From the Blurb:

This volume poses the question of the relationship between the two main influences on the thought of John D. Caputo, one of the most well-known philosophers of religion working in North America today: Jacques Derrida and Jesus Christ. Given the seemingly abstract character of Derrida’s account of the messianic, how can one reconcile deconstruction and the “concrete messianism” of Christianity, as Caputo tries to do over and over again? How can one hold together the love of a God willing to be crucified and the dry, desert khôra, which doesn’t care?

This collection of essays from world-renowned scholars seeks to illuminate the difficulties inherent in this seemingly contradictory pair of influences. With his trademark wit and humor, Caputo responds to his interlocutors while clarifying his position on numerous matters of interest to the church and in the academy. In addition to dealing with the concern for issues of hermeneutics, phenomenology, and negative theology for which Caputo has become famous, these essays also evaluate Caputo’s legacy in fields previously not thought to be affected by his “deconstructive” version of religion: feminism, sacramental theology, Analytic philosophy of religion, and Christology.

My Context for Reading:

Socrates’ last words to Crito regarding his poison were: “let us offer a rooster to Asclepius for the pharmakon (poison/cure).” The meaning seems to be that just/noble Socrates, in being killed by society for silly reasons, un-covered (truth: “a-letheia”) the hidden vileness of society and hence acted as a catalyst for social change. Socrates’ death lifted the fog from people’s eyes and let them see their inner hidden vileness, like forgiving Stephen opened Paul’s eyes. Thus, as a result of what Socrates’ death showed about the hidden vileness of society, we no longer kill people for doing what Socrates did with his life (being a nuisance gadfly). Analogously, the image of the just, impaled man is also a key image for Plato in book two of the most well-known book in the ancient world, the Republic. The soon-to-be future Pope Ratzinger comments in his Introduction to Christianity:

The Cross is revelation. It reveals not any particular thing, but God and man. It reveals who God is and in what way man is. There is a curious presentiment of this situation in Greek philosophy: Plato’s image of the crucified ‘just man.’ In Republic the great philosopher asks what is likely to be the position of a completely just man in this world. He comes to the conclusion that a man’s righteousness is only complete and guaranteed when he takes on the appearance of unrighteousness, for only then is it clear that he does not follow the opinion of men but pursues justice only for its own sake. So, according to Plato, the truly just man must be misunderstood and persecuted in this world; indeed Plato goes so far as to write: “They will say that our just man will be scourged, racked, fettered, will have his eyes burned out, and at last, after all manner of suffering, will be crucified.” This passage, written four hundred years before Christ, is always bound to move a Christian deeply. (Ratzinger, 1969, p. 292; cf. Plato, Republic, II.362a).

Socrates gives thanks for the poison for re-vealing the corruptness of society. This is all the more emphatic where tortured/executed Jesus is the uniquely chosen and favored Son of God, and so powerfully re-vealing (a-letheia) evil in order to bring about that people see through Satan’s wiles tempting/influencing them, and thus can repent and be fairly judged at the imminent end of the age. This is the meaning of the impaled just man in book 2 of Plato’s Republic. Just as Socrates’ death dis-closed (“a-letheia”) the hidden corrupt nature of his society, infinitely more emphatic is this the case of Jesus as the specially chosen/beloved (agapetos) son and sinless messenger (angelos) of God sent to restore the Davidic throne – who continually demonstrates the power and wisdom of a paradigmatically holy man, but with the counterintuitive result that Jesus is hated by the crowd and the Jewish elite, convicted as a common criminal by a Roman who doesn’t even get a confession, sees Jesus as a nuisance, and executes him to placate the crowd; where Jesus suffers a horrific flogging and crucifixion, the most terrible of executions. But the cross wasn’t just a revelatory ethical indictment of the hidden vileness of humanity; it was also a religious indictment of the satanic nature of man, because God had chosen Jesus as messiah to reinstate the throne of David—Jesus, who had continuously proved that he was specially chosen and favored (agapetos) by God through the signs and wonders that he performed and his authoritative and novel understanding of scripture—and so humanity’s response to brutally torture and execute him as a criminal was basically a slap in the face of God. God tested man with Lot’s Angels, just as God tested man with Jesus, and so it is no wonder ancient thinkers believed God sent the Roman army to destroy the second temple, just as the Babylonians destroyed the first temple.

So, I’ll be going through this anthology to see what gems are to be found in it! I’ll be starting next time with Caputo’s essay The Weakness of God and the Iconic Logic of the Cross