Philosophical Hermeneutics

and Biblical Exegesis

Edited by
Petr Pokorny
and
Jan Roskovec

Mohr Siebeck
82 Michael Kirwan
of the' lost traveller' cited by Foster at the beginning of this article - "we have
become explorers of human possibility, but unable to return home and unsure
of where and how to end our journey" - begins to look limited, as i f our
problem were simply one of collective disorientation, an abence of maps.
What is disturbing and new for many is the discovery we are indeed lost, but
in a war-zone with an unknown enemy.
It is possible to detect throughout Habermas' Peace Prize speech a sense
of frustration at the rudeness of a conversation having been violently
interrupted. Ancient issues concerning the tension between society and
religion have to be addressed once more, while the theme of biotechnology
which has a most pressing urgency and interest for him has been 'hi-jacked'
(literally) by current events. This is a question of timing, of course, but it is
possible also that we have here a parable of the real limitation of hermeneu-
tics, a parable which poses questions to Gadamer and Habermas alike. How
can the claim to the universality of hermeneutics be sustained in situations
where there is an outright refusal of dialogic conversation? And is the
description of fundamentalism as a situation of distorted comunication within
a modernity divided against itself (and the genetic explanation of religion
which this implies) simply a way of'domesticating' the problem, leaving vital
aporias untouched? Despite the amount of work still to do, however, the
Gadamer - Habermas discussion remains a fascinating initial exploration of
large and vital themes around the nature of modernity and tradition, and while
the terms of the debate have been considerably altered by political and
cultural transformations, the seeming insolubility of many key questions
means that it will continue to be a valuable point of reference.
Apophatic Elements in Derrida's Deconstruction
Ivana Noble
1. Introduction
To speak about apophaticism in Derrida runs two risks. The first would be to
dismiss the theme completely and say that Derrida explicitly distances himself
from the apophatic tradition and sees it as a 'rhetoric of negative determina-
tion' or only as another type of theology, which aims at strengthenning claims
by which we can grasp divine essence. Derrida calls this hyperessential
1
theology, which restores the order it puts into question. He remains critical of
any determination, whether positive or negative. He argues that what is based
in a negative determiner still attempts to give an identity (non-entity) to who
we are and what we do and how we relate to one another and our world and
to God. Thus, it remains a 'negative' mirror image of the positive determina-
tion. The second risk is to consider Derrida a proponent of apophaticism too
2
quickly. There are overlapping themes in Derrida's deconstruction and in the
apophatic tradition, as will be demonstrated, but there are also Derrida's
criticisms of apophaticism. Here an important question arises, namely, what
exactly Derrida considers apophaticism to be. Drawing on Dionysius and
Meister Eckhart in particular, Derrida seems to make little distinction, i f any,
between the Western via negativa and Eastern apophaticism. He also does 3
not take into account criticisms of apophatic hyperessentialism, which, as can
be found, for example, in Gregory of Nyssa, is found in the apophatic
4
tradition itself. And finally, we cannot fit him too easily into a Christian
theological framework as his own background is in Judaism.
The aim of this article is to shed more light on the relation of Derrida's
deconstruction to apophatic method. In order to do that, I will first examine
Derrida's concept of deconstruction and its targets: the logic of identity and
the metaphysics o f presence. Here I will trace Derrida's arguments for not
See T. FOSHAY, Introduction to: H. COWARD, T. FOSHAY (eds.), Derrida and Negative
1
Theology, Albany 1992, 2 - 4 .
Compare to the role Eunomius gave to the concepts of 'unbegotten', 'uncreated' or
2
'ungenerated', dealt with in another article in this collection, 'The Apophatic Way in
Gregory of Nyssa', part 2: Two key controversies.
