Clandestine Theology

A Non-Philosopher's Confession of Faith

Francois Laruelle, Andrew Sackin-Poll

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781350104310
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350104297
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Critical Theory

In this new translation, Laruelle offers a serious and rigorous challenge to contemporary theological thought, calling into question the dominant understanding of the relation between Christ, theology, and philosophy, not only from a theoretical, but also political perspective.

He achieves this through an inversion of St Paul's reading of Christ, through which the ground for Christianity shifts. It is no longer the 'event' of the resurrection, as philosophical and theological operation (Badiou's St Paul), so much as the Risen Himself that forms the starting point for a non-philosophical confession. Between the Greek and the Jew, Laruelle places the Gnostic-Christ in order to disrupt and overturn such theologico-philosophical interpretations of the resurrection and set the Risen within the radical immanence of Man-in-Person.

Forming the basis for a non-Christianity, Clandestine Theology offers a more radical deconstruction of Christianity, resting upon the last identity of Man and the humanity of Christ as opposed to endless deferral or difference (Nancy) or the universalising economy of Ideas and Events (Badiou).

1

Faith and belief

Man-in-person as universal a priori

I will set the symbols of faith within a special form of axioms that explain and articulate the faith I consider to be precisely the intimacy or immanence of the ‘consubstantiality’ of Man. Such an intimate faith can only be confessed in the form of axioms, which are empty of their theological sense and meaning but nevertheless employ theological vocabulary. This generic distribution of religion (including structures, dogmas, and beliefs), according to faith, will thus set in motion the particular religion designated by the symbol or first term ‘Christ’. On this basis, there is an objective religious appearance – Christian – that is, perhaps, contingent upon a particular confession of faith. The universal generic posture (of faith) – that is, non-philosophy – must now be defined in order to clarify the possible basis for this appearance. Through non-philosophy, the generic nature of faith is discovered in a non-reflected way.

I understand by Man-in-person a number of axioms, which, in turn, contain many others. We will thus call (1) the Real as radical immanence (of) Lived, therefore, Lived-without-life or Real-without-reality, separated by axiomatic ‘definition’ ‘from’ any and all reality or even ‘from’ the World; (2) the Real as an a priori form – that is, an immanent and lived form – but from the perspective of the World this time, assuring thus that the donation of the World is reduced to its human determination; (3) the Real as the most universal determining instance of knowledge that brings the philosophico-theological structures, which constitute precisely the World-Form par excellence, and the World (and not only an isolated content) together in relation.

Man-in-person is a real a priori. Man is neither substantial nor in and for itself but rather radically immanent. This forms an identity that is empty of all substance and, therefore, devoid of any subject and attributes. Man is the universal a priori for the worldly universal. I call this point of view, comprised of such axioms, ‘generic’ rather than ‘philosophical’ on the basis that it ‘contradicts’ philosophical logic at the same time as making use of its vocabulary. They form neither a meta- nor a para-philosophy; non-philosophy is neither above nor simply beside or adjacent to philosophy; neither philosophy nor topology determines its essence.

Since the Modern Age, the theologico-philosophical form of the World has rested upon the two pillars of faith and mathematics. But the Modern Age results from their premature combination under the authority of philosophy. This leaves us the task of thinking each in terms of an effect of Man-in-person and, subsequently, the determination of a non-theology parallel to a non-epistemology. There are many types of universal and heterogeneous knowledge, each producing their own truths. They emanate from science, art, religion, love, economy, politics, rather than being limited to just four and bound to a single conception of ‘truth’ or half-truth, even a truth-without-knowledge, with some nuances and variations that form a philosophical system (Badiou). But the generic is something altogether different: it is Truth-without-truth. This should not to be confused with the knowledge of first truths or the truth-without-knowledge of philosophy. The generic should, furthermore, not be taken for a synthesis or complement. It should rather be understood as ‘once, each time’ the human Identity-in-the-last-instance of philosophy and the truths specific to particular domains of knowledge. We place under the form of the ‘non-religious’, for example, the generic identity of faith in-the-last-instance along with religion, including every specific religion. Under the form of thought-science, we place mathematics (as mathesis, rather than matheme), and, therefore, science and epistemology, too. The new experience of non-religion, no longer understood as a predicate of Man but rather a ‘post-dicate’, adds nothing to the real of faith (i.e. the Real). Non-religion is, therefore, a religious (real-)transcendental; it is simple, like faith, and universal, yet never totalizing or totalitarian, like certain religions. It is simple and non-reflected, without the thickness and density that characterizes the duplicity and complexity of religion.

