleep and suddenly he wakes. He opens his eyes. He makes a move toward his hat, which has fallen beside him, and picks it up to protect himself from the sun. What finally convinces me that my sun is the same as his, [is] that he sees and feels it as I do.” This transposition is impossible, but it remains all the same in what I can’t actually do. It is “as though I here [hic] could be over there [illic]”—though, precisely, I can’t ever get there. In the famous formula of Diogenes, “There is only one [same] place in the sun.” “If I am always incapable in fact of actually living through the burn that the other suffers, the bite of the world as I feel it on my body is a wound for all those who are exposed like me, and particularly for this body which starts off by defending itself against that bite.” It is only “analogically,” then, that one can grasp the other; that is to say, by way of an “as if.” We can conclude this phenomenological outline, even if it means simplifying matters, as follows. I am here (hic), the other is there (illic); together, however, we seem to share fleshly experience, or a common world (illinc). It would seem that I have no other way of coming to comprehend the other than to act “as if ” I were capable of embracing his bodily movements (his kinesthesia), without, however, ever being able to do so, because my flesh (Leib) remains always here (hic) and his over there (illic). In short, the other is other, not because I could put myself in his place but because, while wishing to occupy his place, I realize that I can never do so. And yet we do share a common experience of the world in the mode of being of our bodies. The apperceptive transposition of the Son in his relationship with the Father will then suppose a breaking through for God of two prohibitions given by Husserl (and the Son can do this precisely because he is who he is, and also because that is what faith consists in). (a) On the side of the Son, we find a full and entire capacity to make the spiritual and eternal Father go through, or to feel, what it was to have his lived experience of corruptible flesh in time. (b) And on the side of the Father, under the action of the Holy Spirit, we find him transforming, or, better, metamorphosing in the Son, the Husserlian limits imposed on the “here” and “over there”—limits that 

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were in any case valid only for corporal mortality not for the metamorphosed or resurrected. Husserl says in his First Philosophy (–) that “a being outside us, as it is outside, cannot be given to us originally other than via intropathy [Einfühlung].” (a) On the side of the Son, then, it must be possible for his suffering in the flesh to be undergone without flesh by the Father. Not only because they “undergo in common the same suffering” in a common situation (“the father and the mother beside the dead body of their loved child [sympathy]” [Max Scheler]), but also because one of them (the Son) possesses exceptionally, insofar as he “is” God, the capacity to make the other (the Father) undergo the ordeal that he himself has undergone: “I ask . . . that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me [en emoi] and I am in you [en soi]” (John :–). We shall come back to the topic of the unity of the Father and the Son (§); suffice it to say here that it is through that unity that the apperceptive transposition to the other can be realized “in God,” which is impossible for man. Such a hypothesis—“the apperceptive transfer of suffering from the Son into the suffering of the Father”—supposes certainly a passion in God, one that applies not only to the Son but also to the Father. Although it has been the object of debate, a certain mode of the possibility of suffering for God must in fact be one of the requisites of a theology today. The thesis of complete impassibility placed unilaterally, conflicts unnecessarily, according to our view, with a certain “suffering of God” manifest in the Gospels, experienced by the faithful and stated in the famous formula of the Scythian monks: “One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh.” This axiom, however, and it is my second point here, distinguishes the suffering of the Father from the suffering of the Son. It does not speak, since that would be absurd, as it is literal, of the “suffering flesh” of all the Trinity. Neither “flesh of God” nor “flesh of Christ” before the incarnation is proposed— though there is a risk, on the other hand, of falling into ludicrous notions of “special or heavenly flesh,” for which Tertullian criticizes Apelles, or the “flesh of angels from before the creation of the world” described by Jacob Böhme. This is the inverse of the Word incarnate, which is made “in human likeness” (Phil :), and comes “to share a flesh like our own, supplied with blood, built with bones, and furrowed with veins.” It is all this that makes the Father feel what it is precisely to be in flesh. The tenth anathema of the Second Council of Constantinople () makes explicit: “Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified in the flesh, is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity.” He only, then, the Son, suffers carnally (in the flesh). But by the unity of the Trinity (“one of the Holy Trinity”), he The Resurrection Changes Everything

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transposes spiritually into the Father what he has of fleshly suffering. Thus we find the formula given above: “The suffering in the flesh of the Son must first be undergone without flesh by the Father.” So, for example, we find Jesus is “tired out by his journey” and simply “sitting by the well” in his encounter with the Samaritan (John :). What does it mean to say that the Word can experience the most ordinary fatigue of a journey, to the point of needing to sit down, if it is not precisely that “God became tired . . . and had a tired body”? Certainly, “[Jesus’] journey is the flesh assumed for us” (St. Augustine). But the road taken by the Son is also that of the Father, who lives in him, albeit the Father takes it in another fashion, one that is not fleshly. The passion of God is not, or not only, in the suffering of the Son, by the yardstick of his death (see Le Passeur de Gethsémani); it is transformed, this time in the orbit of the resurrection (Metamorphosis of Finitude), into the passion of the Father, who “himself is not unmoved”: “Ipse pater non est impassibilis.” This is a celebrated formula, but we need to understand it fully. To say “The Father himself is not unmoved” is neither () to condemn all forms of impassibility [that is, incapacity for suffering, not being subject to pain] in God nor () to limit his passion solely to the moment of redemption. (a) We cannot, first of all, limit the divine passion to our simple human passions. The “passion of charity” that God suffers ( passio caritatis) is intentional and entirely interior, while man’s suffering is often pathological and almost always comes from the outside. In this sense, but in this sense only, God is in some respect impassible, but not without compassion: “Certainly God is incapable of suffering [ porro impassibilis est Deus],” according to Bernard of Clairvaux in his Sermon on the Song of Songs, “but he is not incapable of sympathizing with us [sed non incompassibilis], he whose special characteristic [ proprium] is always to have pity and to pardon.” It is willingly and through love that God shares in our emotions (cum pati), while it is involuntarily and first of all according to our shortcomings that we “suffer” one another ( pati). The compassion of God overhangs and includes that of man, insofar as the former works by excess (of love) on what the latter most often searches for as a lack (in our need for love). St. Bernard’s “God, [who] is impassible but not incapable of compassion (Deus est impassibilis sed non incompassibilis),” takes up the baton in a way from Origen’s “Father, [who] himself is not impassive (Ipse pater non est impassibilis).” Not that it is necessary to insist on the impassibility of the Father at all costs, but that his

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capacity for suffering cannot simply be identified with our sensitivity (which is sometimes pathological and again almost always comes from the outside). He is not theologically insensitive: “God is not affected, he is affection (non est affectus Deo, affectio est),” according to St. Bernard. This is, as it were, to indicate that the affection or love of God (affectio) is always given generously, while the affect of mankind (affectus) lands where it does inadvertently and most often in a passive way. And so what is “affected” by God comes to be “deified”— “sic affici deificari est.” Mankind receives in his passive affect (affectus) what is the affection or love of God (affectio). “He who attaches himself to God is one in spirit with him,” St. Bernard concludes. “He passes through entirely, and so to speak, into the affect of God [et in divinum quemdam totus mutatur affectum]. Filled with God, he can feel or taste only God alone, and what God feels or tastes.” (a) This voluntary passion of God’s, which is not then in contradiction to a certain form of his impassibility, is not limited to the moment of the redemption, according to a dialectical scheme that is sometimes evoked [thesis: impassibility; antithesis: passion; synthesis: reintegration of the passion in the impassibility]. The dialectical scheme lacks a true sense of the divine “auto-affection.” The “suffering of God,” contrary to what it suggests, precedes his passion. Divine pathos is not simply the cause of the incarnation, it is above all his origin—and even his being at its most characteristic. “The Savior came down to earth out of pity for man,” Origen tells us. “He had patiently undergone the ordeal of our passions before [antequam] suffering on the cross and condescending to take on our flesh: For if he had not suffered [si enim non fuisset passus] he would not have come to share the life of humankind.” It is then not just “the Incarnation that preceded the Passion but, in a certain, way the Passion that preceded the Incarnation!” The suffering as God—what the Father shares with the Son on the cross—should not obscure the original suffering of God. It is this original suffering that unites the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the same pathos from before the foundation of the world. The passion of the Son is then identical with the passion of the Father but follows two different modes after the incarnation: the one of his bodily being (the Son), the other of his spiritual being (the Father). In the transition, or rather in the transfer of these passions, we find justification for the act of raising the Son by the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

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(b) On the side of the Father, it is a question of understanding now (if that is what can be done in such matters!) how the apperceptive transposition of the fleshly pathos of the Son into the spiritual pathos of the Father can suffice to produce, on the initiative of the Father and through the action of the Holy Spirit, the metamorphosis of the Son and of finitude in him. Cur Deus resurrexit? The challenge would be impossible were it not that theology has been nobly engaged with such a perspective (in the Middle Ages in particular) and the Holy writ has made us see how much of what is impossible for human beings is precisely fulfilled in God— particularly, the accomplishment of the apperceptive transposition to the other. “Where I am going you cannot come. . . . As you, Father, are in me and I am in you” (John :, :). In other words the “here” of human beings is never the “over there” of God, except in the unique case of the human-God (the Son) who crosses over and transfigures, through his unity with the Father, all spatial and temporal frontiers. In the case of humans, certainly, no “transparence” from the self to the other can hold, because of the irreducible impenetrability of consciousness. A “lived” situation for me does not at all resemble this same situation as “conceived” by another: “Paul suffers because he has lost his wife, or is angry because his watch has been stolen,” Merleau-Ponty says. “Whereas I suffer because Paul is grieved, or I am angry because he is angry, and our situations cannot be superimposed on each other.” My pain is not the pain of the other, and it is precisely this impermeability of pain that makes another’s suffering (passion) into otherness. In the same way I can take on the burden of suffering with (com-passion) but never an interpenetration of suffering as (passion). In the case of God, however, things are managed entirely otherwise. The indissoluble unity of the Father and the Son, as well as the theological doctrine of the “communication of idioms” (which says that the properties of the Divine Word can be ascribed to the man Christ and that the properties of the man Christ can be predicated of the Word), both require quite otherwise. They maintain that what philosophy holds legitimately to be impossible is fulfilled in God: that is, the apperceptive transposition of me into the other. In fact when the Son suffers in the parable of the prodigal son allegorically reread, the Father shares not only the passion of his Son, out of compassion for him, but he undergoes the ordeal of that passion spiritually, even as his Son lives carnally, in the unity of a similar nature or a similar dwelling (oikos): “Son, you are always with me [met’ emon], and all that is mine [ema] is yours [sa]” (Luke :). Sharing the ownership of goods is also, in the case of God, a pooling of resources in the appro-

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priation of subjects. What the (prodigal?) Son suffers in fleshly terms in his own body, as far as destitution in hunger, thirst, and pain, the Father undergoes fully, albeit spiritually, in his divine, innermost self. “While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion [moved to his bowels—splangchnizomai]) (Luke :). One wonders then what motivation(s) did the Father find to metamorphose finitude in this way in the Son? Does not the omniscience of the one (the Father), which goes as far as the ordeal of the other (the Son), make an apperceptive transposition from the one to the other simply null and void? In other words, isn’t it better, despite their complete unity, to maintain a certain distinction between Son and Father, of the sort that the knowledge of the one (“about that day or hour no one knows . . . nor the Son, but only the Father” [Mark :]) forbids a complete fusion into the suffering of the other (“Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last” (Mark :])? Doesn’t the “empathy” (Einfühlung) of Father and Son become a pure “affective fusion” (Einsfühlung) if the suffering of the one, passed over to the other, does not allow us to distinguish one from the other? As we have seen, if the Father is able, through the unity of the divine persons of the Trinity, to fully feel what his Son lives, he undergoes the ordeal nonetheless through another mode—spiritual and not fleshly. “To know” the death of the other, and perhaps even to encounter in this all the particular circumstances (the spiritual omniscience of the Father), is not the same thing as to “undergo” the ordeal oneself in the concreteness of existence (the fleshly pathos of the Son). What is true concerning the dutifulness of the Son, according to Anselm of Canterbury, commenting here on the Letter to the Hebrews (“he learned obedience through what he suffered” [Heb :]), is also true, according to my argument, and in a certain way solely true, of the ordeal of death in relation to the Father. “He learnt from experience [experimento didicit] what he could not have been ignorant of from his science [quod per scientiam non ignorabat].” The necessity for the omniscient Father to go through this ordeal by death (of his Son) springs in a way from the abyss between to know and to do, between to know death (one’s own death) and to go through death. Otherwise the Father risks remaining in pure impassibility. But He goes through it in another mode, or in a way other than the way in which his Son did. For having knowledge of the end (the day and hour of judgment), the Father also knows the beginning (the creation as finitude). And it is precisely because the beginning (the creation) is metamorphosed by the end (the resurrection) that He himself (the Father) is no longer at the end as He was at the beginning. The metamorphosis of the world is the metamorphosis of God, if we assume

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that the world is comprised in God. As far as the Father is concerned, the knowledge of finitude, and of the death of mankind already there in the act of creation, cannot be identified with the ordeal to be undergone, the ordeal of finitude and of the death of his Son in the act of redemption. And so there is a passage, truly spiritual, that the Father no doubt lives through, in taking on board “the lived experience of the fleshly suffering of man” through his Son. The French theologian Gustave Martelet boldly suggests that “the Son has become so completely man that he is capable henceforth of undergoing in his flesh (the worst of ) what is human as well as making it felt by him from whom he came. Become one of us, he has the skill to reveal to the Father, in a manner not only divine but also totally human, this drama that is truly ours and that in the first place was ours only.” Was God then changing, evolving, when the Father was coming to us through his Son and revealing in him the weight of human finitude? The category of the temporal cannot give us the answer, because for us this “evolving” would be different in kind from the “eternal.” What can it mean, precisely, to talk of God “evolving”—when he says he “observed the misery of my people. . . . I know their sufferings” (Ex :)? Or from the moment when he was “filled with compassion” (Luke :)? It is not that he is unilaterally temporal and repudiates his eternal condition, as is often thought. But simply “that he finds himself moved by what happens in the world, moved indicating here altered, transformed in his state of being . . . ; that God receives an experience from the world and that his own proper being, consequently, is influenced by what takes place there.” Taking to its logical conclusion the hypothesis of empathy from Father to Son, and from God to the world, we could go no further without leaving the Father in the impassibility that, as we have seen, along with Origen and St. Bernard, is incompatible with revelation (“the Father himself is not impassible” was corrected to “God without passion but not without compassion”). Omniscience of the Father and “intropathy” with his Son are not in this sense contradictory. Knowledge about everything (omniscience) is not the undergoing of everything (intropathy), and the modification of knowledge (of the Father) by the ordeal (of the Son) is less an indication of the insufficiency of his knowing than of the excess of his trinitarian being. Moreover, the most ordinary human empathy is in fact the test of this, and this time the structure of the Trinity appears in its most exemplary mode: “When I address someone and, for some thing or other, implore him to have pity for me,” Origen says, “if he is without mercy, he does not suffer at all [nihil patitur] from what I tell him; but if he has a feeling soul, if he does not have a severe and hardened heart, he listens to me, he has pity for me, he is moved in his depths [molliuntur viscera eius] by my prayers.” 

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§. The Holy Spirit as the Son Metamorphosed by the Father The “why” of the resurrection—Cur Deus resurrexit? (the ordeal of the Father and the apperceptive transposition of the son)—has nothing to say about its “how”—about Quomodo resurrexit? But because the Father suffers in a certain way, albeit in a (spiritual) mode different from the suffering of the Son (§), and because the Son truly possesses the capacity to make his Father undergo what he lives through in breaking down the frontiers of the “here” (hic) and the “over there” (illic) (§), we can’t look for the Resurrected One there where he is not—precisely in the “there” of an existence whose spatial limits are metamorphosed by the gift of his ubiquity. “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ [o¯de] or ‘There it is!’ [ekei]. For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you!” [entos umo¯n] (Luke :–). The resurrection is not a crossing from the Being-there (Dasein) to a Beingelsewhere—“looking up toward heaven” (Acts :). It is on the contrary a transformation of the Being-there to the Being-itself (identity and reflexivity): conceived—that is to say, engendered—as an Other (otherness and metamorphosis). “We will not all die, but we will all be changed”—allasso¯ (become other) ( Cor :). Far from a flight into an over there, the resurrection brings us back here below and, most strongly, to our own interiority. It is a transformation of the self by another than the self. It is “the happening on oneself as an adventure,” concerning which a separating off into different worlds, as we shall see later (chapter ), has got nothing to do (here). The characteristic features of the force of the Holy Spirit by which God proclaims, and mankind proclaims with him, that “the resurrection changes everything” are what we shall look at next. Three questions are posed. (a) What is to be transformed? (b) What is this metamorphosis like? And (c) What is the act of metamorphosis itself? (a) What is to be transformed? The scope of this question is such that it would be difficult to give a satisfactory account of it in a full book, still less in a single chapter. But in spite of the enormity of the task, I do not wish to draw back—since up to now I have tried not to avoid or skirt any obstacles. What is it, then, that is to be transformed in a Metamorphosis of Finitude? I cannot sufficiently insist on the statement—and it is one I find also in Tertullian—that “if it is not our flesh [nostram carnem] that he has freed . . . then none of this concerns us [nihil ad nos], because what he has freed is not ours.” In short, his (Christ’s) flesh is at the least ours or, better, it is mine, in an “in each case mine-ness” (Jemeinigkeit) that truly constitutes him as much as it constitutes myself. Better, it is only and first of The Resurrection Changes Everything

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all through my own flesh, this time according to St. Paul, that I can have access to his (in the same way that I cannot have access to God except from the starting point of my own humanity [§]). “Thus it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being [ psyche¯]’; the last Adam became a lifegiving spirit [ pneuma]” ( Cor :). The letter to the Corinthians makes plain that “it is not the spiritual that is first” ( pro¯tos)—even for those who might not want to hear this. First is “the physical [ psychikon], and then the spiritual [ pneumatikon]” ( Cor :). St. Paul could not be clearer. With the “priority of bodily love” (amor carnalis), “the apostle is not speaking of a commandment that has been given,” Bernard of Clairvaux explains, “but he points to a fact that is inherent in nature (sed naturae inseritur). In fact, ‘no one ever hates his own body’ ” (Eph :). As in the dialogue with Nicodemus, where there was not an opposition, but an analogy, between the “flesh” and the “spirit” (§), here there is not a fracture but simply an identical link between the sowing of the earth and the germination of the heavens, between the animal Adam and the spiritual Adam: “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. . . . It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body” ( Cor :–.) Being the “second man,” Christ takes on the role of the “first man” ( Cor :). And Adam, not content with being he by whom “transgression” is produced (the antitype of humanity), according to the interpretation, by both Irenaeus and St. Augustine, of the same verse of the epistle to the Romans (Rom :), is the herald, or “the type of the one who was to come” (prototype of humanity)—that is, the Son of Man himself. What is to be taken on by the Son and transformed by the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit is then the “psychic body”—or also called “animal” ( psyche¯), or “living” (mankind, cattle, birds, etc. [see §c]). This question of animality belongs precisely and unhappily with those questions that are most neglected, and perhaps feared, by contemporary theology, although it comes up importantly in phenomenology as in philosophy in general. Could it not be, as Heidegger maintains, that the strangeness of the living animal in its hyper-proximity to our nature is in reality more difficult for us to think through than the more familiar distance from the divine? “Among all the beings there are, the living being [Lebenwesen] is probably for us the most difficult to consider, because it is in a certain way our closest family. . . . On the other hand, it can seem that the divine being [das Wesen des Göttlichen] is closer to us than the strangeness of living beings, closer in fact according to an essential distancing, which is nonetheless, as distancing, more familiar to our existing being than the abyssal bodily kinship [leiblich], barely conceivable, with the animal.” We

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can by no means resolve here this question—which is the subject of the third book in my “triptych.” But let us note that the lively comments of Gilles Deleuze on the Crucifixions of Francis Bacon, and the remarks of Bacon himself, are not just indictments of Christianity that subject it to derision—though they are that also. These comments say something, perhaps something of sense, on the death of Christ as the death of a psychic (and thus animal?) body. Death of this body in a sense constitutes Christ’s nuptials with the first Adam. “It is only in his paintings of butchery that Bacon is a religious painter,” Deleuze comments. Prudence demands, however, that we do not examine such affirmations without coming well armed. We could perhaps simply recall here that the crucial question and starting point of phenomenology (Husserl) was not just that of the flesh but also that of the body (“It is a fundamental problem . . . elucidating how the flesh [Leib] is constituted as physical body [Körper]”). The massive stampede toward the flesh, characteristic of contemporary thought, neglects Husserl’s attachment to the body, to the point sometimes of dis-corporating the flesh. “It is very difficult to grasp the possible sense of a beside-the-livedbody,” the French philosopher Didier Franck says in relation to Husserl. In short, and independent of considerations that are as complex as they are delicate, we can profitably follow the celebrated axiom of Gregory of Nazianzus through to its conclusion—if, that is, the resurrection changes everything. Gregory says, “What he [Christ] has not assumed, he has not healed; but what is united to his Godhead is also saved.” In this sense, and in this sense only, I cannot agree with Bultmann when he says that the power of God “breaks” the limits of man. I consider that it “trans-forms” or gives them “another form” (allasso¯) insofar as it accepts them through and through in order to metamorphose them. (b) What is metamorphosis like? As to the “how” of metamorphosis, nobody knows. We are told only the sequence it is to follow, of which we regret the delay. With the resurrection as with birth, as we shall see (chapter ), one never knows if it will come, or when it will come, but one knows it is there when it takes place. We discover it and live it as a “fait accompli” that makes us more than we make it. And so we read of the disciples, who were hit by, and faced with, the fact of the resurrection, or at least of the disappearance of Jesus: “The other disciple [the one whom Jesus loved] outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in” (John :–). The Metamorphosis of Finitude is not one of those births, or rebirths, that one attends as if it were the unashamed scene of childbirth. The sacred silence that held for Christ’s return, were it for three days (the Easter

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Paschal Triduum), was something that sprang from his own constitution. What happened to the second Adam (the Christ) was what was foretold and was in part what had already happened to the first Adam (drawn from the clay of the earth): “We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment [en atomo¯], in the twinkling of an eye [en ripe¯ opthalmou], at the last trumpet.” ( Cor :–). The event is not temporal, but temporalizing. The event of the resurrection is not in time, but makes time. As soon as the event takes place, it overtakes us and tells us about what is “for all time.” It opens another and new mode of temporality in its emergence and unfathomable occurrence (see chapter , “From Time to Eternity”). Far from having been counted in the totality of what was possible, the metamorphosis of finitude allows this “possibility of the impossible” (the resurrection of the dead) to give rise to new possibilities, of which we ourselves are the first beneficiaries. “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” ( Cor :). Still nothing is said of what this “spiritual body” is. Only the descriptive analysis of the accounts of the apparitions allows us to grasp a sense of it (§). What is said, or almost everthing that is said, tells us of a resurrection that “changes everything”—not for human beings only but for God himself in his auto-affection. It also changes temporality and the world, that world of which the Christian, like all humans, at least at first, can experience only the blocked horizon (chapter ), the heaviest of burdens (chapter ), not to mention the feeling of the absence of God (chapter ). (c) What is the act of metamorphosis itself ? Consideration of the act of resurrection as such allows us to glimpse the action of the Holy Spirit, as the meta-morphosis of the Son by the Father. To be resuscitated, in effect, comes back to taking on a shape (morphe¯) that is that even of God. Our own metamorphosis consists in this, starting from today: “Be transformed [meta-morpho¯] by the renewing of your minds” (Rom :). The Son, it goes without saying, never gave up such a shape—not even in the vision of his disfigured face at the foot of the cross by the centurion: “When he [the centurion] saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’ ” (Mark :). It remains true nonetheless that this shape simply lands on the force that is capable of molding it. If we can agree in part with Hans Jonas that “God finds himself moved by what has happened to the world . . . and he gains from the world an experience in which his own being is influenced by what has taken place,” it does not follow that we can reduce the divine to his radical “powerlessness.” It is a specific feature of Christianity, in its project of creation and in its opposition to the notorious Tzimtzum, or withdrawal of God, that it supposes a “power-

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less power of God.” But it is also appropriate here, because of the radical novelty of the resurrection, to suggest an “omnipotence that can raise or resuscitate” and that specifically belongs to Christianity: “God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power” (Acts :). And this force that can resuscitate, under the term here of “God” (ho theos), refers here not only to the Father but also the [Holy] Spirit with him: “If the Spirit [ pneuma] of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit [autou pneumatos] that dwells in you” (Rom :). The emphasis, in all the pneumatology, that makes the Holy Spirit into either the act of union of the Father to the Son (immanent and Latin schema) or the gift of God to the world (linear and Greek schema) neglects the Spirit’s primary definition as “force” or “being at work” (energeia), as the engendering force, in Mary his mother, of the Son: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke :). And this is the resuscitating or raising force of the Word made flesh, and of us in him: “You were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col :). The Holy Spirit, as metamorphosis of the Son by the Father, and of mankind in him, thus paradoxically connects with what Nietzsche despaired of finding in Christianity—the separation “of strength from the manifestation of strength.” Nihilism denounces what it sees as the perversions of Christianity: “Weakness is going to be falsified into something of merit . . . powerlessness which does not retaliate is being falsified into ‘goodness,’ anxious baseness into ‘humility,’ submission before those one hates to ‘obedience.’ . . . That incapacity for revenge is called the lack of desire for revenge.” It is the Holy Spirit, and only the Holy Spirit, that can outdo the ambitions of the Nietzschean overhuman. Because the Spirit is strength against strength, it also goes beyond human beings in allowing humankind to surpass itself, but only on condition that believers accept this “sur-passing”—that is, by making their way through, rather than surmounting. God for mankind is therefore not only substance—though He is also that in the trinitarian determination of dogma (Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople). He is importantly power, considered from the point of view of the resurrection and the force raising the Son by the Father in the Holy Spirit. And man, for God, is not simply nature—though he is that as created being (Council of Constantinople). Man is also figure—at least when understood as that “animal whose kind is not yet fixed.” Man is transformed to a new mode of being in the world rather than restored or completed in an ancient world. “Our bodies must be resurrected not

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in terms of their substance [non ex sua substantia],” Irenaeus tells us with confidence, “but through the power of God [sed ex Dei virtute].” Let us return then to St. Paul and his address to the Corinthians, to conclude, on the subject of what gives us the turning point of this present book—and of salvation itself (viz., “the resurrection changes everything”): “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised” ( Cor :). The order of priority, deliberately set up by the apostle here, must be respected. It is not Christ resurrected who brings about the resurrection of the dead (that is, we do not go from Christ to the resurrection) but rather the resurrection of the dead—that is to say, the power, or the force, of raising the dead by the Father (the Holy Spirit), which is fully realized in Christ, “the first fruits of those who have died” ( Cor :). (That is, we go from the resurrection to Christ.) Pneumatology is then at the base of Christology (the Spirit engendering the Word in Mary his mother [Luke :]), as is eschatology (the “power of God” who raises the dead [Col :]). And this power of raising the dead appears now as something that is capable of giving another round to nihilism—Christian this time (the Holy Spirit) rather than Nietzschean (the overhuman). It is when we forget this, or fail to believe it, that Christianity falls into apparent vacuity. “Our proclamation has been in vain” and “[our] faith in vain” ( Cor :) when we stick to the companionship of the resurrected one (the Christ), neglecting the power of he (the Holy Spirit) who performs the metamorphosis and neglecting the general project of he (the Father) who is the author of it. The joint pathos of the Father in what he undergoes (§), and of the Son in the affective transposition of the lived experience of his flesh to the Father (§), corresponds to the metamorphosis of the Son by the Father, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, which “is” power itself (§). We can see, then, how the resurrection changes everything—not solely human beings or solely the world: not solely God Himself. It changes everything for all individual believers who allow themselves to be transformed by the “power” (dunamis) of the Holy Spirit that will come to raise them. “God [the Holy Spirit] raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power [dunameo¯s autou]” ( Cor :).

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

The Incorporation of the Human Being

§. The Monadologic Hypothesis What happens in God, or rather what happened in the act of resurrection—the ordeal of the Father, the apperceptive transposition of the Son and the Holy Spirit as the “meta-morphosis” of the Son by the Father— must also concern us, must even metamorphose us. The resurrection, in fact, has no point for me unless it “puts me in the picture,” and does not “cut me out of the performance,” or “throw me off stage.” It isn’t significant that “God raised the Lord,” unless he will also “raise us by his power” ( Cor :). What occurs in God (immanent Trinity) must then also be carried out in some way for human beings (economic Trinity), though, on the other hand, we remain still and always in a totally extrinsic position in the face of the mystery of the Resurrected One. There have been famous attempts in theology to bring together the human adventure here and the operation of the divine: “The Trinity of the history of salvation and of the Revelation [economic Trinity] is the immanent Trinity.” But perhaps we make the essential point simply by using these terms. The transfer of “in itself ” (in se) to “for us” ( pro nobis) still makes for us into a schema that is outside the in itself. Or, to put it another way, bringing back the economic Trinity to the immanent Trinity leaves thought in an exterior relation to poles that have been artificially reunited, and does not succeed either in integrating the one with the other or in suppressing one of them at the expense of the other. 

