Postmodernity and Proclamation

By: Tim O'Connor

SYNOPSIS

In which there is a discussion on methodology and the

difficulties that arise in the merging of postmodernity with
theology. There is further, an appraisal of the alienation of
the other through the exemplary reading act of the church,
and then of the other, face to face. The other is shown to
be inaccessible and yet the tendency is to commodify, to
totalise the other. The way through is shown to be in
privileging the singularity of the face to face event.

Discussion then considers the way in which one should

love the other and it is shown that even though Jesus is the
model of exemplarity, his way cannot become mine
without a totalising of the other. There is further, an
exploration of sacrificial giving, even to the point of death,
in the consideration of love for the other. Finally, in order
to maintain the singularity of the event, the decision for
the other ought to begin with undecidablility and it is
determined that proclamation is the way in which the
otherness of the other can be honoured.
Play: The space in which meaning is deferred
because that which is signified is not implicit
from that which it differs. Herein lies the
tension, knowing that language is carnal, it is
part of the fall and cannot be that which it
should, and yet the demand on it is that it be,
and precisely so. There is no grace here. For
the redeemed, those that accept the Logos, that
very word which eternally and with veracious
intentionality signifies the transcendent, that
word which suffered to stand in the place of,
are free to play. Play therein; and should you
consider a thing as you read, do not consider it
came by chance. That which you think of in
the reading is yours to play with, in as much,
you have been placed in the field of play;
know therefore that the play has begun. A
character perhaps without a script, and
decidedly the author is dead; nevertheless
there is a part for you to play.
 1[1]
1. The other is not a new idea. Plato wrote about it and since then its
presence, its matter of being present in history; its trace has been recorded by
the likes of Lacan, Levinas and Derrida.2[2] It is difficult therefore to ascertain
what it means, as it necessarily remains under erasure, its remains therefore
can be said to be undecidable.3[3] That is not to say that it cannot mean, that it
cannot remain, or even that its meaning is indeterminate, it is rather to say that
within the other there is room for play. To argue that the meaning of the other
can be delimited by methodology, or to use a similar term, context, to argue
that context will determine the meaning of the other so that something
substantial might be referred to in reference to the other, would be to assert
that meaning does not rely on that which it differs from and that which it
defers to, and as Derrida has shown, that is not the case.4[4]
2. Should then we dispense with methodology? Perhaps not, we still have our
games to play, however the point is that our methodologies no longer
substitute for foundations. Although they are often allowed to function as
1[1]
There are no headings or subject divisions to this essay, it thereby negates the need for a contents
page. Perhaps then it does not correspond with convention. Nevertheless, in paying full homage to the
far-reaching effects of postmodernity, my choice is to point to the way a text positions you to make
meaning by limiting some of the frames conventionally used to facilitate this. For an example of an
essay written in this style see Young III, W.W., God and Derrida's Politics: At the Edge of
Exemplarity. [http://www.jcrt.org/archives/01.1/index.html?page=young.html].
2[2]
T. Van Pelt, Otherness. [http://www.press.jhu.edu/demo/postmodern_culture/10.2vanpelt.html].
3[3]
J. Milbank, The Ethics of Self-Sacrifice. [http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9903/milbank.html].
4[4]
There are at least two levels of meaning in this sentence: Firstly, it is certainly feasible that the
meaning of the concept referred to as the other can be more narrowly determined by context and so in
this sense the meaning of the other can be delimited, it can’t be determined, but it can be delimited.
Secondly, the meaning of the signifier ‘other’ is dependent on that which it differs from and that which
it defers to (its differance) and cannot be determined by context because that ‘context’ is itself
dependent on an infinite chain of signifiers continually differing from and deferring to an endless string
of other signifiers. Thus, its meaning is in a continual state of slipping away and therefore it remains
undecidable. That is not to say it cannot mean, but rather that it cannot mean determinedly and of
course, there are implications to this. These two levels of meaning in this one sentence provide an
appropriate analogy to show the conflict that exists between theology and postmodernity: very bluntly,
the former deals most often with concepts and so believes that meaning can be determined adequately
through context and on this basis, methodologies can be constructed, whereas, the second deals with
language. The difficulty is that theology also deals with language and so until it also begins to account
for a postmodern understanding of language it will continually end up with the ground slipping away
from underneath it, (possibly already indicated by the attention which is given to the construction of
methodologies and on which there is very little consensus, even from within the field – see N.
Ormerod, Introducing Contemporary Theologies: The What and the Who of Theology Today. p 39)
and that is because dealing with language is a more fundamental game than is dealing with concepts
referred to by language. An understanding of what it is we do when we use language must precede an
understanding of what it is we do when we do theology. Interestingly, postmodernity is also very
concerned with what it is that we do when we read texts, when we make meaning from them. The
encroachment of this postmodern occupation within theology can possibly be seen by the increasing
attention given to hermeneutics. The increased attention of this discipline within theology suggests that
postmodernism has already encroached into the question of what it is that theologians do when they are
doing theology?
 foundations they are foundations in name only; they are not foundations on
which anything of substance can be made explicit. Such foundations require
further foundations to justify and/or validate the laying of the foundation that
went before it. There is no end to this point. In its place there is a tearing
away, a stripping of privilege, a levelling of relations of which power is but
one. In this sphere is the other.
3. Even so, the constraints of a discipline such as theology, whether they are
contemporaneous or otherwise, whether they are actual or otherwise, are said
to exist. To this end it serves to accept some sort of delimitation, some sort of
defining of the way language will be used and of how key concepts are to be
understood, and of how this information stands in relation to any number of
other types of theology, in other words, some sort of methodology. However,
to situate a discussion of Postmodernity and Proclamation within a
theological context is in itself a merging, or a blurring of these boundaries and
from which a number of problems arise since it is characteristic of
postmodernity to level the interdisciplinary barriers that once facilitated the
process of establishing methodologies.5[5]
4. If postmodernity, amid whatever else it can be said to be, can be said to be a
reference to the amalgamation of current thought that emerges from
philosophy, critical literary studies and cultural studies then the first problem
concerns the fact that philosophy is unwilling to accept a merger with these
other disciplines.6[6] Philosophers assert that the way of thinking, the way of
using language and the specific type of language that is used within the
discipline of philosophy is distinctly philosophical in nature.7[7] A
philosophical methodology is distinct. There is an element of thought however
in postmodernism that is want to suggest that these assertions have no real
substance and should therefore be disregarded.8[8] Much of the writing that can
be classified as postmodern deliberately cuts across these boundaries, creating
a bricolage;9[9] such writing is difficult to decipher and refuses to be neatly

