Negative Theology as Jewish Modernity

Description

Negative theology is the attempt to describe God by speaking in terms of what God is not. Historical affinities between Jewish modernity and negative theology indicate new directions for thematizing the modern Jewish experience. Questions such as, What are the limits of Jewish modernity in terms of negativity? Has this creative tradition exhausted itself? and How might Jewish thought go forward? anchor these original essays. Taken together they explore the roots and legacies of negative theology in Jewish thought, examine the viability and limits of theorizing the modern Jewish experience as negative theology, and offer a fresh perspective from which to approach Jewish intellectual history.

Introduction. Delineations: Negative Theology as Jewish Modernity
1. The Limits of Negative Theology in Medieval Kabbalah and Jewish Philosophy
Sandra Valabregue
2. "No One Can See My Face and Live"
Kenneth Seeskin
3. What is Positive in Negative Theology?
Lenn E. Goodman
4. Negative Theology as Illuminating and/or Therapeutic Falsehood
Sam Lebens
5. "My Aid Will Come From Nothingness": The Practice of Negative Theology in Maggid Devarav Le-Ya'akov
James Jacobson-Maisels
6. Secrecy, Apophasis, and Atheistic Faith in the Teachings of Rav Kook
Elliot R. Wolfson
7. Two Types of Negative Theology; Or, What Does Negative Theology Negate?
Shira Wolosky
8. Khoric Apophasis: Matter and Messianicity in Islamo-Judeo-Greek Neoplatonism
Sarah Pessin
9. Negative Dialectics, sive secular Jewish theology: Adorno on the prohibition on graven images and imperative of historical critique
Idit Dobbs-Weinstein
10. The passion of non-knowing true oneness: Derrida and Maimonides on God—and Jew, perhaps
Michael Fagenblat
11. Jewish Negative Theology: A Phenomenological Perspective
David Novak
12. Mysteries of the Promise: Negative Theology in Benjamin and Scholem
Agata Bielik-Robson
13. Can Halakhah Survive Negative Theology?
David Shatz,
14. The Stylus and the Almond: Negative Literary Theologies in Paul Celan
Adam Lipszyc
15. "Gods Change": The Deconstruction of the Transcendent God and the Reconstruction of the Mythical Godhead in Yehuda Amichai's Open Closed Open
Tzahi Weiss
16. The Politics of Negative Theology
Martin Kavka

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy of religion

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 27 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253025043
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

NEGATIVE THEOLOGY AS JEWISH MODERNITY
N EW J EWISH P HILOSOPHY AND T HOUGHT
Zachary J. Braiterman
NEGATIVE THEOLOGY AS JEWISH MODERNITY
EDITED BY MICHAEL FAGENBLAT
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02472-5 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-02487-9 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-02504-3 (e-bk.)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
CONTENTS

Introduction. Delineations: Negative Theology as Jewish Modernity
1.
The Limits of Negative Theology in Medieval Kabbalah and Jewish Philosophy
SANDRA VALABREGUE
2.
No One Can See My Face and Live
KENNETH SEESKIN
3.
What Is Positive in Negative Theology?
LENN E. GOODMAN
4.
Negative Theology as Illuminating and/or Therapeutic Falsehood
SAM LEBENS
5.
My Aid Will Come from Nothingness : The Practice of Negative Theology in Maggid Devarav Le-Ya akov
JAMES JACOBSON-MAISELS
6.
Secrecy, Apophasis, and Atheistic Faith in the Teachings of Rav Kook
ELLIOT R. WOLFSON
7.
Two Types of Negative Theology; Or, What Does Negative Theology Negate?
SHIRA WOLOSKY
8.
Khoric Apophasis: Matter and Messianicity in Islamo-Judeo-Greek Neoplatonism
SARAH PESSIN
9.
Negative Dialectics , Sive Secular Jewish Theology: Adorno on the Prohibition on Graven Images and Imperative of Historical Critique
IDIT DOBBS-WEINSTEIN
10.
The Passion of Nonknowing True Oneness: Derrida and Maimonides on God-and Jew, Perhaps
MICHAEL FAGENBLAT
11.
Jewish Negative Theology: A Phenomenological Perspective
DAVID NOVAK
12.
Mysteries of the Promise: Negative Theology in Benjamin and Scholem
AGATA BIELIK-ROBSON
13.
Can Halakhah Survive Negative Theology?
DAVID SHATZ
14.
The Stylus and the Almond: Negative Literary Theologies in Paul Celan
ADAM LIPSZYC
15.
Gods Change : The Deconstruction of the Transcendent God and the Reconstruction of the Mythical Godhead in Yehuda Amichai s Open Closed Open
TZAHI WEISS
16.
The Politics of Negative Theology
MARTIN KAVKA

