Plus de secret the paradox of prayer

The Phenomenology of Prayer

Volumn , Issue , 2005, Pages 154-167

  Treanor, Brian ^a  

^a LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84892334071     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (44)

1. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 3.
2. See, e.g., Jacques Derrida, Circumfession, in Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida, Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)
3. John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997)
4. and many of the contributions in Questioning God, eds. John D. Caputo, Mark Dooley, and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).
5. Augustine, Confessions, 180.
6. The clearest formulation of the claim that the religious necessarily transcends the ethical is, of course, Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983). See below, n. 26.
7. Of course, Augustine also makes numerous statements that suggest an emphasis on the private or individual relationship to God, most notably in De Magistro, trans. Peter King (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1995)
8. Augustine, Confessions, 136
9. Note that Augustine himself was at one time concerned with the opinions of others in matters of piety. See, e.g., Augustine, Confessions, 27-28.
10. Buber notes that spiritual life is marked by "relation," which requires others, rather than "experience," which does not. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Collier Books, 1958), 5-9
11. Marcel also concurs with Levinas regarding the essentially intersubjective nature of prayer. Prayer is, for Marcel, the archetypal example of "participation," a necessary element in his account of love, fidelity, hope, and transcendence. Gabriel Marcel, Reflection and Mystery, trans. G. S. Fraser, Vol. 1 of The Mystery of Being (London: Harvill Press, 1951), 110-14
12. Prayer that focuses on me and me alone is, accordingly, inauthentic. Marcel, Faith and Reality, trans. René Hague, Vol. 2 of The Mystery of Being (London: Harvill Press, 1951), 100.
13. See also Jill Robbins, "Who Prays? Levinas on Irremissible Responsibility," chap. 9 in this volume.
14. Emmanuel Levinas, "Damages Due to Fire," in Nine Talmudic Readings, trans. Annette Aronowicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 188.
15. Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 77.
16. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Al-phonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 17.
17. Richard Kearney, States of Mind: Dialogues with Contemporary Thinkers (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 189.
18. In some places, Levinas seems to say that the face of the other is the detour through which we must relate to God. However, in other places he seems to indicate that God "is" the ethical relationship between human beings. See Edith Wyschogrod, Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 106-109.
19. Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 17.
20. Levinas, Of God Who Comes to Mind, trans. Bettina Bergo (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998), 75; emphasis added.
21. Hilary Putnam notes that part of the paradox of hineni, of the "Here I am" of Abraham-to which Levinas's me voici always refers-is that Abraham says hineni to both God (Exod. 22:1) and to Isaac (Exod. 22:7); see "Levinas and Judaism" in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, ed. Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 33-62, esp. 38. Also see n. 50 below.
22. Public prayer always runs the risk of being concerned with the public arena in which the praying is done rather than the activity of prayer itself. While examples are too numerous to list, Tolstoy provides a particularly biting description of this sort of conspicuous piety: "Pyotr Ivanovich went in bewildered [upon arriving at the funeral/wake]⋯. The one thing he knew was that on such occasions it never did any harm to cross oneself. He was not quite certain whether he ought also to bow and so he adopted a middle course: on entering the room he began to cross himself and make a slight movement resembling a bow⋯. When he felt he had overdone the crossing, he paused and began to examine the dead man." Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illych, trans. Lynn Solotaroff (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), 38-39
23. Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing: Spiritual Preparation for the Office of Confession, trans. Douglas V. Steere (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1956), 187-88.
24. For Kierkegaard, the fact that the religious transcends the ethical is necessary, if problematic. He would not see a problem with the claim that my individual relationship with God might, in transcending the ethical, cause me to violate the ethical. "During the time before the result (of the trial on Mt. Moriah), either Abraham was a murderer every minute or we stand before a paradox that is higher than all mediations." Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 66
25. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 6.
26. See, e.g., Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), 64-67.
27. Augustine, Confessions, 213.
28. Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 97 and, more generally, 96-115.
29. Which, in the context of Continental philosophy and theology, immediately evokes both Levinas-see Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 99-130
30. Jean-Luc Marion-see, e.g., Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002).
31. Derrida, Gift of Death, 111-12
32. Also see Jacques Derrida, Counterfeit Money. I. Given Time, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
33. Caputo, Prayers and Tears, 160-229, esp. 212-17, where Caputo notes that Derrida is also making a comparison between the Gospel according to Matthew and the Genesis story of Abraham.
34. Derrida, Gift of Death, 109.
35. There is an ongoing debate between Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion on this topic. See, e.g., God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, ed. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999)
36. Would it be possible to have a gift without anyone giving, without anything being given and without anyone being gifted? If prayer is, qua love, a gift without reserve, would this mean that authentic prayer would be directed to no one, about nothing and (as secret even from the person praying) from no one? This is essentially what the prayers and tears of deconstruction have to be-a sort of "praying without prayer," if I may be so bold. While deconstruction does well in establishing the private secret aspect of prayer, it does less well in articulating the public or communal aspect because its prayers are so secret that not even the supplicant is aware of the prayer and because undecidability prevents us from stating the recipient of our prayers with any certainty. However, prayer is in one sense necessarily communal, which is why religion without religion (i.e., without community, without tradition, without specific messianism) is problematic as religion. This is why Caputo points out that undecidability does not mean that we do not choose a specific messianism; we have to do so. As Caputo noted at the meeting of the Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology that gave birth to this volume, real prayer takes place at a chiasmus between the so-called "pure prayer" of deconstruction and the "determinate prayer" of a religious tradition. For a parallel discussion, see my "The God Who May Be: Quis ergo amo cum Deum meum amo?" in After God, ed. John Manoussakis (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005).
37. As Ricoeur notes, the "assurance of resolution is always the covert reason for paradox: in a certain way we are always confident of the unity of what we break up as we conceive of it." Paul Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary, trans. Earzim V. Kohak (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966), 353
38. Regarding "second naïveté," see various of Ricoeur's works, including Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), 352.
39. Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous: On Thinking-of-the-Other, trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 103.
40. See also, e.g., 1 Cor.; Mark 10:17-22
41. Luke 12:22-34.
42. Although, we are, in addition, called to love and pray for our enemies (Matt. 5:43-48). Hence a fuller account of love would address the call to "love our enemies"; however, given the limitations of space, such an account will have to wait for a future development. See also, Derrida, Gift of Death, 104-107.
43. For a lucid account of deconstruction's use of "translatability," see Caputo, Prayers and Tears, 54-57, 331-39.
44. "The word 'piety' [eusébeia]⋯ ordinarily means the worship of God. However, it is also used to express a dutiful respect for one's parents. Moreover, in everyday speech, the word pietas means pity or mercy. This has come about, I think, because God commands us especially to practice mercy, declaring that it pleases Him as much as or even more than sacrifices." Augustine, City of God, trans. Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan, and Daniel J. Honan (New York: Image Books, 1958), 188.