3 Cf. J . D E R R I D A , HOW to Avoid Speaking: Denials, in: C O W A R D - F O S H A Y , 7 4 - 1 4 2 .
4 See my essay 'The Apophatic Way of Gregory of Nyssa' in this collection.
84 Ivana Noble
treating deconstruction as yet another approach claiming to give access to
a more certain (non-)knowledge. It will be argued that - perhaps, similarly to
Gregory of Nyssa - Derrida attempts to challenge the claims to possibilities
of any final and unchangeable determination of meaning and truth in our
language about the world in which we live, about ourselves or even about
God. This will give me a base on which to examine Derrida's explicit relation
to the apophatic tradition and to which aspects of apophatic thinking are to be
found in Derrida's deconstruction, which ones he distances himself from, and
which ones are missing, and thus where a Christian theologian employing
Derrida's method has to rely on other sources.
2. Two targets of Derrida's deconstruction
Where does Derrida's concept of deconstruction come from? What is it
related to? These are the main questions of this part. In order to be able to
answer these questions I have at least to sketch a development of his thinking.
Derrida's early period of writings is strongly influenced by the rigor of
phenomenological analysis. His first two works are directly dedicated to
Husserl; an 'Introduction' to Husserl'sZ 'Origine de la geometrie (1962) and
La Voix et le phenomene: Introduction au probleme du signe dans la
phenomenologie de Husserl (1967). In the same year he published two other
5
works, a collection of essays L'Ecriture et la difference {Writing and
Difference), and De la grammatologie (Of Grammatology). In these writings
we can trace the roots of Derrida's deconstruction. He approaches themes of
violence in metaphysics, representation and misrepresentation, assumptions
of rationally structured meaning and the radicality of metaphorical language.
His deconstruction starts in literary criticism. He sees language as radically
metaphorical, deprived of any literal meaning and claims that we have to do
away with any idea that a text discloses any single truth value which is there
to be discovered: "The 'rationality' - but perhaps that word should be
abandoned ... inaugurates the deconstruction, not the demolition but the de-
sedimentation, the de-construction, of all the significations that have their
source in that of logos. Particularly the signification of truth.'''' Concentration
6
on logos led to logocentrism, the 'impurity' of writing, to the preoccupation
In English translation: Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory
5
of Signs, Evaston (111.) 1973.
J. D E R R I D A , Of Grammatology, Baltimore, London 1976, 10.
6
Apophatic Elements in Derrida's Deconstruction 85
with the 'proper', the 'distinguished', the 'literal', the 'exclusively clean', 7
which contrasts with the always changing living speech.
Deconstruction has as its main target the logic of identity, which is derived
from Aristotle. It consists of three laws: (i) the law of identity: whatever is,
is; (ii) the law of contradiction: nothing can both be and not be; and (iii) the
law of exclusion: everything must either be or not be. This logic of identity,
8
according to Derrida, lies at the heart of Western metaphysics and its main
fault is that it approaches life as a theory, where everything can be fitted into
the prescribed categories. Derrida claims that the logic o f identity is an
exclusivist system disregarding differences and depriving life of creative
power. It treats reality as static, homogeneous, logically coherent and
essentially simple. The whole dualist metaphysical vocabulary is, according
to Derrida, a result of the process of excluding the different. Concepts like
sensible-intelligible, ideal-real, internal-external, fiction-truth, na-
ture-culture, speech-writing, activity-passivity, etc. propose that there is
a fixed 'objective' structure of reality, which does not change. Such credulity,
according to him, has to be deconstructed. Then a creative unboundedness of
reality can be rediscovered, where the different is no longer excluded or
imprisoned in fixed metaphysical rules. For this purpose he introduces the
notion of differance. This neologism attempts to combine the two meanings
of the French verb differer - to 'differ' and to 'defer'. Derrida's differance
points to the 'finitude of reason' and 'the permanent impossibility of absolute
knowledge'. Concerning the differance, Derrida goes back to Saussure's
9
structuralist theory, where "language in its most general form could be
understood as a system of differences, 'without positive terms' ." Saussurian 10
analysis brings Derrida to the recognition of an "unconceptualisable [sic!]
dimension" i n language. Lechte concludes: "Difference without positive
terms implies that this dimension in language must always remain unper-
ceived, for strictly speaking, it is unconceptualisable. With Derrida,
difference becomes the proto-type of what remains outside the scope of
Western metaphysical thought... Difference is not an identity [we can add, not
even a negative identity]; nor is it the difference between two identities.