There is, however, in the history of theology a monadologic model capable of skating round this aporia. We find it in particular in Johannes Scottus Eriugena but also in St. Bonventure (§). In spite of the obscurity of what we perceive today of the divine mystery and of the resurrection, we see, as St. Paul tells us, “in a mirror, dimly” ( Cor :). This signifies not only that we see God and the world as “in a mirror” (tanquam per speculum) or “through a mirror” ( per speculum [St. Augustine])—as though we could grasp only a distant reflection—but we also see God and the world “in the mirror” (in speculo) that we are ourselves: “The soul wants the entire world to be inscribed on it,” says Bonaventure. “When it sees all these objects, then, in making thus a return toward itself, it becomes a mirror [fit speculum] that is very beautiful and very pure and in which it can see all that is brilliance and beauty, in the same way that one sees an image in a polished mirror.” The mirror that I myself am—fit speculum— is not solely a way of getting to know things but is my being itself: It is that of my “soul” for Bonaventure. The gap between St. Augustine, whose thought explores the trace or vestiges of the world in mankind, and the Franciscan Doctor (St. Bonaventure), discoverer of the iconic presence of the created in mankind (probably taken from the famous “Canticle of the Sun,” or “Praise of the Creatures,” by St. Francis), is significant not just for medieval theology but also for all thought concerning the incorporation of human beings in God—in particular when this incorporation takes place in exemplary fashion in the act of the resurrection. We cannot place God on one side and human beings on the other. Such a perspective, certainly valid in relation to creation (the gap between the created and the uncreated), is no longer possible in the same way in relation to the resurrection. The Christian project of protology demands that we consider such matters from the starting point of eschatology—or that we consider creation in the light of that new creation that is the resurrection. “Firstborn of all creation,” as we have already seen (§), Christ is also “firstborn from the dead,” and in this “image of the invisible God” (Col :, ). The “monadology without a preestablished harmony,” which might be said to enter philosophy with Bonaventure, does away with the separation of worlds. It does so to such a degree, as we shall see (chapter ), that there are no longer two worlds in Christianity but rather different ways of living the same world. “Monad” God, in this sense, implies that God is “alone” (monos), or rather that God is “all” (to pan) without being alone. That is to say, nothing remains outside the Word—neither ourselves nor the totality of creatures, who are linked together in the depths of his being. “In him [en auto] all things in heaven and on earth were created . . . , all things have been created through him [di autou] and for him 

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[eis auton]. . . . In him all things [ta panta] hold together. He [autos] is the head of the body, the church” (Col , –). We are thus “in Christ” [en Christo], according to St. Paul. It is a formula that is not only a fraternal greeting, among those who adopted it right away (at the end of letters, for example) but one that indicates a common belonging to him in whom we dwell: “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Col :–). What takes place for the Word—his own metamorphosis by the Father under the force of the Spirit—then also takes place in the Word. That is to say, it takes places for us, ourselves, if we suppose that we are in him. The metamorphosis of finitude is not simply the transfiguration of his finitude by the Father, it is also the transformation of our own finitude in Him (the Word), at the summons of the Father and under the force of the Holy Spirit. A new adage, a mode of thought, is thus introduced into theology, which could serve as leitmotif for all our research: “What is said of creation applies, however, above all in the heart of God.” I should like to express this as follows: Nothing happens to mankind that did not first happen to God, except sin. All that we undergo in our lives, and succeed in describing in some way phenomenologically—the joy of birth, certainly (The Metamorphosis of Finitude), but also our suffering unto death (Le Passeur de Géthesmani)—we can and must ascribe to God, supposing that he has fully taken in charge our humanity. We recall the axiom of Gregory of Nazianzus cited in chapter : “What he [Christ] has not assumed He has not healed; but what is united to His Godhead is also saved.” Nothing remains outside God, because he is all (to pan). And if sometimes it seems to us we have left the world of God, or rather that we just want to get out of it, it is precisely that in which sin consists. There was not a fall from the Garden of Eden: “God sent him forth,” “he drove out the man” (Gen :–). Because his Son was incarnate and we are created “in him,” God in his Trinity takes us completely in charge in his own metamorphosis. Our resurrection is his resurrection; or rather we are raised up and transformed only in and by his own metamorphosis. His “creative Trinity” or, perhaps better, his “Trinity the Maker” (Trinitas fabricatrix) is an immense “manufactory” of God, of which we are, even the highest among us, just “subsidiaries,” attached to him. We carry from everlasting to everlasting his stamp—of manufacture: “The creation of the world is like a book which bursts forth, is shown, and in which is read the Trinity the Maker [Trinitas fabricatrix].” But if human beings hope in their souls that the world is “inscribed in our souls,” and if our souls themselves are “inscribed in God,” what then The Incorporation of the Human Being

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of our bodies and the most ordinary corporal life? In other words, if all our humanity apart from sin is implanted in God by the Son—who died and was resurrected—must we then link this up with our own corporality? §. Incorporation in the Trinity Just as the episode of the transfiguration stands as a paradigm for the phenomenalization of the flesh (§), so the episode of the ascension may serve here as paradigm for the incorporation of mankind into God. “When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts :). Although we usually don’t admit it to ourselves, the mystery of the ascension of the Son is, as we shall see later (§b), often mixed up with a kind of “raising” of his body, carried up by his Father into the sky. All the same, there is in the mythology of this kind of representation something of the truths of Christianity. If it goes without saying that his being “raised” upward is not simply that of his material body—since Christ appears here, for the last time, with the flesh of the Resurrected One (see §)—nonetheless it is in some respect human corporality that he takes with him, and forever, into the depths of the Father, at this last farewell. It needs to be said frankly, this time with Romano Guardini for our guide: “Christianity dared to place the (human) body in the most hidden depths of God.” To put it another way, by the operation of the metamorphosis of God, it is not only the soul of man that “wishes that the world is inscribed in the soul” and “the soul in God” (Bonaventure), it is his entire body that is carried with him into the divine manufactory and that is metamorphosed with him there. Neither the Son, nor we ourselves, remain the same as we were after the taking back of the Son by the Father. First of all, the Son is not the same, because the trinity Father–Son–Holy Spirit has been transformed into Father–Christ (the Son incarnate now dead and resurrected)–Holy Spirit. He brings his fleshly humanity, and our corporality, into the heart of the divinity. Next, we ourselves are changed, because it is not the soul, or it is no longer the soul, that escapes from the body, as it did in the platonic schema (§). It is our entire bodies that follow the movement of the ascension of the Son— understood here as the incorporation of the Son—toward his Father. When the Son passes on to the Father the finitude that he has suffered, not only does the Father receive and transform this same finitude in the Son (chapter ), but in return he offers to human beings that we can be transformed, or even given birth, or “a second time . . . be born” (Nicodemus [John :]), from the depths of his Son by the power of the Holy Spirit (chapter ). Where Jesus goes, and where now neither Peter 

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(the questioner) goes, nor we (ourselves questioners) can go, there is not only death. We are not like the condemned man who accepts his fate just because he knows he cannot escape it. The Son “goes” where “we shall be able to follow him later”—that is to say, into death, with Peter, certainly; but also and above all into the resurrection, of which his ascension as incorporation marks, if not the final point, at least the point at which it has been realized. “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward” (John :). Thus understood, the ascension does not imply quitting corporality, but opens up on the contrary to another type of visibility—analogical, and not opposed to what his body always was for the Resurrected One. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts :). Implanted in God, the body of man “is at one with [makes a body with]” the body of God, and in this “body-tobody” they are transformed together, or are waiting to be so transformed: “Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love” (Eph :–). The body of the Resurrected One which is “the church,” of which “he is the head of the body,” becomes thus for St. Paul, by a kind of transfer of ownership, our own bodies (Col :). Paul’s appeal to “glorify God in your body” ( Cor :) answers to the demand that we love the church like husbands who love their wives “as they do their own bodies,” and love the church like Christ, who “gave himself up for her” (Eph :–). The mystery of the corporal in Christian charity speaks first of all in the fleshly incorporation of mankind in God: the body does not make love unless love makes the body. The trinitarian incorporation of mankind in God, produced by man’s transformation into the metamorphosed Word, thus rejoins another mystery, which sustains Christians in this world: the Eucharist. I deal with this topic in another book, and at this point I shall only add that I try to elucidate it through the notion of the existential of love as eros. In relation to our present concerns it should be sufficient to add that incorporation does not imply a simple digestion—at the risk once more of being subject to the Nietzschean accusation of the “assimilation” or “uniformization” of everything into the body of Christ (§). We could say of the Eucharist, and thus of incorporation by the resurrection, what Sartre says of Husserlian intentionality: “ ‘He ate it up with his eyes.’ This phrase, along with many other signs, is a strong indication of the illusion shared by realism and idealism, according to which to know is to eat.” The “alimentary” or “digestive” philosophy comes down, according to Sartre, to The Incorporation of the Human Being

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dissolving “things into consciousness,” as it seems philosophy has always done. Things are as they are, from Plato to Hegel, either because I place them outside myself (realism) or because I think of them as produced by me (idealism). In both cases, my consciousness is not “correlated” to the things, it is simply juxtaposed with them—either in the mode of an encounter (realism) or as swallowing them up (idealism). To put an end to the soft philosophical garment of immanence is to return to Husserl’s intentionality (“all consciousness is consciousness of some thing”), thus interpreted by Sartre: “To know is to break out toward, to remove oneself from sticky gastric intimacy and rush off over there, beyond the self, toward what is not the self.” Let us try then to examine the matter, without simply following the Sartrean interpretation of Husserl’s intentionality, which leaves much to be desired. Does the Eucharist, and thus also the incorporation in God by the resurrection in the form of the realization of its mystery, derive from such a “digestive” or “alimentary” philosophy? Nothing remains of philosophy of this kind except the false conviction that reality holds together either in objects that are exterior to me (realism [transubstantiation in Catholicism]) or holds together in the subject that produces them in itself (idealism [communitarianism in Protestantism]). Irenaeus, the first, or almost the first, among the Fathers of the Church, gives us the answer, and as far as I can see establishes the Eucharist as an intentional mode of incorporation. To eat the bread of Christ is not in fact the same as just to eat bread—in the same way that to be incorporated into the Word by the resurrection is not the same as incorporating the Word by the grace of inhabitation. In both cases, in fact—eucharistic incorporation and resurrected incorporation—it is not I (the subject) who assimilates the bread (the object) in eating it (or who makes the Word mine in being resurrected). It is the bread itself that, because it is consecrated, makes me become this body that is not me: “The cup that has been blended and the bread that has been prepared receive the word of God and become the Eucharist—that is to say, the blood and the body of Christ, [just as] our flesh, nourished with the blood and body of Christ, becomes a part of him.” In other words, if we follow Irenaeus, it is not I who eats the bread of Christ but I who am in a sense eaten by him, since in assimilating this body I am assimilated to the body of Christ—the body that he is, inseparably. The digestion of the body of Christ is a kind of “anti-digestion”: It “bursts forth” or “projects” me, so that I am over there, toward what is not me—the Christ himself. One doesn’t, in a trivial way, take the “little Jesus” in one’s hand, any more than in one’s heart—formulae that say nothing comprehensible about the mystery either of the communion or of the res

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urrection. We are, on the contrary, mystically taken in hand (Pantocrator), or included in his heart (recapitulation), in that we are “projected in him” in eating him, and even more in being resurrected. “He makes himself what we are in order to make us into what he is.” Jesus tells his apostles: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (John :). The formula here is not a pure apposition and even less a simple correlation. It is rather a succession, and is even ontologically repetitive. He abides “in me” (en emoi) only because in the first place I abide “in him” (en auto¯). Or, to put it another way, in the movement not of the incarnation (catabase) but of the Eucharist, of the ascension and of the resurrection (anabase), the “becoming man in God” precedes and determines the “becoming God in man” and not the other way around. There is a kind of arrogance in wishing to transform the desires of God through our prayers, in believing ourselves the possible transforming operators of a metamorphosis that is impossible to work (§ [Nietzsche]). I do not make God come to me, but God makes me come to him to metamorphose me with him. It is precisely because our finitude shows itself impassable in its immanence (chapter ), enclosed in its time frame (chapter ), and obvious to atheists (chapter ) that human beings do not feel the desire to go beyond it in the absence of any other revelation (§). The Father does not find a remedy for our indifference (§), or not one that appears to us as such. We perceive it only through his resurrected Son. The resurrection gives birth among us, under the power of the Holy Spirit, to the desire for Him and for our own resurrection. God alone places that desire for him in me. And it is in the absence of such a desire that I can be “without him” (§); so much so that he does not then call me to be transformed “with him” (§). And so it is appropriate that, to direct us to the Father, there comes to us not just the mender of our faults but an adequate receptacle for the excess of the Father’s desire. Only the Son can be the “bearer,” because the Father conscripts him to act as our “passeur.” Bonaventure says: “[God’s] creatures cannot receive all that God could give them. . . . It is thus necessary that this diffusion of the Father be in someone who could not be greater— the Son, the equal of the Father.” In response to the excess of the paternal diffusion, we can only offer the poverty of our receptive capacities, except in the case of the Son of Man—alone capable of making “all that God can give” (quidquid Deus dare potest) seen in our flesh, as if by an “extension of the body” (Bergson). The resurrection is not a contraction of our corporality but an enlarging and transformation of our limits, through the extension of our bodies to the dimensions of divine corporality. There, where we wish simply the presence of God in us—the resurrected Son gives us much The Incorporation of the Human Being

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more: the transformation of ourselves into God. Still, we must not run away from this, if we want to enjoy it and to profit by it. Keeping ourselves in his sight, without fearing the course he has taken of redeeming us forever, we avoid falling into sin once more; and so we avoid the possibility of missing out again (after the original expulsion) on the new perspective of the “incorporate man” (resurrection). §. He Who Sees and He Who Runs Since we are in God, and since through our transformation in him we enter into our own resurrection, one might be tempted to conclude that mankind have set themselves up, through the ascension of the Son (and of ourselves in him), as a fourth term of the Trinity—to be a kind of “Quaternity.” A hypothesis like this did find a taker in the history of theology (Joachim of Flora); it was seductive both as a concept and simply in the invention of the term. With this “quaternity” it was obvious that there would be no more face-to-face rapport between mankind and God (§). The human would be definitively incorporated, even added to the divine and, as it were, added to the persons who form it: Father, Son, Holy Spirit— and now mankind. But this addition did not take into account the error that such a substantial integration makes plain. The Fourth Council of the Lateran of  condemned it vigorously: “There is in God but one Trinity, and not a quaternity.” When the son expresses his most cherished desire, in what is in effect his farewell—“The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John :)—the unity of man in God is not of the same order as the unity of the divine persons among themselves. It is “by grace” that mankind is unified into and so incorporated into the Trinity; but it is “in their nature” or their “substance” that the hypostases, or persons of the Trinity, are unified. In other words, far from playing the role of a fourth person, or a kind a spoilsport, at the heart of the Trinity, mankind incorporate find their place in the second person—the Word incarnate. They find it in the “Son of Man” dead and resurrected and not in themselves and their own personalities. In short, as we can readily understand, the incorporation of mankind in God does not allow us to conceive a quaternity, but rather it introduces the trait of humanity into the Trinity—insofar as it is assumed uniquely in the Word, and “in him” all was created (Col :). There is thus a readiness of God to incorporate us in him. In the gesture of his circumincession the Son does not remain simply “seated” at the right hand of the Father (sedere [circuminsessio]) but he “sets off” with him to integrate us in them by the Holy Spirit (cedere [circumincessio]). Never 

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static, their perichoresis is characteristic of the choreography that incorporates us in their dance. The Son “sees” everything “in him” when he is “seated” at the right of the Father (sedere), and man “runs” to him when he incorporates us with him (cedere). Thus we have the double etymology of the word “God” (theos) according to the Carolingian theologian Johannes Scottus Eriugena (ninth century): “The Greeks drew an etymology from the noun God: either the noun derives from the verb theo¯ro¯, that is to say, I see [hoc est video], or it derives from the verb theo¯ [aut ex verbo theo¯], that is to say, I run [hoc est curro].” In other words, in etymological terms, God (theos) “sees” me (theo¯ro¯) when he waits for me, and God (theos) “runs” (theo¯) when he searches for me. Designated as “the one who sees” (theo¯ro¯, “I see”), God does not, however, see as we do, or not in the same way. He does not survey us with a glance, nor does he sometimes cast his eye over us, spying on us so that we fear to expose ourselves. Rather he seeks for us monadologically with his look, because we are included in him and he wants to reassure himself always that we are truly integrated in him: “When theos is taken from the verb theo¯ro¯, one reads it as signifying ‘He who sees,’ ” Johannes Scottus tells us. “For God sees in himself [in seipso] all that exists, and he observes nothing outside himself [extra seipsum], because nothing exists outside God [quia nihil extra seipsum est].” In other words, the God who sees us is identical with the God who makes himself seen and who makes us see ourselves, because nothing, apart from sin, remains outside him. We are phenomenologically captured as he looks over us, we appear to ourselves such as we ourselves are. We appear in his light, by which we, “seeing the glory of the Lord, . . . are being transformed [or, better, metamorphosed (metamorphoo¯)] into the same image” ( Cor :). God is not just content to look, and to see us in him. He appears also as the one who runs (theo¯, “I run”) to assure himself that he will see us again. “The Word deploys itself from one end of the world to the other, and it runs rapidly through all who exist [et voliciter currit per omnia]—that is to say, the Word creates all at once, and the Word becomes all in all.” In the act of seeing, in fact, there is always a distance that has to be filled in, even in the heart of God himself. If this distance leads us to sin and throws us out of his circle, which is the terrain of his metamorphosis, then to some degree the path he takes fills in that distance. It is in running that he “makes us run” and “makes beings run from a state of nonexistence to that of existence.” Johannes Scottus takes up the words of the psalm to tell us that God never stops. He completes his course: “His word runs swiftly” (Ps :). If then we run around—and every day we have experience of that—we don’t run alone or without direction, as long as we remain in The Incorporation of the Human Being

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God. We run simply because he wishes to “to make us run” in him. He is not trying to track us down but only to maintain us at the heart of his Trinity. God himself as originator of the whole race thus protects us from all fatigue—if, on the one hand, we can accept this perpetual and daily trinitary training; and, on the other hand, if we don’t always try to be, by ourselves and for ourselves, the sole principle of our own performances and the unique point of view for all the views that can be taken of things. If we are incorporated into God by the resurrection, we are then spiritually so in the monadologic integration (§), bodily so in the trinitarian incorporation (§), and dynamically so in our active and “running” participation in the divine perichoresis (§). Metamorphosis (part II) of the précis of finitude (part I) is, then, if not accomplished, at least rendered possible. The transformation of the human becomes thinkable through the metamorphosis operated in the divine, given that the former (mankind) is taken up in the act of raising by the latter (the divine). The transformation of the Son is done by the Father under the power of the Holy Spirit (chapter ). After the examination of the transcendental conditions of the resurrection or of what is to be transformed (part I), and then after the examination of the act itself of transformation (part II), a phenomenology of resurrection now opens for us (part III). The descriptiveness of the text of the gospel allows us to consider at length and in a new way, and in the perspective of the Resurrected One this time, the structure of the world (chapter  / chapter ), the dimension of time (chapter  / chapter ), and the connection of human beings to God as to our own bodies (chapter  / chapter ).

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PA R T

III

Phenomenology of the Resurrection Corps mort et qui seront jugés! (Bodies that are dead and will be judged !) —A. Rimbaud, Une Saison en enfer

Cur Deus resurrexit? Why is God resurrected? Or better, why does the Father transfigure our finitude in his Son, who carries it within him? We have already sketched a reply to this question, as far as is possible: (a) The Son suffers the burden of death “quite simply,” and forwards it to the Father without ever breaking his filial relation, even when his feeling of being abandoned is at its strongest (see Le Passeur de Gethsémani). (b) The Father receives from the Son this ordeal of our finitude as the closure of the world and of time (chapters –). (c) Fully informed spiritually of what our suffering and our death implies in fleshly terms (the accomplishment in the Trinity of the apperceptive transposition of the other), the Father makes the decision, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to raise his Son, and us in him (chapters –). And so he transfigures our relation to the world and to time(s) (chapters –). The Father has always known our finitude, as constitutive of our created being (birth, aging, death), but he has he not undergone it, as long as his Son has not taken it on board and transferred the responsibility to his fatherly being. The incarnation, however—or, better, the resurrection—does not follow creation chronologically, except in the temporal deployment of our discourse. On the contrary, ontologically the resurrection takes precedence and makes the event of the transformation of the world the keystone of all Christianity and the principle of all new creation (§). For God, in fact, who is constituted originally as pathos (Origen), the fleshly ordeal of the Son is always the spiritual ordeal of the Father who transforms, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the structure of 

the world as such. But for us, having no other experience than that of our finitude, it was appropriate to start by analyzing the triple closure of the world, of time, and of man without God (part I, “Précis of Finitude”). We then went on to describe its transformation in God (part II, “Toward a Metamorphosis”). Finally we come to draw from it phenomenologically the new structure (part III, “Phenomenology of the Resurrection”). Through the description of this world transfigured, as is witnessed in the narrative of the Gospels (part III), it is then the whole philosophical structure of the world (part I) that finds itself phenomenologically raised up in the metamorphosis of the Resurrected One (part II). What answers now to “impassable immanence” (chapter ) is “the world become other” (chapter ); what answers to the ending of “from time to time” (chapter ) is now the passage “from time to eternity” (chapter ). And what answers to the impossible “drama of atheist humanism” (chapter ) is the necessary, or at least supplementary, hypothesis of a “body for rebirth” with God (chapter ). And so we shall live, one and all of us, in “bodily anticipation”—less with the expectancy of a soul in search of its own body than in the common construction of a bodily world for human beings with God (conclusion).

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

The World Become Other

§. The Earth and the Heavens The fiction of the other world, or of what Nietzsche thought of as an imaginary backworld (arrière-monde), is one of the by-products of Christianity and sometimes even of theology (in via / in patria). It is a fiction from which it is still difficult today to extricate ourselves. The problem is more obvious in that it was not always like this at the start, not even among those who are often accused of the “Platonization” of Christianity—St. Augustine foremost among them. The division into two cities (earthly and heavenly) does not in fact derive from such a dichotomy between these worlds. Or rather we might say that there is probably nothing less platonic than this famous distinction, precisely if one reads it in the light of the resurrection, which is the first article of belief and reflection for St. Augustine. “Two cities were created by two kinds of love: the love of self leading to contempt for God [amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei], the earthly city [civitatem terrenam]; the love of God leading to the contempt of self [amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui], the heavenly city [civitatem cealestem]. The two cities, it should be obvious, indicate less two places or two worlds—even supposing that they did so for Plato himself (world of things and world of ideas)—than two different and opposing ways of relating to God and to oneself. The earthly City represents the closing in on oneself and thus also to God, and the heavenly City an openness to God and thus also to oneself. In some respects these two cities are like the two 

modes of being of the body (soma) in St. Paul: the body according to the flesh, or turned in on itself (sarx); and the body according to the spirit, or turned toward God ( pneuma) [§]. Earth and heaven don’t point in this sense, as is often wrongly thought even in Christianity, to an opposition between an absolute “up there” and “down here” but solely to different ways of being in the world: the one as openness to God (heaven) and the other as closing in on oneself (earth). Put in phenomenological terms, heaven and earth are not places separated by some sort of divine geography but existentials or categories of the lived, through which we relate to God. “If the rationalists expended a good deal of ironic verve in putting the pre-Copernican character of the theological idea of heaven under the spotlight . . . ,” Gabriel Marcel says, “they do not seem to have understood that there are ‘categories of the lived’ that cannot be changed by any scientific discovery.” In short, the mode of being of our relation to God is what counts rather than the place in which we find ourselves and by which we believe ourselves related to him. One can be “of heaven” on the earth (adopting, in part at least, our mode of being resurrected) or “of the earth” in heaven (hell as a mode of “imprisonment”). And this is true whether one is “in heaven” or “on earth.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux famously says, “I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth.” This is possible once one has understood, precisely by the metamorphosis of the resurrection (chapters –), that what we have undergone here and now below (immanence and time [chapters –]) we can henceforth live above (world and time transfigured [chapters –]). But heaven and earth in the orbit of the resurrection are not simply ways of being in the world. We shouldn’t consecrate the earth forever (in contrast to heaven) as the sinful mode of being of man. Rather the opposite—the earth implies also, and perhaps firstly, that in which we are. The earth is that from which we always start off insofar as we are part of mankind. The dialogue of Jesus with Nicodemus—a thread that runs right through the argument of my book—could not be more clear on this issue: “If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” (John :). It is not a question here of some kind of game of hide-and-seek by which the “Son of Man,” Jesus, “who descended from heaven” [John :], does his utmost to keep to himself a secret forbidden to the sons of the earth (to sinners like Nicodemus). If we follow a reading of the Gospel that is analogic rather than dualist (§), all that really counts is a descent from the heavens, which this time can make sense to those who belong to the earth: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus says, so as to clarify these origins 

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in the nighttime visit by Nicodemus, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John :–). What does this mean, if not precisely that solely the elevation of “the Son of Man” (understood here as his resurrection, or his “metamorphosis of finitude” [and of ours in him]) gives access to that “on high” (“heavenly things”) capable also of clarifying our “down below” (“earthly things”). And while before it was necessary to stay in the “down below” in order to find the “on high,” in accordance with our heuristic approach (§) we discover now, and for the first time in the “on high,” the resurrection. This resurrection is a way of being that was always already there, and that is capable of throwing light on our “down below” (our experience quite simply as part of mankind, sometimes also turned away from God). If there is an opening here to transcendence and desire for God—and no longer uniquely closure of immanence or interdiction of any preemption of the infinite over the finite (chapter )—it is simply because God himself, by his metamorphosis and by our metamorphosis in him, transfigures the structure of the world, and places a desire for him in us. Just as we have no other experience of God but that of human beings in the phenomenology and theology of “down below” (my argument in part I), similarly we shall not go to God except by God, in the phenomenology and theology of “on high” (my argument in part III). And all this is precisely after the experience of human beings finds itself, and sees itself, radically transformed, in the intra-trinitarian metamorphosis of God (my argument in part II). The mystery-making of Jesus to Nicodemus is thus transformed in some way, into a kind of confiding, even into regret, as long as the metamorphosis of finitude has not yet been seen or lived. How much I would like to tell you directly, Jesus seems to say to Nicodemus, about things from “on high” (the resurrection), in order to grant your request for recognition— “Rabbi,” as Nicodemus calls him (John :). But because you are a man, and I am man with you, you also will move on mediately, through your “down below” and through your own birth (of flesh), to be born and reborn of “on high” in a new birth (of water and Spirit) [John :–]. The “things of the earth” (ta epigeia)—birth and rebirth—which Jesus speaks about to Nicodemus, and which we speak about, are not to be despised but go to weave that common humanity that God feels capable of undergoing with us. As for the “things of heaven” (ta epourania), far from negating the world and time, they denote rather another way of living in our world and our time (§). It is such a way of living that the Father expects of us by the resurrection of his son through the power of the Holy Spirit: “Heaven is less a place than a point of departure for the Lord God. . . . The Jews knew The World Become Other

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that heaven was not a place but God himself—what the heavens and even the heavens of the heavens could not contain (see Col :). In this sense, heaven is not above us, it is in us, while resting distinct from us. . . . The couple earth–heaven describes the origin, the behavior, and the destiny of man. Since it is a creature of God, the earth is good; but it is awaiting its transformation (see Rom :).” To pray, saying “Our Father [who art] in Heaven” (Mt :), is not, or is no longer, in this sense to confine him up there in his glory while we grieve down here below in our misery. For the Jew, as also for the Christian, heaven outlines for us the vault, which shelters human beings and makes the earth our dwelling, rather than a gap in the clouds leading to another world that is as inadequate as it is independent of ours. The will of the Father will be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt :), since the unity of one world, human and divine, will hold from end to end by the act of the resurrection (the incorporation of human beings into God) and because the earth sets up an analogy with heaven, an analogy that definitively breaks with all those dualizing readings that have been inappropriate for Christianity. (We move to a metamorphosis, and not a surpassing or a leap from the terrestrial mode of being [ psychic] to the celestial mode of being [ pneumatic]). §. Creation and Separation Our terrestrial being—Adamic or earthly (adama)—is not then to be depreciated, it is what constitutes us as beings. Irenaeus tells us, “We are a body drawn from the earth (corpus sumus terra acceptum) and a soul that receives the Holy Spirit of God. According to the evidence, all men, whatever they are, will agree to this.” This is the truth that Christianity has often forgotten, and that theology has not sufficiently insisted on. The famous “platonic turn” by which, it is said, “occidental philosophy commences” (Heidegger), was nonetheless also a turn for theology, after it had changed in the same way in the orbit of Platonic Hellenism (St. Augustine) or Aristotelian Hellenism (St. Thomas Aquinas). There is no question of not noticing, or not pointing out here, the profound transformations that Christianity brought to Hellenism at the same time as it very directly inherited from this tradition. All this is too familiar to require that it be developed here. More important is that Christianity does not appear simply as a reprise, or a transfer of Greek philosophy, if we do not sanctify Platonism itself as a “closed book.” What matters here, because it is the object of the present study, is the transforming or metamorphosing power that the resurrection brings to such models of the separation of worlds: the world of things as opposed to the world of ideas (Plato); the contingent 

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world as opposed to the necessary world (Aristotle). And what counts finally here is the sense given to this separation, either in the Greek world or in the Christian world: (a) from the point of view of the creation, (b) from that of immortality, and (c) from that of the Fall, or of sin. (a) From the point of view of the creation. The gap between Aristophanes’ myth in Plato’s Banquet (d–d) and the narrative of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib in Genesis (Gen :–) is for our purposes most enlightening, at least insofar as what it shows us of the biblical sense of separation in the act of creation. Zeus, according to Plato, separates the male species, the female species, and the androgynous species, because he fears that they “dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands on the gods” (c). Man is seen by Zeus as a rival. Zeus will “cut them in two,” and they will be “diminished in strength,” which will “humble their pride and improve their manners, putting an end to [their] arrogance” (d). It is plain that separation is punishment and that the search for our “original man,” with each man “looking for his other half ” (d), indicates our pride and our disagreeable impudence. In Genesis, on the other hand, separation is creation. Yahweh God “took one of [Adam’s] ribs,” and “the rib that [he] had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” to find “a helper in his partner” (Gen :–). To separate the man from the woman here is not to punish them but, on the contrary, to build them, to create through the act of differentiating them. The difference is good in Christianity—whether it is a question of that between unrelated and created or of that between man and woman, the difference at the heart of humanity. To be human thus comes down to taking responsibility and welcoming the difference rather than denying it in some kind of aspiration to divinity that looks down on our humanity. (b) From the point of view of immortality. If God doesn’t separate Eve and Adam out of a sense of punishment or rivalry in Genesis, no more can the idea of a radical “separation” of the soul and body after death be adequate to tell us everything about Christian eschatology. (Though this hypothesis is often put forward because of the lack of an adequate and nondualist anthropology of the body [chapter , “A Flesh for Rebirth”].) To “ready oneself for death” in a slow unlinking down here of the soul and the body is closer to platonic asceticism than to a true Christian ethic. To say, as does Socrates in the myth of Phaedo (–b), that “souls . . . are simply fastened and glued to their bodies,” that “the soul is able to view existence only through the bars of a prison,” that the philosopher undertakes to “release” the soul from the body and so “offers . . . purification”—this is

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totally strange from the Christian perspective of the incarnation of the Son and the resurrection of the body. (c) From the point of view of the Fall, or of sin. As for interpreting the expulsion from the Garden of Eden in terms of a fall, this suggestion, also widespread in Western theology, has its roots not in Genesis (Gen :–) but rather in the myth of the charioteer in Plato’s Phaedrus. The soul as the “composite, a pair of winged horses and a charioteer,” loses “her wings.” Then “drooping in her flight at last [she] settles on the solid ground-there . . . and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature.” The fall from top to bottom, from the heaven of ideas to the world of the body, is platonic, like the accidental and punitive union of the soul and the body. In the Genesis narrative, on the other hand, Adam and Eve do not fall from anywhere—quite simply because they do not fall. “The Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken” (Gen :). Sin is not a form of the Fall, and that is why it no longer makes sense today, as long as we forget to take the high and low as modes of the lived (existential) instead of as regions of the divine and the human (categorical). “Sin” designates, on the contrary, a type of expulsion—that is to say, a kind of restless wandering, in which man makes the choice of leaving the Word, which, however, and in principle, still accommodates him, until its metamorphosis of finitude and our metamorphosis in the Son (chapter ). It should be apparent, then, that the gap between Platonism and Christianity is immense, and requires us to rethink the structure of the world as such (chapter ). Not that the ambitions of Platonism cannot clarify and even forge some of the strongest concepts of theology (e.g., in St. Augustine), but it can sometimes lead us to think things that are not the case: for example, (a) to think of separation as punishment and not as creation; (b) to think of death as an unlinking and purification of the soul vis-à-vis the body and not as incorporation of all of the human in God; and (c) to think of sin as a fall from high to low and not as restless wandering beyond the world of God in which we are still included. Surprisingly, the familiarity of mankind and God(s), which is exactly what the resurrection establishes as the metamorphosis of our finitude and thus of our horizon of immanence (chapter ), is found rather in paganism and Greek mythology than in some forms of Neoplatonic Christianity. The third century of the Christian era seems to have marked a turning point on this topic, which theology today has had difficulty in recovering from (though Irenaeus and Tertullian were exceptions to the rule). When Clement of Alexandria, a Father of the Church, cites the “pre-Platonic” 

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physician Xenophon (fifth century bce) it is only to reject what he says because of a supposed anthropomorphism, which it is believed that Christian theology forbids. We are to reproach the Ethiopians for representing their gods with “black skin and pug noses” and the Thracians for giving theirs “bluish-green eyes and hair of fire.” Christians are not allowed to believe as pagans do that “gods are born like mortals, that they have their clothes, their voices, and their way of walking.” And, finally, we are to laugh at the notion—Clement here denouncing Xenophon afresh and very explicitly—that “if the cattle, the horses, and the lions had hands and if with these hands they could draw . . . , the horses would construct equine gods, the cattle would construct a bovine form for their gods: Each would draw for its god the look that imitates the bearing and body of each.” Obviously the Christian accusation that the pagan practices anthropomorphism is such that the flight of God into a nonhuman, even an inhuman, world seems definitive. It is a mistake here, of course, to blame Clement for his perspective. It was necessary at the time in order not to reduce God simply to the idol of man. Bearing in mind, however, the incarnation and the resurrection, we note that such a gap between human beings and God, even such a division between worlds, was ill considered. Not that mankind ought to reduce God to mankind’s image (after the fashion of the bovine god for the cattle and the equine god for the horses) but that God himself, taking note, as it were, of these nuptials of human finitude, brings the wedding ceremony to its full conclusion—including the metamorphosis of our world in him (chapter ) and our common tendency not to find him in our world (chapter ). There is thus an appropriate kind of anthropomorphism, or perhaps an anthropomorphosis by God, that it has been a mistake for Christianity to forget. It is instructive here to reread the hymn in the Letter to the Philippians: “[He], who though he was in the form of God, . . . emptied himself, . . . being born in human likeness [amoio¯mati anthro¯po¯n]. And being found in human form [euretheis o¯s anthro¯pos] . . .” (Phil :–). It was not the initiative of human beings, but of God, that he should become like mankind, adopt the human form, and be recognized as such. God does this by the incarnation and even more by the resurrection, which does not make him leave his body but allows him to live his body differently (§) and so incorporates forever the form of man in the trinitarian perichoresis (§). The God of Christians is thus in some way “anthropomorphe,” whatever theology sometimes thinks. It is so according to a properly understood anthropomorphism: not that by which man lends God his own form (the equine gods for the horses, etc.) but that by which God himself chooses to adopt the human form in his incarnation The World Become Other

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(anthropomorphosis [of God]) and to continue his complete transformation by the resurrection (metamorphosis [of finitude]). The French phenomenologist J.-L. Chrétien rightly puts the question: “Isn’t the greatest anthropomorphism, understood this time as a purely human initiative, to want to liberate ourselves from all anthropomorphism? . . . A respect for the divine anthropomorphosis is one of the necessities of the critique of anthropomorphism.” Nevertheless, an abyss always separates man from God in paganism, an abyss that Christianity will come to bridge. They have in common not the separation of worlds (found in Platonism) but their rendering of God(s) present to our world, so that the divine corporality remains for the pagan the model and type of an abundant corporality, even a superhuman one, that is in itself inaccessible to man. According to J.-P. Vernant, “Xenophon does not maintain that the gods do not have bodies but that the body of god is not like that of mortals.” That God is body: This is certainly the common truth of paganism and Christianity (at least in the figure of the Word incarnate) and even of Nietzscheanism (§). But what is specific to Christianity in contrast to all forms of paganism or Nietzscheanism is that the divine body in the figure of the Son is also the mortal body of man (see the hymn in the Letter to the Philippians). Where the one (Xenophon or Nietzsche) praises the fleshly power of the gods in a corporality quasiforeign to man, the other (Christ along with his disciples) recognizes in the weakness of the flesh the true site of the deployment of the force of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. “Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark :). §. Another Way of Living the Same World And so, through the resurrection, there are not two worlds but two different ways of living the same world. “We confuse another world and the world become other,” the French Jesuit François Varillon reminds us in a masterly formulation. “It is not however the same thing! Strictly speaking, there is not another world, another life, but this world become completely other; this life becomes completely other.” The monadologic unity of the world of man and the world of God (§), as well as the possibility that we nevertheless have of living differently in this same world (§), are then the two requisites of a true ontology of the Resurrected One. To think this through theologically, and not solely to propose the hypothesis spiritually (that is, with the otherwise admirable perspective of Fr. Varillon), demands then that (a) we recognize first that the concept of “world,” at least in 

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philosophy, cannot be identified with the concept of nature but functions to some degree as a substitute; (b) that we establish further that the world in the Gospels, as in phenomenology, does not indicate (only) a negative concept but also the neutral horizon of all that to which we ourselves are related; (c) that we show finally how the event of the resurrection does not so much take place in the world as it “makes worldly” the world. That is to say, it gives sense to the world, in conferring on it a new structure for him to whom it happens. On these grounds, and solely at this cost, can the traits of the “common world” of human beings and God be described, those traits through which we participate, from today, but in different ways, in the life of God himself—and let us suppose also in that of our kindred and of the departed who are contained in him (the communion of saints). (a) According to Étienne Gilson, the advent of “nature” and “reason” into theology is a mark of the “historical significance of Thomism.” One wonders, however, if the concept of nature is still adequate today to express what there is of a “world in common” between human beings and God, which is not at all the same as some kind of “common nature.” We should face facts about contemporary thought. As far as nature is concerned, we don’t, or don’t anymore, have experience of it, at least from the point of view of our common humanity. Martin Heidegger pointed out in  “the fact that we still speak today of the nature of man, of that of the soul, or in general of the nature of things. . . .” But, he says, “this fact has its historical-spiritual reasons . . . but moves still among fundamental concepts, problematizations, and types of explanation that result from objective experiences that today we have not had available to us for a long time.” In other words, and put more simply, “the objectivity of nature” is a given in the theological context (Middle Ages) and in the epistemological context (classical age) but no longer fits our modernity. And this is true from the angle of philosophy as from that of contemporary science. First reason: philosophical. The donor-source of the world in not necessarily recognized as such today. To talk of nature as a “given” in theology (natura) is to imply necessarily a “super-nature” or a donor-source (Deus) provided with an intention, as much at the origin as at the end of things for the created being: “Nature (natura) gives to the whole of mankind a unique final end—the beatitude.” The verdict, incontestable in theology from the point of view of “on high”—our rebirth (resurrection)—is, however, one of those most contested by modern philosophy from the point of view of down below: our birth (finitude). “There is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it.” Certainly, it is a severe The World Become Other