Contributors

Index

Citation Index
NEGATIVE THEOLOGY AS JEWISH MODERNITY
INTRODUCTION
Delineations: Negative Theology as Jewish Modernity
The idea that God has essential attributes or predicates-such as existence, life, knowledge, power, goodness, or mercy-is implied throughout the Bible, embraced by the Talmudic rabbis, and problematized in medieval Jewish thought. In the modern period, denial of essential divine attributes increases dramatically among Jewish thinkers, especially throughout the twentieth century, when it spreads from theology to secular forms and contexts such as philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, literature, politics, and history. The marked increase in prominence, rigor, and intensity of Jewish negative theology in recent decades has modified the very topography of Jewish thought, reshaping its theological contours and enabling it to grow on secular, even atheist ground. Influential theologians such as Rav Kook, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, and Franz Rosenzweig made very different versions of Jewish negative theology central to their views. But so too the Jewishness of the work of secular and even atheist writers, artists, critics, and philosophers has been frequently associated-by the individuals themselves or by others-with a conception of Judaism as a via negativa .
The modern association of Judaism with a via negativa regards the distinctively Jewish features of a thought or work as involving the negation, denial, or refusal of its own ultimate grounds and thereby the discovery of mysterious ruptures constitutive of its own legitimacy, authority, and even identity. To the extent that Jewishness and Judaism play a significant role in their respective work, a conception of Judaism as negative theology is often detected in major writers such as Kafka, Celan, and Jabes; abstract expressionists such as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko; philosophers such as Cohen, Adorno, and Levinas; and literary critics such as Bloom and Benjamin. 1 The purpose of this volume is to investigate how the perception and self-understanding of Jewish thought in recent times has been determined by this alliance with negative theology. What historical and conceptual reasons gave rise to radicalized and sometimes secularized forms of negative theology as a distinctive marker of modern Jewish intellectual history? Do radical forms of negation still allow for compelling articulations of Jewish thought? Or has the modern pairing of Judaism and negativity reached a point of exhaustion? And if so, what comes after Jewish negative theology?
1.
A word, first, on what is called negative theology, which, following the Latin tradition, conventionally renders the Greek apophasis , meaning unsaying or more simply denial or negation (as for Aristotle, On Interpretation 17a25). Modern scholarship on medieval Jewish philosophy speaks of the negative descriptions or negative attributes that are used by an author to challenge positive theological assertions, though the medieval authors do not themselves use the phrase t r m l l yim . Derrida thought it significant to acknowledge that negative theology comes to us predominantly in a Greco-Latin idiom and therefore that one should be wary of assuming that all forms of negation of divine attributes share common structures, goals, and methods. 2 Such caution is prudent, though it goes without saying that Greek thought influenced medieval Jewish and Islamic thinkers no less than their Christian counterparts, especially in instances where they verge negative under the influence of the Arabic Neoplatonic tradition. 3 The attempt to distinguish Jewish negative descriptions from Greco-Latin negative theology is therefore a complex matter, making all the more welcome attempts to unfold this distinction in various ways. 4
What is usually called negative theology can be parsed into ontological and epistemological variants. In denying affirmative theological attributes, theologians of the via negativa argue that descriptive characteristics such as living, loving, good, or wise are not essentially constitutive of God s nature; or else they deny that the essential divine nature can be known to us as such.
In the ontological version, negative theology involves the discursive practice of denying divine attributes in order to speak more truthfully about God, either by unsaying (apophasis) untruths about God or by deploying forms of theological speech that eschew predication. Aristotle suggested that prayer was an example of a nonpropositional logos, as happens in rhetoric or poetry, since prayer is neither true nor false ( On Interpretation 17a5). Recent phenomenology of religion has attempted to develop the thought by emphasizing the difference between prayer as a form of address (speaking to God) and prayer as a descriptive or representational discourse (speaking of or about God). 5 It is questionable, however, whether theology can be entirely reduced to forms of discourse such as prayer and poetry that supposedly suspend referentially descriptive language. It can be objected that prayer implies predication, even when it is reduced a pure form of address, and therefore quickly surrenders its theological advantage over representational discourse. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a prominent exponent of radical Jewish negative theology, argued that even the implied predications of prayer should not be understood as informatively representing God s nature but as theologically warranted on account of being instituted forms of theological language whose significance is entirely normative and nondescriptive. 6 This move, however, slides into theological noncognitivism, thereby landing the negative theologian not closer to truth but outside the entire domain of possible truths. The significance of religious language and the motivational basis of religious praxis risk collapsing into conventionalism or even behaviorism. This is an ironic result, since negative theology begins as a radically critical form of theological praxis but here ends up in a dogmatic form of traditionalism.
More often, austere ontological versions of negative theology veer toward skepticism as a form of religious life, for they demand an active mental and linguistic iconoclasm that persistently rules out predicating essential attributes of God. The internalization of skepticism into the heart of theological conviction has sometimes wrongly been confused with atheism, since atheism also denies everything that can be predicated of God. The comparison is crude, however, for conventional atheism treats the existence of God as a predicate that can be denied ( God is nonexistent ), whereas negative theology denies that God has predicates. 7 Alternatively, conventional atheism affirms a determined concept of God in order to deny its instantiation; as Blanchot says, we carry on about atheism, which has always been a privileged way of talking of God. 8 By contrast, the negative theologian denies the concept of God, creating space within the discourse of theology for internal critique, an incessant displacement of meanings, and a range of skeptica