5[5]
G.A Phillips, Exegesis as Critical Praxis: Reclaiming History and Text From A Postmodern
Perspective. (Semeia, 30; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 30.
6[6]
S.J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism. (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), 139.
7[7]
Grenz, 139.
8[8]
J. Derrida, Roundtable Discussion with Jacques Derrida.
[http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/vill1.html].
9[9]
Grenz, 21.
 categorised. Since this is an ongoing and unresolved debate in the context of
postmodernity, used in this sense, there is the need for entering in, the need for
engagement with this debate, with some sort of attempt made at clarification,
that is if a methodology is to be of some value and for it to have some validity.
5. There is in addition, the dilemma that arises from the schism that emerged in
modernism between philosophy and theology.10[10] Since the particular
reference to postmodernity in this discussion takes place within a theological
discourse it necessarily bridges the disciplines of philosophy and theology.
This precipitates the necessity of specifying the method by which the rules of
language and logic from each of these disciplines is to be treated.11[11]
Reference might now be made to a philosophical theology, or perhaps even a
theological philosophy. Ormerod suggests that theology ‘involves a systematic
study of revelation’ whereas he asserts that philosophy starts from human
reason.12[12] This perhaps marks the preliminary discussion for both the former
and the latter, accepting that there is indeed a distinction between the two.
Further discussion that suits the purposes of this paper requires that both these
distinctives be taken into consideration.
6. As an aside and with specific reference to theology, Ormerod says that he
cannot hope to put forward some definite conclusion as to the present
consensus in regard to methodological questions, ‘since there is none.’13[13]
However, if it were necessary to posit the concept of revelation into a
theological methodology, as Ormerod believes it is, then the completion of
this act would necessitate the inclusion within this methodology of an
understanding of the same within the context of postmodernity. This is