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perspective, but it expresses what the twentieth century has taken note of in recent decades, and what theology sometimes has difficulty in understanding. Existentialism, like phenomenology, with a few rare exceptions, has in fact renounced the concept of nature in order to substitute that of “Being-there” or of the “human condition”: “It is not by chance that the thinkers of today are so much more ready to speak of the condition than of the nature of man.” And to deny this would be in a sense “to jump over our own shadows.” What makes mankind in modernity is not our nature given to us from where we know not, or given when we know not. It is rather the anxiety that human beings undergo, and sometimes the absurdity of our “being in the world,” of being thrown into existence, fully responsible for a “situation” that we have not, however, chosen. The concept of nature understood as oriented toward a finality has been replaced by that of liberty, understood as responsibility, or the taking charge of one’s own destiny. “Man is free and . . . there is no human nature that I can take as foundational.” Further, even the idea of a “meta-physics” issuing forth into philosophy (Heidegger) doesn’t come from a renunciation of tradition but is simply an attempt to stop thinking of man along the lines of “a being present at hand [Vorhanden]”—that is to say, as an item that counts in “the mode of being” of things of “nature, in the widest sense of the term.” Second reason—scientific this time. Since the discovery of the atom and the theory of relativity, contemporary science has definitively renounced the attempt at a type of objectivity that would render the observer completely independent of the thing observed. This is well known, but it needs to be newly emphasized: “Today, in every case, one can’t any longer pretend to make the conditions of observation abstract in physics (Bohr’s experiment).” In short, to speak of the object in itself in nature— independently of the subject who observes it and who, in an act of observation, modifies what is observed—does not make, or no longer makes, sense, scientifically speaking. The duality of subject and object, at least from the point of view of objectivism, has thus then also had its day in the light of changes in epistemology. Theology cannot remain indifferent to such transformations in philosophy or science, especially since theology does not move forward other than through the reappropriation and interrogation of philosophy and the sciences. Must it then follow in their path and renounce what was strongest in its (medieval) tradition—the concept of “nature”? Nothing is less certain. We cannot throw aside concepts so easily: It is more useful to question them in order to see them differently. A genealogy of the notion of nature is not the object of the present study, but it remains true that the perspective of the resurrection, considered as the “metamorphosis of 

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finitude,” precisely allows us to put aside, or to stop reasoning, in terms of a given that is always already there—that is, in terms of “human nature” understood as “subsisting being,” ready to be taken up in a process of reification. The event of the transformation does not presuppose a “preestablished nature,” or one that is determined in advance—either for a return to its original state (restoration) or for the fulfillment of its personal being (accomplishment). On the contrary, it anticipates a world still to be established and configured. For the Christian also, “existence precedes essence,” which signifies, at least from a heuristic point of view, that “man exists first: He encounters the world, appears in it, and defines himself afterward” (Sartre). It hardly needs developing here anew that, for the believer, what is human is not just what “he wants for himself ” or “does himself ” and that his destiny won’t simply be “in himself ” (the basis of a critique of the auto-resurrection of the self in Nietzsche [§a]). Man in his humanity is nonetheless important for Christians: Like all human beings, Christians live with the burden of their existence. Man is “the animal not yet properly adapted to his environment” (Nietzsche again). The metamorphosis or the transformation of human beings, according to which we accept or reject resurrection today, operates always further downstream and never upstream, or prior to, our Being-there, in a “human condition” that nothing either presupposes or justifies. It is not human nature or nature itself that is to be transformed but transformation or metamorphosis (resurrection) that forms mankind’s nature and nature itself. “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. :). In a heuristic approach then, as I have tried to show, I do not find myself first of all as son of God but “quite simply” as a human being (part I, “Précis of Finitude”). Only the act of resurrection—metamorphosis of the Son by the Holy Spirit, the transforming power of the Father—transforms me myself, also in that it affects God in his inter-trinitary pathos, in which I am incorporated (part II, “Toward a Metamorphosis”). Thus there opens for me, as for all human beings, a new world and a new time. Or, better, we might say that what opens is a new way of being in the world and in time(s), by which precisely no nature is given me, except for that in which I am existentially enlisted by God in the form of a creature (part III, “Phenomenology of the Resurrection”). (b) But everybody, in his or her “natural attitude,” remains Greek, and the world in which we move appears most often like a mode of being of the physis, a kind of “recipient” in which we live, sharing this same microcosm with other of our species: “In the ontology of the ancients, the entities we encounter within the world are taken as the basic examples for the interpretation of Being.” Thus we are, or we believe ourselves to be, in the The World Become Other

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world, or on the world, in the same way that “water is in the glass” or the location of a picture is “on the wall.” And we presume in this way that we can make up a “world-space,” just as “the bench is in the lecture-room, the lecture-room is in the university, the university is in the city, and so on.” In short, ordinary persons and, perhaps even more, Christians, who think sometimes that they have come from elsewhere, find themselves as though they had fallen into the cosmos, things among things, and suppose that they will leave the world in the same way that they came here: as something contained within a container that surpasses them, that preexisted them, and that will outlast them forever. It is the merit of phenomenology to have shown this—I am “in the world” (in der Welt Sein) only as far as my Beingthere (Dasein) constitutes a structure of encounter with the world. What this signifies, on the one hand, is that the world is always first a world for me (what I live and undergo) and, on the other hand, that “I am” the more I am “in the world,” in that I live in this world that is familiar to me as my surrounding world, or “environment” (Umwelt): “The expression ‘bin’ [I am] is connected with ‘bei’ [beside], and so ‘ich bin’ [I am] means in its turn “I reside” or “dwell alongside” the world, as that which is familiar to me. . . .” In short, we can understand the topic in this way: The lecture room is not in the university, and the university is not in the town, otherwise than in the objective and spatial sense of the terms. I am on the contrary, myself and subjectively, in this lecture room. And what makes the lecture room is not the walls that give it shape, or the tables placed there, but that I myself experience it, during the lecture, in my relation with such and such a professor, with such and such students, for so many years—all of which will make up my true memory. W. Biemel, who attended the first lecture by the new Professor M. Heidegger, recorded how, “while the students were chattering away, a small man with a tanned complexion appeared, wearing the local costume of the Black Forest (knickerbockers and traditional jacket), which I was not accustomed to, and he began to write on the blackboard. . . . But as soon as he turned to his audience, looking over the room with his great serious eyes, everyone fell silent immediately. I lived then an hour that will remain always unforgettable for me.” And that the world is not a container in which we are contained but a type of rapport (or relation) with beings and things like myself is first of all the invention of Christianity before all phenomenology, and is exactly a break with the world of the Greeks. The Word, come “into the world” (John :), having “so loved the world” (John :), and defined as “the light of the world” (John :), very precisely makes the “world” (cosmos), at least according to the Gospel of John, into a mode of being of his relation to human beings and a type of his intentionality—according to his com

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ing into it, according to love, or according to the enlightening of it. And if “the world” sometimes takes on negative connotations, it is not in that the welcome that is given to God in the New Testament is bad in itself (it isn’t easy to see why God would disown or detest those whom he has created and loved in the Book of Genesis); it is solely in that the divine relationship that is the coming of God, his love and his illumination of the world, is sometimes distorted by sin and therefore by the will of man. “He was in the world . . . yet the world did not know him” (John :). “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world ” (John :). Or again, in St. Paul, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world ?” ( Cor :). In Christianity, then, the world is not a container that is good or bad in itself, but it is the type of relationship (open [heaven], or closed [earth]) that we have with what surrounds us (environs us) and that is “familiar” to us (Umwelt), insofar precisely as we accept or do not accept the presence of God there. “The fact that we are in the world, that to be born is ‘to come into the world,’ and that to die is ‘to leave the world’ was not much considered by the Greeks, nor even named by them. As we know, ‘to be in the world’ hardly takes on a significant meaning until Christianity, and in particular for St. Paul and St. John.” (c) The event of the resurrection in this respect, as we have seen but not yet fully developed, is not an event of the world, or one that is produced in the world, but the event that “makes worldly the world.” In other words, once I come to see, through my faith, that God is resurrected from the dead, and so that “what is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable” ( Cor :), the structure of the world as such is not only changed but changed to the extent that a sudden irruptive event of this kind transforms my manner of being in the world from top to bottom, and thus “makes [the] world.” For the event does not transform the fact itself. What becomes an event for some people (e.g., for parents, a birth) does not make it an event for others (e.g., for the midwife or doctor, this same birth). The fact does not become a fact until it undoes all my claims to take responsibility for it or to make it take place by myself. “The event signifies, for those who understand it, the arrival of a new world. . . . Through the metamorphosis of the world in fact, there comes into play the passage to another sense of world, moving from the sense of the world as factual [événementiel] to the sense of the world as occurrence, or event [événemential].” In short, through the metamorphosis of finitude (resurrection) seen as “event,” the world “becomes other” not simply in the sense that it is transformed independently of me, almost even without me. But it does change, or we might say that it is “alienated,” in the positive and etymological sense of the term (“becomes other”), in that the transformaThe World Become Other

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tion operated by the Father in the Son, and under the power of the Holy Spirit (chapter ), does modify me also, insofar as it takes place within the “become flesh” of the resurrected Word. The world has thus become other (chapter ) in that I myself also become other: “We will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” ( Cor :–; see introduction). Not content with wishing to become what I am, as a certain ontologism or psychologism in Christianity sometimes wrongly tells us to think, believers are on the contrary called, by the resurrection, to be what they become—that is to say, to “con-form” with this One who is the “Meta-morphosis”: “The formula that will most closely correspond to [the believer] is not ‘Become what you are’ (Pindar) but rather ‘Be what you become.’ Against the formula of an odyssey that is a return to the self, of meditation and totalization, we need to set that of a ‘oneway ticket’ (Benjamin), of the simple outward journey, of simply-going, to where time is no longer the reliquary of the being but a freeing oneself with regard to all ‘essence’ and the disburdening oneself of all ‘property.’ ” The world being thus, in biblical and phenomenological terms, a way of being in touch with what is really mine, rather than the simple container of containers multiplied and indifferent as to what they contain, the (Christian) way of being resurrected to the world will consist less in proclaiming some kind of objectivity for the resurrection and more in welcoming the way in which the believer gets ready to let himself or herself be transformed by him who “is” transformation itself, and thus to be shaped by him. “I,” Jesus replies to Martha, lamenting the death of her brother Lazarus, “I am the Resurrection” [ego¯ eimi ¯e anastasis]” (John :). We have thus established the following. (a) The idea of a “world in common” between human beings and God is not to be identified with that of nature or of an essence of mankind—rather the concept of the world takes the place of nature, in that it doesn’t presuppose anything about a donor, or a donation, or even what is given ( physis). (b) The world in the biblical sense of the term (kosmos), and in the phenomenological sense of the term (Welt), far from any naïve fitting together of the contained in the container, points to a kind of rapport between mankind and the sphere that is ours and familiar to us, in which the believer accepts that God brings himself in, in order to transform the modus vivendi and to change it from end to end. (c) The event of the resurrection, in the form of a paradigm of the metamorphosis of the world, makes the world “worldly” in some way, in that it happens not only “in” the world but transforms me, myself, who am “in” the world (of mankind and God), or, to put it otherwise, in the “kingdom.” “Without being born from above,” the dialogue with Nicode

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mus tells us, “no one can see the kingdom of God” (John :). And now we can understand better how it is only at the end of the journey that this will happen. The horizon of our existence (§) is no longer blocked because God has freed an opening for us, and the desire that we have for him no longer misleads us (§), because it is he alone who inscribes in us today this new yearning and confirms its veracity by the metamorphosis of his resurrection. What is it, then, in this “kingdom,” or this world in common between mankind and God, that makes me “live differently” this same world? We come back for the key this time to the classic but often forgotten theologoumenon of the “communion of saints.” Once again Origen is exemplary on this point (§, “The Ordeal [ pathos] of the Father”): “Before the moment of the final resurrection,” Henri Crouzel, the French commentator, asks in relation to Origen, joining here our line of questioning, “Do the saints concern themselves with their brothers still on earth?”—to believe that they do, and to think it through, means following literally the formula of St. Paul in chapter  of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where it is a question exactly of the “resurrection of the dead.” “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the One who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all” ( Cor :). All would not then yet have been submitted to the Son by the Father in the resurrection: And Jesus stays “in agony to the end of the world” (Pascal)—through the slow history of the coming of the kingdom. Can we then boldly ask what he would be doing, the Son, with saints up above us in glory, while we down below can only lament our unjustifiable destitution? Nothing can describe so well as “high” and “low” these two worlds, or heaven and earth, which are not two different ways of living in this same world (§). But on the other hand, to accept the notion of a world in common between human beings and God, insofar as it is made and included in the Word, brings to birth a new way of being (resurrected) for all the living—whether they are “in heaven” (the departed) or on earth (ourselves). Origen, commenting on the lines of Leviticus (:) that read, “Drink no wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons, when you enter the tent of meeting, that you may not die,” writes that “in the expectation of the new wine, the Savior still now [etiam nunc] weeps for my sins.” “He does not wish [in effect] to enter into his perfect glory without you [sine te]—that is to say, without his people who are his body and his limbs.” God then waits for me, or at least in the form of his Son. He weeps and suffers with me, waiting for me to become converted—so that the unity of the world of mankind and God will finally correspond to a unique way of being in the world (divine and resurrected or metamorphosed). The World Become Other

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As for the departed, or rather the saints, “they also still wait for us [expectant nos],” since with us they are included in God “even though we delay, even though we linger.” “For there is no perfect joy for them while they grieve over our erring ways [ pro erroribus nostris dolent] and while they weep for our sins [et lugent nostra peccata].” The modality of the relations that we establish with them in their “survival” in God depends to some degree on the kind of face-to-face that we have had with the “living” during their lives. For, if we consider others too much as “objects,” we necessarily make their decease into a mode of being that reduces them to nothingness. According to Gabriel Marcel, “The more that the relationship uniting us with another human being has been strictly possessive, the more his or her decease will come to resemble the loss of an object.” But I can also, from here below, establish a form of “presence” for the other that will persist through the feeling of his or her absence, just as in our common eternity, as Marcel says: “We can for example have the very strong feeling that someone who is there [as object] in the room, close to us, someone we see and hear and whom we can touch, is not, however, present [in the mode of presence]; he is infinitely further from us than some loved one who is thousands of miles away, or who even no longer belongs to our world.” One does not, then, measure “presence” in objective terms, any more than “communion” comes through simple communication. Love that is oblative is not possessive in that it produces, already today, conditions for the possibility of an otherness capable of perduring: that is, I myself living “in the other,” and the other living “in me,” from before our mutual decease (“double hetero-centrism”). No philosophy is capable of deciding whether this is or is not realizable. But philosophy can maintain, given the means that are at its disposal, that the probability of a community in the form of “presence” with the departed in God is not destroyed because of the impossibility of proving that it is effective. Is this to say that the deceased suffer in glory, “grieving thus over our erring ways” and “weeping over each of our sins”? The petitio principii is such here that this time we have to turn to Bernard of Clairvaux to correct Origen. Like God, “impassible but not incapable of compassion” (§a), the saints rejoice first of all in the ineffable joy of God, the perfection of which will remain forever. It is only voluntarily—that is to say, in being themselves taken and metamorphosed in the choice made by God in his true mercy—that they suffer with him. And then, through love, they suffer along with us what befalls us involuntarily (suffering, death, sickness, and so on.) “You also, then,” Bernard implores his brother Girard, now reunited with God, “you also must be merciful [esse misericordem], you who are united with the Merciful [qui inhaeres misericordi] and henceforth 

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delivered from misery. You who can no longer suffer [qui non pateris], you can, however, empathize [compateris tamen]. Your affection is not diminished [non imminutus]; it is transformed [sed immutatus].” It will be apparent that the unity of the world of human beings and the world of God is such that the “abstraction” of the divine from the human becomes unthinkable, at least once God is made man. The communion of saints in Christianity (communio sanctorum) requires that we live in the same world—that of God, in which we are all included (Col : [§])— although in different modes (earthly and heavenly) and with different forms of dazzlement (reflection in a mirror and transparence face to face). The difference between our life here below and the other life in the beyond is one of degree, not of nature: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (I Cor :). This “communion” of saints does not call us then to some sort of “reward,” as is wrongly thought sometimes, according to a funereal horse-trading that is as unworthy of the aspirations of human beings as it is of the benevolence of God. It doesn’t try to live any longer a “common union,” or an illusory “fusion” of the living and the dead, that a deceptive etymology might allow us to imagine (cum-unio). Solely the mystery of “participation,” or the “common [communis] taking on board” of one another in Christ, in whom we are contained, makes sense of it. Karl Barth points out: “It is incontestable that the communio sanctorum can be achieved only in the distinctive triangle of God and a man and a fellow-man, the two latter being united in a definitely ordered relationship.” The world become other, by the metamorphosis of finitude, breaks through and thus transfigures the limits of space, in that it overflows, like Christ, and this time in the communion of saints (§), the frontiers of “here” and “over there.” What is true of space and thus also of the “world” (chapter ) is true also of time (chapter ), and it is perhaps true even more so since eternal life, won for us long ago in the act of the resurrection, is no longer a temporal concept in Christianity but is rather a participation, full and entire, in the divine life itself: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John :).

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From Time to Eternity

§. The Instant of Eternity It has been said, and has been widely believed, that we cannot but go “from time to time”—Heidegger (see chapter ). What is true of “birth down here below” remains true always but is, however, only relatively true of “rebirth from on high”—passed through the crux of metamorphosis of God (chapter ) and of mankind in him (chapter ). Moreover, Thomas Aquinas himself, too respectful of things down here below to draw them directly from on high, understood this: “As we attain to the knowledge of simple things by way of compound things, so must we reach to the knowledge of eternity by means of time [ per tempus].” In theology also, then, one does not go simply from eternity to time but from time to time, or rather from time to eternity after such a transition is given by God and produced in God (see part II). The perspective here still differs, however, from that of philosophy. Because if the closure of time remains necessarily a given from the point of view of human beings (chapter ), only God possesses the capacity of transfiguring the structure of time and our relationship with him, because he did so “once for all when he offered himself ” (Heb :). Since what makes time, as we have shown (§), is not its objective measure (time by the clock) but its subjective truth (lived time), it is in our subjective relationship to time that the transformation of time takes place—in the same way that it is in our subjective relationship to the world that the world “becomes other” (chapter ). This does not mean, certainly, that neither 

the world nor time are themselves affected by the act of resurrection, but solely that there is not in itself a transformation of world and time unless it appears first of all for me, as a subject that has been transformed (that is, in phenomenology, the transition from physis to the world [§]). To explain this new lived experience of time, it was necessary for St. Augustine, who was first in this field, to recognize the merit of a definition of the dimension of different times as a “drawing out of the spirit [distensio animi]” (§). But, taking the lead from Heidegger, we have been denied any position in eternity, in the name of a trouble (molestia) or an anxiety (cura) from which man on his own cannot liberate himself: oneri mihi sum—“I am a burden to myself ” (§). This is what brings about the resurrection, however, understood here as metamorphosis of the world and of time. Certainly, to reduce to the present the experience of the dimensions of time in St. Augustine (past, present, future) is to run the risk of a making present of time, in which the presence is such that it works a substantification. A reading and textual critique of St. Augustine remains valid here. What answers to Being is the present, as a modality of presence: “If nothing existed [si nihil esset], there would be no present time” (see §). But to emphasize this is not to take into account the important act of transformation in the Confessions. Although the problem is not formulated as such in book , in book  we read of the transformation that the Transformer (God resurrected) works on his transfigured disciple (St. Augustine) in the act of his conversion (Conf. ): “ ‘Pick up and read, pick up and read.’ At once [statim] my countenance changed. . . . At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart. All the shadows of doubt were dispelled.” The present moment, “at once” [statim], of the conversion does not indicate, in the experience of the saint, a simple moment of the unfolding of time in some sort of reduction of the present to presence. The change of “countenance,” or the dispelling of “shadows of doubt,” does not show a simple shock to his unchanged substance— permanent in what he remains or solipsist in subjectivity. The “at once” of St. Augustine’s encounter with God becomes, on the contrary, the urgency of all time for him—not a point in time but the point at which his transformation takes place, and by which all time is then measured. “You converted me, in fact, so effectively to yourself that I did not now seek a wife and had no ambition for success in the world.” Resurrected in Christ, the disciple no longer lives time in the same way. Seeing God in a moment, St. Augustine not only welcomes him in every instant of time, as we often hear said, but he lives the ecstatic experience of different times (past and future) in his mode of reception, receiving the From Time to Eternity

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now of God (present). In other words, never mind the time—past, present, future. All that counts at each moment is that He who is the master of all time is welcomed. Memory is certainly the “present of the past,” and anticipation is the “present of the future” (§). But we should add here, exactly in the light of the resurrection: Memory is the “present of the past” in the sense of the presence of God in all my memories; and anticipation is the “present of the future” in the sense of the divine presence in all my concerns. For, theologically speaking—that is to say, in the context of the conversion of St. Augustine (Conf. )—the present is no longer a substantification of time (Conf. ) but a welcome, in the now of my consciousness and in my lived experience of time, offered to the presence of God, a welcome as a “gift of the self ”: the present (or gift) of his presence. Unilaterally philosophical readings of the Confessions are, then, unsatisfactory or worse (Heidegger) when we hold them up to the light of what constitutes the main theme at the heart of the work: the act of transformation in God, and of mankind in him; the dimensions of time and their lived experience (resurrection). The difference of times so rightly taken up in theology since St. Augustine—the time of God, “who included all the times,” and the time of mankind taken as a “succession of nows”—should not make us forget the transformation of time that the final resurrection brings to completion. For what is true here of conversion, in an immediacy that creates a new mode of being of temporality, is even more true of the parousia, which succeeds in metamorphosing us: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” ( Cor :). In the act of resurrection, I shall not only be transformed in a moment, in the sense of “all at once” (ontic event), but the moment itself, or the “twinkling of an eye,” will produce my transformation in the sense of another way of traveling through the different times (ontologic event). When in fact I see God “face to face” and not simply “in a mirror, dimly,” what shall I see and know, according to St. Paul? Is it not that “I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” ( Cor :)? Which implies not just that God knows me, or that I know myself, but that I shall know, and shall know in the same way that God knows me— that is to say, in the full light of the moment of a transformation that I either have, or have not, accepted: “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (Luke :). And so what is probably true of any event (see Cl. Romano) is certainly true, and in a paradigmatic way, of this raising of our lived experience of time in God: “The event [of the resurrection] is not temporal but temporalizing. The moment in question, the moment of its unexpected arrival, is not the intra-temporal present of the fact. ‘As

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soon as’ the event takes place, it goes beyond us and tells us about ‘since always.’ ” Past and future, memory and anticipation are all radically changed. Not that the Christian would be able to satisfy himself or herself solely with the joy of the moment (carpe diem) but in that the “burden of the past” (Freud) and the “anxiety for the future” (Heidegger) take on, from God himself in his metamorphosis, a mode of being that liberates them from their promethean load. The apostle Luke gives witness of this in exemplary fashion. It is as though the reception we give to the moment of salvation were to become our sole authority, among all those other moments that might seem to deflect it from its path. To the disciple wishing “first of all” to bury his father (burden of the past), Jesus replies: “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke :). To the man who wants to build bigger barns to store the harvest (“anxiety for the future”), God replies: “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke :). While to the good thief, and only to him, because he asks for pardon now [the moment of God], Christ on the cross replies: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke :). God speaks paradoxically, in the present, of the future of his presence (“Today you will be” [the moment of eternity]), while the man weighs up his past life (the burden), or anticipates in the unforeseen of his future existence (the anxiety). Such is the temporal metamorphosis that the resurrection produces, and it helps us understand the famous statement of the Confessions: “Hodiernus tuus aeternitas [Your today is eternity].” The “today” of “eternity” designates neither the prolongation of time (indefinite time) nor the joy of the moment (carpe diem) but the place and act of engendering by which the Son sees himself “born (again)” of his Father and us in him. St. Augustine says: “So you begat me [engendered me] coeternal with you, to whom you said, ‘Today I have begotten [engendered] you’ ” (Ps :; Heb :). It is not then another time that the metamorphosis produces (chapter ), any more than it is an invitation to another world (chapter ). It opens up on the contrary to eternity—that is to say, onto another way to live the same time, just as the communion of saints is another way to live the same world (§ [final part]). In life as in death, the Christian, though a participant in the eternal, does not leave time. Christians simply live a certain time—that is to say, according to a time limit that they accept as what has been granted to them (a time that is certain) and according to a specification that renders the time limit recognizable (a certain manner of being in time as welcomed by God in every moment of time). The Chris-

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tian’s time is no longer the time; it is the time of God, as metamorphosis of all time in a moment. We mustn’t, however, fool ourselves. Eternity is not a moment in the sense of a simple interruption in time, as is sometimes mistakenly thought. The unremitting amorous or aesthetic search for moments of eternity will not be satisfied in Christianity by cutting “sections,” as impossible as they are illusory, in a temporality from which we cannot escape. The “moment of eternity” is not the making eternal of a moment but the joy of the eternal in the moment of all moments in time. The believer is not in fact called, either in meditation or in prayer, to leave time, as is often said, in order to rejoin what is outside time or what encompasses all time (the making eternal of the moment). Such an “ex-tasy” would make us forget that “we are in time” (see chapter ), as if the “a priori forms of sensibility” (space and time) were not always for us the prism of all our experience (Kant) and the choice of God in his incarnation (Rahner). To become a disciple of him who has espoused our temporality, and in whom it was transformed, brings us back, on the contrary, to making the act of transformation itself the mode of being of our new birth, whence comes our “true joy.” “Joy” does not come from pleasure [jouisssance], as Spinoza points out, except insofar as it bears witness to a passage or change of state (transitio) and not simple amorous fusion, or escape from temporality. “Joy [laetitia] is the transition of a man from a lesser to a greater perfection. . . . I say transition [transitionem] for joy is not perfection itself.” §. The Joy of Birth Joy as the transition of a moment—or, better, the affective modality of the moment of transition (resurrection)—is thus a way of living, or a mode of existence (existential), and not a simple euphoric state of existence in general (categorical). What is true for Christianity of “eternity (the today of God)” and “the joy of birth” is not unlike what we can say of “care (the making temporal of the future)” and “anxiety in the face of death” in Heidegger’s analytic. But they work in another direction, that of a “backward step” or a “step in the wrong direction,” a “throwing up the game,” or a “misreading,” as Péguy says. For care (cura), as we have seen, worries us—and makes the future into the “essential phenomenon of time” (chapter ). A diagnostic that remains always true for mankind “quite simply,” or, in other words, for mankind without God (chapter ). Brought into temporality by the prospect of the end, each one of us legitimately makes death a dimension of his or her life and consecrates anxiety [or anguish] as his or her most particular feeling. But such an “affective tonality,” insofar 

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as it is a “way of opening up a world,” or of seeing everything through that way of opening up a world, is not the last word for what can be called a Christian existence. In fact, seen through the prism of the resurrection, the first lesson of our Being as believers is not death but birth, and its true modality is not anxiety [or anguish] but joy. The metamorphosis of finitude, concerning which we have seen how it operates as much in God (chapter ) as in human beings (chapter ), needs to be established not simply in temporality (the moment of eternity [§]), but also in its essential layout (the joy of birth [§]): (a) first as birth, then (b) as joy, and, finally, (c) as the joy of birth as birth of joy. (a) Birth. Concerning birth, which, as was established in the dialogue with Nicodemus (§), serves as the existential for the resurrection, it will be recalled that “man is not in the world except insofar as he is born to the world.” In the event of birth in fact “the birth of the world itself ” comes into play, since, as we have seen (§b), we come to understand by “world” (die Welt) not the simple container of our acts and movements but the type of relationship (rapport) that we maintain with other beings and things (coming into the world, dying to the world, etc.). In being born to the world, then, one does not simply place a new being in the world but offers in some way a new manner of being “in the world”—what signifies, for the Christian, a different way of living the world and time: a way that is in community with the saints in God (§) and that is a welcome to the instant in every moment of time (§). For the believer, there is no point in being born “here below” (birth to the world) if, once born, he or she does not appropriate or, rather, receive as a gift from “on high” his true birth (birth to God). In other words, if my being here is the burden that comes from my own finitude (birth here below), and if the resurrection is its metamorphosis in God himself (birth from on high), it is up to me “down below” not simply to let myself aspire to “on high” but to be converted by Him who is discovered “after me” (heuristic route), comes nevertheless “before me,” and remains always “more powerful than I” (Mark :) (didactic statement [§]). The baptism of Christ, as first scene of his rebirth from on high—“of water and Spirit” (John :)—is thus also where, from today on, I throw in my burden. I do this less to free myself from the weight of that burden than to accept it in another way. The “easy” yoke, or “light” burden, is not in the first place mine but that of the Son of man. “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Mt :). If I carry it with him (that is, with Emmanuel [God with us]), it is neither to eliminate the load (which would be substitution) nor to lighten the weight (which would be propping it From Time to Eternity

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up). The grounds for our suffering are different for everyone, whether we are Christian or not, and the burden of time seems to be felt whether or not we declare that there is an Other (§). All that counts in reality is our way of carrying these burdens. For what makes the weight, in phenomenology as in Christianity, is not the quantity of the load that has to be supported (beingness) but the quality of the way it is carried (kinesthesis). What counts is if it is with or without the Holy Spirit as “metamorphosis,” or the power of resurrection and raising of the Son by the Father (§). His own burden—Christ’s—is not then “easy” in that it weighs less than the burden human beings carry: on the contrary! We have seen how he takes on himself the burden of our finitude, and even more (part I, “Précis of Finitude”). The lightness of his yoke comes from the spiritual power of him with whom he carries it (the Holy Spirit). Like the Nietzschean Overhuman, the Son bears the burden, but in an oblation, or offering, to an Other in him (his Father) rather than in the Promethean act of the “auto-resurrection” of himself by his self. Passing on to his Father the suffering of our finitude, the Son allows us at the same time to offer, and to live differently, our own suffering in him (§). And this is the case whether that suffering is the heritage of sin (in the unilateral but necessary project of redemption) or derives from the closure of the world and time metamorphosed in Christ (which is our own perspective): “We have seen how the Christian carries the heavy burden lightly,” Søren Kierkegaard says in The Gospel of Suffering: Edifying Discourses, “how he doesn’t differ from others by being exempted from the burden but shows himself to be a Christian by carrying it lightly. He who, heavily loaded, carries a light burden: He is Christian.” Why then is there “more joy [e¯ chara] in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance” if not precisely in that the lost sheep refound by the shepherd, that sheep that he “lays . . . on his shoulders and rejoices [chairo¯n]” over, is Joy itself (Luke :–), the only one able to confront head on, in his way of taking it, the anguish of finitude (part I)? (b) Joy. A certain kind of joy then marks out the believer, in a new way of being in the world or in a way of living differently, given by his or her rebirth. We can certainly affirm that this is not so much a fixed state but rather a kind of conquest. We are not born into joy, but we gain it through exercise, even through asceticism. Or better, we might say that we find it only in passing through the acceptance of a defeat. For “to be in joy,” or to praise “God who is joy” and “our joy” (see Saint Francis’s Prayer in Praise of God, Given to Brother Leo) is first of all no longer to recognize oneself as the author of one’s own joy—and it is in this precisely that it is “unassailable” (L. Basset): “Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take 

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your joy from you” (John :). The Joy of God—that is to say, the double feeling, on the one hand, of absolute dependence on the Moment of the Eternal (§) and, on the other hand, of the lightness of what, however, does remain heavy (§a)—does not come from me, precisely, because it is not me, and I cannot produce it by myself. “I have said these things to you so that my joy [e¯ chara ¯e eme¯] may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John :). The “mine-ness” of God’s Joy (Jemeinigkeit) precisely makes his fullness or completion and then becomes shared with the “mine-ness” of my own joy, supposing that I receive it “in me.” We must, however, be careful over this: The Joy (of God) we speak of here, and to which St. John gives witness, is not simply that promised for another world or for another place. It is a way of being in our world, as in our Being-there: “I speak these things in the world [en to¯ kosmo¯]” says Jesus in his prayer for his disciples, “so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves” (John :). The false withdrawal of the Joy of God outside time in a complete projection into the final beatitude—“such happiness is reserved for heaven”—is in theology often the mark of an exaggerated separation of worlds and times (§). The plea of contemporary philosophy for finitude remains in this sense a legitimate one (part I) and theology will not take responsibility for its metamorphosis in God (part II) until the philosopher who is Christian (or the Christian philosopher) learns for himself, and then makes plain to others, what is phenomenologically there in the accounts of the resurrection and what he comes across in his own experience of the Word resurrected (part III). “Joy [Christian joy] has the specific quality that it alone is called on to last, to fit always better into the contours of our existence . . . until it becomes that ‘perfect joy’ that Jesus spoke of in relation to our existence in the world, here and now.” What is there, then, of this perfect Joy that I can find today? It is a joy that, when I renounce the idea of producing it myself, “detaches” me from my ego. It is a joy that demands I give up the prospect of heroism in the battle. And it is a joy that requires of me that I deconstruct in myself all pretension to constitute myself by myself. Only a phenomenology of joy can mark out a route for us—in a negative and then a positive way. First negatively: The Joy of God (chare¯), offered to mankind, is not (i) ecstasy, (ii) beatitude, (iii) happiness, or (iv) entertainment or diversion. (i) The Joy of God is not ecstasy because it doesn’t make me “leave” myself. There are so many myths of leaving the self (ex-stasis) in theology that one is liable to forget how it is God who comes to me, and lives with me, more than I go to him and live with him: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt :). From Time to Eternity