Difference is difference deferred." 11
7 Cf. G . C . SPIVAK, 'Translator's Preface' to Derrida's O f Grammatology, 1976,
lxxxiii-lxxxiv.
8Cf. B . R U S S E L L , The Problems of Philosophy, Oxford 1973,40.
9 Cf. M. W E S T P H A L , J.M. M A R S H , J.D. C A P U T O , Modernity and Its Discontents, New
York 1992, xiii.
J. L E C H T E , Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers, London, New York 1994, 107.
10
11 L E C H T E , 107.
86 Ivana Noble
John D. Caputo explains Derrida's differance in terms of meaning as 'an
effect produced by the spacing between signifiers', and points out that 'the
'system' of such meanings is not a system, does not close over, but remains
in a permanently open-ended condition'. Differance 'makes it possible both
to say something and impossible to nail it down definitively, decidedly.'
Caputo puts it as follows:
"We never get a chance to write from on high, we never win the transcendental high ground.
We write from below, slowly and painfully forging unities of meaning from the flow of
signifiers... unities about which we keep our fingers crossed that they will get us through the
day. We are always inside and outside truth, unable to stop the rush of truth, yet unable, too,
to hold truth in place and stop its rushing off." 13
Derrida's emphasis on not reducing language to the identity of its concepts
is attractive; however, this also means that words do not have any sharp
boundaries, they can become circular, which makes communication incredibly
difficult. Here is the vulnerability of Derrida's approach: when the fixed
objective structure of reality is gone, the conceptualisable truth is deconstruc-
ted, what is left? Gregory of Nyssa, like Derrida, argued for an awareness that
language can never grasp the essence of things, yet we can acknowledge 14
things in their effects. Derrida's deconstruction is left with the problem of
15
missing reference. Both Gregory and Derrida emphasized the constant striving
and straining of humankind on the never-ending journey, yet for Gregory this
is a never-ending journey towards God, while this is absent in Derrida.
Derrida's deconstruction is, in the final analysis, addressed to a 'metaphy-
sics of presence'. Presence is perceived as particular and temporal. Derrida
speaks about 'positing' presence in events. He points out, however, that
events have a paradoxical structure. Jonathan Culler presents Derrida's view
in the following way: "for presence to function as it is said to, it must have the
qualities that supposedly belong to its opposite, absence." The difference 16
12 J . D . C A P U T O , On Being Inside/Outside Truth, in: M A R S H - C A P U T O - W E S T P H A L , 51 f.
13 C A P U T O , 52.
14 In the previous essay on Gregory of Nyssa's apophaticism this position was described
in three steps. First, Gregory argues that no single human word (or combination of them) can
hope to grasp the essence of God. Second, and perhaps even more relevant for comparison
with Derrida, Gregory points out that in fact it is doubtful if any human word can fully
express the essence of a thing. Finally, he denies that unbegottenness, uncreatedness,
ungeneratedness, is the most adequate way to name God. Cf. L . K A R F I K O V A , Rehof z Nyssy
[Gregory of Nyssa], Praha 1999,279.
15 Gregory applies this primarily to our knowing God, we cannot know God in his
essence (ouoia), but what we can do is to acknowledge God's effects (evepyeiai).
16 i . C U L L E R , On Deconstruction - Theory and Criticism after Structuralism, London
1983,95.
Apophatic Elements in Derrida '.v Deconslruction 87
between presence and absence in Derrida's terms is not grasped in an
immediate experience, but in a reflective reconstitution of presence. We posit
presence through an interpretation, through a fiction about it, where an
original lack of something makes possible an appreciation of its presence.