10[10]
D.R. Griffin, God and religion in the Postmodern World: Essays in Postmodern Theology. (New
York: State University of New York Press, 1989).
11[11]
Bloechl comments that ‘this does not mean that there can be no theologising in response to
postmodern thinking, but it does mean that such an exercise can not occur according to postmodern
rules…It is important to see that, thought through to the end, postmodern thinking itself leads to the
idea that it is in irreducible conflict with theology. Indeed, the fact that postmodern thinking rests on
the unusual category of difference places it at extreme odds with most, if not all other fields. In the case
of theology, this situation has been clouded by the recent use in postmodern philosophy of ostensibly
religious concepts, a gesture at least as confused as the theological appeal to radical difference. A
concept may look remarkably similar in two distinct contexts, but when cast in light of two distinct
categories or sets of categories it is bound to receive two distinct meanings as well.’ Bloechl, J., Have
we Need of Invoking Identity and Difference in Theological Discourse?
[http://home.apu.edu/~CTRF/articles/1999_articles/bloechl.html].
12[12]
N. Ormerod, Introducing Contemporary Theologies: The What and the Who of Theology Today.
(E.J Dwer), 39
13[13]
Ormerod, 39.
 because up until the advent of postmodernity all theological methodologies
have been modern theological methodologies (or premodern depending on
how far back one goes). Methodologies generally have not been referred to or
categorised as modern because up until the advent of postmodernity this prefix
has not added any significance to the meaning of the term, but in every sense
of the word they have been delimited in this way. With the advent of
postmodernity there is the need for the formulation of postmodern theological
methodologies. If this elemental ingredient is not factored into the equation
then the very methodologies that were designed to provide significance if not
legitimacy to theological discussion now make the same obtuse and irrelevant
in a contemporary setting.14[14] To not engage in a dialogue with postmodernity
in the construction of theological methodologies is to misunderstand the
significance of the fundamental shifts in thinking that have occurred in
postmodernism,15[15] and results in theology looking a bit like the emperor who
thought he was wearing clothes.
7. Finally, if postmodernity can be said to be everything that characterises and
even encompasses the cultural shift referred to as postmodernism,16[16] it can
also be said to contain an understanding that deconstruction, which in some
ways depicts postmodernity, is a matter:

of collapsing all genre distinctions, especially those between philosophy

and literature, language and literature, reason and rhetoric, language in its
constative and performative aspects.17[17]

The implication of which, negates the need for methodology, or at least of the
sort of methodology that might characterise modern theological writing.
Therefore, within the context of this present discussion, the suggested
conclusion is that the delimiting of a theological methodology that suits the
references of this paper is beyond the scope of this paper; indeed it is
suggested that it is beyond any scope. Therefore, within the context of this
paper, the latter reference to postmodernity will be adopted18[18] and which

14[14]
Phillips, 31.
15[15]
Phillips, 26.
16[16]
Phillips, 21.
17[17]
C. Norris, C., What’s Wrong With Postmodernism? (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 49.
18[18]
This is despite Norris’ argument that this reading of Derrida’s idea of deconstruction, made
popular by Rorty and others, is a misreading of Derrida. Norris, 50.
 would indicate that the need to establish the types of methodologies that have
been suggested is summarily and justifiably dispensed with.19[19] Nevertheless
there is still the question of what can be said outside the restraints of a
traditional methodology and accepting that something will be said; the
dilemma remains as to how this is to be read and in what manner should it be
made to mean.20[20] Consequently, that anything can be said is perhaps open to
dispute. This then is the perfect position from which to begin a discussion of
postmodernity and proclamation.
8. The institution exists to lend to the act of reading its exemplarity and its
diffusion. That’s what an institution does.21[21] The Bible is read in an
exemplary way, it is read exemplary by an authority, it is read authoritatively
by an exemplary, and people understand the example. Then it is said at the end
that to know Christ and/or his way you should read the Gospels, or perhaps
one might also say any such other part of the Bible. That is what it is to read in
an exemplary way whether it is said or not, it is how it will be understood.22[22]
It is then extremely difficult to challenge this exemplary discourse of the
reading act as it is posited within the church institution. 23[23] To read this way
silences the other. In this case, it may silence the Holy Spirit; and it
foregrounds the sense of tradition. Tradition cannot be abrogated, perhaps
because one cannot extricate one’s self from one’s tradition. Rather tradition
will necessarily inform, it is the informant that cannot be silenced and which
ideally should be acknowledged, it may not be reckoned with but it will
continue to inform exemplarity. Such is the present state of play.
9. But that is not to say that there can be no moment, that there can be no point in
time, but rather there remains the possibility of the event where the word is
incarnated, pierces perhaps to the division of soul and spirit, and becomes life.
It is in this moment where the other can be faced. It is the moment where the

