The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

There is a marked difference between this lengthy volume and the short essay On Religion that John Caputo published in the Thinking in Action series. The former presupposed no prior knowledge of French philosophical debates or familiarity with the rhetoric of deconstruction. It appealed to all kinds of religious creeds or political proclivities, and offered a "big tent" religion where Neo-evangelicals as well as liberal Christians could find their place, along with non-believers and agnostics. And it drew its inspiration from popular culture sources as well as sacred texts to suggest the precepts of a "religion without religion" that did not offend anyone's creed or beliefs.

The Weakness of God takes up similar themes and ideas, but is much more narrow in its focus and in its appeal. Despite its claim that the kingdom of God welcomes outsiders and even drags people off the streets to the wedding banquet, there is definitely an insider flavor in this text written with an audience of fellow philosophers and social critics in mind. Readers who are not already members of the deconstructionist club will feel like the odd guest who cannot penetrate the private jokes and allusive references exchanged at the table. Some will even take offense at the quips and paradoxes that John Caputo offers, poking fun at the "long-robed ecclesiastical apparatchiks" or stating boldly that the first to enter the kingdom of God will be "gays and lesbians, illegal immigrants, unwed mothers, the HIV-positive, drug addicts, prisoners, and, after 9/11, Arabs." Clearly the book was not written to appeal to the Christian right.

I nonetheless find it a persuasive tract, especially for people of good faith who would like to believe but who always find their intellect getting in the way. In The Weakness of God, you won't find references to God as an almighty being with the power to intervene upon natural processes--what the author labels "strong theology", or the metaphysics of omnipotence, of miracles and divine interventions. Nor will you find any revelations about an afterlife that people would enter after they die (as Caputo notes, "we suffer from a scarcity of reliable reports from the other side"). Even on the issue of whether God exists as an identifiable entity, the author offers no final opinion, leaving the reader to find out by himself. As Caputo states, "I have not been authorized from on high to settle that venerable debate". And as Kierkegaard remarked, "if God were a giant green bird, and regularly and conspicuously appeared thus in the town square, there would be much less skepticism about him, but also less passionate faith."

For Caputo's faith is indeed passionate, and his weak theology should not be confused with a lack of enthusiasm or a disengagement from the divine call. John Caputo is not someone who "believes that he believes", as his fellow philosopher Gianni Vattimo puts it, he believes vehemently, and he is always praying and weeping for the coming of the kingdom. There is no contradiction between his passion for Christ and his lifelong engagement with the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher with a Jewish background who said of himself that he "rightly passes for an atheist." On the contrary, Caputo suggests that theologians could use "a dash of devilish derring-do from Derrida", and proposes, "in imitation of the Master who dined with sinners, to invite the theologians to sit down to table with deconstruction and other disreputable French sinners".

The consequence is that Caputo's theology of the event strongly reflects contemporary debates among French philosophers, and a familiarity with the works of Derrida, Levinas, Deleuze, Marion, and others, is a prerequisite to penetrate the intricacies of this book. If there were a separate denomination for deconstructionists, then John Caputo would be its vicar. The kingdom of God that he calls for, a "kingdom without sovereignty" where the only rule "is the rule of the unruly, of the weak and foolish", can only be compared to the annual meeting of the Cultural Studies Association. But his pursuit of what Derrida calls the "weak force of the unconditional that lack sovereignty" can also claim the authority of the Apostle, as the whole book explores the paradoxical consequences of Paul's proclamation about the "weakness of God" in 1 Cor. 1:29.

As the author points out, The Weakness of God could very well have been published in Slavoj Zizek's Short Circuits collection, were it not for the Slovenian editor's despise for "weak thinking" and deconstructionist talk. Caputo's idea is "to stop thinking about God as a massive ontological power line that provides power to the world, and instead start thinking of something that short-circuits such power and provides a provocation to the world that is otherwise than power." He produces a series of short circuits between canonical texts and modern writings, between the Book of Books and the cultural studies' curriculum. Here the Genesis narrative of creation is crossed by Babylonian myths as recorded by feminist scholar Catherine Keller, the wedding feast of Matt. 22:1-14 is paralleled with the maddest hatter's party imagined by Lewis Carroll (as read by Deleuze), the resurrection of Lazarus is read along the miracle of the child in Levinas' Totality and Infinity, and there is a strong similarity between the kingdom of God and the rule of the gift, of justice, of hospitality, and of forgiveness that form the ethico-political horizon of deconstruction.

For John Caputo, the act of healing a man on the Sabbath is an act of deconstruction. The title of his latest essay suggests a line for a bumper sticker that his readers may wish to use: What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

Philosophically superb, theologically sublime, and politically subversive; an irresistable examination of the destabilizing impact and revolutionary event contained in the kingdom of God: the reign of those least likely to rule, according to rules entirely unsuited for the rulers of this world; a holy anarchy and sacred subversiveness rooted in unruly banquets and frivolous economics provoked by lillies in the field: powerless, forceless, weak and unassuming...unable to demand anything, yet still entirely irresistable, irrepressable, and uncondtional; a truly brilliant attempt to answer Augustine's ancient question: What do I love when I say I that love God?; a crying hermeneutics that explores the meaning of our tears and what it means to cry to God, at God, about God, without God; a prayer for the good of theology, trying to find the best of theology in how well it prays; do not be deterred by Levinas, Heidegger, Badiou, Zizek or Derrida...this is a learned dialogue with St. Paul...a lover's quarrel between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche...a heartfelt plea and tearfilled prayer...a wreckless dive into tehomic depths...hoping without hope to find the power of love in the God of the weak. Little in the field of philosophy of religion compares to this book: theologians and philosophers may disagree, but they have yet to say it as well as Caputo does. Will read it again and again and again.

This is a beautifully written book. In light of the current global situation, this book will be welcome to some. Yet Caputo's project has severe limitations. In terms of substance, 'theology of the event' amounts to deconstruction adorned with alot of god talk. Caputo, let alone Derrida, provides no way of talking about 'sin', that rather unpopular word that implicates us all in the problem of violence. Waxing poetic about the world and the powerless can amount to bad faith when one rejects a framework for thinking agency, and especially if one doesn't emphasize the contingency of violence. Given Derrida's Nietzschean insistence on the neccesity of violence, taken with Caputo's uncritical fidelity to Derrida, it is clear that Caputo creates unsolvable problems for his position, especially if it claims to be Christian.

If you are interested in philosophy/theology of weakness, I would recommend Benjamin & Adorno, or Metz and Moltmann, over Caputo.