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(ii) Nor is this same Joy beatitude, because it is given to us “today.” Not that we need to deny the beatitude of a final vision “face to face” ( Cor :), but because the beatitudes [or blisses] of the Kingdom, at least in the form of a starting point for the beatitude, place their joy not simply in promises for tomorrow (“they shall see God,” “they shall inherit the earth,” “they shall be consoled”), but also in the eternal present of Him who invites us to the present—a present in time (the moment) and in ourselves (the gift): “Blessed are the poor in spirit [now], for theirs is [estin] the kingdom of heaven [now]. . . . Blessed [now] are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is [estin] [now] the kingdom of heaven” (Mt :, :). (iii) Nor is the Joy of God happiness. It is not earned by a “nature” in me that is predisposed to it. “Happiness” is the “object of pursuit” for everyone, and we differ less in our goal (happiness) than in the means we use to obtain it—pleasure, honor, wealth, etc. But the joy Jesus speaks of “does not derive from the order of nature.” We can see this from the parable of the prodigal son. The father can humanly “celebrate” (or feel full of happiness) at the return of his Son (euphraino¯, Luke :. He does not “rejoice” (or enter into joy) divinely [chare¯nai (Luke :)] until his two sons—the one who has cut himself off (the younger son) and the one who feels himself cut off (the older son) have refound their place in their father’s house. “We had to celebrate [euphrane¯stai (happiness)] and rejoice [chare¯nai (joy)] because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (Luke :). In other words, and as in the more familiar distinction between eros (the love of mankind) and agape¯ (the love of God), the happiness of mankind in philosophy (euphrosyne¯ or eudaimonia) differs from the Joy of God in theology (chare¯), in that the first can be won naturally in simple family celebrations, while the second is not obtained except by grace, in a complete integration of human beings into “the abode of God” (oikos). “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke :). The joy of those who “rejoice” does not then negate the happiness of those who “celebrate” but goes beyond it and includes it. (iv) The Joy of God is not entertainment or diversion, since it doesn’t “divert” me. This is familiar from Pascal: “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” Nothing is further from the return to the self to discover God (“con-version”) than a turn of the self that makes us leave God (“diversion”). Moreover, the expatriation of myself outside myself prevents 

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me from finding either God or myself, or either of us in me. “You were within me and I was in the external world and sought you there.” As in negative theology, we have, then, in a way come to what Joy is by what it is not. It is neither ecstasy, nor beatitude, nor happiness, nor entertainment nor diversion. But, knowing this, we have at least gained, positively this time, a sense of how it is directed to us. It is tied to us (not ecstasy); it is possible for us today (not beatitude); it is given by another to us (not happiness); and it leads us to return to ourselves (not entertainment or diversion). True Joy is thus what God himself has placed “in us,” for which reason precisely it appears as “perfect”: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John :). When we share it we are not diverted by trivial amusements, but we are converted by a new way of being divinely inspired: a dependence on the Moment of the Eternal (§), and certainly an easing of our heavy burden (§a), but also an integration of all of human beings into God as a return this time to the abode of God (oikos), or to the house of the Father. (c) The joy of birth as birth of joy gives the Joy of God its full and final positive establishment in Christianity. We see it in the Wise Men on the journey to Bethlehem for the birth of the Word (“When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy” [Mt :]). We see it in the Eleven gathered in Jerusalem for the apparition of Christ (“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering” [Luke :]). And we see it in all the angels of heaven who seek for our rebirth: “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance” (Luke :). But this joy—here that of the Wise Men, the disciples, or of all the angels in heaven—is not a simple and blessed wonder at the newborn, of the kind we find in wellmeaning parents. It is “true Joy,” or the “Joy of God,” only when we can see in it at the same time, and as a kind of prefiguring, the figure of the Resurrected One: “To you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke :). In other words, theological joy (the birth of the Savior) does not take precedence over philosophical anxiety (the blocked wisdom of the world and time), except insofar as the philosophical as such—that is to say, “quite simply” or without God (chapter )—also accepts being “saved” or, better, converted and transformed by the theological: by, let us say, the resurrection itself, as act of transition. “Quite simply” in being born, and as a philosopher, I am first of all overwhelmed by care and anxiety that floods into me. And even though From Time to Eternity

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my near relatives may try, by “celebration” of my birth, to prevent me believing in such care and anxiety, I have to recognize that the “misfortune of having been born” has not been for all that repealed: “We do not race toward death,” Cioran rails, “we flee that catastrophe of birth, we thrash about, survivors who try to forget it. The fear of death is nothing but the projection into the future of a fear that goes back to our very first moments. It disgusts us, certainly, to treat birth as a kind of plague: Has it not been drummed into us that it is a great blessing, that the worst is found at the end and not at the start of our span of life?” In short, it should be apparent, to speak of the birth of joy as the joy of birth—even in Christianity—is not at all to speak of that sacred rejoicing that sometimes the faithful revel in, in order to ignore their own humanity, a humanity that they are forsaking. The Book of Ecclesiasticus teaches us nothing but the most crude existentialism: “And wish that thou hadst not been born, and curse the day of thy nativity” (Ecclesiasticus :). There is a conditional sense here, which holds the matter in suspense and refuses to add a final full stop. What is true of man “without God” (sine Deo) is not equally true of man “before God (coram Deo). “There is a word that is clothed about with death,” the prophet says. “God grant that it be not found in the heritage of Jacob” (Ecclesiasticus :). What does this tell us, if not that Jews, and even more Christians, do not deny the anguish of their birth but rather take it on board, the better to transform it? The “prerogative of anguish” in Christianity, usurped recently by existentialism (see Le Passeur de Gethsémani), contains its own antidote: the resurrection as “transformation” of care to carefree and the transfiguration of anguish into joy (Metamorphosis of Finitude). To transform does not imply to forget, or even less to suppress or cancel. The joy of birth in the Christian system (resurrection) is not in the abolition of the anguish of death (Dasein) but in its complete turning around: “You will have pain, but your pain will turn [gene¯sera] into joy” (John :). The transition to joy is like a woman going into labor and then giving birth. John continues: “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour is come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world” (John :). The anguish, usually a modality of death, or rather of human mortality, is not transformed into true joy, the supernatural modality of life or rather of (re)birth for humankind, except when this is done by the act of the resurrection (chapter ) and by our resurrection in God (chapter ). The joy of birth is here the birth of the joy not simply because “a child has been born for us, a son given to us” (Isa :) but also because,



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in being born at Bethlehem, the infant Jesus brings into birth the world of God as “world of Joy,” or “carries over (transitio) [with him] to a greater perfection” (Spinoza). The moment of transition (§), the lightness of the burden (§a), and the integration into the house of the Father (§b) are thus all constitutive of the Joy of God, in that they make up the affectivity of what is lived in birth or transition (§c) of Him who is the transition or the resurrection (chapter ). “The miracle that saves the world” Hannah Arendt says, although not proclaiming her faith here, “is the fact of the birth. . . . The child brings a new world into the existing world. . . . It is this hope and this faith in the world that have found without doubt their most succinct and glorious expression in the brief phrase of the Gospels announcing their ‘good news’: Unto us a child is born.” The joy in the birth of a child means less, phenomenologically speaking, than the birth of the joy that is that birth itself. Not that we do not need the child for the rejoicing—“There was a man who had two sons” [beingness] (Luke :)—but the “true joy,” as what is lived of affection, is entirely in the reintegration of the birth into the heart of our filiation (modality): “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke :). The “joyous” disciple is he who remains “in God Himself,” as Joy, and makes of the modality of this transition (resurrection) the most ordinary mode of being of his life. From the “lilies of the field” and the “birds of the air,” then, this time in contradiction to Martin Heidegger and the insupportable burden of time (§), we shall learn, according to the parable: “Do not worry [me¯ merimate] about your life” (Mt :). “Look at the birds of the air: They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. . . . Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. . . . Will [God] not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (Mt , –). We must take note that the “life without care,” whether it is the reverse of the evangelic term (merimnao¯) or of the phenomenological concept (Sorge), has nothing to say about any kind of “di-version,” or about a rerouting of the self that would abdicate responsibility for one’s life and leave it either to God (theodicy), or to events (stoicism), or even to the arbitrary power of God (Cartesianism). It speaks rather of the “carefree” state of the man who, in quest of bread (Mt :) or “fish” (Luke :) or an “egg” (Luke :), finds instead, and perhaps at the same time, “the Holy Spirit,” which is given “to those who ask” (Luke :). In other words, the “without care” of providence is not a matter of what I receive—as if God became worked up about giving me what I asked of him—but it is the

From Time to Eternity

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manner in which I receive it: that is to say, in the force of the Holy Spirit, which allows me to live, as joy, the transition or metamorphosis of myself in God. Thus, in the believer’s life, as in the bird’s, things run according to the parable: “Everywhere and always the bird finds a sufficient reason to rejoice; it does not lose a moment, but it considers as lost any moment that is not joyful.” The resurrectional modality of life becomes, for the Christian, life itself, in the urgency of a today that cannot be postponed until tomorrow. The Christian’s existence is subject to such a resurrectional modality for its time (the moment of the Eternal) as it is for its afflictions (the weight of the burden) and its “rebirth” (joy as the affective lived experience of the transition). We have to hold on now to what Kierkegaard, because of a certain prudence or distrust of the theological, does not dare say to himself concerning the “lilies of the field” and the “birds of the sky”: “We can guess that this paradox of a reversal of suffering that turns into joy . . . finds its paradigm in Christian history: the Event of the Resurrection.” §. The Birth and Knowledge of God What, finally, is eternity, when we take it in the theological sense of the term? Neither concept, nor of the temporal order, it is primarily an experience of a relational kind: “And this is eternal life, that they may know [gigno¯sko¯sin] you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John :). To “know,” if we look at the etymology of the French, is to be “born with [con-naître],” and from the biblical point of view it is to unite by a sexual act: “Now the man [Adam] knew his wife Eve” (Gen :); “Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch” (Gen :). And “then said Mary unto the angel, ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ ” (Luke :). To know [con-naître] the eternal is then in a way to think of sexual difference—or rather to use conjugality as a metaphor for eternity: It is to unite one to another and put what is engenderedengendering one by the other (two principal motifs of all true sexuality). In other words, and as I discuss in the final volume of my “triptych,” the existential of human love as eros determines what there is in it of divine love as agape¯—something that we cannot feel other than in the sexual difference through which we were brought into being (§a). The formula from the gospel of St. John must then be taken literally: eternal life as “knowledge [con-naissance] of the Father (‘you, the only true God’), and of the Son (‘whom you have sent’) in the Holy Spirit,” doesn’t let us know tomorrow what our future life will be but teaches us today to live our present life otherwise—in the union and the engendering of the Trinity. 

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This is confirmed in the way that eternal life is grammatically inflected toward the present in St. John’s Gospel, in contrast to the final resurrection that is conjugated in the future: “This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day” (John :). If the resurrection (of the body) is for tomorrow, eternal life is for now. It is not first of all a temporal concept but the enjoyment [jouissance] today of a life that makes itself “known [connaître]” and to which I cannot posit a final limit: “Eternity is the complete possession [ possessio] simultaneously and perfectly of life without end.” In short, as we have seen, eternal life is to “know you [con-naissance], the only true God” (John :) in the biblical sense of the term, in that “we are not born alone” and “every birth [naissance] is a kind of knowing [con-naissance].” Being reborn from on high is something that indicates not simply the “moment of eternity,” as metamorphosis of all the moments in the today of God (§), but also, and as a kind of addition, the welcoming today by me—that is to say, at this instant, straight away, of the today of God (§). To believe this is to make up one’s mind as best one can that there is a life, not simply without a time limit, but one that will transform me now and by which I will be “reborn.” It isn’t a question of a decision taken today for the eternal, like all the other decisions we make within the framework of the temporal. A decision within the temporal is made between possibilities, while the other kind of decision (in favor of the eternal) decides for the possible. When in fact I want something or other, I can quite well “do this or not do it”—and that is what my “free will” consists in. But when I resolve on the eternal, or, in other words, when I enter into “knowing” God, all my possible decisions suddenly seem to hang on an impossibility—that of a metamorphosis of the structure of the world and time, a metamorphosis that will transform all possibilities. “The decision envisaged by the transformation is not effected unless there is the necessary transformation of the concept of decision.” Deciding for the eternal, in fact, I do not decide against the temporal, but I make the “casting [emmontement] of the temporal in the eternal” (Péguy) into the place of origin for all my key decisions. I do not decide for or against my rebirth but I decide in a Christian way starting from my rebirth, or renewal. The decision in favor of the eternal, in the eyes of the believer, is not a transcendental condition of the possibility of a Christian life but the factual condition of passibility [that is, a capacity for feeling and suffering] in one’s own metamorphosis. It is because I am already and, as it were, in advance, transformed into God that I enter into his transformation or resurrection. It is not because I decide for myself on metamorphosis that I am metamorphosed. The transformation by the “renewing” that took place in Christ From Time to Eternity

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precedes, paradoxically, all judgment on the subject of conversion that I believe to take place in me. It is not the believer who takes control with a view to his metamorphosis (or to his resurrection in the Son) but God himself who offers the believer, as disciple, the possibility of seeing things starting from this metamorphosis: “Be transformed [literally, “be metamorphosed” (metamorphoo¯)] by the renewing of your minds,” St. Paul says very precisely, “so that you may discern what is the will of God” (Rom :). There is no excuse then for putting things off. At least as far as eternity is concerned and whatever my final resurrection may be. I accept it today or I shall never have it. To return to the leitmotif of this book (resurrection as rebirth): “So must the Son of Man be lifted up,” Jesus tells Nicodemus, “that whoever believes in him [in the present] may have eternal life” (John :). It is a question of Nicodemus being born now, or rather being reborn. Not that he wasn’t born once—because for him, as for all human beings, to be born comes back first of all to finding philosophically the blocked horizon and the temporal closure of his existence (see part I). But by the metamorphosis of the man in God (see part II), this first birth “from below” could lead him theologically to a rebirth “up above,” as an apocalypse or revelation (apo-kalypsis) of a new structure of the world of time (see part III). The worthy Jew “came to Jesus by night” (John :). Did he then “have” or “accept” this eternal life, as “knowing [con-naissance] of God” in the now of his faith? We don’t know how to answer, because the text does not say a word on the matter. Nevertheless, certain signs may lead us to think that the wise Nicodemus also makes this crossing, through eternity (knowing [con-naissance] of God). First of all, we read how he inveighs against his fellow Pharisees on the last day of the Festival of Booths [Sukkot]: “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” (John :). And then on the day of the burial: “Nicodemus also came, who had at first come to Jesus by night” (John :). He to whom the birth, or rather “rebirth,” as the existential of the resurrection (born below / born up above) had first been preached is thus also he who remains closest to the rebirth, which is the resurrection itself. The “body of Jesus” which he took and “wrapped . . . with the spices in linen cloths” that he had himself brought (“a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds” [John :–]), is this same body that, resurrected and, however, transformed, is also promised to us: “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke :).

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

A Flesh for Rebirth

The “knowing [con-naissance] of God,” rather than the eternal (John :), leads us, then, to ask about our own births—our spiritual birth, of course, but also our bodily birth. I myself can relate to my own birth today (a) through my consciousness (given my difficulty in being born), and (b) through my body (given the impossibility of my not having been born). (a) First of all, in my consciousness, and in what language tends to speak of as an absence. In a certain way I was not there, or at least I have the impression of not having been there. My birth, however, is the originary event of my life—from which all my life stems. Nothing remains consciously of what happened, and yet I really did go through it, because I was born. But I can’t ever relate to my passage through my birth except in terms of the past. How then can I speak about it, given the gap that is my quasi-absence during this event from which I issue? (b) Next, by my body, where “speechless experience” forces me to recognize that in, terms of the flesh, I was in some fashion present. Not this time because I know it, but undoubtedly because I feel it. The flesh that constituted me as an infant—in-fans, or without speech (in-fari)—is in fact that same flesh through which I silently elaborate a world, or rather my world. It’s perhaps best just to get on with it, to let it be, this flesh of a human being—given that it is through this body that, without speech, I relate to the world—before all selfhood and yet as the foundation of my



subjectivity: “We were all infants before we became adults.” To be born is thus to carry in one’s body the actual evidence of the act of birth. And what is true of birth is even truer of the resurrection. I do not know what has been, but I know in the past, in part at least, that I have been through it, when I see myself “born again” or discover myself transformed (consciousness). Moreover, I feel in the present what took place then, not because I speak it but because since this rebirth I set up the world (the body) differently and silently: “Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord” (John :). In our argument so far we have seen how the “world become other” (chapter ), through the metamorphosis of God and of man in him (part II), necessitates a return to the “impassable immanence” of a world without God (chapter ). It was the passage “from time to eternity” (chapter ) that permitted us to pass through that closure that goes “from time to time” (chapter ). The “flesh for rebirth” (chapter ), which suggests that the key question is that of the transfiguration of human beings rather than of the world or time, now brings us to ask again about the “supposed drama of atheist humanism” (chapter ). Not that we found we had to deny the necessary solidity of mankind without God, whether we were talking of the “death of God” or the “death of Christianity” (§). Nor that we needed to return to the disdain of “atheism as seen by the theologian,” which continues to refuse to admit that one could “see otherwise” (§). And again it is not that “the refusal of a ‘why’ ” makes us think that the believer relaxes on a “soft pillow” of certitude while the atheist remains always in uncertainty (§). It is rather, simply, that the “rebirth (of the flesh)” opens up this time onto another way of being “born to oneself ”— or, better, of accepting one’s self, first in terms of consciousness (§), next by the flesh (§), and finally in glory (§). §. Birth and Rebirth The phenomenology of the communion with saints in our Christian relation to the world (§), and the phenomenology of joy in the believer’s relation to time (§), now leads us to a phenomenology of birth, as a way of talking about our resurrected relation to mankind in general as well as to ourselves—as much through our own consciousness (§) as through our own bodies (§). For, we should remember, following in this the precept of Jesus to Nicodemus, we are not “born from on high” except in the way in which we are “born from below”—following an analogic, and not a dualist, reading of the body and the spirit (§): “What is born of the flesh 

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is flesh, and what is born of Spirit is spirit” (John :). The phenomenological characteristics of the act of birth therefore characterize de facto the act of rebirth, outside which, as I have argued above (see introduction), the term resurrection remains only an “empty word,” or a flatus vocis, lacking a veritable existential situation to describe. To be born is then, first of all, to be connected to one’s birth by consciousness, because no one has ever seen himself or herself being born (a time lag that no ultrasound scan or film can fill in). Access to my birth is therefore a detour, or rather a return, to a world “already there”—which I could naturally believe was there before me but which I have to recognize phenomenologically was born only along with me. To come into the world, or to be given birth, is not then to inscribe myself in a world, but literally, according to the French expression, to be “mis au monde” (put in the world), or to “bring a world into being.” This “world” is not “the world that is already there”; it is “the subjects who make it up, and who make up the constant already-being, who are there” (§b). I cannot have any direct access to my birth because no one has ever seen himself born; but I can ask, on the other hand, from those who gave birth to me or saw me born—my mother and father—for an attestation of the truth of this birth, at least to verify that origin. My birth “shows me that my origin does not show itself,” and it “forms me, as though it showed itself ” for those who were present then, and also because it determines what I am. Birth, seen in terms of consciousness, is thus paradoxical, in that it remains always (a) obscure or unclear from the point of view of the “being who is born” (myself ), and (b) clear from the point of view of those “giving birth” (my parents)—all of which will follow also in the act of “rebirth” or of “resurrection.” (a) From the point of view of the “being who is born” or of the engendered one, birth remains always obscure, or unclear. I have no perception of it, nor any memory of it. I may know very well that “I was born” but, consciously at least, my body retains no trace in perception of this birth (the gift of flesh and bones). One can say to me, or write a document that “bears witness,” that in such and such a place, or on such and such a date, I was born; but as for me, I have no memory (the gift that makes things present to me) of the event, other than through hearsay or basic knowledge: birth certificate, chatter and gossip, and photographic records. In short, the unclearness of my birth is such that I “lose myself ” (Husserl), because I am without sensible or emotional landmarks, at least when I rely on my consciousness. What is true of birth, in the obscurity of the act of being born for the one who is born, is true also of the mystery of the act of being reborn for the one who is reborn. I experience only the effects of my rebirth, or my resurrecA Flesh for Rebirth

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tion, and never the reason for it, nor the goal. It is not that my rebirth or my birth is without reason or goal, but that neither reasons nor goals (that is, my parents, my love for my neighbor, the search for blessedness or for God, etc.) are fully sufficient to justify it. Whether it was wished for or not, my birth (and rebirth) seems to me always something for which I cannot take responsibility, in the sense that “it happens to me impersonally, even before I could begin to take responsibility for it in the first person.” An inescapable connecting thread for the discussion of the resurrection (§), the reply that Jesus makes to Nicodemus is unambiguous on this point: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John :). Far from any suggestion of spiritualism, the dialogue does not drift here towards some kind of evanescence of the Holy Spirit, but on the contrary pursues an analogy between birth and resurrection. (“Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above’ ” [John :].) What is true of the mystery of rebirth from on high (resurrection) is also true for the obscurity of my birth below: for which I cannot take responsibility and which I register only through its effects (“you hear the sound of it”). The reasons for such births cannot be pinned down (“where it comes from”) and the ends cannot be seen (“where it goes”). But all this attests to the fact that nonetheless a birth happened, and happens again when I encounter God (“the wind blows where it chooses”). The effect of my (re)birth, or my way of relating to it, is what makes my (re)birth (existential)—at least as much as “those” who brought about my birth or rebirth (my parents or God). And so it was possible to say, in a way that was precisely prophetic, concerning the coming of the Savior, that “a child has been born for us” or that a son has been “given to us” (Isa :). And this indicates not the being-ness of the birth as such (§c) but rather the act by which the “fait accompli” of the birth in the past (he “has been born”) serves as a basis for our rebirth in the present: “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (John :). The double inversion of temporality (he “has been born” in the Old Testament [Isaiah] without, however, having been born yet in the New Testament [at Bethlehem]) and of causality (I judge the effect of his birth on me without being able to assign any kind of reason for my own birth)—this inversion serves as a touchstone that can clarify some of the obscurity surrounding my own birth as it surrounds my own resurrection. Thus, while I had believed, along with Nicodemus, that I was born “once and for all,” only to be then reborn a “second time,” I discover now that I was not truly “born” (in the past) until I could be reborn (in the present). And while I thought, again along with the wise Nicode

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mus, that I was made through some cause (the “womb of my mother”), so that one could work back from effect to cause, I find, on the contrary, that my self is “reborn,” once I have made out the meaning of my act of birth from my originary relation to my origin rather than from my origin itself, or from my birth certificate. My birthday doesn’t remind me of my birth as a natal event (the act of being born) except insofar as I celebrate it with others as the advent of a nativity (a way of relating to, and waiting for, my birth that I respond to as though I were waiting for the birth of another in myself ). In the famous words of Angelus Silesius: “If Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times, and not in thee thyself, then art thou lost eternally.” (b) From the point of view of those who engendered me (and not solely from that of the me who was engendered), the obscurity of “the being who is born” does give way to a certain clarity in “giving birth.” I need witnesses of my flesh, for my birth certificate, and also for my rebirth (baptism and resurrection). First of all they are needed because only a mother in the pains of her womb will be able to confirm that it was from her that I was taken. What “is born of the flesh is flesh” (John :), to the degree that only “another flesh” (my mother) can certify the fleshly origin of my being. Not that my mother could give reasons for my flesh or, even less, for my existence. (One would be no less fleshly for not having been wanted.) But only she can vouch, in a quasi-visceral fashion, for the fact that my being was begotten. Further, nobody knows better than she does that I was born, because it was through her that I was placed in the world, or phenomenologically “thrown” into the world (§a). When it comes to my name, my father can probably attest to and authenticate it. Of course a child will sometimes take the surname of his or her mother, especially in the acknowledged absence of the father; but it is nonetheless true that the custom—the name (family name) of the father being given to the child— doesn’t simply indicate a wearing away of a society that has to keep renewing itself. On the contrary, it confirms a line of descent in which the mother gives the flesh and the father the name. While the mother begets the flesh, the father proffers the word. This “clarity of giving birth” in the view of those who attest to it (the witnesses) can be claimed analogically for rebirth or resurrection. (i) First of all, because the corpus of the New Testament certifies its pertinence as far as birth is concerned. A mother in her visitation trembles at the joyousness of her flesh—“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke :). The father remains silent until he has discovered the name: “[Zechariah] asked for a writing tablet and A Flesh for Rebirth

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wrote, ‘His name is John.’ . . . Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God” (Luke : –). (ii) Next, this clarity can be claimed because birth serves as a paradigm of rebirth for those who undergo it. The Resurrected One himself looks for “witnesses” for his own metamorphosis—less to guarantee his metamorphosis than to assure us of our own. “What we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life— . . . we have seen it and testify to it” ( Jn :–). (iii) And finally, the clarity can be claimed because the tradition, at least in its Catholic version, consecrates the Church itself as the “mother,” almost the fleshly mother, of the faithful. Viscerally begotten by the ecclesiastical body that incorporates him or her, the believer traditionally receives his heritage from the Father (the summons or the name), and from the mother the flesh (the Church): “If we are born to possess the temporal heritage of a human father,” St. Augustine tells us authoritatively, in a commentary on Nicodemus, “we must be born from the womb of a fleshly mother [nascatur ex visceribus matris carnalis]; but to gain the eternal heritage of the Father who is God, we must be born of the womb of the Church [nascatur ex visceribus ecclesiae].” If it is then obscure for me as to how it is accomplished (impossible to capture in memory, impossible to determine its reason and authenticated only in its effects), the act of birth and of rebirth is nonetheless clear for those who are on the receiving end and who can confirm that it has taken place. The “one who is born,” begotten by suffering “flesh” (of the mother), and described verbally by a name that gives a meaning to him or her (from the father), bestows then on the “reborn” a spiritual conception by another mother (the Church) and gives a summons to the service of another Father (God himself ). In a way, this is to be conceived without conception— because on the one hand spiritual rebirth goes beyond a simple fleshly begetting, and on the other hand it goes beyond our capacity for comprehension. It is at the heart of the Church and does not depart from the mode of fleshly birth given by my parents, but it “re-gives” it to me, performed otherwise. “Completely naked before all the spectators, Brother Francis declares to his father, Bernadone: ‘Up to now I have called you father on earth; henceforth I can say with assurance, ‘Our Father, who is in heaven,’ because it is to him that I have given my wealth and my faith.” 

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But the facts are not so neat and tidy, albeit there is a certain clarity in “giving birth.” Irrespective of all theory, a practical question asked by Nicodemus remains, and it is not the least significant of his questions: “How can these things be?” (John :). Once the hypothesis of a return has been excluded, in the act of birth (“enter a second time into the mother’s womb” [Jn :]), as in rebirth (the myth of the Golden Age or the restoration of the unchanged Garden of Eden), the need to restore to life (“You must be born from above” [Jn :]) is not a guarantee of its realization. This, at least, is the case for Nicodemus—in contrast to the good thief: “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke : [§]). As far as rebirth is concerned, the gap between Nicodemus and the good thief in fact reproduces the gulf between possibility and realization. While one of them asks about the transcendental conditions of rebirth—“How can these things be?” (John : [Nicodemus])—the other implores for its realization, never mind the conditions: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke : [the good thief ]). The future, already effectuated in the second (“when you come”), is excluded by the hypothetical sense of the first (“How can these things be?”). The objectivity of my rebirth or resurrection is not in question here, I should like to emphasize: first of all because I am not the one in control of what happens, and second because, phenomenologically speaking, I make up my world not starting from the beings who are in it but through my own lived consciousness (§b). The great enigma, and the sole problem that I can resolve here, because it is also my problem, remains that of the relationship I have to the possibility of my rebirth, indeed to its actualization. Between Nicodemus (pure possibility without actualization) and the good thief (actualization independent of all possibility), we find the amazingly phenomenological attitude or appearance of Mary “mother of God,” or Theotokos (that is, possibility already become actualized). One can in fact also describe philosophically what is lived through in the consciousness of this “virgin” (young woman) of Nazareth (Luke :), at least as far as the revealed text gives it to us: “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ ” (Luke :). The possibility of the incarnation evidently hangs here on its actualization, and on the fiat—the “Let it be done”—of the one who receives the announcement. But the act of incarnation becomes in a way actualized after its acceptance by Mary—in the same way that the acceptance of our resurrection is even more so, through a “yes,” at the very moment of our own metamorphosis (§). The question “How can these things be?” (John :), asked by Nicodemus, is on a different level from that of Mary’s “How can this be?” (Luke :)— and marks here the gap between these two figures. A Flesh for Rebirth

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() The first question (from Nicodemus) placed in an interrogative present (“How can these things be?”) supposes in fact that they won’t be done, or at least that they can’t be done in the eyes of the wise man of Israel. The actualization of his own rebirth “from on high” considered, it is true, from the starting point of a “down below” toward which one does not return (“the womb of his mother”), seems marked rather by the stamp of doubt than by confidence in its realization. Surely it would be impossible to imagine, or at least difficult? This provokes the legitimate annoyance of Jesus at the position of the Pharisee who, far from not understanding and, in fact, precisely because he understands only too well, makes a show of not wanting to follow what has been said: “If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” (John :). () The second question (Mary’s), with a future-perfect implication this time, (“How can this be?”), supposes rather that the thing will take place, or even that it has already done so, in the eyes of the “virgin” of Nazareth. The “How can this be?” has already taken place (for Mary) in that it avoids the question of possibility in Nicodemus’s “How can these things be?” and establishes the future as achieved or accomplished action by God, in which temporality simply rolls out actualization. Mary, in the form of an anti-Nicodemus, takes as already realized the possibility of the incarnation in her, while the teacher of Israel takes his own rebirth to be, if not unthinkable, at least unrealizable: “The angel thus tells nothing to Mary that she has not already dreamed of and even hoped for. . . . The only news that he brings to her is that she is chosen among all others.” The questions posed by Nicodemus to Jesus therefore turn on the conditions for possibilities that could lie behind rebirth. “How can these things be?” he asks, because, knowing already (John :) the conditions of his birth from below, he does not believe in the actualization of his rebirth on high. Mary’s question to the angel Gabriel is concerned solely with the consequences after the fact. “How can this be?”—but, in any event, it will be—since (at the moment) “I am a virgin” (Luke :). Nicodemus enquires about the conditions for the possibilities of the realization of an impossibility (rebirth in vitam or resurrection post mortem), while Mary enquires solely about the modality of actualization of what she has already rendered possible in her question itself (the incarnation in her). That the impossible can be made possible by God is what Mary believes about the 

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incarnation. And it is what Nicodemus seems to deny, and yet still to understand, as far as the resurrection is concerned. “Nothing will be impossible with God” [ouk adunate¯isei para tou theou]: These words of the angel Gabriel come at the end of the episode of the Annunciation (Luke :). And Jesus takes up the theme again in front of his disciples who are overcome with their own disappointment (after the departure of the rich young man): “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Mt :). In order that my “rebirth” or “resurrection” be believable, in the terms that I deal with it in my consciousness, here then also we find the truly unbelievable. It is not solely, as we have seen, that Christ would be resurrected—such an actuality hardly has real meaning for me except insofar as it reaches also to my life as one of the resurrected (see introduction). What counts here is that God himself makes possible, and even realizable, what man legitimately holds to be impossible: the transformation of the blocked horizon of his immanence (chapter  / chapter ), the Assumption and the crossing of the closure of time by eternity (chapter  / chapter ), and the rebirth not in opposition to atheist humanism but by it and beyond it (chapter  / chapter ). The resurrection is not then simply of the Resurrected One, even though it is that in itself (in se), and even independently of us. It is also, at least for us ( pro nobis), but not uniquely for any one of us, the authentification of the faith through which we believe him to be resurrected. The truly Christian miracle is, rather than the miracle as such, that we are able to believe in the miracle. In the same way, the resurrection in its authentic meaning is what is given to us to believe in, at least as much as it is a resurrection in itself. “But these [signs] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah . . . and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John :). For me, that is above all what to be resurrected or reborn implies today: to believe in Christ’s resurrection as a given, or something addressed to me. It is not something I cause “to be” by my belief but nonetheless something that I let “show forth,” however incredible it may seem. “The final miracle,” according to JeanLuc Marion, “is above all that I believe in the miracle—the Resurrection in which all Revelation is realized. And nobody can receive this miraculous faith without already entering, with his flesh and blood, into the unique Resurrection.” §. The Fleshly Body and the Body Resurrected Is what is believed in the consciousness also believable according to the flesh? The question deserves to be put because we make up the world through A Flesh for Rebirth

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our bodies rather than through what we speak; we make it up through “dumb and descriptive experience” rather than through “our hermeneutic and verbal meanings.” And it is thus that our world becomes birth, sexuality, and death (§). The impossibility of believing, nowadays even more than previously, in the “resurrection of the body” (“I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting” [Apostles’ Creed]), derives very probably from the lack of a contemporary anthropology that would fit a body capable of being transformed. Certainly, as we have seen (§b), the period of the Fathers of the Church and of the Middle Ages understood the resurrection in the most literal way as “to come out” of “their graves” (John :–) and thus as the rising up of the biological body. The impossibility of believing this anymore—something we all agree on today when we read Gothic church portals in a strictly symbolic way—is what makes us now come back to the problem, not so much to deny it as to trace out the lineaments of a new conceptualization. The fleshly body and the resurrected body are certainly one and the same body, supposing that we understand by “flesh” not our bodily substance (Körper) but the manner in which we live and experience our bodies today, as living bodies (Leib) that influence us and by which we are influenced. “Thus purely in terms of perception, physical body and living body [Körper und Leib] are essentially different. . . . [Being related] ‘through the living body’ clearly does not mean merely (being related) ‘as a physical body’; rather the expression refers to the kinesthetic, to functioning as an ego [egologically] in this peculiar way, primarily through seeing, hearing, etc.; and of course other modes of the ego belong to this (for example, lifting, carrying, pushing and the like).” In other words, and borrowing some examples from Michel Henry this time, “climbing up that sloping lane, the pleasure of a cool drink in the summer, or the pleasure of a light breeze on the face” are all of the order of the flesh and not just of the body. That is because they affect me in my own way (my ego-logical way) of living through my body. It is a way that belongs to nobody except me, and never mind whether there is objectively a slope of the lane, or coolness of the drink, or a lightness of the breeze. My flesh is that through which I experience my own body phenomenologically, and not the simple biological and molecular substratum that can be cured, or repaired, or modified. Certainly, and this we have at least suggested above (§a), the unilateral transfer of the phenomenological flesh (Leib) into theological body (resurrectio carnis) is not something that can be taken as a matter of course and is even a kind of mistranslation. In theology, the “in-carnation” does not in the first place imply a “becoming flesh” (Verleiblichung) of mankind or of the Son of God; it is rather God’s “becoming man” (Menschwerung), or his 