19[19]
Perhaps thereby, in the process there is a methodology after all, a Clayton’s methodology – the
methodology you have when you have dispensed with the need to have a methodology, whatever that
is.
20[20]
These questions are fundamental to postmodernism and often concentrate on how the production
of particular reading will privilege some and marginalise others.
21[21]
Adams, H., Behler, E., Birus, H., Derrida, J., Iser, W., Krieger, M., Miller, H., Pfeiffer, L.,
Readings, B., Wang, C., Yu, P., Roundtable Discussion: J. Hillis Miller's "Humanistic Discourse and
the Others."
[http://pum12.pum.umontreal.ca/revues/surfaces/vol4/miller.html].
22[22]
Adams (et al), www.
23[23]
Adams, (et al), www.
 veil that separates, which is always in the process of being taken away, no
longer separates. This moment does not necessitate recognition, nor is it
exclusive to it; it does however facilitate it and it is therefore noted. It is
recognition only; it is not an encompassing of the other, for that would be
violence and although the kingdom may suffer such it will not serve to suffer
the other. Caputo shows that this is because:

the whole idea of the wholly other (tout autre), of the “infinitely other,”
is that the wholly other is, at its core, in principle inaccessible, so that not
even an infinite amount of time spent in contact with the other ego will
bridge that gap.24[24]

10. According to Levinas, this gap cannot be crossed, not only because it is
unethical, but also because it is something that cannot be done.25[25] In arguing
that there is no bridge by which this gap can be crossed, Levinas suggests that
it does violence to the other to try.26[26] This assertion is made by Levinas
based on a Husserlian grasp of phenomenology. Derrida also arrives at the
same point in his more recent applications of deconstruction. So because I
exist in a phenomenological interior or a logocentric one and the other is
exterior to me:

I have no originary access to the alter ego as such. That is why he/she is
the other. This separation, this dissociation is not only a limit, but it is
also the condition of the relation to the other, a non-relation as relation...a
non-intuitive relation–I don’t know who the other is; I can’t be on the
other side.27[27]

11. The relation to the other is a relation to the wholly other, not in the sense that
the two are unrelated, this would break the relation, but in the sense of being
related to something that absolutely resists being absorbed by and drawn into
this relation without retaining the presence of otherness.28[28] Instead, this
relation to the other must be considered and then affirmed and ideally, it
should be honoured. This honouring of the other is for Levinas and Derrida
the condition of love.29[29] It is the way one loves the other and in this respect it
24[24]
J.D. Caputo, For Love of Things Themselves. [http://www.jcrt.org/archives/01.3/caputo.shtml].
25[25]
Caputo, www.
26[26]
Caputo, www.
27[27]
Caputo, www.
28[28]
Caputo, www.
29[29]
Caputo, www.
 is suggestive of the way in which a Christian should love one (an)other. But it
is necessary not to leave this moment to chance.
12. However, this next step is problematic. The naturalising tendency is to want to
institutionalise an approach to the other. It is the way of modernism. It is
problematic though, in that it effaces both the self and the other. Each time
that I choose the other, I imply that I try to demonstrate that it is an exemplary
choice.30[30] I am in the process of institutionalising this act when all I have to
explain myself are generalised motives, generally good reasons.31[31] The
significance of the singularity is in its relationship to the very otherness of the
other and of the self, the otherness of the self if you like, and it is in contrast
to the generalised actions of the commodified subjective self. It is the
knowledge, the awareness, indeed the very motivation that in each action I do
that which only I can do; I do that which no-one else can do. I cannot do just
anything, I can only do what I can do, and it is in this knowledge, in this
signature event that there is negotiation between pure and simple singularity
and exemplarity – fellowship if you like, communion with the other.32[32]
13. To clarify, it is first necessary to determine, in respect to the other, why
anything other than singularity in action does violence to the other. Levinas
suggests an answer in his discussion on totalisation. The conception of the
other, the very idea in its essence, the essence of which is the idea, is limited
by it being just that. The concern is that these conceptions substitute the
presence of the other; in a similar way that logocentricism assumes that a
signifier substantially refers to that which is signified. This, Levinas suggests,
is violence and denies the other his/her autonomy.33[33] This act of totalisation
necessarily limits the other to a set of rational categories, be they racial,
sexual, or otherwise. Beavers comments that this:

totalisation is a denial of the other's difference, the denial of the otherness

of the other. That is, it is the inscription of the other in the same. If ethics
presupposes the real other person, then such totalisation will, in itself, be
unethical.34[34]