I admit the possibility of a generic discourse of faith – non-religious or non-theological – that is in accordance with faith. This does not mean absolutely without since such a discourse still uses concepts from theology and history, yet it remains irreducible to them. On the contrary, faith is capable of determining them. Hence, the following axion: faith is foreclosed to religion but nevertheless determines the religious. This is more than a clarification of terms, a statement of the situation, or tidying up of logical confusions; rather, this concerns a decision of an axiomatic type, which, in the end, makes possible a ‘thought-faith’ or a ‘non-religious’ faith. In this way, a transfer of thought from philosophy or theology to faith is accomplished. This is done in order to liberate faith, which currently lacks its own thought, from the forces that are always and already imposed upon it (i.e. by philosophy and theology). Such a liberation would not banish theology altogether, only suspend its power and supposed autonomy. We have, then, the task of detaching, from one another, the two very slender films or surfaces, seemingly identical or fused together, even contiguous with one another, that constitute the density and sufficiency of spontaneous theology. This transfer takes place in two distinct stages: (1) show that faith is a human ‘posture’ through and through, and so radically autonomous and foreclosed to religions precisely at the moment when they need faith in order to express themselves; (2) show that theology, reduced to a single film or surface – that is, an appearance, without density or thickness – is necessary for statements determined by faith, giving them an objective religious and worldly form but reduced by faith itself (as a transcendental reduction). Thought, reduced to such a state of transcendental appearance, is thus removed from the ambit of philosophy and redistributed equally throughout its ‘regional’ or ‘non-fundamental’ activities. This is only a single moment in an enormous task that introduces a certain democracy into the exercise of thought, although not through a distribution, since democracy is an Identity that is precisely not shared or distributed but rather given. This undertaking amounts to tearing the problem of faith out from religion in order to treat the effects of faith under a form of knowledge and truth – that is, to make faith pass from religious mythologies into a sphere of thought, as thought-faith, alongside thought-science, thus assuming the same privileges as art, economics, politics, and so on. In short, faith leaves the heavens and the earth in order to meet Man precisely where he stands in immanence. This is the age of non-religious faith that has nothing whatsoever to do with modern secularization, which is really only a debasement of the old mythology. The subject (of) faith is the subject ‘in struggle’, like others and alongside them.

The generic style and its two interpretations

We propose the introduction of what could be called the ‘generic’ point of view – that is, no longer a philosophical or theological perspective – into religion, in particular Christianity, in order thereby to displace the ensemble of theologico-symbolic apparatuses of Christianity and move them on to another terrain than the religious. This new terrain is faith insofar as it is the essence of Man-in-person and, in contrast to belief, assures us that we are ‘in-Man’ rather than ‘in-Reason’ or ‘in-God’. A generic theology differentiates itself from philosophical theology in terms of cause, style, and effects. It is the transformation of the philosophical under the condition of its ultimate determination by the Man (of) faith. This must not be confused with secularization: religions and beliefs are, together, fluid and worldly, conforming to a variable yet uncertain geometry, with secularization being only one historical and worldly version.

The generic is, of course, as the example of Feuerbach shows, habitually understood as philosophical – Hegelian or para-Hegelian – and apt to be integrated under the authority of the Whole or All. But we will discern a specific structure of the generic plane, relative to Man (of) faith rather than to philosophy. The supposed ‘return’ taken by Feuerbach is a false one: it remains bound to a sensible-material man, which is transcendent in every way, pertaining only to a way of philosophical thought via a reversal of Hegelianism. Philosophy and theology thus re-united must be vanquished at the site of their object, Man, as well as upon the terrain of their thought, humanism and anthropology. Through the immemorial and foundational confusion that traces the outline of God in man after, first of all, tracing man in God – a profound reversal of the image of God in the human – we are ‘bound’ to religion. God has His perfections, attributes, and properties, but what purpose does Feuerbach’s treatment of them in terms of an alienated reflection of man and subsequent return to their supposed human origin serve? The contribution of Christianity can be found elsewhere than in this play of reflections and must not be confused with the specular character of religions.