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entry into the historical process. In this sense, the Christian incarnation is closer to a “becoming body” (Verkörperung) in its historical solidity than it is to a being taken into the flesh (Verleiblichung) as a kind of taking on of the self by the self. Moreover I should like to emphasize, and I have elsewhere dealt with the topic in the context of a more technical debate, there is “no flesh without the body,” either in phenomenology or in theology. If we insist too firmly on the incarnation as the subjective life-experience of the body (Verleiblichung), we are liable to forget its incorporation as the substance of the whole body (Verkörperung). And we then neglect “animality” as a “psychic” dimension of the Word incarnate (§a). “Thus,” Husserl says, “to elucidate how the flesh [Leib] becomes the physical body [Leibkörper] is a fundamental problem that we must think through from its basis.” Tertullian knew to recall all this in his theology, which precisely lends “body” to the angels so that they can appear (caro) and, on the other hand, gives a “body” to Christ so that he can be incarnate (corpus)—that is to say, so that he can be born and die. “Christ, along with the angels, appeared bodily [in carne processerint]. No angel [however] ever came down to be crucified, to know death, to be resurrected from death. The angels never had that kind of reason for taking on bodies [angelorum corporandum]. And that is why they didn’t become incarnate [non acceperit carmen] through the route of birth. As they had not come to die, neither had they come to be born.” In short, it will be evident, despite the complexity of this debate, that an insistence on the “resurrection of the flesh” (Leib) as a summing up of the lived experience of our bodies (or of the body’s openness and turning toward God—the body, that is, “according to the Holy Spirit” in St. Paul [§]) does not imply a denial of the reality of the substantial and material body (Körper) in the Christian incarnation. The incarnation of the Word is in fact all the more anti-Gnostic since it can hardly be suspected of “angel-ism”—unlike certain phenomenological interpretations of Christianity today. It remains the case, however, as we shall see, that a total identification of the biological body with the resurrected body, beyond the single case of the incarnation, leads to major aberrations. For if God incorporates himself, or “makes himself objective body” (Verkörperung) in his incarnation—“she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger” (Luke :)—he becomes in a way “more and more” “flesh as it is subjectively recognized” (Verleiblichung) in his resurrection: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John :). What was at stake along the way that Christ took was not simply showing people that he had a body like us—albeit that was what the argument with the Gnostics was about (incarnation)—but that he revealed “in A Flesh for Rebirth

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his flesh” a certain way of living through his body. It was in this way of living that he was resurrected and therefore that we shall be resurrected also. “They knew it was the Lord” (John :) on the shore of the lake or at the inn in Emmaus (Luke :–), not by his body as the Resurrected One, objectively wracked with hunger for earthly food, but by his subjective and corporally alive manner of being open to the Father as to mankind, of distributing the “fish” or breaking the “bread,” which becomes a true meal only through being shared. True corporality, today as yesterday, before as after death, is not in our corporal and biological substance—important though that is in our incorporation—but in the way we live, accept, and receive this in our own incarnation. The experience of our bodies is what makes our flesh. And our flesh is how we truly appear to ourselves and to other people. This lived experience is really what constitutes us today “in a truly ego-logical way” (Husserl) and, in Christianity, what will be resurrected tomorrow (“resurrection of the flesh”). “What resurrects in me, precisely what starts to resurrect after death itself, is my rebirth to others and to the world,” says Fr. Varillon, speaking more pastorally but nonetheless appropriately. “It is for man, in his body and soul, a new way of existing. Certainly in his body, because it is through the body that man has his relation to others and to the world.” In fact, if the apparitions of Christ when he was resurrected are considered simply from the point of view of the natural attitude, and so from the ordinary angle of biological and substantial corporality (Körper), they seem to owe more to the ghostly, or even to the fantastic, than to the hypothetical mystery of the resurrection. That is a mystery concerning which we often say nothing, because we don’t know what to say. Moreover, the disciples got things wrong, interpreting the body of flesh of Jesus as a simple molecular body. They did this during his life (e.g., when they saw him walking on the water) and after his death (e.g., on his apparition to the Eleven): “When they saw him walking on the lake, they thought it was a ghost [ phantasma] and cried out” (Mark :). Or again, “While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them. . . . They were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost [ pneuma, in the popular sense of the word ‘ghost’]” (Luke :–). And probably “there was” something or other—and “there still is”—to be “terrified at,” or to be “fearful at,” in the corporality of the Resurrected One. That is especially true if one sticks to the physical sense of the term (Körper) at a corporal level, and it applies whether we are talking about the “ghostly apparition of a dead body” (discerned in the stigmata) or the “reincarnation of the soul of a dead person” (discerned in his repeated invitations to follow him). We can see it simply from the details of his corporality. (In such 

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narratives the descriptive naïveté of children, as of phenomenologists, has much to teach us.) Taken simply as body, and in the absence of all flesh, the resurrected God is he who magically defies all the most ordinary laws that apply to the appearance of a phenomenon: (a) from the point of view of recognition, (b) in its manifestation, and (c) according to its solidity as much as its weight. (a) First of all, from the point of view of our recognition of the phenomenon—that is to say, the way in which we register it in (subjective fact): Christ is (i) perhaps not recognized when he ought to have been recognized (the disciples at Emmaus); (ii) perhaps he is recognized without it being possible to say to him that he has been recognized (on the shore of the lake). (i) Not recognized when he ought to have been recognized: First of all, he has different “appearances” or “forms” (morphe¯) in his apparitions, thereby defying the most ordinary law of the morphologic conservation of the identity: “After this he appeared in another form [en etera morphe¯] to two of them, as they were walking into the country [the road to Emmaus] (Mark :). It was possible to walk physically with him, having heard him speak, and having more or less parted from him three days before on the gallows at the scene of the crucifixion (Luke :), and still not recognize him. What, then, was this form “without form,” or his being with such “another form” that it was not recognized? How could their eyes be “kept from recognising him” (Luke :) if he had not become in some way or other altered beyond recognition, “unrecognizable”? (ii) On the other hand, he is recognized without it being possible to say to him that he has been recognized: It is thus that he appeared afterward to his disciples on the shore of the lake—as though it would have been necessary to say one recognized someone when one had always known him: “Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord” (John :). What is this strange game of hide-and-seek? Did he take on there yet another “other form,” visible only to certain eyes, just to give a good result to any inquiry that would bring things out into the open? Or did he keep the “same form” that they all recognized, so that they didn’t see why they had to keep quiet about it? These questions, which are often seen as simply childish, are, however, still there for us when we read the text. And if we don’t dare to put them, we give up on all hope of coherence or understanding. For, however unbelievable it may be, the resurrection will not become “credible” unless A Flesh for Rebirth

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it has to some extent become intelligible. To go beyond the natural viewpoint and substantial corporality—which nonetheless force us quite legitimately to put these questions—becomes necessary, then, not only for phenomenology but also for theology. (b) From the point of view of the phenomenon, then—that is to say, of him who appears (objective figure)—things are not any more instructive and are even frightening. His resurrected corporality this time defies the most ordinary (or transcendental) conditions for the appearance of a phenomenon: (i) the principle of the localization of the body in the opening up of the space in which it appears; (ii) the principle of noncontradiction, in the non-succession of his apparitions; and (iii) the principle of the permanence of the substance in the disappearance of the phenomenon that has appeared. (b. i) In fact the Resurrected One, in his body, first shows himself to different people in several different places. He is able to go from one end of Jerusalem to the other, even beyond, at a speed that defies all speed (and we mustn’t be shy about the naïve child, or the descriptive phenomenologist in all of us, who questions this—such questions help us through the problems). He appears to Mary Magdalene at the tomb; he shows himself on the country road (Emmaus), and to the Eleven at Jerusalem “as they were sitting at the table” (Mark :). The non-localization of his body transgresses the limits of “here” and “over there” and seems to pass through what are, for mankind, impassable barriers. (b. ii) But there is more and better—according to St. Paul this time, long after the death of Christ: “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died” ( Cor :). We touch the limits of logic here. It is quite acceptable that he should appear in different contexts—that is to say, in different places (the tomb, the road to Emmaus, Jerusalem) and to different people (Mary Magdalene, walkers, disciples). But to say that he appears at the same time and in the same way to more than five hundred brothers “at one time” seems to be ignoring ordinary precision and to be denying through and through the principle of noncontradiction. (b. iii) The mirage or the miracle in the manifestation of this phenomenon (depending on whether we stick to a philosophical or a theological point of view) reaches its height in the apparition–disappearance at the inn on the road to Emmaus. “Then their eyes were 

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opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight” (Luke :). The disciples who had been walking with this man, undertaking a journey where they felt the weight of moral and physical fatigue (a Sabbath road), see the body of their companion disappear at the moment when in fact it becomes clear to them who he is (“they recognized him”). As long as the corporality remains substantial here (Körper), we stay in the fairy story, even—to exaggerate a little—in Walt Disney. There is no permanence of substance in the disappearance of the phenomenon that has appeared. We might say that the techniques of the cinema have now accustomed us to the play of appearance and disappearance, from Charlie Chaplin to Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, or Fantômas. For us now, contemporaries accustomed to this virtual world, and even for Christians who are worried about the problem of the virtual, what can there be that is real in apparitions of the Resurrected One if, in response to the problems, we reduce all reality to the simple objective appearance of a body? What is this body, or this type of corporality, which appears to several people (non-localized), at the same time and in the same way (logical contradiction), only to disappear under their eyes (non-permanence of the phenomenon)? A true reflection on the sense of our own corporality, as on that of the corporality of Christ, seems here to be called for, at least to rethink a debate that theology has often neglected. (c) From the point of view of the solidity and weight of all physical phenomena—that is to say, the simple structure of all visible phenomena according to the laws of our world (e.g., in Newtonian physics)—resurrected corporality seems just to complete the fairytale. That is, if and only if, taking our heuristic path (§), we do not suspend our “natural attitude” or abandon our objective in order to enter into other types of phenomenality. The double principle of (i) the solidity, and (ii) the weight, of all bodies seems in fact to be denied in the corporality of the Resurrected One. (i) With respect to its solidity, his body “goes through walls,” as children like to emphasize. They identify this sometimes innocently, but not always quite daring to believe that they should, with certain of their favorite heroes (Harry Potter with his magic formulae, or Bilbot the Hobbit with his magic ring). “The doors of the house where the disciples had met being locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. . . . A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them” (John :, :). (ii) Moreover, after the apparition this time, he defied even the law of gravity, in an ascension that the child in all of us will identify as a A Flesh for Rebirth

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purely (celestial) “elevation.” He seems simply to have suspended the single criterion of the objectivity and materiality of all bodies, to make his own unique reality. “When he had said this, as they were walking, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts :). It is true that the sobriety of the text here cuts across the luxuriance of apocryphal accounts, but it is not enough to render things credible unless we have embarked on a serious consideration of the meaning of corporality. The question is not to know if our fleshly body would be capable today of defying all the laws of the solidity and weight of bodies—we don’t have experience of a flesh (proof of the self ) without body (biological support). The question we have to ask ourselves is simply what the apparition of a “flesh” (test of the self ), not totally reduced to its corporality (physical materiality), would actually be like. Not that the body of the resurrected Christ would be immaterial (which would imply angelism or Gnosticism) but simply that what is resurrected of him is his way of living this materiality or, in other words, his body, which is the fleshly and relational modality of his being (his divine being) in this world. And probably it is the same for us, that resurrection involves our way of living this materiality, or our bodies. The resurrection is therefore a raising and a metamorphosis not of our dead bodies (Körper) but of our way of being in the world and in time through our flesh (Leib). It is a weaving together here below, “silently” and “most intimately,” of one with one another (as in birth, sexuality, and death). To forget this, and not to try to think it through, is to push Christian corporality into a physical challenge to the solidity and weight of all bodies. But a challenge of that kind would be totally foreign to the sense of the Christian notion of “to resurrect,” and it would stop us from daring to think about, or even to envisage, resurrection. Not recognized when he should be recognized (by the disciples at Emmaus); recognized when he is not told that he has been recognized (in the apparition on the shore of the lake); appearing at the same time and in the same way to many people in different places (to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, to the Eleven at Jerusalem, to the disciples on the country road, and to five hundred brothers at one time); defying the law of the solidity of bodies by passing through walls (in the apparition to the Eleven and then to the Twelve); rising finally from the earth in a quasi-levitation against the force of gravity (at the ascension). The corporality of the Resurrected One in his appearances remains, at the least, incomprehensible as long as it is identified with our simple substantiality. However, Christ says of himself, and he makes himself known by it, that it is really his mortal body,

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with stigmata, that is resurrected (“Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach our your hand and put it in my side” [John :]). The resurrected body is what is woven with the texture of our own bodies: “Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke :). Is this to say that the body resurrected “in flesh” (sarx) and in bones (ostea) has in some way or other our molecular corporality, which would be as substantial as it is material (Körper)? Here we must be silent. Not because we give up speaking of the resurrection of the flesh but to signify the sense of an absence (of the body), in view of another mode of presence (of the flesh [or lived body]). We are presented with another way of being in the world (see chapter ), in time (see chapter ), and with other comparable facts of our own corporality (see chapter ). §. Withdrawal of the Body and Manifestation of the Flesh Although I take the challenge of his body, which makes us see his flesh (or lived body), seriously, I don’t want to suggest that during the life of Jesus (the walking on the water), or after his death (the apparition to the Cenacle), when they recognized the appearance of the resurrected flesh, the disciples were “simple” enough to see a “ghost” ( phantasma, Mark :) or a “spirit” ( pneuma, Luke :). To attribute such “simple-mindedness” to the apostles is first of all to belittle their confusion, to which the resurrected Christ himself responds (Luke :). And it is to suggest that it is just a matter of course to go from a natural attitude (objective vision of the body) to the phenomenological epoche¯, or bracketing off (lived experience of the body). What is true of phenomenology with regard to the reduction, or the bracketing off, of the objectivity of the body is even more true in theology for conversion, which needs the resurrection. We come back here to Meister Eckhart, who understood this, and who expressed it, when he described, in the visit of Jesus to Martha and Mary (Luke :–), a kind of prefiguration of our mode of being resurrected. Martha, in contrast to what is commonly believed (that is, that Mary alone would choose “the better part” [Lk :]), has in fact a kind of superiority over her sister Mary. She doesn’t stay there sitting (objectively) at the feet of the Savior and listening to him but lets herself be inhabited (subjectively) by him. She remains detached from him and is therefore capable of making her way elsewhere with him—in the kitchen(?)—because he is in her. When Martha asks her sister Mary for help, it is not that she jealously wants her to do something for her, but rather she invites her lovingly to flee that mode

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of objectivity in which the Resurrected One does not (and will not come) to live. “Martha says, ‘Lord, . . . tell her to help me then’ ” (Luke :). It is as though she were saying: My sister thinks that she can do what she likes as long as she is sitting next to you by way of consolation. Make her see that now, if it is true, and order her to get up and leave you.” Martha has in a sense understood the resurrection before the raising up of the resurrected Christ—before the women who come later, before Peter and John, before Mary Magdalene, and before those who come successively to the empty tomb. The resurrection is not simply the manifestation, or the appearance, of another mode of presence of the flesh. It is also a disqualification, or rather a withdrawal, of the substantiality of the body. This is what St. John discovers, the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (John :), on looking first into the interior of the tomb: “He bent down to look in and saw [blepei] the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in” (John :). Simon Peter, arriving next, goes in to confirm what has happened and makes a more clear-sighted observation. He “went into the tomb. He saw [theorei] the linen wrappings lying there and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself ” (John :–). What did they see, the one and the other? Nothing. Or rather nothing of the body, of the cadaver that for them was still the body’s beingness. It would have been proof, had it had been there, that that they were still looking only in the mode of corporal objectivity. The linen wrappings “lying there,” or the cloth that was “rolled up in a place by itself,” do not witness certainly to the reality of the resurrected Christ—others will believe his body “taken away” (John , ), or that they “stole him away while we were asleep” (Mt , ). But these things remain nonetheless the sole objective reality of the possibility of the resurrected Christ. Raised by the Father or stolen by men, his body (Körper) is no longer there, and that everyone not only believes but actually sees. What remains to be seen— that is to say, his flesh (Leib) as the mode of being of his body—is seen by nobody at this point, probably because they have never yet completely seen it, in the true sense of his incarnate being. We need to renounce objectivity, and therefore renounce what is simply the materiality of our bodies, to reach the resurrected Christ: “Flesh and blood [what we have called here the body (Körper)] cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” St. Paul reminds us ( Cor :). The objectivity of the disappearance (of the body) signals, then, the disappearance of objectivity (of all reified bodies in the resurrection). The world and time have not thus become “other” (see chapters –) except insofar as our own bodies, metamorphosed in the Word (see

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chapter ), were already “other”—fully flesh or inhabited by the lived experience of the transfigured body (see chapter ). “[You have] clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (Col :). The renewal of a fear of the body, when the flesh shows itself, is what the gardener first communicates to the grief-stricken Mary Magdalene. “Noli me tangere.” “Do not touch [hold on to] me” (John :). Not in the sense that the resurrected Christ would become untouchable but insofar as his flesh already can’t be grabbed hold of, like a being in the world, like a body among bodies, or a thing among things. Mary would like to “take him,” because someone has “carried him away” and she doesn’t know where “you have laid him” (“If you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” [John :]). The terms she uses are those for the objective seizing of the body (Körper). But Jesus insists that she does not touch him or “hold on to” him (apto¯) as long as he has “not yet ascended to the Father” (John :). The awaited ascension (ascending to the Father) does not signify simply a “raising of the body” in which he is hauled up (§) but the conversion of the “earthly body” (physical body) into a “heavenly body” (spiritual body) ( Cor : [§]) that, throughout the forty days of apparitions, the lived experience of the body is going to reveal to us as the resurrected Christ: “The fact that according to the Gospels the Resurrected One shows himself not as glorified, but still in the process of ascending, evokes the assimilation of the condition of life of someone who is baptized to that of Christ.” When the body withdraws and the flesh becomes manifest, it is then that he shows himself. It is not the disciples who by some kind of hallucination, a communal one, produce the phenomenon of the Christ resurrected. A religion such as Christianity, that refuses any reduction to a supposed “magic,” needs to be suspicious about a subjective or purely hallucinatory character for these apparitions of the resurrected. But being on guard against the “relativity” of the phenomenon of the resurrected Christ does not necessarily lead us to conclude in favor of its objectivity. That would be to misread the difference between an objective phenomenon and an objectal phenomenon—something that counts not just for phenomenology but also and above all for the corporality of the Resurrected One. It is one of the basic insights of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations (and of all contemporary philosophy), which theology cannot turn its back on, that all phenomena appear in and through one’s consciousness. “For me the world is nothing other than what exists and lives through my consciousness.” But the phenomenologist insists that the nonsolipsistic consciousness is

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always “consciousness of some thing,” “something of the real existence of this object.” In other words, and this is even more true for the accounts of the apparitions, there is an “objectness” of phenomena that cannot be reduced to a simple objectivity (though this does not imply that it is a narrative fabrication). Jesus appearing to “more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time” ( Cor :), it was to these “brothers and sisters” and thus to the disciples that he made himself seen. Far from showing himself to Pilate or Caiaphas objectively in the form of a proof, or materializing himself subjectively, like a ghost, to some of the faithful who were rendered inconsolable by his death, he waited rather for the personal conversion, in terms of faith, of those who would accept him because they recognized him and were “born” anew through him (§). “That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake” (John :). To say of “something” or rather of “someone”—for example, when I recognize the Lord as he appears to me—that he appears in my consciousness does not mean, phenomenologically speaking, that my consciousness produces this thing (which would imply absolute idealism) or that the thing exists in itself outside me who sees it (which would be objective realism). It signifies simply that there are in me things or, rather, apparitions (Erscheinungen) that become phenomena in the form of acts, and not beings. It implies that I recognize them in the way that I have of apprehending them rather than in their substantiality: “I frequently choose the most imprecise expression of objectness [Gegenstandlichkeit],” says Husserl, “because it is not simply a question of objects in the narrow sense, but also of the state of things, of characteristics, of real [reale] forms, or members of categories, etc.” What counts in the Resurrection is not the thing itself— that same “flesh” and those “bones,” which say simply that it is a question of him in “flesh and bones” (Luke :), or “in person” (Selbstgegenbenheit). What really counts is the way or the act by which the Resurrected One offers himself to me. It is not I who construct the phenomenon by which the resurrected appears to me, but rather he—the Resurrected One—who takes the initiative that “shows itself in itself`” or “is bright ( phainsestai)” becomes “manifest, visible in itself.” The initiative of his appearance guarantees me against my own fantasies, insomuch as I receive him there and when I don’t expect him: That is to say, the apparition comes from him rather than through me. Thus he is the “phenomenon”—exactly as phenomenon is defined (Being and Time §).

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The phenomenon, strictly speaking, “appeared first [ephane¯] to Mary Magdalene” (Mark :), and “after this he appeared [ephanero¯te¯] in another form to two of them” (Mark :), and “later he appeared [ephanero¯te¯] to the Eleven” (Mark :), and then “showed himself [ephane¯ro¯sen anton] to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias” (John :), etc. These are various modalities that make up the auto-manifestation of the self by the self ( phainesthai), the phenomenal mode of being of the resurrected Christ—and of all phenomena in general, if we suppose that, phenomenologically and in Christian terms, everything depends at once on the he who manifests himself and on the I who welcomes his apparition: “This life was revealed [ephanero¯te¯], and we have seen it, and testify to it” ( Jn :). In these kinestheses (or bodily movements), or in his specific way of appearing, the mode of being of his body and therefore of his flesh is, then, that by which the disciples recognize him in his resurrected being. And it is that by which we ourselves also recognize ourselves and are recognized by one another. The resurrection is thus also basically an incarnation, in that a faceless Christ or, perhaps better, Christ as we wish to see him allows himself to be recognized in his fleshly mode of being, so that we shall find him again in the image of our neighbor. Evidence for this comes from Christ’s address (i) to the disciples on the shore of the lake, (ii) to Thomas in the Cenacle, and (iii) to Mary Magdalene in the garden of the Holy Sepulcher. (i) First, to the disciples: The invitation to “come and have breakfast” (John :) is not that of a hungry body, which, after all, one could not really see as belonging to a resurrected being. It is that of flesh transfigured, which recalls that it was expressly made to give: Jesus came and “took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish” (John :). (See §.) (ii) Next, Thomas: He who wished to see the body: “the mark of the nails in his hands,” or the opening made by the sword “in his side” (John :). Thomas sees the flesh here, when the Lord precisely proposes to him to hold on to this first corporality: “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God’ ” (John :). (iii) Finally, Mary Magdalene: She “saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John :). She does not know until words are spoken to her and she is called by her name. And then it is not because of her (Mary in her being-ness) but because of him (the “Teacher” in his modality), who turns to her again and

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confides in her once more in his voice: “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher)” (John :). As he is (i) not hungry in the apparition on the shore of the lake, (ii) not yet with wounds healed in the apparition to Thomas, (iii) not simply disguised as a gardener in the apparition to Mary Magdalene, the corporality of the Resurrected One is not, or is no longer, of the order of the materiality of his body (§) but rather of the expressivity of his flesh (his lived body) (§). “God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear [emphane¯ genesthai],” St. Peter explains to the centurion Cornelius, “not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts : –). In his incarnation by his manner of being in the world through his body, the Word thus lived and prepared his resurrection as a full and total revelation of the mode of being of his flesh: by sharing once again through eating and drinking with them (the disciples), by making himself recognized in his fleshly texture as in his wounds (Thomas), and by calling by her name she who would, in another way, inherit his voice (Mary Magdalene). His “becoming body” (incarnation) thus anticipates his “becoming flesh” (resurrection)—which this time bears witness, and in an exemplary fashion, to the narrative of his bodily glory, or of his transfiguration: “And he was transfigured [metamorphoo¯] before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Mt :). The metamorphosis accomplishes here a “transformation,” not like a “cracking or breaking” of corporality (Bultmann [chapter ]), nor simply as an “incorporation” of the whole of the man in God (chapter ), but this time as an epiphany, full and entire, of “lived bodiliness.” Only an epiphany of this kind could have been equal to the “weight” of such a phenomenality. We wait then for the return of Christ at the end of time, for the accomplishment of time, when mankind will manifest the plenitude of this revealed glory (kabod) in his “[lived] body transfigured.” The Son of Man, having espoused to the end our flesh in movement (kinesthesis), to the point where he makes himself recognized as the Resurrected One, consecrates thus his corporality as the expressive and abiding site of his divinity: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col :).

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Conclusion Waiting for Bodies to Arise

“How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (John :). Nicodemus’s question has been called foolish or “derisory” (derisibilis), because “Christ was speaking of spiritual regeneration, and he [Nicodemus] is objecting in terms of carnal regeneration” (Thomas Aquinas). But, on the contrary, I believe it serves as a guide to all rebirths—spiritual (baptism) and bodily (the final resurrection). When all is said and done, we do not have any other experience of the body than that of our own flesh, and it is through that experience that we understand analogically the rebirth of the flesh. The word resurrection remains empty or a kind of flatus vocis as long as we attribute it directly to God and do not bring it back to what is mediated by mankind. God having been made man, it is then first with the means used by man that he speaks to human beings—albeit, to change mankind’s structure and to change language in him: “It is not by the spirit alone that the spirit speaks; it is body that speaks to body. Our body has ceased to become an obstacle, it becomes a means and a vehicle; it has ceased to be a veil, and it becomes an apprehension [a power of understanding].” We can ask, then, to conclude a journey whose course has inevitably led us to leave out certain things. (a) Can we enter from today into a sensitive and bodily experience of God? And (b) can we legitimately expect for tomorrow a quasi-bodily relation with those who “live already in the whole fullness of the deity” (the dead)?

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(a) A certain theological and spiritual tradition responds to the first question affirmatively (viz., Origen, Bonaventure, Ignatius Loyola). At least it does so by the doctrine of the “spiritual sense,” where it is more attentive to the impossibility of overcoming sense, or physicality, than to a Neoplatonic flight from the physical. “Man is fitted for contemplation, for vision, and for the embrace of husband and wife,” Bonaventure states, “all of which are still there when he possesses that spiritual sense [sensus spiritus] by which he sees the supreme beauty of Christ in the light of his splendor, understands Christ’s sovereign harmony in the light of the Word, and tastes his sovereign kindness in the light of his wisdom. . . . He tastes the flavor of Christ’s sovereignty in the light of the inspired Word in his heart and embraces his sovereign sweetness in the light of the Word incarnate—which lives in us corporally [inter nos habitantis corporaliter] and in our letting ourselves be touched, embraced, clasped by its passionate charity.” In other words, withdrawal from the body does not signify the negation of the body (§). It is precisely because the Resurrected One is no longer the materiality of his body (Körper), but is the lived experience of his body (Leib), that he can help us to see, understand, taste, feel, and touch in the flesh [or lived body] of others and through the [lived] bodies of others. Thus I can perceive God in a way that is partly through the senses today— not with “another sense” but with “these same senses,” converted in the light of the bodily resurrection of Christ. I see the beauty of God in my “brother”; I am brought to understand the “Word of God” through its message; I taste the kindness of God in the “Eucharist”; through “incense” God inspires my heart, and by “prayer” he brings me to touch him or embrace him lovingly. One would be wrong here to deplore all the sweetness that can be found in past devotion, where we would look for more conceptualization. Concepts do not negate devotion to the spiritual life, they are enriched by it. And what seems outmoded to us today can become fresh again, once we have begun to investigate the philosophical meaning of our Being-there, from the start of antiquity to the dawn of modernity. “The blend of the body, which goes astray on all sides, is so composed that there is also the thought of man. For it is exactly this that thinks in man: the flourishing of the body in each and every one of us.” (b) As to the bodily relationship that in the future we shall have with those who are now in the body of God (the departed), all depends on the way in which we live our own corporality today. It can be as openness to God ( pneuma in St. Paul’s writings) or as a closing in on ourselves (sarx [§]). The lived experience of our today will be the past of our tomorrow, so we can’t be satisfied solely with the hope of a glorious corporality

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that disparages our suffering corporality in the here and now. It is, on the contrary, the suffering body that determines the body in glory. Not that it needs to suffer in order to enter into glory, but that it needs a resurrection that assimilates our individual lived experience (the bodily pathos) with the resurrection of God, in what is a quasi-identification of our body with that of Christ: “[We are] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,” St. Paul tells us, “so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh” ( Co :). What can we expect from tomorrow if we go along with all this, starting from today? We can’t say it is nothing. That would be just to consecrate heaven, to pass over the earth (§) in an “immobilism” unworthy of God, as it would be of the community of his saints (§c). The invention of “purgatory” had at least the merit of holding out the possibility of “becoming one of the souls in God,” and we shouldn’t forget it, even if the unlikelihood of the concept has often been stated. We cannot really think any more, however, using contemporary philosophical concepts, of a beatitude that contains a “soul” waiting for its “body,” even though this sounded good in relation to the “need for the future resurrection of the body” (Bonaventure) or for the “recovery of bodies by souls” in the final resurrection (Thomas Aquinas). What was true for the Middle Ages is certainly true also for our present age, for it is true for all ages: metamorphosis of finitude as the resurrection of the body. But our language today has changed, because culture has modified its expression as much as it has modified what is basic and given. Philosophers after Nietzsche, in particular phenomenologists or existentialists, rarely speak in terms of the body (corpus) and the soul (anima) when it is a question of bodily substance (Körper) and of the lived experience of the body (Leib). A division between the spiritual and the bodily (as if a soul without a body could be conceived) is no longer acceptable, even in the supposed separation of body and soul at the moment of death. It traverses the modalities of the body itself, by which precisely, according to St. Paul, man recognizes himself (§: sarx–pneuma) and in which God himself allows us to see him, in his apparitions, as the Resurrected One (§). If I am no longer a lonely soul, the orphan of my body, perhaps then I can after all go in my flesh to the Father after death: Like Christ himself, by the sufferings of my own body I shall be recognized (§). What I hope, in this “waiting of the flesh,” is not that my soul will refind its body but that my flesh [my lived body] will make common cause along with the flesh of others, so that together we shall finally constitute the fleshly body of the Church (“triumphant”) promised by God at the

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end of time. “This resurrection starts from death,” François Varillon says, leading us into a philosophical exegesis. “There is no waiting room where the soul, separated from the body, awaits the end of the world to recuperate its body. But my soul will not be complete until the end of time, since I am not truly myself unless in the company of all my brothers.” And so Origen says, “Does not the Savior wish to receive his perfect glory without you [sine te]: that is to say, without his people who are his body and its limbs. For he wishes to live himself in this body of his Church and in these limbs of his people” (See §.) To be incarnate in a body is then first of all to live in it. It is so for man in the “ordeal” of the lived experience of his flesh, which is always one of pathos; and it is so for God in his “becoming man,” where his humanodivine history reveals itself. To be resurrected with a body (or in the flesh) is above all to metamorphose. It is so for man because he carries indestructibly within him the “traces of his finitude” (immanence and temporality), and it is so for God because only he possesses the strength (the Holy Spirit) to raise the body. What follows a phenomenology of suffering and death is a possible rereading of the passion (Le Passeur de Gethsémani). And from a phenomenology of birth we can now draw a (re)interpretation of resurrection (The Metamorphosis of Finitude). A phenomenology of childhood, as the most distinctive part of our existence, will perhaps one day give us the keys of the Kingdom: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Luke :). Perhaps, however, a descriptive analysis of love might have precedence over all other competitors, in that the most profound words of God to man, in the mystery of the Eucharist, are also those that man and woman say one to the other in their deepest intimacy: “Accipite, hoc est corpus meum”—“Take, this is my body” (Mark :). It cannot be that “our faith has been in vain” ( Co :) or that our impulse that leads us toward the other (love) has been rendered vain. We come to believe in the “resurrection of the body” not solely by accepting the doctrine but also by going along with it in all our being—by sticking with this “impossibility” that comes from him only who is “Master of the possible”: “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Mt : [see §]). A single verse by St. Paul sums up in this sense the reasoning that is here proposed, translated, however, into terms of actuality, or “in a way that answers to the needs of our time” (John XXIII): “He saved us through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus :). No one could set this up into objective certitude—because doubt belongs to the way of faith, as it does to the act of accepting it.

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Nonetheless, we try hard with God to believe, and even to make ourselves be taken in by it, in the wager of life over death, in metamorphosis rather than degeneration: “If a man doomed to die can stay alive through happiness,” Franz Kafka, the author of another Metamorphosis, confided to his fiancée, Milena, “well, then, I shall stay alive.”