30[30]
Adams, www.
31[31]
Adams, www.
32[32]
Adams. www.
33[33]
A.F. Beavers, Emmanuel Levinas and the Prophetic Voice of Postmodernity.
[http://cedar.evansville.edu/~tb2/trip/levinas_intro.htm].
34[34]
Beavers, www.
14. The difficulty with exemplarity is that it is generally the case, not just for the
one, but also for the other, indeed it is necessarily the case. Derrida identifies
this dilemma when he asks:

What is happening when someone comes to describe a supposedly

singular 'situation' by bearing witness to it in terms which go beyond it, in
a language the generality of which takes on a value which is in some
sense structural, universal, transcendental or ontological? When the first-
comer implies: 'What goes for me, irreplaceably, goes for everybody?’
Substitution is in progress, it has already operated, everyone can say the
same thing for and about themselves.35[35]

Consequently, in an almost paradoxical way there is the marking of an event

as singular but at once there is the slipping away of its singularity in the same
structures that identified it. If the way toward the other is in the face to face,
that is in the event of singularity, then to remain pure to this ideal would
require breaking with all the structures that constitute personality, which
Derrida notes:

is strictly impossible: for an event even to take place as an event, it must

already compromise its singularity with the conditions of recognisability
that take the form of structures of repeatability or iterability.36[36]

15. At this juncture, the call for an inaugural event in relation to the other is an
impossible demand. Derrida’s best practice then is that the trace of the attempt
at such an improvisation, necessarily failing, can be read as a promise of such
inaugurality. Bennington’s observation of Derrida in this instance is that:

we may not ever be able to perform something radically inventive but we

can in some sense think and even call for something radically inventive.37
[37]

This then is the call for improvisation and which is not as eradicable as it may
seem. It is because in recognising the event as singular, as inaugural, then even
though it constitutes exemplarity, it is only recognised in consideration of the
event. The event itself has slipped away; it is already under erasure and even
the examination of it, the identification of generalised principles and its
35[35]
G. Bennington, SeulemondeConversation with Geoffrey Bennington.
[http://www.cas.usf.edu/journal/bennington/gbennington.html].
36[36]
Bennington, www.
37[37]
Bennington, www.
 universal structures does not warrant its applicability nor for that matter, its
replication. There is also the case that in the reading of the event that it can be
deconstructed, it is not logocentric and assignment of meaning is dependent
on its differance. There can be instead the singular assimilation of generalised
principles, and it is this assimilation that constitutes the possibility of the
event. In the final analysis, it is the other; the undecidable originary other that
facilitates the possibility of singularity and it is in proclamation, the
interchange of one to the other on which this singularity rests.
16. This preliminary discussion facilitates correspondence of a theological nature
where a question of similar proportions, in which is the same play, might be
asked: What should we do when we come face to face with the other? The
simple and Biblical answer is that we should love the other; (John 15:12)
inherent in this is the idea of singularity. However what defines a loving
action is more complex. Again, one approach from a biblical perspective is the
suggestion that the way to love the other is to do to the other what it is that we
would want her/him to do to us. (Mark 12:33) However on closer interrogation
this maxim presents further difficulties, which become more explicit in the
consideration of one such event. Consider my wife. When she is feeling
emotionally low she likes nothing better than to have all my attention and to
be warmly held, however when I am feeling the same way, I prefer to be left
alone. To complicate matters however, neither my wife nor myself always feel
this same way, it might be a generalisation that we do, but it is no more than
that, sometimes we (mis)behave in different ways. So, if I act toward my wife
the way I would want her to act toward me in the way that is general, then it is
likely that not only am I not loving her I might in fact be hurting her. This
signature event shows that loving someone cannot be defined simply by an
appeal to the maxim: Do unto others, as you would have then do unto you.
The question then remains: What should we do when we come face to face
with the other?
17. A further suggestion is to do what Jesus would do. If it is acceded that Jesus is
the epitomic way then it must also follow that his action, every action, is an
exemplary action, and therefore an action that defines what love is.38[38] What
38[38]
This argument identifies itself as belonging to a (fundamental/evangelical) Christian reading of the
Biblical account. Perhaps this is what a postmodern theological methodology will look like. It is not so
much in the way that the author of the text defines the way the text should be read, but it has all more
 then shall we look at when we look at Jesus? The most obvious answer is to
the cross, but since this is the singular event extraordinaire it perhaps
surpasses the commonplace interactions, nevertheless it does serve in
principle, if it is principles that are to be derived from this exemplary action.
Irrespectively, if we further take the Biblical account, each of Jesus’ actions
may be defined in terms of what love is, and so there cannot be any singular
event that is exemplary because every action is different, and yet at the same
time every event is exemplary because every event is different.39[39] Consider
Jesus. His loving actions consisted of calling the religious authorities
hypocrites (Mark 7:6) and whitewashed sepulchres (Matthew 23:27); it
consisted of telling other religious authorities that they were of their father the
devil (John 8:44); it took the form of making a whip and driving people out of
the Temple (John 2:15); it involved angrily searching the faces of those who
placed the law above the need of the individual as in the case where Jesus
healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, and in this instance it
included breaking the law (Mark 3:5). All these actions, as has been
determined, were actions of love. They were then exemplary actions, but it is
apparent, from the multiplicity of different actions that there cannot be any
(pre)determined loving actions taken from this account and generalised to
another event. Is it not the case then that the answer to the question ‘what
would Jesus do?’ should not determine what I should do? The question
however still remains, what should we do when we come face to face with the
other?
18. Again, Biblical reference suggests specifically and generally that there is no
greater love than that of a woman or man laying down her/his life for that of