12 And on the other hand, presence provides us with a permanent destruction of
such fictions and their principles. 17
Paul Ricoeur states that deconstruction as opposed to identity faces the
problem, "but what about absolute difference?"; for deconstruction as
opposed to presence, the problem is, "but what about [the] impossibility to
'recognize the same'?" He asks further, "Can deconstruction be identified or
presented!" He points out that there is no way of answering the question of
'what do you mean' by deconstruction, and no way to 'experience' decon-
struction. "Deconstruction has to be deconstructed reflexively," says Ricoeur,
and contrasts it with positions, that built a system on the initial critique they
represented. Thus, deconstruction is not nihilism, atheism, meaninglesness or
pure vacuity, as a Buddhist approach might propose. The question of the
degree to which it can be compared to apophatic thinking remains open. If as
I want to propose in the following section it can be so compared, Ricoeur
says, "then it is constructed by the love of God and our love to God." lg
4. Derrida on Apophaticism
When we deal with Derrida's relation to apophaticism, we have to be aware
that he does not make a distinction between the Eastern apophasis and the
Western via negativa. He uses the concepts as synonymous and places them
under the one heading of negative theology. Thus, his references to negative
19
theology are relevant for the analysis of his explicit relation to the apophatic
tradition as well. His most detailed consideration of the subject is contained
in his essay 'How To Avoid Speaking: Denials'. But his relation to the
20
apophatic tradition (negative theology) as a question has been with him for
some considerable time. Already in his essay 'Differance' (1968) he gives
17For a relationship between deconstruction and negative theology in Derrida see
H. COWARD, T. F O S H A Y (eds.), Derrida and Negative Theology, Albany (N.Y.) 1992.
18In a personal communication from P A U L R I C O E U R , November 3rd 2001.
19For the terminological confusion, see D E R R I D A , How to Avoid Speaking: Denials,
74-76.
20 The French version of this essay,' Comment ne pas parler: Delegations', first appeared
in D E R R I D A ' S Psyche: Inventions de l'autere, Paris 1987, 535-595.
88 lvana Noble
a considerable account of why his work is close to negative theology and yet
cannot be identified with any form of it:
"So much so that the detours, locutions, and syntax in which I will often have to take
recourse will resemble those of negative theology, occasionally even to the point of being
indistinguishable from negative theology. Already we have to delineate that differance is
not, does not exist, is not present-being (on) in any form; and we will be led to delineate also
everything that it is not, that is, everything; and consequently that it has neither existence
nor essence. It derives from no category of being, whether present or absent. And yet those
aspects of differance which are thereby delineated are not theological, not even in the order
of the most negative of negative theologies, which as one knows are always concerned with
disengaging a hyperessentiality beyond the finite categories of essence and existence, that
is, of presence, and always hastening to recall that God is refused the predicate of existence,
only to acknowledge His superior, inconceivable, and ineffable mode of being."
From here onwards Derrida charges negative theology with attempts to
reestablish yet even stronger form of hyperessentiality by means of a negative
definition, something, which can be already seen with Eunomius's attempt to
find a name for God which is descriptive of divine essence. In spite o f 22
criticisms from Jean-Luc Marion, of which Derrida gives a detailed account,
23
he does not change his position, and in his later essay 'How To Avoid
Speaking: Denials' gives the folloving definitions of the negative theology:
"Under the very loose heading of 'negative theology' as you know, one often designates
a certain form of language, with its mise en scene, its rhetorical, grammatical, and logical
modes, its demonstrative procedures - in short a textual practice attested or rather situated
'in history', although it does sometimes exceed the predicates that constitute this or that
concept of history." 24
A couple of lines further on he states that, although there is not one single
negative theology, but a variety of different ones, they still have in common
a 'rhetoric of negative determination' considering that "every predicative
language is inadequate to the essence, in truth to the hyperessentiality (the
being beyond Being) of God," and consequently claim that "only a negative
('apophatic') attribution can claim to approach God, and to prepare us for
a silent intuition of God." Then, Derrida lists three types of usual objections
25
against "everything that resembles negative theology": (i) "You prefere to
21 J . D E R R I D A , Differance, in: Margins of Philosophy, Chicago 1 9 8 2 , 6 . (French original
came out in 1 9 6 8 ) .