There are, then, at least two possible interpretations of the generic: the first is philosophical, with diverse anthropological, materialist, or logical-mathematical variants; the second is non-philosophical or ‘radical’. The first sense of the generic can be understood, from the outset, in the sense employed in pharmaceuticals and the sciences, where certain properties assume a universal yet not explicitly totalizing extension as discrete individuals. This is done either to replace specific or technical names, particularly with respect to a medicine (like a ‘label’ or commercial name – that is, a generic name for a drug) or, in the case of science, to redistribute them throughout a number of other disciplines. The generic founds, then, a certain univocity, without forming an explicit totality, being extended throughout a number of disciplines and fields. Understood in this manner, the generic offers a kind of ‘mid-’ or ‘weak’ philosophy, with a low profile, standing between the extremes of the One, on one side, and the Being of beings, on the other. But such generic terms offer only material for other disciplines and fields to employ for their own purposes. Without drawing all the consequences from this claim, we see nevertheless that individual things can be stripped of every ‘elevated’, ‘spiritual’, or ‘ideal’ predicate and brought back to a certain banality that renders their specific use as ‘labels’ or ‘names’ inoperative within particular fields. What interests us about the generic, in this first sense, is precisely its ‘anti-commercial’ potential as well as its universal range, without a specular double, illusion, or deception, as well as lacking any surplus value. In the end, we value the anti-capitalist destiny of the generic. But the generic remains a sub-concept, almost as inadequate for thinking Man-in-person as Feuerbach’s naturalist and materialist notion.

We abandon the middle and sub-philosophical virtues of the old generic style, that is, the ‘ordinary’ character of this ordinary. But we do so on the sole condition of radicalizing it. This forms the second sense of the generic. A radicalization of the generic is achieved by adding another real and a priori condition: Man-in-person. Thus radicalized, the generic contains a mutation of the milieu – a kind of middle unilaterality – that is not only adapted to Man and faith but also detached or ‘separated’ from the theologico-philosophical order that is foreclosed to faith. This ‘middle form’ could be completely adapted to faith at the same time as leaving the global and the Whole or All in the hands of philosophy, which would remain implicitly in the background. But the Man (of) faith precisely radicalizes this model and manages to tear faith from the authority of the Whole and Unity. The individual nature of faith is a decision or, more precisely – in order to distance this conception of faith from Kierkegaard this time – a Decided-without-decision or even an Undecided-without-indecision that is strictly human, nothing but human. The ‘middle form’ manages to separate the individual from animal and rational properties, as though extracting the Man (of) faith from the entire context of predicates, humanity, history, nation, social class, and subjectivity of the subject. The ‘faithful’ (the only adjective admissible for faith that we will carefully distinguish from philosophical belief, which is not faithful) individual is, however, always accompanied by a very special religious structure. We no longer call this the religious – adjective for ‘religion’ – but rather the ‘non-religious’. This sphere or this instance is universally relevant and maintains itself in the cause in-the-last-instance of being-faithful. The religious, as an adjectival, qualifying, and generic term, is thus rendered inoperative, in its usual sense, by the introduction of the Man (of) faith.

This is a special operation, lacking any synthesis. It brings a proper or singular name, without extension or comprehension, that is also empty of all predicates – not at all, however, like a common name or label in the first sense of the term ‘generic’ – and a sphere of universality together. This association is determined by identification. Rather than impose names, such an identification determines them as individual or One(-All). Why put the ‘-All’ in parenthesis? Does this not suppress the All, even diminish or reduce it, without weakening it? The reason for such a parenthesis is due to the One-in-One – an axiomatic formulation of the Real or Man-in-person – subsisting or insisting in philosophy, not as divided or doubled, but simple. Philosophy otherwise twists and turns upon within itself in a ceaseless paroxysm of thought. There is no One that might not be included in the All, thereby recovering and dividing itself, doubling the one in the other. Only a One that insists ‘in’-One (One-in-One or One-in-person) can remain One and undivided, even if there is an All. The generic is a completely different logic to the philosophical one and differs partially from the logic of mathematics. If the generic needs a logic, then it is a real or transcendental, not simply a formal, one.

The most complete axiomatic formulation is, therefore, One = One-in-One = Uni–versal. There is clearly a leap, albeit only apparent, from One-in-One to Uni–versal – that is, from the radical individual to the generic individual. How can the individual be generic or universal, if it is at the same time free from the authority of philosophy? This question arises from the fact that the One-in-One has yet to be thought sufficiently insofar as without-All. The One is separated (from) the All – that is, separated without relation to or division from it. The radical immanence of the Lived-in-person makes the One-in-One as One(-Other than, not Other-of) possible, without contradiction. We call ‘unilaterality’ this structure of the One(-Other-than) that is simple or simplified, that is, without any mixture between the One-in-One and the Other. This also applies to the effects of simplification or non-sufficiency that the One brings upon the All as One(-All) and, thereby, forces philosophical thought. The One-in-One contains the ‘non’ of the ‘non-philosophical’ or a simplified philosophical approach, forced to abandon its duplicity. This is the secret of faith and the uni–versality of non-theological thought.