to do with the way the reader makes meaning from the text and consequently positions this meaning
within some type of framework of their own understanding. Because the writer has no way of
determinedly facilitating this conceptualising on behalf of the reader then the text itself, in its entirety
becomes the methodology by defacto. The writer cannot determine how his/her text will be read, nor
by whom. Methodologies presume an implied reader. Consequently the construction of traditional
methodologies can be thought of as masking ideologies, privileging and sustaining a select few as
much as they can be thought of facilitating the making of meaning in the reading process.
39[39]
To suggest that a singular event can’t be exemplary seemingly contradicts what has already been
said; however the contradiction serves to highlight the indeterminacy of the signifier ‘love’. So, even
though every event is exemplary, it is not the exemplary loving event. This tension of being and not-
being has to be grappled with because although both accounts seem to contradict each other taken on
their own, there still remains a rightness about each one. As was stated before, a signature event is a
one off event however it still contains exemplary notions within it. It is not a case of either/or but rather
both/and.
 another, the other (John 15:13). Specifically, this reference is perhaps an
attempt at being decidedly determinate in regard to ‘greater love.’ An
appropriate aside at this juncture concerns the approach taken by Levinas and
Derrida; both of who agree with this statement but in reference to its
‘greatness’ adds the proviso that there can be no resurrection, that there is no
God (as in the way a Christian would understand God).40[40] Both Derrida and
Levinas agree that the highest ethical gesture is a sacrificial self–offering
which expects no benefit in return and which must contain the willingness, if
not the expectation that it may end in death, for it to be a pure sacrifice. 41[41]
Milbank shows that the reason Levinas and Derrida do not accede to a
resurrection is that:

the only real gift is one that expects no counter–gift in return. Unless a
gift is in this fashion sacrificial—the giving up of something—it is
argued, a gift reduces to a hidden contractual agreement, governed by a
principle of self–interest; and actions out of self–interest.42[42]

19. The hope of resurrection will necessarily make the gift, the offering of one’s
life, an action governed by self-interest since it includes the will to power.
Levinas argues that it is only death in its ‘unmitigated reality that permits the
ethical, while the notion of resurrection contaminates it with self–interest.’43[43]
Resurrection will always reward the giver. Milbank contests the purity of the
gift suggested by Levinas and Derrida arguing that ‘for the gift to be truly
disinterested, the giver of his own life must not be able even to imagine the
future pleasure of its recipients.’44[44] Therefore, from this position Milbank is
able to show that the giving of the pure gift is not possible; that there can be
no such thing as a truly disinterested gift. Milbank’s contention is that to
sacrifice one’s self without the hope of resurrection cannot be the best possible
action for the other because:

in order to fully aim for the good, even the sacrificial offering of oneself
must sustain the hope of one’s own ultimate redemption. I myself am