2 2 Cf. G R E G O R Y OF N Y S S A , Contra Eunomium libriletll. Ed. W . J A G E R , G N O I I , Leiden
1960, 3 - 3 1 1 , 1 . 6 7 3 , 1 1 . 3 .
23 Cf. J . - L . M A R I O N , L'idole et la distance: cinq etudes, Paris 1977, 318; quoted by
D E R R I D A in How to Avoid Speaking: Denials, footnote 2 on p. 132.
24 D E R R I D A , HOW to Avoid Speaking: Denials, 7 3 .
2 5 D E R R I D A , op. cit. 14.
Apophatic Elements in Derrida's Deconstruction 89
negate; you affirm nothing." This objection leads to charges, justified or
unjustified, of nihilism and atheism; (ii) You speak for nothing, "only for the
sake of speaking, in order to experience speech." Here Derrida says that to
experience speech itself is not saying nothing, and nor is speaking to no one;
(iii) It leads to the negative manifestation of God. "[F]rom the moment the
proposition takes a negative form, the negativity that manifests itself need
only be pushed to the limit," and the hyperessentiality of God is reestablished,
"Every negative sentence would already be haunted by God or by the name of
God." An "inversion has always already taken place ... in order to say that
divinity is not produced but productive." This third objection captures most
26
of Derrida's attention. He says that when the apophatic discourse is analysed
21
in its
"logico-grammatical form... it perhaps leads us to consider the becoming-theological of all
discourse. [...] God would be not merely the end, but the origin of this work of the negative.
Not only would atheism not be the truth of negative theology; rather, God would be the truth
of all negativity. One would thus arrive at a kind of proof of God - not a proof of existence
of God, but a proof of God by His effects, or more precisely a proof of what one calls God,
or of the name of God, by effects without cause, by the without cause." 21
And it is here where Derrida distances himself from the apophatic
(negative) theology: "No, what I write is not 'negative theology'." Yet, this 28
refusal springs from a similar insight to that of Gregory when he sought to
refute Eunomius' arguments. The negative can prove as rigid a determiner as
the positive - what we cannot say about God being as limiting and destructive
as any positive theology. Derrida is unwilling to accept a place among the
negative theologians i f that means accepting that the 'not-saying' of God is
simply a variant on the 'saying' of God. For, in his reading of Dionysius and
Meister Eckhart, but also of Augustine, he finds repeated reference to
'hyperessentiality', to being beyond being. But such reference is not so
29
much subverting a positive theology as replacing i t . ' Hyperessentiality' is still
fundamentally an ontological statement, one which is rooted firmly within
a neo-Platonic metaphysics. The problem is not solved, merely transposed.
Derrida also refers to more contemporary discourses resembling the one of
negative theology, to Wittgenstein and Heidegger in particular. Derrida
2 6 lb id, 75-77.
Ibid, 76.
27
lb id, 7 7 .
28
29See D E R R I D A , op. cit., 7 8 - 8 1 . It is interesting that Derrida does not refer to the
apophatic tradition before Dionysius, where more common features would be found. He
confesses his fascination with negative theology (p. 82), but persistently refuses to be
associated with it.
90 Ivana Noble
recalls the end of Wittgenstein's Tractatus: "The inexpressible, indeed,
exists. It shows itself; it is the mystical" and "Concerning that about which
one cannot speak, one must remain silent." Derrida examines the necessity
30
Wittgenstein speaks about, the necessity of 'the trace', as Derrida puts it,
a trace in speech, a promise for future when "one must speak" of "what is as
yet unpresentable." Wittgenstein provokes Derrida to give an account of his
31
silence in the face of this promise. Derrida states that "this promise is older
than I am," it is a "destination toward speech, this silence yet remains
a modality of speech: a memory of promise and a promise of memory." But 32
then, there is Derrida's somewhat odd conclusion:
'"how to avoid speaking' since I have already started to speak and have always already
started to promise to speak? That I have already started to speak, or rather that at least the
trace of speech will have preceded this very speech, one cannot deny. Translate: one can
only deny it. There can only be denial of what is undeniable.""