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Notes

Preface: The Beaune Altarpiece, or “The Germination of the Resurrected” . Ontic denotes the matters of actual physical substance, which are the objects of study for physical science. Ontological denotes what is metaphysical and concerned with Being. (Translator’s note.) . For the altarpiece, apart from the indispensable trip to the heart of Burgundy (Hospices de Beaune), I would recommend, both for its reproductions and for its text, the very beautiful book by E. Gondinet-Wallstein, Un retable pour l’Au-delà: Le Jugement dernier de Rogier Van der Weyden (Paris: Mame, ). I should like to thank the author for his support in my efforts and hope that my readers will themselves go to the text. In connection with this present essay I recommend in particular the sections on “la germination des ressuscités” (–, on the earth as crust of finitude) and the “départage des cœurs” (–, on the resurrection of a woman turned toward God but coming out of the earth on the side of hell). . I have transposed here to the mystery of the resurrection what Augustine says on the subject of the Trinity: “When the question is asked, What three? human language labors altogether under great poverty of speech. The answer, however, is given, three ‘persons’ [tres personae], not that it might be [completely] spoken, but that it might not be left unspoken” (De Trinitate .., my italics). Introduction: To Be Transformed . There is no direct translation of the Greek terms. (Biblical translations cited here are from the NRSV.) A semantic analysis of the Greek shows clearly the equivalence of a Christian “metamorphosis” in the so-called episode of the transfiguration (Mt :) and the “transformation” or the “metamorphosis” of our own resurrection ( Cor :). “Jesus is resurrected bodily. This affirmation . . . makes 

definite what is implicit . . . namely, that the being of Jesus is transformed in its totality.” “Résurrection” in Dictionnaire du Nouveau Testament (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ), . . Karl Barth, Introduction à la théologie évangelique, septième leçon (Requisition) (Geneva: Labor et Fides, ), . . Paris: Éditions du Cerf, . (A “passeur” is a guide, ferryman, smuggler, or courier—associated, for example, with guides or couriers who helped Jewish families pass across into unoccupied territories during the Second World War. In view of the difficulty of finding a concise translation, it has been decided to cite the title in French throughout this book. The full title would be roughly: The Guide to Gethsemane, Anguish, Suffering and Death: An Existential and Phenomenological Reading. Translator’s note.) . See Le Passeur de Gethsémani, . Bearing in mind the conjunction death– resurrection, paradigm and kerygma of all affirmations of the faith, it will be understood that the present work (The Metamorphosis of Finitude) is intended as a second volume in the “triptych” that starts with Le Passeur de Gethsémani, although both books can of course be read independently. . See Le Passeur de Gethsémani, . . Ibid., –: “Du dessaisissement de soi à l’entrée dans la chair.” . The third volume following Le Passeur de Gethsémani (anguish, suffering, and death [the passion]) and The Metamorphosis of Finitude (birth and glory of the flesh [the resurrection]) centers on the gift of the body (the Eucharist) as act of love and conjugality in the corporal abandonment of the self to the other (phenomenology of love). See Les Noces de l’Agneau: Essai philosophique sur le corps et l’eucharistie (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), forthcoming in English translation under the title The Nuptials of the Lamb. . Tertullian, De carne Christi, . and .. See also my article “Une analytique de l’incarnation: le De carne Christi de Tertullien” in Incarnation: Actes du colloque Enrico Castelli (Rome, ), ed. Marco M. Olivetti (Milan: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, ), – (shorter version), or in La Gnose, une question philosophique, ed. N. Depraz and J.-F. Marquet (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), – (longer version). Tertullian’s formulations are unique in the history of theology. I discuss them with J. Alexandre, who definitively shows their originality, in “L’étonnement chez Tertullien: Une catégorie fondamentale de la connaissance et de la foi,” Revue des études augustiniennes, no.  (): – (see particularly : “le choix de décrire l’homme au moment de sa naissance”). . Le Passeur de Gethsémani,  (and back cover). For Heidegger’s formulation derived from the “Bohemian peasant,” see Being and Time (), trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (New York: HarperPerennial / Modern Thought, ), §, S. . . M. Heidegger, Being and Time §, S. . Heidegger’s neglect of a searching analytic of birth is evidently not accidental. (a) From a formal point of view it can be seen in the formula that marks his avoidance of the analytic in question: “Not only has Being-towards-the-beginning remained unnoticed [in reality this 

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remains so throughout Heidegger’s book]; but so too, and above all, has the way in which Dasein stretches along between birth and death” (Being and Time, §, S. ). (b) From the point of view of content it is a question of the “failure of the flesh” in Being and Time and the “impossible taking in hand of birth” of a Dasein so concerned about its future (death) that it becomes oblivious to its past (birth). For the first of these themes see J. Greisch, “Le phénomène de la chair: Un ratage de Sein und Zeit,” in Dimensions de l’exister, ed. G. Florival (Louvain-la-Neuve: Études d’anthropologie philosophique), ), – (esp. ). For the second theme, see C. Romano, L’Événement et le Monde (Paris: PUF, ), – (§): “Le sens événemential de la naissance.” . An analogic reading of the dialogue with Nicodemus is often invoked but rarely performed. See, for example, Thomas Aquinas (citing Haymo) in Catena aurea in Quatuor Evangelia: Expositio in Ioannem .: “The Lord looks for a comparison in fleshly birth and says, ‘What is born of the flesh is flesh, etc.’ And thus as the flesh procreates the flesh, so the spirit gives birth to the spirit [sicut enim caro carnem procreat, ita quoque spiritus spiritum parit].” . K. Rahner, Traité fondamental de la foi (Paris: Centurion, ), . For the charge of anthropological reductivism made by H. Urs von Balthasar to K. Rahner, see L’amour seul est digne de foi (Paris: Audier Montaigne, ), –: “la réduction anthropologique.” Far from reducing God to man, Karl Rahner had in reality no other ambition than to expose the strange capacity of the divine to reduce itself by choice to the limits of the human: “To be able to welcome God without once again, in this welcome, cutting him down to our finitude, it is necessary that this welcome is brought to us by God himself ” (). There is a lucid interpretation of this debate in Le Dieu Trinité dans l’histoire: Le différend théologique Balthasar—Rahner, by V. Holzer (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), : “If Rahner expresses a limitation of God from man’s point of view, it is not thought of as a limitation of God as made and understood by man, but a limit of himself by God as offered to man.” . Ordinaire de la messe, Prière eucharistique, no. . (See Phil :: “Being born in human likeness. And being found in human form.”) . K. Rahner, Traité fondamental de la foi, . . J.-P. Sartre, La Nausée (Paris: Gallimard, ), – (“Six o’clock in the evening”), – (my italics). . M. Heidegger, “Temporality as the Ontological Meaning of Care,” in Being and Time, §, S. . . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, q. , a. , ad . . Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –. . J.-L. Marion. L’Idole et la distance () (Paris: Biblio-Essais, ), . . M. Heidegger, “L’époque des conceptions du monde,” Chemins qui ne mènent nulle part (Paris: Gallimard, ), , n. . . I do not wish to reopen here the unproductive debate on the comparative merits of French or German methods in theology. I aim simply to point out to German theologians certain changes in French philosophy that have not yet passed into theology. It is a formal point, and I do not mean to disparage thereby the Notes to pages –

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rich tradition of German theology (Bultmann, Moltmann, Pannenberg, Kasper, Rahner, Balthasar)—which is itself the progeny of Barthian Dogmatics following in its time Hegel’s Science of Logic. My further point is directed toward that French practice of theology that calls itself “hermeneutic.” I wish simply to indicate that the link between hermeneutics and phenomenology cannot be taken for granted in French phenomenology and that in relying too much on one approach (textual hermeneutics) one risks losing what is most productive in the other (descriptive phenomenology). See the interesting chapter by D. Janicaud, “Articulations/désarticulations,” in La Phénoménologie éclatée (Combas: Éditions de l’Éclat, ), –. We can add finally the appeal launched by Jean-Luc Marion to theologians (De surcroît [Paris: PUF, ], ): “Why do theologians not try, or try so rarely, to read the events of revelation found in the holy scriptures phenomenologically, in particular those of the New Testament, rather than always privileging ontic, historicist, or semiotic versions of hermeneutics?” Part I Introduction . Creed of Constantinople (), in Symboles et définitions de la foi catholique, ed. H. Danzinger (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), . “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virginie, et homo factus est” (is incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary and is made man). . This is based on the analysis of M. Heidegger in Being and Time. See § for the determining of finitude as a positive limit starting from “Temporality as the Ontological Meaning of Care” (in particular S. ), and § for the definition of Dasein as “between” the two, caught between birth and death (in particular S. ). As for the historical genealogy of finitude as such and its treatment in contemporary philosophy, see J. Greisch, “De l’analytique de la finitude à l’herméneutique,” L’Arbre de vie et l’Arbre du savoir (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), –. . See Immanuel Kant, “On the miscarriage of all philosophical trials in theodicy,” trans. George di Giovanni, vol.  of Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), . We must be grateful to A. Renault for having shown how Kant, long before Heidegger, was the first true initiator of an “analytic of the structures of finitude” (not that the latter would deny his debt): “Contemporary thought finds its starting point in the ‘Kantian’ gesture of an anti-metaphysical recognition of a radical finitude of our knowledge and of our power in relation to the real” Kant aujourd’hui (Paris: Aubier, ), . . See M. Heidegger, “Le problème de la finitude dans l’homme et la métaphysique du Dasein,” Kant et le problème de la métaphysique (Paris: Gallimard, ), –. . M. Foucault, “L’analytique de la finitude,” Les Mots et les Choses (Paris: Gallimard, ), –. . Impassable Immanence . See M. Blondel, “Le point de départ de la recherche philosophique,” Annales de philosophie chrétienne (January–June ), reprinted in Œuvres complètes, by 

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M. Blondel (Paris: PUF, ), : (“En passer par notre être”), and “Lettre sur les exigences de la philosophie dans l’étude du problème religieux” (so-called “Lettre sur l’apologétique”), Annales de philosophie chrétienne (January–February ), reprinted in Œuvres complètes, :– (esp. ). Blondel had already affirmed his position in Mémoire à Monsieur Biel (Paris: CERP, , –: “The essential thing is to show the possibility and necessity for man of the supernatural, while asserting its independence and inaccessibility.” . It would not be possible or relevant here to take up all that has been published on “pure nature.” I would simply repeat that, while it is nonvalid dogmatically, heuristically it is our first self-experience. For the basic debate see H. de Lubac, Le Mystère du surnaturel (), Œuvres complètes (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), :– ([on Baius]: “All the order of grace is thus for this theologian nothing but a means at the command of human nature and of its acts; it was a logically necessary complement to the creation of the sprit, not a privileged condition elevating the spirit above its natural condition” [–]); and :– ([on Cajetan and Denys le Chartreux]: “We should not attribute the paternity of the theory that conceives of human nature as ‘a closed self-sufficient system’ to either Suarez or Molina, as has often been done. Cajetan is, if not the initiator, at least the patron and guarantor” []). As for the dispute between Blondel, Cajetan, and the Thomists, see the instructive article by J.-H. Nicolas which exceptionally does not take Blondel’s solution as read (), while returning nonetheless to an openness that is unilaterally Thomist (–). Nicolas, “Les rapports entre la nature et le surnaturel dans les débats contemporains,” Revue thomiste  (): –. I follow here the “correct” position of J.-Y. Lacoste, who maintains both the possibility of pure immanence from a philosophical point of view and a necessary openness to the theological point of view. See also J.-Y. Lacoste, “Le désir et l’inexigible: Pour Henri de Lubac,” Le Monde et l’Absence d’œuvre (Paris: PUF, ), –: “The fact of our mondanity is first of all that of an atheism, of an existence for which only death holds the last word; and within the limits of the world, no consistent protest can stand against the eschatological rights of death. . . . It is paradoxical to say so, but we do no violence to the theoretical concern of ‘de Lubac.’ He did not try to describe the ‘actual conditions of this existence’; the theological concept brought back into his work between  and  [le désir naturel du surnaturel] leaves intact the Heideggerian hermeneutics of facticity” (my italics). . Le Tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (Combas: Éditions de l’Éclat, ),  (my italics). . L. Brunschvicg, “Compte rendu de L’Action de Maurice Blondel,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale (November ), reprinted in Œuvres complètes, by M. Blondel, :. . É. Boutroux, “Soutenance de thèse de M. Blondel,” in Œuvres complètes, by M. Blondel, :. . R. Descartes, “Meditation III,” Descartes’ Meditations, ed. D. B. Manley and Charles S. Taylor, trans. John Veitch (), College of Liberal Arts, Wright State University, http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/, para.  (my italics). Notes to pages –

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. See K. Rahner, “Image de Dieu,” in Petit dictionnnaire de théologie catholique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil: ), . “Image of God: mankind remains as such even after original sin, because man remains liable to be called for questioning, and he is still actually called by God.” The official formulation is found in the Catéchisme de l’Église catholique (Paris: Mame-Plon, ), – (no. ): The divine image is “altered in man by sin” but is not thus destroyed. . Descartes, “Meditation III,” para. . . See M. Blondel, “Lettre sur l’apologétique,” . . G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, ),  (chap. , “Le plan d’immanence”; my italics). . M. Heidegger, Kant et le problème de la métaphysique (Paris: Gallimard, ),  (§ , “Le problème d’une détermination possible de la finitude dans l’homme”). Cited and analyzed in my Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –. . M. Heidegger, Being and Time, § S.. For translation and commentary on this key passage to which I am much indebted, see F. Dastur, Heidegger et la question du temps (Paris: PUF, ), –. Also J. Greisch, Ontologie et temporalité (Paris: PUF, ),  (from which I have taken the insufficiency of Hegelianism as critique of defective infinity overcoming the finite). . See E. Jüngel, Dieu mystère du monde (; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), : (on the possibility of experiencing one’s being and nonbeing without coming to speak of God) and : (God more than necessary); E. Levinas, Totalité et infini (; Paris: Biblio-Essais, ), – (the Desire for the invisible distinguished from the need for it, but not, of course, applied to the Word incarnate), . . See E. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, trans. T. Kersten (; Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, ), xviii; M. Heidegger, “L’être essential d’un fondement ou raison,” Questions I (Paris: Gallimard, ), –. On this phenomenological revision of the concepts of transcendence and immanence, and on the sense of “transcendence in immanence,” see the argument in J.-L. Marion, Étant donné (Paris: PUF, ), – (“Les deux types d’immanence”). . See J.-L. Marion, “Lettre postface,” in L’Action, une dialectique du salut: Colloque du centenaire Aix-en-Provence, mars , ed. M.-J. Coutagne (Paris: Beauchesne, ), : “The hypothesis that I propose is as follows: The method of immanence, in order to progress further today, must rest on a method of description of phenomena specific to Christianity” (my italics). . . For J.-L. Marion, see, in relation to M. Blondel and the “description of phenomena specific to Christianity, postface to L’Action, ed. M.-J. Coutagne, –; and, in relation to these “phenomena specific to Christianity” as exemplary theological types of the saturated phenomena from a philosophical aspect, the article “Réaliser la présence réelle,” La Maison Dieu, no.  (“L’adoration eucharistique: Colloque de Lourdes, juin ”), –: “We have here (in the adoration of the Eucharist) a saturated phenomenon. . . . In the case of the real presence, we are exactly in front of it. This is even an exemplary case” (). . For Vatican II, see Gaudium et Spes, in Les Seize Documents conciliares (Montréal–Paris: Fides, 

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), – (§, no. ): “He worked with the hands of a man. He thought with the intelligence of a man. He had the will of a man. He loved with the heart of a man.” . For M. Henry, I cite his recent work, Incarnation: Une philosophie de la chair (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ),  (my italics). I deal with this point, the thematic of the extra-ordinary as opposed to ordinary flesh in Christianity, at greater length in “Y a-t-il un corps sans chair?” in Phénoménologie et christianisme chez Michel Henry, ed. Ph. Capelle (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), – and – (my reply to M. Henry). . M. Heidegger, Ga , . Cited in “Les limites de la chair,” by J. Greisch, in Incarnation, ed. Marco M. Olivetti (Milan: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, ), . I return later to the Heideggerian distinction between facticity on the one hand (the modes of Being of Dasein) and finitude on the other (the limitation of our existence). For an exegesis of these terms, see J. Greisch, L’Arbre de vie et l’Arbre du savoir, – (“L’herméneutique de la vie facticielle” [Heidegger]). . J. Greisch, “Les limites de la chair,” in Incarnation, ed. Marco M. Olivetti (Milan: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, ), . . See the excellent meditation of J.-L. Marion on this passage concerning the disciples at Emmaus, which concentrates on the “distance” of man from God in the disappearance of Christ in the eyes of the disciples, rather than on their common “proximity” on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus (J.-L. Marion, “Le don d’une présence,” Prolégomènes à la charité [Paris: Éditions de la Différence, ], – [“Luc: bénédiction”]). . Bonaventure, Les Six Jours de la création . (Paris: Desclée-Éditions du Cerf, ), . For what makes the difference a complementarity rather than an opposition, along with a discussion of saturation of the phenomenon, see my articles “Phénoménologie de l’extraordinaire: autour d’Étant donné (J.-L. Marion),” Philosophie, no.  [June ]: –) and “Larvatus pro Deo: phénoménologie et théologie chez Jean-Luc Marion,” in Gregorianum (January ). For the basic philosophical argument, Denys-Bonaventure, see J.-L. Marion, “La distance du Requisit et le discours du louange: Denys” in L’Idole et la Distance (Paris: BiblioEssais, ), – (in particular “l’éminence impensable,” –); and my “L’opération d’une réduction” in Saint Bonaventure et l’entrée de Dieu en théologie (Paris: Vrin, ), – (in particular – [“l’hypercognoscibilité divine”] and – [“l’ontologie de la pauvreté”]). . From Time to Time . F. Dastur, Heidegger et la question du temps (Paris: PUF, ), . . B. von Spinoza, The Ethics (; trans. R. H. M. Elwes, ), part , prop. :. . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, q. , a.  (“The Eternity of God”), and q.a.  ad  (“Whether eternity differs from time”). . M. Heidegger, “Le concept de temps” (), –. Public lecture given in July  before the Theological Society of Marburg. A text that, according to commentators, “gives at once the first short version, already very complex, of his Notes to pages –

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major work, Being and Time, published three years later (), and as it were a sample of the essential approach” (note added to text, –). . Augustine, Confessions ... . Petitio principii: Fallacious reasoning that takes for granted the premises that depend on the conclusion. (Translator’s note.) . M. Heidegger, “Le concept de temps,” . . J.-Y. Lacoste, Note sur le temps (Paris: PUF, ),  (my italics). . Augustine, Confessions .. and ... . Flatus vocis: Mere wind. (Translator’s note.) . I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (), trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn, SS (b, c). . The classic thesis of the eternal God creating the temporal at the same time as the world is formulated first by Augustine and is ordinarily taken up in dogmatic writings on the creation. See Augustine, Confessions, ..: “Time did not exist before heaven and earth [ante caelum et terram nullum erat temps].” . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia q.a. co. The conceptual difficulties here indicate the necessity of limiting to an act of faith belief in a beginning of the world that starts from God. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen :). As for the distinction between creation and nature, it is found more clearly affirmed in Bonaventure than in Aquinas. It remains nonetheless valid for the tradition of Aquinas concerning the question of the “beginning of the world.” . O. Boulnois, ed., La Puissance et son ombre. De Pierre Lombard à Luther (Paris: Audier, ), – (introduction). . See the impressive panegyric traced by B. Sesboüé in Jésus-Christ l’unique médiateur (Paris: Desclée), – (“Un sombre florilège,” and esp. – [ex. de Bourdaloue]). . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia q. pr.: “After treating of the procession of divine persons, we must consider the procession of creatures from God [de processione creaturarum a Deo].” . See Irenaeus, Contra haereses, ..: “When the Word of God becomes flesh . . . , he shows the image in all its truth, having himself become what is his image, and he establishes the resemblance in a stable way.” . D. Bonhoeffer, Création et chute (lectures at the university of Berlin, winter semester, –) (Paris: Petite bibliothèque protestante, ), . This is a perspective that we find principally in the tradition of Tertullian. See De resurrectione mortuorum .: “Refuted then by the argument that shows God as the author of the flesh and Christ as redeemer of the flesh, [the heretics] were also henceforth convinced on the problem of the resurrection of the flesh, a question that of course goes along with that of God as the author of the flesh and Christ as the redeemer of the flesh.” . Augustine, Confessions ... . Ibid.

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Notes to pages –

. See T. Bochet, “Variations contemporaines sur un thème augustinien: L’énigme du temps,” Recherches de sciences religieuses (January–March ): –  (which picks up and criticizes the multiple interpretations of P. Ricœur, J.-T. Dessanti, Cl. Romano . . . ). . Augustine, Confessions ... I translate distensio as “extension” to avoid the technical aspect of the formula. . Augustine, Confessions ... . Ibid., ... My argument is based here on Heidegger’s analysis in Being and Time, §, S – (“Within-time-ness and the Genesis of the Ordinary Conception of Time”). . See Cl. Romano, L’Événement et le temps (Paris: PUF, ), –. “It is as though, in the eyes of St. Augustine, to be as quick as possible and to be present meant the same thing” (). . See Heidegger, “The Concept of Time,” , and Being and Time, §. . See my Le Passeur de Gethsémani, n. . Ibid., . “Grafted onto biological death, the anguish of sin—and thus also, quite simply, sin—takes its place here in the real world, like an army that is conquering a territory that has up to now remained neutral, and without ever being the sole cause of the battle.” . Being and Time, §, S. . . Being and Time, note  to div. , chapter . See on this question the clarification by A. Larivée and A. Leduc in “Saint Paul, Augustin, et Aristote comme sources gréco-chrétiennes du souci chez Heidegger: Élucidation d’un passage d’Etre et Temps (§, n. ),” Philosophie  (March ), –. . Heidegger, Einleitung in die Phänomenologie der Religion (–), Ga, t. , p. , cited and translated in “Saint Paul, Augustin, et Aristote” by A. Larivée and A. Leduc, . . Augustine, Confessions ... For this double interpretation of St. Paul and St. Augustine in Heidegger (lectures, winter semester, – [Paul, Letters to the Galatians and Thessalonians] and summer semester  [Augustine, Confessions ]), see the two chapters devoted to them by J. Greisch in L’Arbre de vie et l’arbre de savoir, – and –. Also see the section devoted to them in “Heidegger et la phénoménologie de la religion,” Transversalités (revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris)  (Oct–Dec ): –. As for the general sense of being “on the alert” as a way of being Christian, see in Le Passeur de Gethsémani the chapter that is devoted to the subject and that forms the basis of the discussion here, –. . Heidegger, Einleitung in die Phänomenologie der Religion (–), Ga , p. . Cited and translated in “Saint Paul, Augustin, et Aristote” by A. Larivée and A. Leduc, . . J. Griesch, L’Arbre de vie et l’Arbre du savoir, . (See the definitions of and distinctions between finitude and inauthenticity, –.) . Augustine, Confessions ...

Notes to pages –

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. Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (–) Ga , p.  Cited and translated by L. Larivée and A. Leduc, in “Saint Paul, Augustin, et Aristote,” n. . L. Larivée and A. Leduc, . See on this point the instructive chapter of Ph. Capelle, Philosophie et théologie dans la pensée de Martin Heidegger (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), –. “In Heidegger the temporality of the intentio once disengaged from its connection with eternity is that of the extreme possibility of its Being-there: its ‘being for death.’ Thus what is deployed by Augustine under two irreducible connections (finitude–achievement and sin–salvation) is assimilated under only one (in-authentic)” (). . See J. Greisch, L’Arbre de vie et l’Arbre du savoir, . (Existential atheism not incompatible with the elaboration of a philosophy of religion.) This question is debated fully in the review Transversalités, in the number dedicated to the first two volumes of Buisson ardent by J. Greisch (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ). See Transversalités (revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris)  (October– December ),  (problem of the status of a “philosophy inspired by Christian philosophy” [Ph. Capelle]),  (a touch of “admirable irenics and ecumenicism” [J.-L. Vieillard-Baron]), ,  (replies by Greisch). . Heidegger, “The Concept of Time,”  (my italics). . Ibid., . A plea taken up in a note in Being and Time: “If God’s eternity can be ‘construed’ philosophically, then it may be understood only as a more primordial temporality which is ‘infinite.’ Whether the way afforded by the via negationis et eminentiae is a possible one, remains to be seen” (§, S. , note xiii). . Is There a Drama of Atheist Humanism? . H. de Lubac, Le Drame de l’humanisme athée (; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, . Avant-propos, –. To read such a vigorous condemnation of atheism by the writer who has best understood it in his time seems at first sight paradoxical—to which it is perhaps best to reply that he could probably not have done otherwise in his period. See H. de Lubac (post–Vatican II), “Une double tâche proposée au théologien par Gaudium et Spes,” Théologie d’aujourd’hui et de demain (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), –: “Dialogue, confrontation, combat: three words that, if they are properly understood, far from being mutually exclusive, go together. We must not be afraid to confess that we combat not the atheist but atheism” (). It seems to the present author that today it is less a question of confronting and combating atheism than of allowing ourselves to be questioned by it. The transformation ad intra of the believer today probably prevails over the certitude ad extra of his own truth. It is by dint of such a conviction that the contemporary believer does not erect his faith into the sole norm of all truth and instead, like other human beings, reaches into the depths of his own existence. . F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science (), .. . The Gay Science . (“In what sense we are still pious”). See Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track [Holzwege], trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, : “ ‘God is dead’ means: the supersensory world has no effective power. It does not bestow life” (). 

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Notes to pages –

. J.-L. Marion, L’Idole et la Distance (; Paris: Biblio-Essais, ),  (my italics). . Marion, . . Marion’s strategy of recuperation is clearly denounced by J. Benoist in L’Idée de la phénoménologie (Paris: Beauchesne, ) (“Le tournant théologique”): “Your strategy is evidently an inversion, since it consists in rescuing death as a divine moment [death enlightened by God] and in that you are Christian; but it is not certain that these facts are held in common”  (my italics.) . D. Franck, Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu (Paris: PUF, ), –. See also the present author’s “Éternel retour ou résurrection des corps?” Transversalités  (July–September ): –. . D. Franck, . . G. W. F. Hegel, “The Consummate Religion,” vol.  of Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (–; New York: Oxford University Press, ): “But the death of Christ is the death of this death itself, the negation of negation” (, my italics). . A. Badiou, Court traité d’ontologie transitoire (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ): “The God who can die is not and cannot be the conceptual God. . . . It must be the God of Isaac, of Abraham, and of Jacob, or the Christ who speaks directly to Pascal in his indoor garden of olive trees. The living God is always the God of somebody. . . . That God would die means he is no longer this living one whom one can meet when existence plunges through its own transparence” (–; my italics). . E. Jüngel, Dieu, mystère du monde, trans. Horst Hombourg (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), :. . Jüngel, . . M. Merleau-Ponty, In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. John Wild and James Edie (; Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, ), . . Ibid., . . And for those who have not quite grasped the problem, Merleau-Ponty says: “Even such relatively serene reflections as those of Father de Lubac on atheistic humanism, and those of M. Maritain on the meaning of contemporary atheism are carried on as if philosophy, when it is not theological, is reduced to the negation of God. . . . This antitheism certainly exists, but since it is an inverted theology, it is not philosophy” (In Praise of Philosophy, –). See on this topic “Agiornamento ou mutation?” (–), the final part of my article “La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Flore ou le principe d’humanité chez Henri de Lubac,” Revue des sciences religieuses (Strasbourg) (April ): –. . See the celebrated formulation of Heidegger in Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity, trans. John van Buren (; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ): “Impulses were given by Kierkegaard, and Husserl opened my eyes” (). . This is probably the sense of Le Tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (Combas: Éditions de l’Éclat, ), the pamphlet by D. Janicaud that, despite its polemic character, effectively criticizes writers—especially E. Levinas, Notes to pages –

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J.-L. Marion and M. Henry—who have led phenomenology in what he considers an unwarranted direction (, –). . J. Benoist, “Le tournant théologique,” L’Idée de la phénoménologie, , , . . J.-L. Marion in debate with J. Benoist at the Centre Sèvres (Paris),  June . . John Paul II, “Discours du samedi  octobre  aux évêques du Canada,” L’Osservatore Romano  ( November ),  (my italics). . L. Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (), trans. George Eliot (), chapter , “The Contradiction of Faith and Love.” . In Greek and in French there is a link in the etymology of “near” and “neighbor” ( proche and prochain). . John XXIII, “Discours d’ouverture du concile Vatican II” ( October ), Vatican II: Les seize documents conciliaires (Paris: Fides, ), . . See on this point my article “Mystique et modernité: Aspirations spirituelles de notre temps et mystique chrétienne,” Études (June ): –: “Vers une théologie de la différence” (–). . S. Weil, La Pesanteur et la Grâce (Paris: Plon, ), –. “L’athéisme purificateur.” This remarkable formulation of doubt and an internal cry as the true starting point of all faith is followed up in Attente de Dieu (Paris: La Colombe, ): “But to believe is not to know. A belief of such a kind does not help. The soul only knows certainly what it is hungry for. . . . The danger is not that the soul doubts whether or not it has bread but that it persuades itself by a lie that it was not hungry” (). . Being and Time, §, note . . M. Heidegger, “The Fundamental Question of Metaphysics,” in Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, ), – (my italics). The transfer from the note of Being and Time (the anguish of death) to the fundamental question of the Introduction to Metaphysics (the problem of how origin [birth] can speak also of the end [resurrection]) is the reason for my passage from the Passeur de Gethsémani to The Metamorphosis of Finitude. . See Edmund Husserl, Ideas, vol. , trans F. Kersten (; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ),  (§). . (a) For the failure to understand the theological sense of the creation in Heidegger (seen falsely as “production” and not as “œuvre” or work of art) see Off the Beaten Track [Holzwege]: “The inclination to take the matter–form structure to be the constitution of every being receives, however, particular encouragement from the fact that on the basis of religious—biblical—faith, the totality of beings is represented, in advance, as something created. And, here, that means ‘made’ [manufactured],” trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –. (b) For faith as a mode of being and not first of all as dogmatic content, see, for example, K. Barth, Evangelical Theory: An Introduction, trans. Grover Foley (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 

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Notes to pages –

), : “[Faith] should not be confused with mere capacity and willingness to believe.” (c) For the double movement of theology ascending and descending, concerning which I would maintain the primacy of the first over the second, from a heuristic point of view, see B. Sesboüé, Jésus-Christ, l’unique médiateur, nd ed. (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), vol. , section  (–, “La médiation descendante”) and section  ( –, “La médiation ascendante”). . M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, . . See G. W. Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace Based on Reason (), trans. Jonathan Bennett (): “Nothing comes about without a sufficient reason; i.e. . . . for any true proposition P, it is possible for someone who understands things well enough to give a sufficient reason why it is the case that P rather than not P. Given that principle, the first question we can possibly ask is: Why is there something rather than nothing? After all, nothing is simpler and easier than something. Also, given that things have to exist, we must be able to give a reason why they have to exist as they are and not otherwise” (§). . M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, . For radical nothingness in Sartre opposed to the phenomenological reduction, see “The Phenomenological Concept of Nothingness” and “The Origin of Nothingness” in Being and Nothingness (; New York: Philosophical Library, ). This provokes the reaction of Heidegger, who accuses Sartre of “objectivizing” nothingness in the face of Being and thus arriving at a definitive separation of existentialism and phenomenology. See “Letter on ‘Humanism,’ ” Pathmarks, ed. W. McNeill (; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ): “It is believed that nihilation is nowhere to be found in beings themselves. This is correct as long as one seeks nihilation as some kind of being, as an existent quality in beings. . . . This proof appears to carry weight only if one posits beings as what is objective for subjectivity’ ” (trans. Frank A. Capuzzi, –, my italics). . St. Augustine, Confessions, ..: “In cujus oculis mihi quaestio factus sum [In your eyes I have become a problem to myself].” We can rediscover the reason for this form of questioning, leaving out certainly the mention of God (“thou under the eyes of whom”), in M. Heidegger, Being and Time § (S. ): “This entity which each of us is himself and which includes inquiring as one of the possibilities of its Being, we shall denote by the term ‘Dasein.’ ” . M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, . . Ibid., –, “Why the Why?” How “this question rebounds upon the questioning itself ” (). The “three ways” of clarification of the question as “the broadest, as the deepest, and finally as the most originary question” (). . Being and Time, §, S. . . Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, . . J.-Y. Lacoste, Expérience et absolu (Paris: PUF, ), . This should be put together with the other well-known formulation of E. Levinas: “The soul—the psychic dimension—accomplishment of separation, is naturally atheist” (Totalité et infini: Essai sur l’extériorité, th ed. [La Hay: Nijhoff, ],  [my italics]). . K. Barth, Introduction à la théologie évangélique, . Notes to pages –

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Part II Introduction . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, q. , a. , ad : “Faith presupposes natural knowledge [fides praesupponit cognitionem naturalem], even as grace presupposes nature [sicut gratia naturam] and perfection presupposes the perfectible [et perfectio perfectibile].” . B. Pascal, Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (London: Penguin, ), . . See on this point D. Decoin and E. Gondinet-Wallstein, in a book remarkable for its poetic as for its aesthetic quality: Célébration de l’inespéré, regards sur la résurrection (Paris: Albin Michel, ): “The painters of the early centuries, respectful of evangelic discretion, did not risk representing a Christ ‘resurrecting.’ They limited themselves to the declaration of the angel at the empty tomb. . . . As the centuries passed, however, painters were drawn to the direct representation of Christ emerging from the tomb, condemning themselves thus to a kind of impotence, because their Resurrected One could not by definition be shown with the features of a man living a mortal life. The most brilliant of them did, however, manage to express something of the inexpressible” (–, my italics). . I take this double determination of cause and effect from J.-L. Marion, L’Idole et la Distance (; Paris: Biblio-Essai, ),  (for “the cause [aitia]” [see Denys]), and Étant donné (Paris: PUF, , – (for “the effect” as fait accompli [kat’ exochen]). . See my two articles on the subject. For Anselm, see “La dette du don dans le Cur Deus homo d’Anselme de Cantorbéry,” in La dette et le don: Actes du Colloque Enrico Castelli (), ed. Marco M. Olivetti (forthcoming); and for Duns Scotus, see “L’autre singulier: l’haeccéité d’autrui et l’horizon de la finitude,” in Duns Scot à Paris –, ed. O. Boulnois and J.-L. Solère (Paris : Centre d’étude des religions–Vrin [forthcoming]). In the latter article will be found an account of the “motif historique” from Duns Scotus, which is discussed in part I of this book (“Précis of Finitude”). . Resurrection and the Over-resurrection of the Body . See here, along with the monographs of the authors cited above, the synthesis Les Théologians de la mort de Dieu, by J. Bishop (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ). . The return to Nietzsche by theologians has been patchy but nonetheless stimulating. See, for example, N. Berdiaev, Dialectique existentielle du divin et de l’humain (Paris: J.-B. Janin, ): “The created world is a world of possibilities. It is not a fulfilled world, or static; and it is in this world that the process of creation has to proceed, which can only be the work of man. All that is possible must be unveiled, must be reality. The creative development of the world must be considered as the eighth day of creation. Creation is not solely a process going from God to man: God also demands from man creative novelties, new creations; he waits for the works of human liberty” (, my italics). For a more systematic formulation of the relationship of the theologian with Nietzsche’s thought, see M.-A. de Solages, “Berdiaev et Nietzsche, quelques remarques,” Contacts  (, first trimester): –.