40[40]
Milbank, J., The Ethics of Self-Sacrifice.
[http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9903/milbank.html].
41[41]
Milbank, www)
42[42]
Milbank, www.
43[43]
Milbank, www.
44[44]
Milbank, www)
 unique and irreplaceable; without oneself, as without anyone, the
universe would have lost something good.45[45]

The death of the self in a world without resurrection is a negation of the self
and therefore an obliteration of the otherness of this self and therefore resists
the greatest good. Nevertheless, Derrida and Levinas’ insistence on the purity
of the gift is indicative of the regard in which they hold the other. It is their
condition of love.
20. The significance of this juncture is that Derrida, Levinas and the last biblical
reference all suggest that the giving of one’s life for the other is the greatest
love. This, as has been suggested, is also the Biblical answer to the question:
‘What should we do when we come face to face with the other?’ If this is the
answer, and in most situations this statement will not mean literally, although
the implication is that there must remain the continual openness toward the
possibility that sacrifice may constitute a sacrifice that ends in death, the literal
death of one’s self, the question then becomes ‘What should I do if I am to
sacrifice myself for the other, when I come face to face with the other?’
21. Returning to Jesus, his life was exemplary, but cannot be for me in so far as
what he did, what Jesus did when he came face to face with the other, was
what only he could do. If I determine to replicate his exemplary actions,
exemplary though they may be; if I am guided or governed by what it is I
think it is that he would do, then when I come face to face with the other, I
have generalised the other, indeed the otherness of the other has been effaced.
When I come face to face with the other, it is my way and it is this being mine
that bears upon me in the moment of my decision.46[46] It is a moment of
responsibility in the face of what appears to be undecidablility. However the
idea behind undecidablility has never been to inhibit decision making, but
instead to raise the intensity of the decision, the responsibility for the
decision.47[47] In discussing Derrida’s position, Edgoose reiterates that:

45[45]
Milbank, www.
46[46]
There is a tension at this point because in one sense there will never be a way that can be said to be
mine, in the sense that I am only a product of the totality of my experiences and which predetermine (in
one sense) the outcome of that decision. Paradoxically it is this same history that makes the decision
mine, which makes it unique to me. Again, seeing the sense in which it is both/and rather than either/or
assists the working through of this tension.
47[47]
J.D. Caputo, and E. Wyschogrod, Postmodernism and the Desire for God: An Email Exchange.
[http://www.crosscurrents.org/caputo.htm].
 a decision that didn't go through the ordeal of the undecidable would not
be a free decision, it would only be the programmable application or
unfolding of a calculable process. It might be legal; it would not be
caring. And once the ordeal of the undecidable is past (if that is possible),
the decision has again followed a rule or given itself a rule, invented it or
reinvented, reaffirmed it, it is no longer presently fully caring.’48[48]

22. In a general sense people want to know how they should act. It is this moment
of undecidablility, of not knowing, that protects the otherness of the other. It
is humility and a sacrifice of self to the other. Coming face to face with the
other is fraught with negotiation. There is no guarantee in the to and fro of
conversation, of proclamation, that there will be neat edged closure. The
ambiguity of the Said fails to provide stability. Meaning is displaced and
outcomes are uncertain.49[49] Levinas argues that:

the ambiguity of language fails to satisfy the desires of speaker and

listener for stable agreed meaning and mutual recognition. The content of
speech - the Said - strives for universality and solidity. Yet, in the failure
of that striving, the Saying is revealed - conversations continue and are
not discreet exchanges of information.50[50]

It is this ambiguity, this dependence on the other, and a mutual dependence,

which makes the event singular and which protects the otherness of the other.
It is in this very characteristic of speech; of proclamation, its refusal to be non-
negotiable, its undecidablility and its unconfinable aspect that Levinas claims
there is hope.51[51] What then should I do if I am to sacrifice myself for the
other, when I come face to face with the other? I should make a decision to
speak.

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49[49]
Edgoose, www.
50[50]
Edgoose, www.
51[51]
Caputo & Wyschogrod, www.
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