Thus, we are left with a response as a kind of a response to a provocation
or to being asked to do an impossible task. And yet there are ways in which
Derrida does want to retain something of the insight of negative theology,
precisely of the unspeaking of God which it at least implies: hence the title of
his essay. In other words, at stake for him is not so much the negative
understanding, a negative epistemology or metaphysics to substitute
a previous more positive one. Instead, he is interested in not-saying, in how
it is possible to not-speak God, in what precedes such not-speaking.
Does it mean, then, that Derrida argues for a kind of metaphysics of
silence, which would take him back to where he started with his critique of
the metaphysics of presence? He addresses this issue, when dealing with the
contribution of Heidegger. Heidegger's What is Metaphysics, Derrida argues,
can be read as an example of a negative discourse. Heidegger, according to
him, points out the strangeness of what is as the wholly other, of what
transcends Dasein. But Heidegger does not solve the problem of how to avoid
speaking of Being. Derrida writes that Heidegger claims that a certain
'topology of Being' is necessary, which can help us to avoid 'objectifying
representation', including a negative objectifying representation. Even 34
God's essence cannot be expressed by means of Being, and faith has no need
to do so. Faith has a need of a place where one can encounter God, a place of
30 L . WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London 1990, 6.552 and 7.
31 D E R R I D A , op. cit., 81.
32 Ibid, 84-85.
33 Ibid, 86.
3 4 See D E R R I D A , op. cit. 125.
Apophatic Elements in Derrida's Deconstruction 91
God's revelation, a place of human prayer. But whether such a place is
possible, Derrida leaves as an open question. 35
Here another term of Derrida's comes into play, that of'denegation', which
is sometimes translated into English as 'denial', but which is perhaps best left
as 'denegation'. The French term (a translation of the German Verneinung)
operates as an affirmative of negation, or a double movement of negation.
This is for him an unconscious movement prior to speech or action, as well
as a conscious movement within speech. Until the unconscious motivation for
our words and deeds is felt, they remain un-words and un-deeds. With the
motivation, we can become conscious of them, though always as past or
future.
It is in this context that Derrida understands negative theology. It both
constitutes a form of theology, a conscious movement within speech towards
a clearer explication or (not-)speaking about God, but at the same time it
deconstitutes that theology, by the unconscious recognition of the impossibili-
ty of the task it has set itself. To arrive at an understanding of God, to have
knowledge of God is necessarily to see in God the incomprehensible, the
unknowable. It is to become aware of the lack of understanding and igno-
rance.
Derrida also raises the question about which 'place', which ground, one
avoids speaking from. Is it because one wants to keep a secret? Or is it
because one does not have the secret, that in a way what is expected to be
uncovered is still found as hidden? Or is it because of holding on to the secret
that there is no secret? He states that his place is not that of Greek or Christian
tradition of negative theology, but, i f anything, then that of Jewish and Islamic
thought. But he does not want to thematize this place:
36
"I thus decided not to speak of the negativity or of apophatic movements in, for example,
the Jewish or Islamic traditions. To leave this immense place empty ...was this not the most
35 Cf. M. H E I D E G G E R , Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik, Tubingen 1953: 50-51. D E R R I D A ,
op. cit. 123-131.
36 Cf. D E R R I D A , op. cit., 100. In a footnote he raises the question as to why does he hide
himself behind the 'negative theology of others' and admits: "[I]f one day I had to tell my
story, nothing in this narrative would start to speak of the thing itself if I did not come up
against this fact; for the lack of capacity, competence, or self-authorization, I have never yet
been able to speak of what my birth, as one says, should have made closest to me: the Jew,
the Arab." (Footnote 13, p.135) In his later biographical commentary Derrida emphasizes
especially the background of Judaism, see Jacques Derrida par Geoffrey Bennington et
Jacques Derrida, Mars 1991. This theme was developed by U L R I C H E N G E L ' S paper
' Religiose (Nicht-)Identitat' at the 3rd International L E S T Congress hold in November 6-9
2001 in Leuven, which will be published by Leuven University Press.
