A Principle of Incarnation in Derrida’s (theologische?) Jugendschriften: towards a Confessional Theology

In pursuing the question of incarnation, it must be noted from the beginning that what is at stake is Platonism. More specifically, my concern will be the relationship of Christian theology to Platonism. It is a curious phenomenon that here, now, on the brink of the twentyfirst century, the question of Christian theology’s relationship to Platonism remains an orienting and fundamental theme of reflection. Replaying an Augustinian challenge, the question has been raised anew by two “revivals” of Platonism which serve as catalysts: first, and most recently, a movement in theology which valorizes their identification, sketching a “Platonism/ Christianity”, and publishing a manifesto which promises—at the same time—“a more incarnate, more participatory, more aesthetic, more erotic, more socialised, even ‘more Platonic’ Christianity”. The second revival is one that takes place under the tent of phenomenology as pointed out in Derrida’s early critique of Husserl: concluding that Husserl’s “determination of being as ideality is properly a valuation, an ethico-theoretical act that revives the decision that founded philosophy in its Platonic form”, we might even suggest that Derrida’s critique of Husserl is precisely a critique of his Platonism—in the name, I will argue, of a certain theory of incarnation. These two revivals collide in Catherine Pickstock’s curious critique of early Derrida (particularly “Plato’s Pharmacy”), where she suggests an inversion of what we might have suspected, first arguing that Plato is in fact Modern Theology 18:2 April 2002 ISSN 0266-7177