I’m continuing my reading of the Caputo anthology Cross and Khora, which is the first book in the Postmodernism and Ethics series that was left unfinished after David Goicoechea died.

The deconstructive reading points to a context without privileging that context vs others.  So, you may read in an “author intention” context, trying to get back to what the author meant.  However, you may try psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, etc readings which may supplement an author intent reading or may in fact go against it, finding threads in the text that when pulled on may unravel the whole author intent sweater.  So, Kant fully explains Hume’s skepticism but finds threads in Hume’s project that when pulled, unravels/deconstructs Hume’s edifice and is replaced by Kant’s transcendental idealism.

Mark’s story of the rich man plausibly goes back to the historical Jesus because it goes against cross-resurrection salvation propaganda, which is the intent of the gospels (the term gospel is borrowed from Roman military propaganda), but it also exposes Jesus to the donkey-carrot accusation that people are only altruistic because they want a reward:

The Rich Man

¹⁷ As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸ Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’ ” ²⁰ He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” ²¹ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money^[d] to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ²² When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

²³ Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is^[e] to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶ They were greatly astounded and said to one another,^[f] “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

²⁸ Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹ Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news^[g] 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹ But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Huntington poses the question to Caputo of how we can get a forgiveness that isn’t even aimed at me as a victim getting the perpetrator to sympathize, emphasize, or change his ways

I refer to the matter that the act of forgiveness cannot be infected by any variety of expectation, including that the other express sorrow over wrongdoing to me, for such expectation deprives me of the very attitude that alone can fund forgiveness… It leads us into the ever narrow pass where we come to see why all want of retribution, all desire to show the other the pain he or she caused me, impedes love.  Zlomislic, Marko; DeRoo, Neal. Cross and Khôra: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo (Postmodern Ethics Book 1) (p. 198-9). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

As a teacher, woman, and lover, this task doesn’t merely exceed that of converting male students or the beloved to the ideological perspective of feminism. It requires that I renounce want of effectuating such a conversion as my direct and explicit purpose. At issue is not to supply the right system of beliefs but to encourage receptivity to the non-ordinary perspective.  Zlomislic, Marko; DeRoo, Neal. Cross and Khôra: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo (Postmodern Ethics Book 1) (p. 209). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

For all the importance we put on the forgiving death of Jesus and Stephen that reformed the soldier at the cross and Paul, we must not neglect that this relation toward sinners is founded in fellowship and respect of them.  Caputo notes for Huntington:

But forgiveness is about transforming my heart, not about my reforming the other; reform is her or his business, between him or her and God. Love, with or without return; forgive, with or without the other’s reform.  Zlomislic, Marko; DeRoo, Neal. Cross and Khôra: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo (Postmodern Ethics Book 1) (p. 225). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

But Caputo offers the clarification

An analysis comparable to that of giving love may be made of forgiving. For forgiveness to be a gift, it must be a little mad, that is, it must be made unconditionally, undertaken neither because the other one has repented nor in order to get the other one to promise to repent, lest forgiveness become a good deal, an edifying agreement, a mutual non-aggression pact, whose terms we will have honored. But if we are lucky, or if we have the good fortune called grace, the other will also go and sin no more, too. But that is not the condition of forgiving, which is unconditional (a little mad). Forgiveness is my business, the transformation of my heart, while the other’s reform is his or her business—or God’s (or luck). I have always liked that the Scripture says that Jesus consorted with sinners; it does not say former sinners or recovering sinners, but sinners, and while he advised them to sin no more, that was evidently not a condition of consorting with them, and, as I would like to think, not a condition of their being forgiven.  Zlomislic, Marko; DeRoo, Neal. Cross and Khôra: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo (Postmodern Ethics Book 1) (p. 228-9). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Key here is that the dying Jesus in Luke and the dying Stephen in Acts do not simply say they forgive their enemies, but rather Jesus petitions God and Stephen petitions the risen, exalted Jesus to forgive their enemies.