92 Ivana Noble Apophatic Elements in Derrida's Deconstruction 93

consistent possible apophasis? Concerning that about which one cannot speak, isn't it the God, and i f we never arrive it is because the not arriving is part of our
best to remain silent?" 37
(un)knowing of who God is. This is what gives hope, since God is always
God, close and infinitely other, and i f our journey is never-ending, it also
means that ultimately no obstacle can stand in our way. The apophatic way as
found in the Fathers has the need of conversion at its heart, which is explicit
5. Conclusion in its inclusion of thoughts, words as well as deeds. It gives space to
anamnesis, the living memory, which we posit in tradition and which helps
This essay has, I hope, demonstrated that Derrida is in some senses dealing
us to interpret our experience, and its reference is participatory, perhaps in the
with similar kinds of questions to these of apophatic theology and responds
sense, which Derrida criticised, that it takes God as the beginning and the end
to them with remarkably similar probings to those I pointed out in my essay
of all our activity, of all our living and moving and resting. Such apophati-
'The Apophatic Way in Gregory of Nyssa' presented in this collection. Yet
cism also gives space to the symbolic kataphatic theology as a complement
Derrida rejects apophatic (negative) theology as he sees it as hyperessential.
of the apophatic critique, making it possible to acknowledge God in his
It reestablishes and strengthens the order it puts into question, perhaps in
effects. Derrida's deconstruction is left with the problem of missing reference.
a similar fashion to Eunomius's negative names of God, such as unbegotten,
Although, he also emphasizes the constant striving and straining of human-
uncreated or ungenerated, which in the end become the absolute names o f
kind on the never-ending journey, this journey is not given a direction and an
God, giving access to divine essence. What Derrida does not reflect is the
aim, not even from a Jewish and Islamic perspective. Here Ricoeur's remark,
critique of the hyperessentiality of the negative approach to be found in the
that i f deconstruction was to be compared with apophatic thinking, it would
apophatic tradition itself. His rejection of apophaticism is motivated by
need to be rooted in the love of God, is relevant. For an explicit recognition
similar reasons to those we find in the apophatic tradition of the Fathers, of
of that, a theologian who searches in Derrida for inspiration has to rely on
which Gregory is a striking example. Derrida is in agreement with this
other sources.
tradition in his emphasis on the impossibility of grasping the essence of
Finally, as I noted at the beginning, Derrida confuses the Western and the
things, including the essence of God, in the stress on permanent movement,
Eastern approaches, the via negativa and the aphophasis. His method o f
on things being always in process, and on our participation in this process,
deconstruction does indeed resemble some of the pre-Dionysian apophatic
which cannot be reduced to either positive or negative speaking.
emphases. But apophaticism offers much more than a speculative approach
Yet, for all that, there is a clear divide between the two. This divide is not
to the unspoken, than a side way to the ungraspable. It is a way of ongoing
given by the hyperessentiality or non-hyperessentiality of the approach, but
conversion, rather than of resting in a static image of reality and of God,
simply by the problem of reference. Derrida attempts to substitute the empty
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whether positively or negatively defined.
space between the signifiers for reference, yet it does not open up equal
possibilities. As I pointed out in my essay on Gregory, the latter refuses to
reduce God to any name, even to that of 'unbegottenness' or 'ungenerated-
ness' (and today we might replace those terms with little damage to the
integrity of Gregory's thought by the concept of 'Being'). He allows God to
remain God, infinite, transcendent, incomprehensible. Yet it is precisely this
God whom we are able to encounter on our journey, who reveals himself to
us, in whom we live and move and have our being. He is a God of history, too,
beyond yet within, and human response to this God is a response which must
therefore be rooted within history. It is as human beings that we approach

3 7 D E R R I D A , op. cit., 122.

1 think that MARION'S critique of Derrida's accounts of hyperessentiality is justified.
38

See note 23.