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Notes to pages –

. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, part , . . See my article concerning D. Franck’s Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu (Paris: PUF, ), on which the present discussion is based: “Éternel retour et résurrection des corps,” Transversalités  (July–September ), – (esp. –). . D. Franck, Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu (, , my italics). It is perhaps unnecessary to mention that not only philosophers but also theologians and those involved in exegesis would profit by accepting the challenge of this commanding study to clarify those beliefs that are taken for granted in Christianity (the functional unity of all the limbs of a single body, for example [see  Cor ]). I should like also to take this opportunity to thank the author for the friendship he has constantly shown and for the vigor with which he has continued “in debate.” In order that my reader does not get lost in the extreme complexity of reference to the posthumously published writings of Nietzsche, I have in subsequent footnotes directed readers to D. Franck’s book and to his citations of the philosopher. . Nietzsche, cited by D. Franck, . . Ibid., , , . . Ibid., , . . Ibid., , , , . . Ibid., , . . A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, trans. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, vol. , book  (; London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, ). “Above all things, we must distinctly recognise that the form of the phenomenon of will, the form of life or reality, is really only the present, not the future nor the past” (). And : “Eternal noon” (metaphor of the sun). . The condemnation of Gnosticism by Irenaeus and Tertullian, or the anathema of Origen over the preexistence of the soul, will suffice to show how the Fathers of the Church were aware from early on of the gap between Platonism and Christianity. St. Augustine himself, although sometimes falsely accused of Platonizing Christianity, knew well enough to weigh up the distance. In an exemplary formulation in the Confessions he tells us: “I read there [in Platonic studies translated from Greek into Latin] that the Word, God, is ‘born not of the flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God’. But that ‘the word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ [John :–] I did not read there” (..). For the impossibility of the transfer of platonic immortality to Christian resurrection, see the now dated but still very well-documented article by F. Refoulé, “Immortalité de l’âme et résurrection de la chair,” Revue de l’histoire des religions  (PUF) (): –, and esp. –: “Incompatibilité de l’anthropologie platonicienne avec la foi chrétienne.” . There are so many examples, from K. Barth or H. Urs von Balthasar that we can just note them in passing here. One can find the common source of inspiration and the interpretation of death in St. Paul as “process” in G. W. F. Hegel, “La religion absolue,” part  of Leçons sur la philosophie de la religion, (Paris: Vrin, ), –: “God is dead, this is the negation, and this death is a moment of

Notes to pages –

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the divine nature of God himself. . . . The negation itself is in God. . . . However, what follows does not remain there: A conversion follows: God preserves himself in this process, which is none other than the death of death. God returns to life: Life returns, then, in its opposite” (my italics). . D. Franck, Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu, , , and . See also Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (), §: “God, as Paul created him, is a denial of God.” . D. Franck, Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu, : “Obeying the word of God, believing, the will renounces itself. It is not a question of willing to will for more, but of the believer willing the submission of his own will to that of God.” . Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, §. (See the citation and commentary by D. Franck, .) . Nietzsche, “On the Three Transformations,” part  of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. For the interpretation of the resurrection as vengeance and liberation from the law, see D. Franck, –, . . I take up here, with modifications, features of Pauline corporality that I discussed in my article “Éternel retour ou résurrection des corps?” –. (See also D. Franck, –.) . D. Franck, Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu, –, . See G. W. Leibniz, Von de wahren Theologia mystica, Deutsche Schriften, cited by D. Franck, . . D. Franck, Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu,  (my italics). . Ibid., : “All qualitative modifications of the body require it to have a permanent substratum, consequently excluding death.” . Ibid., – (my italics). And . Franck gives a perspective of a phenomenal corporality in St. Paul that probably has its roots in the physics of ancient Stoicism: “All that is, is body, according to its modality [sui generis]; nothing is incorporal, unless it is not” (I. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (SVF) [Leipzig: Teubner, ], II, frag. ). This is taken up and cited in Tertullian, De carne Christi .. See J. Alexandre, “Philosophical Presuppositions and What Is at Stake Theologically for Corporality in Tertullian’s Anti-Docetist Polemic,” Le Corps chemin de Dieu, colloque de Louvain, October  (forthcoming): : “The hypothesis that I wish briefly to defend is that Paul was able to respond pertinently to the question ‘How do the dead resurrect?’ because his anthropology, marked by Stoicism, allowed him to conceive that a body could change its status and become spirit, while remaining a body” (a “Stoic impregnation of the anthropological thought of St. Paul [and not simply ethics] which has still not been highlighted,” according to the writer [note ]). . H. Urs von Balthasar, Apparition, vol.  of La Gloire et la Croix (Paris: Aubier, ). . . Le Passeur de Gethsémani, . . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, q. , a.  co. (“Whether creation is anything in the creature”). Taken up again in Contra Gentiles, in a formula that stresses dependence, (..): “Creation is the very dependency [ipsa dependentia] of the created being upon the principle from which it is produced. And thus, creation is a kind of relation [et sic est de genere relationis].” 

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Notes to pages –

. Thérèse d’Avila, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, ), . One sees here, contrary to the interpretation of a work that has been the object of philosophical controversy, that one cannot get from it a formula such as “Religious aspiration expresses itself as a desire to escape, it takes on the style of the fugitive, and invites an ecstasy beyond the self and the world” (P. Clavier, Le concept de monde (Paris: PUF, ),  [my italics]). For the mystics, as for the Gospels, (see my chapter ), heaven and earth are not so much places above or below the earth as “modalities of the lived.” . D. Franck, Nietzsche et l’ombre de Dieu: “In short, trying to assure the Greeks of Corinth of the possibility of resurrection based on a natural concept of the body, St. Paul, who had perhaps learned Greek too well, gave the resurrectional power of God to metaphysics, and metaphysics to God” (, my italics). . See (in the form of example or, rather, of paradigm) Bonaventure, Breviloquium  (“The Last Judgment”), chapter  (“The Glory of Paradise”), no. : These four traits [claritas, subtilitas, impassibilitas, agilitas] render the body such that it keeps with and is submissive to the spirit. . Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, ..: “In carnem Domini nostri occurrat paterna lux, et a carne eius rutila veniat in nos, et sic homo deveniat in incorruptelam, circumdatus paterno lumine.” On the meaning of this “phenomenal flesh” in Irenaeus (distinct from the meaning of the “thickness of the flesh” in Tertullian), see my article “Irénée: Adam ou la chair de l’homme” (forthcoming). A first sketch of the argument can be found in my “Hans Urs von Balthasar, lecteur d’Irénée ou la chair retrouvée,” Nouvelle revue théologique , no.  (September–October ), –. . The Resurrection Changes Everything . M. Merleau-Ponty, “Faith and God Faith” (), Sense and Non-sense, trans. H. L.Dreyfus and P. A. Dreyfus (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, ),  (in a context that is both theological and philosophical). . E. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy—Second Book (Ideen II), §: The feeling that is embodied and becomes “flesh” (es wird Leib) in the experience of the touching-and-touched. For a reading of this experience through the episode of Jesus’s encounter with the woman with hemorrhages (Mark :–), or with Mary Magdalene and the perfume at Bethany (John :–), see Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –: “percevoir ou l’épreuve du touchant-touché.” . M. Merleau-Ponty, “Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence” (), in Signs, trans. Richard C. McCleary (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, ), –. . I return to this point in debate with M. Henry in Transversalités  (January– March ): –: “Y a-t-il une chair sans corps?” Reply by M. Henry, –, reprinted in Phénoménologie et christianisme chez M. Henry, ed. Ph. Capelle (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), – (for my text) and – (for M. Henry’s response). Notes to pages –

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. See V. Holzer, “La vérité comme figure, l’histoire comme chair,” Transversalités  (July–September ), –. . R. Bultmann, “Le problème de la révélation naturelle” (), in Foi et comprehension: L’historicité de l’homme et de la révélation (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ), :. The key formulation of the theologian who, however, thinks of the resurrection as a breaking and splintering rather than a transformation—which distinguishes him from my perspective here. . For what is significant in the debate between R. Bultmann and Heidegger in relation to my argument see Ph. Capelle, Philosophie et théologie dans la pensée de M. Heidegger (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), –: “It is not a question of knowing whether theology can or should use philosophy, but rather if our human existence, in what makes our interior life, carries the mark of a knowledge of the divine which is anterior to all revelation.” . See Le Passeur de Gethsémani, – and , for the definition of sin used here. . Creed of Constantinople, in La Foi catholique, by G. Dumeige (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, ), . (Dz no. ): “Who for us men and for our salvation [qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem].” Cited and commented on in Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –. . This point deserves more than a simple affirmation, but within the parameters of the present argument I cannot develop it here. Particularly important is the dissociation of death and sin, on the one hand, and, on the other, the affirmation that sin is a spiritual self-enclosure into natural death. I take it here as simply established and refer the reader again to the first part of Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –. . “Necessity of resurrection”: a widely accepted notion stemming from the Middle Ages, where it indicates the power of God (Bonaventure), or the need of a resurrected body for souls revived around God and waiting for their final “hylemorphic” end (Aquinas). See Bonaventure, Breviloquium ., .: “The constitution of nature, the infusion of grace, and the retribution of justice, which give order to the whole universe, call for [exigente] the future resurrection. . . . But the resurrection does not depend on seminal reason or natural causes; it depends on the primordial cause [sed primordialibus attribuatur].” See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, ..: “We showed . . . that the souls of men are immortal. They persist, then, after their bodies, released from their bodies. It is also clear . . . that the soul is naturally united to the body, for in its essence it is the form of the body. . . . Perpetually, then, the soul will not be [non igitur perpetuo] without the body [absque corpore]. . . . Since, then, it persists perpetually, it must once again be united to the body [oportet animam corpore iterato coniungi]; and this is to rise again. Therefore, the immortality of souls seems to demand [exigere] a future resurrection of bodies.” . I should like to record here my thanks to B. Chantre for the perspicacity with which he posed this problem at a discussion of Le Passeur de Gethsémani at

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the Institut Catholique in Paris in March . The present chapter is by way of a response. . See G. W. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Consummate Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (New York: Oxford University Press, ), : “But the death of Christ is the death of this death itself, the negation of negation.” See on this point the helpful article by Ph. Soual, “Amour et croix chez Hegel,” Revue philosophique, no.  (): – (esp. – for the theme of the death of death, situated itself in the trial of the three Kingdoms of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). . J. Moltmann, Le Dieu crucifié (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), . I examine here a hypothesis already expressed in Le Passeur de Gethsémani (–) but this time taking it to its conclusion—that is to say, the path of the resurrection, and not simply suffering. . For a discussion of this point and a refutation of the hypothesis of Moltmann (the abandoning of God by God), see Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –. . Apperception is the process of understanding by which newly observed things are related to our past experiences. In an example from William James, we can talk of apperception when we see a fire and correlate the appearance of fire with our past experience of being burned. Husserl talks of “apperceptive transfer.” This is when we get a sense of another organism, of what another mind–body complex feels like, through analogy with ourselves and our situation. The notion is developed by Merleau-Ponty, in phenomenology, as “apperceptive transposition.” See the following section (§) for further development in a theological context. (Translator’s note.) . Epoche¯, or “bracketing”—the act of suspending judgment that precedes phenomenological analysis. (Translator’s note.) . E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (; Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, ) §. . On the subject of the exit from solipsism by the apperceptive transposition of the other, in the context of theological discourse (from which we have borrowed several features here), see my article “L’altérité angélique ou l’angélologie thomiste au fil des Méditations cartésiennes de Husserl,” Laval théologique et philosophique , no.  (October ): –. For a line-by-line commentary of the fifth “Méditation cartésienne,” the standard reference is still P. Ricœur, À l’école de la phénoménologie (Paris: Vrin, ), –. . M. Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, trans. John O’Neill (; Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, ), . . M. Merleau-Ponty, . The formula is close to the famous anecdote of the great Alexander visiting the cynic Diogenes and offering his support to him, only to be greeted with the comment “Get out of my sun!” See J. Brun, “Les socratiques [les cyniques],” in Histoire de la philosophie (Paris: Gallimard, ), :. . See E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (; Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic, ), §, §, and §.

Notes to pages –

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. “Intropathy (Einfühlung)” for Husserl designates the acknowledgment by which my body (Leib) perceptively lives (i.e., experiences, feels) the body of the other. See rd lecture, Phenomenological Reductions, vol.  of First Philosophy. . The word passion is used in the following discussion in the sense of “the suffering of pain” and specifically “the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the cross (and the agony in Gethsemane).” (Translator’s note.) . Cited by B. Sesboüé, Jésus dans la tradition de l’Église (Paris: Desclée, ), . . See Tertullian, La chair du Christ [De carne Christi] (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), : “Apelles allows the flesh and denies the birth of it.” And : “He suggests that the flesh of Christ, like that of the angels, was not born although it was flesh.” J. Böhme, L’Aurore naissante (; Paris: Milan, ), chapter : “Before creating our world, God was incarnate in the flesh of angels and he lived this celestial nature to reveal himself here.” (See by way of commentary P. Deghaye, La Naissance de Dieu ou la doctrine de Jacob Böhme [Paris: ]). See also on this point my critique of M. Henry in my “Y a-t-il une chair sans corps?” Transversalités, no.  (January–March ): , reprinted in Phénoménologie et christianisme, ed. Ph. Capelle (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), . . Tertullian, La chair du Christ, . . Second Council of Constantinople (), anathema , cited in G. Dumeige, La Foi catholique (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, ),  (no. , Dz no. ). . See the charming book by J.-L.Chrétien, L’Éloge de la fatigue (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, ), –: “Jesus at Jacob’s well” (without, however, a trinitarian interpretation of the pathos of the Son). See Augustine, Tractate . (on John :–). . Origen, Homélies sur Ézéchiel (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), Sources Chrétiennes, vol. , , . The formula is taken up and discussed at length in F. Varillon, La Souffrance de Dieu (Paris: Centrion, ), –. . See Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica Canticorum . (sermon on the death of his brother Girard []—God is impassive but not incapable of compassion and the transfer of the affect of God); De Consideratione .. (God is not affected, he is affection); and De Amore Dei . (to be affected is to be deified). On this point see also my article “Saint Bernard et le champ de l’expérience,” in Expérience philosophique et expérience mystique, ed. Ph. Capelle (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, forthcoming). On the meaning, in Bernard of Clairvaux, of deification as a mode of affection, there are also some enlightening pages to be found in Maurice Blondel lecteur de Bernard de Clairvaux, by J. Leclercq (Bruxelles: Lessius, ), –. For an interpretation of “God without passion but not without compassion” see E. Housset, L’Intelligence de la pitié: Phénoménologie de la communauté (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), – (though he neglects to mention Bernard of Clairvaux, who would probably be more appropriate than Origen for the thesis): “Pity in God cannot be a passion in the usual sense of the term—that is to say, what one is subjected to involuntarily from outside. Thus, on 

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Notes to pages –

the one hand, to avoid the anthropomorphic representation of a God subject to his passions, it is necessary to recognize the impassibility of God. But, on the other hand, the impassibility cannot be understood as insensitivity, for in God suffering is also characteristic of love” (). . See Origen, Homélies sur Ézéchiel, , and M. Fédou, La Sagesse et le Monde: Christologie d’Origène (Paris: Desclée, ),  (“The Passion that preceded the incarnation”). See also my article “Origène: Intersubjectivité et communion des saints,” in Intersubjectivité et théologie philosophique: Actes du colloque Enrico Castelli (Rome, January ), ed. by Marco M. Olivetti (Milan: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, ), –. . M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Claude Leforet (; London, Routledge, ), . . See Évangile selon Saint Luc, translation and commentary by Sr. Jeanne d’Arc (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, ). . Traces of a lively debate with Lipps concerning the confusion of “empathy” with “affective fusion” are found in M. Scheler, Nature et forme de la sympathie, – (resting on the thesis of E. Stein, which is also concerned with the question of empathy; see Das Problem der Einfühlung). . Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo ... An omniscience without any ordeal and modified by what we extend here from the figure of the Son to the Father. I discuss this point in my article “La dette du don dans le Cur Deus homo d’Anselme de Cantorbéry,” in Intersubjectivité et théologie philosophique: Actes du colloque Enrico Castelli (Rome, January ), ed. Marco M. Olivetti (Milan: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, forthcoming). . Ch. Péguy, Le Dialogue de l’histoire et de l’âme charnelle: œuvres en proses complètes (Paris: Gallimard, ), . See also my article “Incarnation philosophique et incarnation théologique: Une histoire arrivée à la terre et à la chair: Lecture du Dialogue de l’histoire et de l’âme charnelle,” L’Amitié Charles Péguy, no. , “Péguy et l’âme charnelle” (April –June ), –. . G. Martelet, “Dieu n’a pas créé la mort,” Christus, no.  (): . (I put the formula “the worst of ” in parentheses to avoid here any value judgment of a finitude that is nonsinful but where sin is grafted on.) Apart from certain reservations expressed elsewhere—an orientation unilaterally biologistic and insufficiently metaphysical, a confusion of finitude with finite, and an excessive obliteration of sin to detach it from death (see Le Passeur de Gethsémani, n)—I consider Martelet’s bold argument very fruitful for contemporary theology. I have cited it elsewhere: My aim here has been to translate it into philosophical and theological terms, through the double doctrine of the “apperceptive transposition of the other” and the “intropathy” transformed in God himself. . See H. Jonas, Le Concept de Dieu après Auschwitz (Paris: Rivages-Poche, ), –. “L’hypothèse d’un ‘Dieu en devenir,’ ” . . Origen, Homélies sur Ézéchiel, . . I allude here to P. Ricœur’s Soi-même comme un autre (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ) and the “broken cogito” that the resurrection proposes. See –. Notes to pages –

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. For a definition of the transformation as a “happening on oneself as an adventure,” see Cl. Romano, L’Événement et le Temps (Paris: PUF, ), –  (§). . See Tertullian, De carne Christi ., and M. Heidegger, Being and Time, § (“Existential Projection of an Authentic Being-towards-death”). . Bernard of Clairvaux, Traité de l’amour de Dieu, ., p. . . One can find ambivalent interpretations of Romans : depending on whether emphasis is put on the first or second part: “From Adam to Moses death reigned, even for those who had not sinned by a transgression like that of Adam [antitype], figure of those who were to come [prototype].” See Irenaeus, Adversus haereses .. (Adam seen as type or prototype of humanity), and earlier: “Paul calls Adam himself the ‘type of him who must come’ as the Word, artisan of the universe, who had already sketched out in advance in Adam the future economy of humanity, which the Son of God would take on.” And Augustine, De Civitate Dei . (“Adam considered as sinner or antitype of humanity”): “The whole human race was in the first man, and it was to pass from him through woman into his progeny, when the married pair had received the divine sentence of condemnation. And it was not man was first made, but what man became after his sin and punishment, that was thus begotten, as far as concerns the origin of sin and death.” As to the identification of psychic and animal, it is confirmed by the French ecumenical translation of the Bible (TOB, La Traduction Œcumenique de la Bible) ( Cor :, ), which sends us back to Genesis : (“and the man became a living being”): “expression that applies as much to man as to animals” (note  to  Cor :). The identification is corroborated in addition by the Greek sense of psyche¯ inherited by St. Paul, which is used for vegetative powers and sensitive powers rather than intellectual powers. (See Aristotle, De anima .: “The faculties of the soul in different living beings.”) . M. Heidegger, “Lettre sur l’humanisme” Questions III (; Paris: Gallimard, ), . On this problem of animality (almost totally absent from theology today), see the useful F. Dastur, Heidegger et la question anthropologique (Louvain: Peeters, ), –. . In the book on the body (and the gift of the Eucharist) that constitutes the third part of this research project (after Le Passeur de Gethsémani [anguish, suffering, death] and Metamorphosis of Finitude [essay on the resurrection—birth, infancy, and the glory of the flesh]). See Les Noces de l’Agneau: Essai philosophique sur le corps et l’eucharistie (). . G. Deleuze, Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation (Paris, ; nd ed., Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ), –: “The body, the meat, and the spirit—the becoming animal” (). This should be compared with the statement by Bacon himself in L’Art de l’impossible: Entretiens avec David Sylvester (Paris: Skira), :: “I have always been very moved by images of abattoirs and meat, and for me they are closely linked with all that is the Crucifixion.” One could illustrate this also with the “stuffed horse suspended from the ceiling (of a church)” by the contemporary artist Cattelan, which helps us see the crucifixion in an almost “animal” way. 

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Notes to pages –

See C. Grenier, L’art contemporain est-il chrétien? (Nîmes: Jacqueline Chambon, ), –: “L’animal humain” (on Cattelan, ). . D. Franck, Chair et corps: Sur la phénoménologie de Husserl (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, ),  (citing Husserl,  [Husserliana, :]). I discuss this point in my article on M. Henry, “Y a-t-il une chair sans corps?” Transversalités, no.  (January–March ): esp. –. . That is, if there is any aspect of humanity that has not been included in Christ’s becoming human, then that aspect has not been redeemed. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle  (Letter to Clédonium). . J.-L. Marion, Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, ), –. . Cl. Romano, L’Événement et le temps, . From a context that is phenomenological rather than theological but that in that respect shows its fecundity. . H. Jonas, Le Concept de Dieu après Auschwitz, –, –. . Tzimtzum: Concept, developed by kabbalist Isaac Louria (–), of divine contraction or withdrawal. (Translator’s note.) . See Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –. . Pneumatology: Study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the interaction between humans and God. (Translator’s note.) . Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, (), trans. Ian Johnston, . §: “To demand from strength that it does not express itself as strength, that it does not consist of a will to overpower, a will to throw down, a will to rule, a thirst for enemies and opposition and triumph, is just as unreasonable as to demand from weakness that it express itself as strength.” On the significance of this nonseparation of force from what force can do, as a key to the interpretation of Nietzschean ideas in general, see G. Deleuze, Nietzsche et la philosophie (Paris: PUF, ), –. . On the Genealogy of Morals, §. . See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §. . Irenaeus, Adversus haereses ... . The Incorporation of the Human Being . See introduction, “To Be Transformed.” . K. Rahner, Traité fondamental de la foi () (Paris: Centurion, ), . . The terms monadologic and monadology derive from the doctrine of “monads” found in Leibniz’s Monadology (). In Leibniz’s metaphysics, the universe contains only God and noncomposite, immaterial, soul-like entities called “monads.” (Translator’s note.) . See De Trinitate, .. (“as in a mirror”) and .. (“through a mirror”). . Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaemeron [Talks on the six days of creation], (), (). See also my Saint Bonaventure et l’entrée de Dieu en théologie (Paris: Vrin, ), in which this question is further examined, –. Notes to pages –

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. Protology is the study of origins and first things—as opposed to the more familiar eschatology, the study of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. (Translator’s note.) . H. Urs von Balthasar, La Gloire et la Croix (Paris: Aubier, ), : (“We speak here of a Bonaventurian monadology, but without preestablished harmony”); and Alain de Libera, La Philosophie médiévale (Paris: PUF, ),  (“With Bonaventure, thanks to the fusion of Avicenna and Denys the Carthusian, . . . the idea of monadology enters into the history of philosophy”). . See in this context the recent number of Communio, “Créés pour lui,” which, without considering our present hypothesis of a transfiguration of finitude, or that of a resurrection concomitant with creation in the Christian sense of the term, discusses the meaning of the formula in the Letter to the Colossians. (See Communio, no.  [May–June ], in particular R. Brunet and X. Morales, “Créés à l’image de l’homme à venir,” –.) . H. Urs von Balthasar, La Gloire et la Croix, : (my italics). . (See §.) Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle  (Letter to Clédonium.) . Bonaventure, Breviloquium .a (Paris: Éditions Franciscaines, ), II, fasc. , chapter , no. . See also my Saint Bonaventure et l’entrée de Dieu en théologie, –: “La Trinité fabricatrice: Le primum diffusivum sui.” . R. Guardini, Le Seigneur (Paris: Éditions Alsatia, ), : (cited in F. Varillon, Joie de croire, Joie de vivre [Paris: Centurion, ], ). . See Les Noces de l’Agneau: Essai philosophique sur le corps et l’eucharistie. The “fleshly modality of the present” (eros and Eucharist) follows on in this volume from the “fleshly modality of the future” (suffering and death / Gethsemane and Golgotha [Le Passeur de Gethsémani]) and the “fleshly modality of the past” as an opening to the future (birth and resurrection [The Metamorphosis of Finitude]). See introduction, §. . See J.-P. Sartre, “Une idée fondamentale de la phénoménologie de Husserl: L’Intentionalité,” in Situations (Paris: Gallimard, ), :. . Ibid., . . See M. Heidegger, “Lettre sur humanisme,” Questions III (; Paris: Gallimard, ), : “Critique and non-comprehension of Husserl by Sartre, taking intentionality as the bursting out toward a nullified exterior world of the consciousness (‘near the tree, over-there, in the dust . . . outside him, outside me’).” . Different interpretations of the Eucharist in either realist or idealist terms according to whether the perspective is Protestant or Catholic can be found in Leçons sur la philosophie de la religion, part , by G. W. F. Hegel (Paris: Vrin, ): “The first opinion is that Christ is present in the host not in spirit but in a perceptible manner, bodily . . . ; this is the Catholic idea. . . . The second opinion is that God is present only in spirit, in a spiritual way through faith; this is the Lutheran view. . . . The third opinion is that the Holy Spirit is not present, but it is just the memory, the representation: This is the opinion of reformed Protestantism” (–).



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Notes to pages –

. Inhabitation: indwelling of God in the souls of the just. According to St. Augustine, God is everywhere by the presence of divinity, but not everywhere by the grace of inhabitation. (Translator’s note). . Recapitulation is the term used by Irenaeus in his theory of atonement to describe the manner in which God interacts with the world toward the final goal, in space and time, of man’s salvation and redemption. It also describes the balance of Christ’s actions opposing Adam’s, toward perfect balance in the world, the righting of wrongs, and also Jesus’ mother Mary, whose perfect obedience balances Eve’s disobedience at the beginning of time. (Translator’s note.) . Irenaeus, Adversus haereses . (The Eucharist as incorporation in God); preface to book  (The admirable exchange). One finds an enlightening discussion of these two perspectives in B. Sesboüé, Tout récapituler dans le Christ. Christologie et sotériologie d’Irénée de Lyon (Paris: Desclée, ), – and –. See also my article “Irénée: Adam ou la chair de l’homme” (forthcoming). . See note  to the Introduction for the implications of the term “passeur.” . Bonaventure, Les Six Jours de la création, Collationes in Hexaëmeron, ...a, pp. –. See on this point my book Saint Bonaventure et l’entrée de Dieu en théologie, –. . See G. Dumeige, La Foi catholique, no. , Dz  (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, ), . With regard to Joachim, I refer readers to my article “La posterité spirituelle de Joachim de Flore ou le principe d’immunité chez Henri de Lubac,” Revue des sciences religieuses (Strasbourg) , no.  (April ): –. . Fourth Council of the Lateran, in La Foi Catholique, no. , Dz , by G. Dumeige, (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, ), . “The word ‘one’ signifies for the faithful the union of charity in grace, for the divine persons it signifies the unity of identity in nature.” . Circumincession: Theological term for the reciprocal existence in each other of the three persons of the Trinity. (Translator’s note.) . Perichoresis: Greek form of the Latin circumincessio (see above), implying full mutual penetration, leading to a unity without a merger. (Translator’s note.) . Johannes Scottus Eriugena, De la division de la nature [(Peryphseon],   B–C trad. t. (Paris: PUF, ), . As for the term circumincessio, it should also be written with a c (in-cedere) and not simply with an s (in-sedere), to indicate movement (going together) and not fixity (being seated at the right). Such was the view of Bonaventure until the Council of Florence () definitively fixed the usage. See my Saint Bonaventure et l’entrée de Dieu en théologie, . . Ibid., , C trad.t.,–. . Ibid., , B, trad.t. . . Ibid., , B, trad.t. . . Ibid., , C, trad.t. –. . For an account of Johannes Scottus Eriugena and the definition of God as “what sees and what runs,” see my article “Jean Scot Érigène: la théophanie comme

Notes to pages –

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mode de la phénoménologité,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques , no.  (July–September ): –, and esp. –. . The World Become Other . See Thomas Aquinas: Life becomes a pilgrimage (via) toward our true fatherland ( patria). (Translator’s note.) . See chapter , note . . Augustine, City of God :. On the exact sense of the two cities, see I. Bochet’s introduction to La Cité de Dieu, by Augustine (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, ), §, –. . G. Marcel, Le Mystère de l’être (Paris: Présence de Gabriel Marcel, ), –. Book , lesson . . In French, there is a wordplay between enfer (hell) and enfermement (imprisonment), that English does not share. (Translator’s note). . See Thérèse de Lisieux, Dernier entretiens, in œuvres complètes (Paris: Éditions du Cerf-Desclée de Brouwer, ). Words of  July . . X. Léon-Dufour, articles “Ciel” and “Terre” in Dictionnaire de Nouveau Testament (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ), – and . . Note, in Traduction œcuménique de la Bible (TOB), on Mt :: “The expression ‘in heaven’ does not attempt to localize the Father. It corresponds to a Semitic turn of phrase that affirms simultaneously that God dominates the entire earth (in heaven) and that God is, through his love, close to mankind (Our Father).” . Irenaeus, Contre les hérésies [Adversus haereses] : (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), . See also on this point my article “Irénée: Adam ou la chair de l’homme” (forthcoming) and, in the form of premise, my previous article “Hans Urs von Balthasar lecteur d’Irénée ou la ‘chair retrouvée,’ ” Nouvelle revue théologique , no.  (September–October ): –. . In a full literature review on the topic I would cite in particular, for Augustine, E. von Ivanka, Plato christianus. La reception critique du platonisme chez les Pères de l’Église (Paris: PUF, ), –; for Aquinas, E. Gilson, Le Thomisme (; Paris: Vrin, ), –. . See M. Heidegger, Problèmes fondamentaux de la phénoménologie (; Paris: Gallimard, ): “Only a self-satisfied modernity, sinking into barbarism, would try to make believe that Plato is, in the elegant expression, ‘finished’ [a closed book]” (). See also the subtle and instructive article by R. Brague, “La phénoménologie comme voie d’accès au monde grec,” in Phénoménologie et métaphysique, ed. J.-L. Marion and G. Planty-Bonjour (Paris: PUF, ), –. . See Plato, The Symposium. For the positive sense of differentiation in biblical studies, see P. Ricœur, “Penser la création” in Penser La Bible, by P. Ricœur and A. Lacocque (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ), –. “Separation is fundamentally what distinguishes the Creator and the creature, and thus simultaneously marks the ‘withdrawal’ of God and the true making of the creature” (, author’s italics). . See Plato, Phaedon.