The radicalization of the generic allows us to understand that the generic style is the most radical mid-place or ordinary and, further, that the mid-place is a uniplace or unilateral place. The thought of the One-in-One can no longer be itself a reflected-reflexive position or an auto-position: the generic axiom is free from the vicious philosophical circle. Thanks to the totalizing and unifying ambitions of philosophy, we live with the idea that this ‘mediocre’ milieu or middle ‘ordinary’ is flanked by two supposedly extraordinary and philosophically interesting transcendences: the first moves towards the One-Being or Absolute and the second towards particular beings or objects. Both aspire towards the ‘in itself’. But the problem for the generic style is acquiring human autonomy – without filling this with Being or being, totality or Idea, sensible-material or individuals supposed to be ‘in themselves’ – in order thus to give rise to a new experience of thought as well as a new, radical practice of ordinary language. The factor = x, which is capable of producing such effects, cannot be merely a supplement to the absolute or totality; the ‘supplement’ is itself generic. We call precisely the generic radical, not absolute, and a priori rather than in itself. This is Man-in-person. In order to transform philosophical means and virtues into the generic – that is, make them serviceable as simplified and non-duplicated material – the generic must not be denied at the very moment they are undergoing a transformation but must, instead, be delineated from the conscious-form, reflexion-form, or totality-form that is so characteristic of philosophical circularity. The major concept or dominant moment for philosophy is the One. But this is reflected in diverse degrees, like One-All, One-of-One, or meta-One. This means that the solution to the problem of the generic involves posing the One without the duplicity of the One-All and reduced, instead, to One(-All), thus depriving the philosophical One of even a reflected privation of this One-All. Man is the uni–versal a priori for phenomena of belief and thought – that is, the form of the world – insofar as One-in-One but also Other-than …

This subtraction of the One-in-One from the One-All, which prima facie appears to be accomplished through an abstraction or withdrawal, cannot be an operation performed by an agent or subject ex machina; rather, it arises from an immanence without substance, form, or property that is unique to the One-in-One. The double negation that philosophy poses in the One-All, like the Hegelian dialectic, is replaced with a simple ‘non’ or ‘Other-than …’ that is set within the One-in-One through a radical or positive subtraction that separates this One from the All, without ever being the object of an operation, like separation or negation. This is a positive ‘Non’ – real or immanent – that lacks the duplicity of positivity, that is, without the Non-of-the-Non; it is an Other, in the end, that is really without the Other-of-the-Other. The One, given as separated, hurls the absolute All – that is, in and for itself, divided and duplicated – back into a chimerical existence. Whatever instance may be marked and labelled philosophically as the One or Unity, that is, according to the strictures of Being or the Other, must be now un-marked. But this un-marking must, importantly, not be done twice – that is, the un-marking of the marked – as in philosophical discourse, giving thus only the appearance of un-marking; rather, it must be done once-each-time, according to radical immanence. In this way the Real, the Lived-person, is performed in a positive way as an unmarked-without-unmarking, which explains the non-sufficiency and function of this ‘negative’ condition underpinning the generic as well as making clear the status of the generic as an a priori material form for theologico-philosophical discourse. The generic possesses the virtues of a procedure or operation that productively invests itself in diverse fields without the cumbersome machinery of philosophical formalism and method. The ordinary style of the generic can be thus delivered from the claims and ‘prestige’ of philosophy, while still using some philosophical characteristics and operations.

The confession of faith and theological duplicity

How to think faith and religion, if neither is the object of the other? How to conceive them together without linking or binding both terms in yet another synthesis? Could this be done with a certain kind of affinity, but without co-belonging? From such questions arise a new understanding of religion that is no longer theological and authoritarian by means of concepts, great events, and dogmas, assuming thereby a triple deus ex machina – machine of the Church...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents 
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Translator’s note
• Introduction
• 1 Faith and belief
• 2 The Gospels: Models for non-Christianity
• 3 Surviving scripture, glorious scripture
• 4 Dualysis of the trinity
• 5 A clandestine non-religion
• Notes
• Index
• Imprint