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Notes to pages –

. Xenophon, fragments B, B, and B. Cited (and rejected) by Clement of Alexandria in Stromates, . (fragment B); . (fragment B). See J.-N. Dumont, Les Présocratiques (Gallimard, ), . For the “familiarity” of man and gods in Greek mythology, see Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, ), verse : “In truth at first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation.” See, for commentary, Cl. Ramnoux, La Nuit et les enfants de la nuit (Paris: Flammarion, ), –. . J.-L. Chrétien, Lueur du secret (Paris: L’Herne, ), –. . J.-P. Vernant, L’Individu, l’amour, la mort (Paris: Gallimard, ), –. “Mortels et immortels: le corps divin” (). . François Varillon, Joie de croire, Joie de vivre (Paris: Centurion, ), . . É. Gilson, Études de philosophie médiévale (Strasbourg, ), chapter , cited in Introduction à l’étude de saint Thomas d’Aquin, by M.-D. Chenu (; Paris: Vrin, ), . . M. Heidegger, Interprétations phénoménologiques d’Aristote (rapport Natorp), (Mauvezin: TER),  (S. ). . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia–IIae, q. , a. . . J.-P. Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme (Paris: Nagel, ), . See the whole of the essay for the formal destruction by Sartre of what he understands by nature and the substitution of the concept of liberty. . See M. Merleau-Ponty, Nature: Course Notes from the Collège de France (–), compiled by Dominique Segland (; Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, . The definition of the concept of nature is revised in the later parts, but it is worth looking at the whole course for its account of the concept of “nature” in the totality of the history of philosophy and science. . J.-P. Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, – (my italics). . There is a systematic destruction of the concept of “nature” at the expense of the “human condition,” as one finds also in H. Arendt, Condition de l’homme moderne (; Paris: Pocket, ), –: “Let us avoid all misunderstanding: The human condition is not the same as human nature, and the sum of the activities and faculties that correspond to the human condition do not in any way constitute what one can call human nature. . . . The problem of human nature, an Augustinian problem (quaestio mihi factus sum, ‘I am become a question for myself ’ [Conf., .]), seems insoluble as much in terms of individual psychology as in a general philosophical sense. It is highly unlikely that, while being able to know, to determine, to define the nature of all the objects that surround us and that are not us, we shall ever be capable of doing the same for ourselves: That would be to jump over our own shadows” (my italics). . J.-P. Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, . . M. Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (), trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ). For the Greek root of

Notes to pages –

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vorhandenheit, see R. Brague, “La phénoménologie come voie d’accès au monde grec,” –. . G. Cohen-Tannoudi, Les Constantes universelles (Paris: Hachette, ): “The leading idea of Niels Bohr and the Copenhagen School is complementarity of the point of view in terms of waves or particles; it is the same quantum reality that, according to the conditions of observation (once again!) presents its aspects to the observer as waves or particles.” (p. ). For the “Niels Bohr experiment” (measuring interference in an electromagnetic field) and the theory of undecidability in wave theory, see –: “Les amplitudes de probabilité et la complémentarité onde-corpuscle.” I note among other things that the writer formulates his argument in citing Merleau-Ponty and the notion of “horizon,” which is as valid in philosophy as in science (no horizon beyond that of the observer who opens it up and sees it starting from himself ). That is to say, certain directions taken in phenomenology, according to the physicist, could also be endorsed by him (“I could endorse these lines”) in replacing, he says, the “philosophical text (or the poem)” by “ideas of physics” (). . For a philosophical and scientific genealogy of the subject, see the course of lectures given by M. Merleau-Ponty at the Collège de France (–), La Nature: Notes de cours du Collège de France, –. . See J.-P. Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, , , , , . And Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (), §. . For the transition from nature to creature, or rather the reluctance to speak of nature (given in itself ) independently of the creature (received from God), clearly shown by St. Bonaventure in his debate with St. Augustine, see my Saint Bonaventure et l’entrée de Dieu en théologie, –. . M. Heidegger, Being and Time, §, S. . . Ibid., §, S. . . Ibid., §, S. . . W. Biemel, “Le professeur et l’ami,” in Cahiers de l’Herne: Martin Heidegger (), (Paris: Biblio-Essais, ), . . See the article by P. Grelot, “Le monde dans l’Écriture sainte,” (but with some traces of dualism [Dictionnaire de spiritualité]), and there is a useful article with the same title but different content by N. Aganassief, “Le monde dans l’Écriture sainte,” Irenikon (): –. . R. Brague, Aristote et la question du monde (Paris: PUF, ), . . Cl .Romano, l’Événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, ), . I take here the example of a new phenomenological perspective (on the meaning of events) of which the theological consequences are immense, though they are not (quite appropriately from the point of view of the author) developed in the work itself. . I am shifting here to the resurrection what Cl. Romano says in another book (L’Événement et le Temps) about decision as “metamorphosis of the future” and not as “resolution.” See L’Événement et le temps (Paris: PUF: ), . I cannot recommend strongly enough Romano’s clarification of the philosophical structure of the argument I am following with regard to the meaning of “meta

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Notes to pages –

morphosis”: See –. For the formula of Pindar taken up by Heidegger (and rejected here by Romano), see Being and Time, §, S. . . Theologoumenon: Theological debate. (Translator’s note.) . H. Crouzel, Origène (Paris: Lethielleux, Le Sycomore, ), . . Bl. Pascal, Pensées, OEuvres complètes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ), L.B,  (“The mystery of Jesus Christ”): “Jesus will be in agony to the end of the world. There must be no sleeping during that time.” . Origen, In Leviticum (Homiliae) .. . Ibid. . Oblative: a gift, disinterested. (Translator’s note.) . For this thesis see G. Marcel, Présence et immortalité (Paris: Flammarion, ), –. Separating thus the transcendental condition for the communion of saints (and taking the mode of “presence” here below as starting point), the philosopher refuses, however, to go on to theology: “I remain here on this side of a wall that philosophy as such finds difficult to break down” (). It is this that gives force to his argument, at least today; just as it constitutes its weakness. For, if one tries too hard to separate theology and philosophy, or (like M. Blondel, for example) to go to theology by way of philosophy, one misses necessarily what theology can bring to philosophy. This can be demonstrated in Marcel () by his account of a relationship with the deceased that borders on “telepathy,” since it is not integrated into the figure of the Word, which warns us against any drift into spiritualism in Christianity (direct relationship with the dead). . Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica Canticorum . (on the occasion of the death of his brother Girard). . K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. and ed. G. W. Bromiley, vol. , part  (; Edinburgh: T & T Clark International, ), – (doctrine of reconciliation). As for the etymology of “communio sanctorum” as “com-munis” (taken in charge communally) and not as “cum-unio” (common union), see J.-M. R. Tillard, “Communion,” in Dictionnaire critique de théologie (Paris: PUF, ), . For a consideration of the whole argument and its development, see my “Origène: Intersubjectivité et communion des saints,” in Intersubjectivité et théologie philosophique: Actes du colloque Enrico Castelli (Rome, January ), ed. Marco M. Olivetti (Milan: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, ), –. . From Time to Eternity . Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, q. , a.  co. . Augustine, Confessions ... . Ibid., ... . Ibid., ... . Parousia: The presence or second coming of Christ. (Translator’s note.) . We take up again here what Romano says of the transforming power of any event, in order to apply it in a paradigmatic way to the resurrection. See Cl. Romano, L’Événement et le temps, . . Augustine, Confessions ... Notes to pages –

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. See E. Kant, Critique de la raison pure (Paris: PUF, ), – (§–); and K. Rahner, Traité fondamental de la foi (Paris: Centurion, ), –. . B. von Spinoza, The Ethics, part  (; Trans. R. H. M. Elwes, ) Definitions  and  (Paris: Vrin, ), . . Ch. Péguy, Dialogue de l’histoire et de l’âme charnelle, in œuvres en prose complètes (Paris, Gallimard, ), ; Victor-Marie, comte Hugo, in Œuvres, . See also my article “Incarnation philosophique et incarnation théologique: une histoire arrivée à la chair et à la terre: Lecture du Dialogue de l’histoire et de l’âme charnelle,” L’Amitié Charles Péguy, no.  (April–June ), –. . See Le Passeur de Gethsémani, –. . See M. Heidegger, Being and Time, “Being there as State-of-mind,” §. . Cl. Romano, L’Événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, ), . . S. Kierkegaard, “L’évangile des souffrance,” Discours édifiants à divers points de vue, in œuvres complètes (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, ), :–. “Comment le fardeau peut-il être léger quand la souffrance est lourde?” –. . Saint Francis’s Prayer in Praise of God, Given to Brother Leo: “You are love. You are wisdom. . . . You are joy and gladness. . . . You are our haven and our hope.” See also L. Basset, La Joie imprenable (Geneva: Labor et Fides, ), From preface by Ph. Nemo: “Lytta Basset argues against the usual thesis and usual reading: Joy is often seen as a natural gift. . . . [But] that joy that is simply natural is, according to the author, null and void because it is not impregnable” . . Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon , in Œuvres (Paris: Victor Palmé, ), :. . L. Basset, La Joie imprenable, . We must be grateful to Lytta Basset, whose work has the immense merit of opening anew this perspective on a joy of God for the world, possible already in this world. We can find certain traces of this perspective in the history of theology—surprisingly, for example, in Meister Eckhart (discussed by Basset), where it is used, however, to interrogate the complete identification of man in via (on his journey through life) with man in patria (in the beatific vision): “I have said that a man, in this life already, contemplates God in the same perfection and is joyful exactly in the same way as after this life” (M. Eckhart, Sermon-Traités, rd ed. [Paris: Gallimard, ], . See also the chapter “Réduction et conversion (Maître Eckhart] in my Dieu, la chair et l’autre [Paris: PUF, ] –). . I am following here (and developing in the context of my own argument) the terms of the phenomenology of joy outlined by L. Basset in La Joie imprenable, –. . See Évangile selon Saint Matthieu, trans. Sr. Jeanne d’Arc (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, ), nb: “Is, estin, is in the present (v.  and ); the kingdom is already there. Elsewhere everywhere there are futures.” To which it must be added: It is precisely because here it is a question of the kingdom, and not elsewhere in the seven other beatitudes, that the evangelist Matthew introduces these two occurrences with a present tense and not a future. . See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics .. 

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. There is in La Joie imprenable by L. Basset, a close analysis of the parable of the prodigal as the passage from happiness to joy (–). Although I agree basically with the analysis, I prefer to translate euphrainô by “festoyer” (here, “celebrate”) and charênai by “se rejouir” (here, “rejoice”) insofar as the act of re-joicing contains etymologically joy and so fits better with charênai than with euphrainô. In this way we maintain the usage found in the French edition of the œcumenical translation of the Bible (TOB) or the translation of Sister Jeanne d’Arc (Les Belles Lettres). . Bl. Pascal, Pensées, . See “Diversion,” –. . Augustine, Confessions ... . É. M. Cioran, De l’inconvénient d’être né (; Paris, Gallimard, ), . . H. Arendt, Condition de l’homme moderne (; Paris, Agora-Pocket, ), . . See here my article “Dieu nous éprouve-t-il ou faut-il sauver la providence?” La Vie spirituelle, no.  (March ): –. The essay discusses the themes developed here, and avoids a dismissive approach towards meaning and practice in relation to providence today. It can also be recommended to the reader, in that its subject is different from that of the present work (birth and resurrection). . S. Kierkegaard, Trois pieux discours, in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, ), :–. . J. de Gramont, Le Discours de la vie: Trois essais sur Platon, Kierkegaard et Nietzsche, Paris, L’Harmattan, , pp. –. I cannot stress strongly enough how much this paragraph (§ c, The birth of joy) owes to Kierkegaard, and to J. de Gramont. I should like to express my thanks here to the latter, both for his support and for showing me how to proceed. I would recommend to the reader the excellent pages devoted to Kierkegaard’s Edifying Discourses in his work (part , –). As for the non-Christologic position of Kierkegaard, this does not mean that he neglects to assign importance to Christ, but simply that his philosophy studies the effects of the resurrection on mankind (silence, the moment, joy, etc.) rather than the resurrection as such. See on this point F. Bousquet, Le Christ de Kierkegaard (Paris: Desclée, ), : “The figure of Christ is not massively present, to the great displeasure of those who always rely ‘too heavily on the name of Christ.’ But it is everywhere, engraved, postulated by the actual on his road to freedom in history.” . See my Les Noces de l’Agneau (). . Boethius, Consolatio Philosophiae, .., col. , PL (Migne): “Aeternitas est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio”—a formula taken up and commented on by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, q. , a. , ad : “Whatever is possessed [ posseditur], is held firmly and quietly; therefore to designate the immutability and permanence of eternity, we use the term ‘possession’ [usus est nomine possessionis].” . P. Claudel, “Traité de la con-naissance du monde et de soi-même,” Art poétique, reprinted in Œuvre poétique (Paris: Gallimard, Pléiade, ), . Notes to pages –

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. R. Descartes, Méditations métaphysiques, in Œuvres philosophiques, vol. , AT . (Paris: Classiques Garnier, ). . Cl. Romano, L’Événement et le temps, . . Emmontement is a neologism coined by Péguy, indicating the starting point for pilgrimage between earth and heaven, a pilgrimage in which we must first amass and pile up experience and involvement in the earth before casting our time toward heaven. (Translator’s note.) See Ch. Péguy, Dialogue de l’histoire et de l’âme charnelle: “It is the special characteristic of Christianity, this particular kind of engagement, this ‘emmontement,’ this insertion, this engagement, this incredible ‘emmontement,’ incredibly profound of the temporal in the eternal, of me in the temporal, of my history in true eternity” (). See on this point my article “Incarnation philosophique et incarnation théologique: Une histoire arrivée à la chair et à la terre: Lecture du Dialogue de l’histoire et de l’âme charnelle,” L’Amitié Charles Péguy, no.  (April–June ): –. . A Flesh for Rebirth . R. Descartes, Discours de la méthode, vol. I of Œuvres philosophiques (Paris: Classiques Garnier, ), – (AT .), and Principes de la philosophie, vol.  of Œuvres philosophiques (Paris: Classiques Garnier, ),  (AT ..). I note, however, that infancy is seen here by Descartes as a stage before being overtaken by adulthood and rationality (“because we have judged things sometimes well and sometimes badly”)—what precisely we have to struggle against, given that the child in us is above all constitutive of our humanity and is literally the existential of the Kingdom of God: “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs” (Mark :). This is a vital point but one that it is not possible to treat in the context of this book, which is based above all on birth as existential of the resurrection. . See E. Fink, Sixième méditation cartésienne (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, ), : “In phenomenology, already-being is itself a problem, and the monads are not in the world already there but are the subjects that constitute it and that constitute the constant already-being that is there. Also they are themselves already—in relation to the world, while in naïve naturalism it is the world that is already there” (my italics). . For the phenomenology of birth that lies behind this discussion see J.-L. Marion, De surcroît (Paris: PUF, ), –; Cl. Romano L’Événement de le Monde, –; and N. Depraz, “Naître à soi-même,” Alter, no. , “Naître et mourir” (): –. The renewing of the theological perspective of the resurrection considered through the existential of birth (the dialogue with Nicodemus) would have been impossible without this new phenomenology of birth derived from Husserl’s treatment of the topic and responding to Heideggerian neglect. I should like here to express my warm regard for these authors and for the fecundity of their philosophical researches. . E. Husserl, De la synthèse passive: Logique transcendentale et constitution originaires (Grenoble: Jérôme Million, ), –: “ ‘Losing oneself in the obscurity’ 

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is the sole phenomenological mode that can be assigned to the end of the transcendental subjectivity from the point of view of one’s past” (cited in “Naître à soi-même,” by N. Depraz, ). . Cl. Romano, L’Événement et le monde, –. . Angelus Silesius, The Cherubic Pilgrim. For the “fait accompli” as double inversion of temporality and causality, interpreted here in the phenomenon of birth and rebirth, see J.-L. Marion, Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, ), –; –. See also my article on this book, “Phénoménologie de l’extraordinaire,” Philosophie, no. : –. . Philosophical analysis of the “witness,” at least in his “name,” if not in his “flesh,” developed by J.-L. Marion, Étant donné, –. . Augustine, Tractatus in Evangelium Johannis, Tractatus , .. . Bonaventure, Legenda Sancti Francisci .. . F. Quéré, Marie (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, ), . See the rest of the chapter (–) for the conditions of realization of the question posed by the virgin of Nazareth. . J.-L. Marion, “À Dieu, rien d’impossible,” Communio , no.  (September–October ), – (my italics). . E. Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, ), –. See also N. Depraz, Transcendance et incarnation: Le statut de l’intersubjectivité comme altérité à soi chez Husserl (Paris: Vrin, ), – (comments on the translation of Leib, Leiblichkeit, Verleiblichung). . M. Henry, Incarnation (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, ), –. . E. Husserl, Husserliana, : (cited in Sur la phénoménologie de Husserl, by D. Franck (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, ), p. . . Tertullian, De carne Christi .. For an historical and theological development of the meaning of “body” in Tertullian, see the indispensable work of J. Alexandre (whose faithful support in my researches I should like to recognize here), Une chair pour la gloire: L’anthropologie réaliste et mystique de Tertullien (Paris: Beauchesne, ). For a more phenomenological perspective on “incorporation” relying also on Tertullian, see my article “Une analytique de l’incarnation: Le De carne Christi de Tertullien,” in L’Incarnation: Actes du colloque Enrico Castelli (Rome, ) (Milan: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, ), – (shorter version); or in La Gnose, une question philosophique: Pour une phénoménologie de l’invisible, ed. N. Depraz and J.-F. Marquet (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), – (full version). . See the possible Gnostic drift in the phenomenology of Michel Henry, which I have argued against elsewhere—and see also his response to my objections. My discussion can be found in “Y a-t-il une chair sans corps?” in Phénoménologie et christianisme chez Michel Henry, ed. Ph. Capelle (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, ), : “The pathos of the body that the author (Michel Henry) speaks of here belongs rather to the ‘sidereal or special body’ as maintained by Apelles against Tertullian, or to the ‘body of the angels since before the creation of the Notes to pages –

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

world’ described by Jacob Böhme, than to the true corporality of a Christ ‘born in human likeness’ (Phil :), who came ‘to share a body like ours, irrigated by blood, shaped by bones and criss-crossed by veins’ (Tertullian).” Henry’s reply can be found at –. . Ego-logical: As our perception of the world is based on the ego. (Translator’s note.) . F. Varillon, Joie de croire, Joie de vivre (Paris: Centurion, ),  (my italics). . For the justification of the fear of the disciples and the double hypothesis (a) of the “return of the dead body” (from the stigmata) and (b) the “reincarnation of the soul of a dead person” (from his incitation to follow him), see Th. Kowalski, Les apparitions de reconnaissances, vol.  of Les Témoins de la résurrection de Jésus, Du tombeau vide à l’ascension (Paris: Cahiers de l’École Cathédrale), : “In the Cenacle they knew that Jesus was dead and that the view of the mortal wounds of his crucifixion suggested first of all the ghostly apparition of a dead body”; (b) “Pneuma—that is to say, ‘spirit’—means the soul of a dead person. [Note : “In the Jewish beliefs of that period, the impure spirits were the ‘dead souls’ who could grab hold of someone to drag him to death through vengeance or demonic evil.”] I recommend this work to the reader, since it is judicious and also enriches the more systematic and philosophic view of the phenomenology of the resurrection that I have tried to outline here. . Schema that can be found in Kant’s table of categories (Critique of Pure Reason), cleverly overturned by the concept of the saturated phenomenon in Étant donné by J.-L. Marion (–). It is possible, however, to question whether the overturning of these categories does not still depend on these categories themselves (see my article “Phénoménologie de l’extraordinaire” in Philosophie, no.  [June ]: –). Rather than “overthrowing” metaphysics, I have chosen here to go directly, but in a noncontradictory way, into a descriptive phenomenology of the resurrection, starting off from the transformation of our fleshly ordinariness. (See § on the two possible routes, that of Marion and the one chosen here.) . Aristotle, Metaphysics ., trans. W. D. Ross: “Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect.” . Évangile selon Saint Luke, trans. and annotated by Sr. Jeanne d’Arc (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, ), nb (at Luke :): “They were here [in the episode of the apparition to the Eleven [Luke :] as simple [aussi nigauds] as in the walking on the water [Mark :].” . Meister Eckhart, Sermon , reprinted in Le Château de l’âme, by G. Jarczyk and P.-J. Labarrière, Le Chateau de l’âme (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, ), . See the chapter “Réduction et conversion (Maître Eckhart) in my Dieu, la chair et l’autre (Paris: PUF, ) –. . G. Martelet, Résurrection, eucharistie et genèse de l’homme. Chemins théologique d’un renouveau chrétien, Paris, Desclée, . “The empty tomb is not 

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Notes to pages –

the fact of the resurrection; it belongs to it directly, however, and thus it witnesses to it in its fashion” (). . Th. Kowalski, Les Témoins de la résurrection de Jésus,  (author’s italics). . E. Husserl, “Première meditation,” Méditations cartésiennes (; Paris, Vrin, ,  (§). . Ibid,  (§; author’s italics). . E. Husserl, “Première recherche,” Recherches logiques (Paris: PUF, ),  (S. ). For a commentary on this passage, see R. Schérer, La Phénoménologie des recherches logiques de Husserl (Paris: PUF, ), –. . E. Husserl, “Deuxième leçon,” in L’Idée de la phénoménologie (; Paris: PUF, ),  (S. ): “What the critique of consciousness aims at . . . is to bring to light the essence of consciousness as well as the claim to validity, which is part of its essence: to lead them—that is what it comes down to—to a direct presence-inperson [Selbstgegebenheit: a term that designates both what is given in person and the character of what is given in person].” . The definition of phenomenon by M. Heidegger, Being and Time, §, S. . . See on this point the suggestive article by R. Negrutiu, “La joie de Pâques,” in Cahiers chrétiens: Cahiers de l’archevêché orthodoxe roumain (Paris: Dossiers Pâques, ), –): “That is why, as Yahweh comes without Moses seeing his face, Christ has no face after his resurrection. He does not let himself be reseen, because that is for all of us to do in the mirror of our neighbor. For this reason, the resurrection is fundamentally an incarnation: a movement of withdrawal that gives birth to the gift of the Holy Spirit in the flesh” (; author’s italics). Conclusion: Waiting for Bodies to Arise . See Thomas Aquinas, Commentaria Biblica: Super Ioannem (Commentary on the Gospel of St. John), cap. .. [passage on Nicodemus]). . P. Claudel, Présence et prophétie (Paris: Gallimard, ), . Cited and discussed in Apparition, vol.  of La Gloire et la Croix, by Hans Urs von Balthasar (Paris: Audier, ), . . St. Bonaventure, Breviloquium  (La grâce du Saint Esprit) (Paris: Éditions Franciscaines, ), . For the doctrine of the “spiritual sense” in Bonaventure, see my article “Vision, excès et chair. Essai de lecture phénoménologique de l’œuvre de saint Bonaventure,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques (RSPT) , no. , (January ), –. See also H. Urs von Balthasar, Apparition, vol.  of La Gloire et la Croix, –. . H. Urs von Balthasar, Apparition, vol.  of La Gloire et la Croix, : “Through his love of his neighbor, the Christian definitively acquires the Christian senses. And these moreover are not different senses from the bodily sense. They are these same bodily senses but in the degree that they conform to the figure of Christ” (my italics). . Parmenides, fragment . Cited as epigraph and commented on by Didier Franck, to clarify the line of thought that runs from the Presocratics to Husserl, in Notes to pages –

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Chair et corps: Sur la phénoménologie de Husserl (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, ), , n. . H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum (Fribourg, ), no.  (Second Council of Lyon []): “Those who die in the love of God before having made appropriate penitence are purified by the pains [of purgatory] and benefit from the support of the living.” . See Bonaventure, Breviloquium .. (The Last Judgment) : “The whole world proclaims that mankind will be resurrected.” See also Thomas Aquinas, (in the context of hylomorphism reconsidered in the light of theology), Contra Gentiles ..: “Perpetually, then, the soul will not be without the body.” . Fr. Varillon, Joie de croire, Joie de vivre (Paris: Centurion, ), . . Origen, In Leviticum (Homiliae) .. . See the third part of my “triptych,” Les Noces de l’Agneau: Essai philosophique sur le corps et l’eucharistie (). . F. Kafka, letter,  July , in Lettres à Miléna (Paris: Gallimard, ), .



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Notes to pages –

Index of Names

Aganassief, N., n Alexandre, J., n, n Angelus Silesius,  Anselm of Canterbury (Saint), , , , n Aquinas, Thomas (Saint), x, –, , , , , , , , n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Arendt, H., , n Aristotle, , , n, n, n, n, n, n Arnim, I. (von), n Augustine (Saint), x, xiv, , –, , , , , , , , –, , n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Bacon, F., , n Badiou, A., n Baius, , n Balthasar, H. U. (von), , , n, n, n, n, n, n, n Barth, K., , , , , n, n, n

Basset, L., , n, n, n, n Benjamin, W.,  Benoist, J., –, n Berdiaev, N., , n Bergson, H., ,  Bernard of Clairvaux (Saint), –, , , –, n, n Biemel, W.,  Bishop, J., n Blondel, M., x, –, n, n, n, n, n Bochet, I., n, n Boethius, n Böhme, J., , n, –n Bohr, N., , n Bonaventure (Saint), x, , , , , –, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Bonhoeffer, D.,  Boulnois, O., n, n Bousquet, F., n Boutroux, E.,  Brague, R., n, –n, n Brun, J., n Brunet, R., n 

Brunschvicg, L.,  Bultmann, R., , , , , , –n, n Cajetan, , n Capelle, P., –n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Chantre, B., n Chrétien, J.-L., , n Cioran, E. M.,  Claudel, P., , n, n Clavier, P., n Clement of Alexandria, –, n Cohen-Tannoudji, G., n Crouzel, H.,  Dastur, F., n, n, n Decoin, D., n Deghaye, P., n Deleuze, G., , –, , n Denys le Chartreux, , n, n, n, n Denzinger, H., n Depraz, N., n, n, n Descartes, R., , , , n, n, n, n Dumont, J.-N., n Duns Scotus, J., ,  Eckhart (Meister), , n, n Eriugena, Johannes Scottus, , –, n, n Fédou, M., n Feuerbach, L., , – Fink, E., n Florival, G., n Foucault, M., , n Franck, D., , , , n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Francis of Assisi (Saint), , , , n Freud, S.,  Gilson, E., , n Gondinet-Wallstein, E., n, n Gramont, J. (de), n 

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Index of Names

Gregory of Nazianzus, , , n Greisch, J., , n, n, n, n, n, n, n Grelot, P., n Grenier, C., –n Guardini, R.,  Guattari, F., n Hegel, G. W. F., , , , , , , n, n, n Heidegger, M., , , , –, –, , –, –, , –, , , , –, , –, , n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Henry, M., , , , , n, –n, n, n, n, n Hesiod, n Holzer, V., n Housset, E., n Husserl, E., , , , , –, , , –, , –, , –, –, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Ignatius Loyola (Saint),  Irenaeus, x, , , , –, –, , , n, n, n, n, n, n, n Ivanka, E. (von), n Janicaud, D., , –n, n Jeanne d’Arc (Sr.), n, n, n, n Joachim of Flora, , n John XXIII, ,  John Paul II,  Jonas, H., , n Jüngel, E., , ,  Kafka, F.,  Kant, I., , , , , n, n, n

Kierkegaard, S., , , n, n, n Kowalski, T., n, n

Pindar,  Plato, , , , , –, n, n, n

Lacoste, J.-Y., , n Larivée, A., n, n, n Leclercq, J., n Leduc, A., n, n, n Leibniz, G. W., –, , n, n Léon-Dufour, X., –, n Levinas, E., , –, , n, n, n Libera (de), A., n Lipps, n Lubac (de), H., x, –, –, n, n, n

Quéré, F., n

Marcel, G., x, , , n Marion, J.-L., , , –, –, – ,–n, n, n, n, n, n, n, –n, n, n, n, n, n, n Marquet, J.-F., n, n Martelet, G., , n, n Merleau-Ponty, M., , –, , , n, n, n, n, n Moltmann, J., , , n Morales, X., n Negrutiu, R., n Nemo, P., n Nicolas, J.-H. n Nietzsche, F., , –, , –, –, , , , , , , , n, n, n, n, n Origen, –, , , –, , , n, n Parmenides,n Pascal, B., , , , n, n Péguy, C., , , n, n

Rahner, K., , , , n, n, n, n Ramnoux, C., n Refoulé, F., n Renault, A., n Ricœur, P., x, n, n, n, n Rimbaud, A.,  Romano, C., –, n, n, n, n, n, n, –n, nn, n, n, n Sartre, J.-P., , , –, , n, n, n, n, n Scheler, M., x, , n Schopenhauer, A., , , n Sesboüé, B., n, n, n, n Solages (de), M.-A., n Soual, P., n Spinoza, B. (von), , ,  Stein, E., n Tertullian, x, , , , , , n, n, n, n, n, n, n, n Theresa of Avila (Saint), , n Thérèse of Lisieux (Saint),  Tillard, J.-M., n Varillon, F., , , , n, n Vernant, J.-P.,  Vieillard-Baron, J.-L., n Weil, S., -, n Xenophon, , –, n

Index of Names

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

Perspectives in Continental Philosophy John D. Caputo, series editor

John D. Caputo, ed., Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. Michael Strawser, Both/And: Reading Kierkegaard—From Irony to Edification. Michael D. Barber, Ethical Hermeneutics: Rationality in Enrique Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation. James H. Olthuis, ed., Knowing Other-wise: Philosophy at the Threshold of Spirituality. James Swindal, Reflection Revisited: Jürgen Habermas’s Discursive Theory of Truth. Richard Kearney, Poetics of Imagining: Modern and Postmodern. Second edition. Thomas W. Busch, Circulating Being: From Embodiment to Incorporation—Essays on Late Existentialism. Edith Wyschogrod, Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics. Second edition. Francis J. Ambrosio, ed., The Question of Christian Philosophy Today. Jeffrey Bloechl, ed., The Face of the Other and the Trace of God: Essays on the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Ilse N. Bulhof and Laurens ten Kate, eds., Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Theology. Trish Glazebrook, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Science. Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology, and Philosophy. Mark C. Taylor, Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard. Second edition. Dominique Janicaud, Jean-François Courtine, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricœur, Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn”: The French Debate.

Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt. Introduction by Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. Jean-Luc Marion, The Idol and Distance: Five Studies. Translated with an introduction by Thomas A. Carlson. Jeffrey Dudiak, The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas. Robyn Horner, Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida, and the Limits of Phenomenology. Mark Dooley, The Politics of Exodus: Søren Keirkegaard’s Ethics of Responsibility. Merold Westphal, Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith. Edith Wyschogrod, Jean-Joseph Goux, and Eric Boynton, eds., The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifice. Stanislas Breton, The Word and the Cross. Translated with an introduction by Jacquelyn Porter. Jean-Luc Marion, Prolegomena to Charity. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Peter H. Spader, Scheler’s Ethical Personalism: Its Logic, Development, and Promise. Jean-Louis Chrétien, The Unforgettable and the Unhoped For. Translated by Jeffrey Bloechl. Don Cupitt, Is Nothing Sacred? The Non-Realist Philosophy of Religion: Selected Essays. Jean-Luc Marion, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena. Translated by Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud. Phillip Goodchild, Rethinking Philosophy of Religion: Approaches from Continental Philosophy. William J. Richardson, S.J., Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. Jeffrey Andrew Barash, Martin Heidegger and the Problem of Historical Meaning. Jean-Louis Chrétien, Hand to Hand: Listening to the Work of Art. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Jean-Louis Chrétien, The Call and the Response. Translated with an introduction by Anne Davenport. D. C. Schindler, Han Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth: A Philosophical Investigation. Julian Wolfreys, ed., Thinking Difference: Critics in Conversation. Allen Scult, Being Jewish/Reading Heidegger: An Ontological Encounter. Richard Kearney, Debates in Continental Philosophy: Conversations with Contemporary Thinkers. Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, Heidegger, Hölderlin, and the Subject of Poetic Language: Towards a New Poetics of Dasein. Jolita Pons, Stealing a Gift: Kirkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible. Jean-Yves Lacoste, Experience and the Absolute: Disputed Questions on the Humanity of Man. Translated by Mark Raftery-Skehan. Charles P. Bigger, Between Chora and the Good: Metaphor’s Metaphysical Neighborhood.

Dominique Janicaud, Phenomenology “Wide Open”: After the French Debate. Translated by Charles N. Cabral. Ian Leask and Eoin Cassidy, eds., Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion. Jacques Derrida, Sovereignties in Question: The Poetics of Paul Celan. Edited by Thomas Dutoit and Outi Pasanen. William Desmond, Is There a Sabbath for Thought? Between Religion and Philosophy. Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba, eds., The Phenomoenology of Prayer. S. Clark Buckner and Matthew Statler, eds., Styles of Piety: Practicing Philosophy after the Death of God. Kevin Hart and Barbara Wall, eds., The Experience of God: A Postmodern Response. John Panteleimon Manoussakis, After God: Richard Kearney and the Religious Turn in Continental Philosophy. John Martis, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe: Representation and the Loss of the Subject. Jean-Luc Nancy, The Ground of the Image. Edith Wyschogrod, Crossover Queries: Dwelling with Negatives, Embodying Philosophy’s Others. Gerald Bruns, On the Anarchy of Poetry and Philosophy: A Guide for the Unruly. Brian Treanor, Aspects of Alterity: Levinas, Marcel, and the Contemporary Debate. Simon Morgan Wortham, Counter-Institutions: Jacques Derrida and the Question of the University. Leonard Lawlor, The Implications of Immanence: Toward a New Concept of Life. Clayton Crockett, Interstices of the Sublime: Theology and Psychoanalytic Theory. Bettina Bergo, Joseph Cohen, and Raphael Zagury-Orly, eds., Judeities: Questions for Jacques Derrida. Translated by Bettina Bergo and Michael B. Smith. Jean-Luc Marion, On the Ego and on God: Further Cartesian Questions. Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner. Jean-Luc Nancy, Philosophical Chronicles. Translated by Franson Manjali. Jean-Luc Nancy, Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity. Translated by Bettina Bergo, Gabriel Malenfant, and Michael B. Smith. Andrea Hurst, Derrida Vis-à-vis Lacan: Interweaving Deconstruction and Psychoanalysis. Jean-Luc Nancy, Noli me tangere: On the Raising of the Body. Translated by Sarah Clift, Pascale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas. Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am. Edited by Marie-Louise Mallet, translated by David Wills. Jean-Luc Marion, The Visible and the Revealed. Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner and others. Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology. Translated by Scott Davidson. Jean-Luc Nancy, Corpus. Translated by Richard A. Rand. Joshua Kates, Fielding Derrida. Michael Naas, Derrida From Now On.

Shannon Sullivan and Dennis J. Schmidt, eds., Difficulties of Ethical Life. Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain? Translated by Sebastian Rand, Introduction by Marc Jeannerod. Claude Romano, Event and World. Translated by Shane Mackinlay. Vanessa Lemm, Nietzsche’s Animal Philosophy: Culture, Politics, and the Animality of the Human Being. B. Keith Putt, ed., Gazing Through a Prism Darkly: Reflections on Merold Westphal’s Hermeneutical Epistemology. Eric Boynton and Martin Kavka, eds., Saintly Influence: Edith Wyschogrod and the Possibilities of Philosophy of Religion. Shane Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess: Jean-Luc Marion, Saturated Phenomena, and Hermeneutics. Kevin Hart and Michael A. Signer, eds., The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas Between Jews and Christians. Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba, eds., Words of Life: New Theological Turns in French Phenomenology. William Robert, Trials: Of Antigone and Jesus. Brian Treanor and Henry Isaac Venema, eds., A Passion for the Possible: Thinking with Paul Ricoeur. Kas Saghafi, Apparitions—Of Derrida’s Other. Nick Mansfield, The God Who Deconstructs Himself: Sovereignty and Subjectivity Between Freud, Bataille, and Derrida. Don Ihde, Heidegger’s Technologies: Postphenomenological Perspectives. Françoise Dastur, Questioning Phenomenology. Translated by Robert Vallier. Suzi Adams, Castoriadis’s Ontology: Being and Creation. Richard Kearney and Kascha Semonovitch, eds., Phenomenologies of the Stranger: Between Hostility and Hospitality. Alena Alexandrova, Ignaas Devisch, Laurens ten Kate, and Aukje van Rooden, eds., Re-treating Religion: Deconstructing Christianity with Jean-Luc Nancy. Preamble by Jean-Luc Nancy. Michael Naas, Miracle and Machine: Jacques Derrida and the Two Sources of Religion, Science, and the Media. Emmanuel Falque, The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection. Translated by George Hughes.