Iconoclastic Theology: Gilles Deleuze and the Secretion of Atheism

ISBN-13: 9781474401449 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 240 str.

F. LeRon Shults

Opis

F. LeRon Shults explores Deleuze's fascination with theological themes and shows how his entire corpus can be understood as a creative atheist machine that liberates thinking, acting and feeling. Shults also demonstrates how the flow of a productive atheism can be increased by bringing Deleuzian concepts into dialogue with insights derived from the bio-cultural sciences of religion.
Gilles Deleuze consistently hammered away at icons, overturning pretentious images taken as true copies of ideal models. He was particularly critical of religious Figures. In What is Philosophy? Deleuze argued that religion and transcendence, like philosophy and immanence, always come (and go) together. What value, then, could he possibly have found in engaging theology, which is typically bound to a particular religious coalition? Chipping away at repressive religious representations was valuable in itself for Deleuze, but he also believed that religion produced something of considerable value. He insisted that every religion secretes atheism, and none more so than Christianity.

Spis treści

1. Hammering Theology; The Science of Non-Existing Entities; Anti-Oedipus, Anti-Christ; Anthropomorphic Promiscuity and Sociographic Prudery; Sacerdotal and Iconoclastic Trajectories; The Secrets of Theism; 2. Breaking Theological Icons; The Inversion of Platonism; Christ as the Image of God; Anthropomorphic Prudery and Sociographic Promiscuity; Kant and the Genitality of Experience; Spinoza and the Vertigo of Immanence; Nietzsche and the Rising of the Simulacra; Overturning Religious Figures; 3. Loosening Theological Chains; The Dogmatic Image of Thought; Christ as the Logos of God; The First Shackle: Analogy of Judgment; The Second Shackle: Identity in the Concept; The Third Shackle: Opposition of Predicates; The Fourth Shackle: Resemblance in Perception; The Liberation of Thinking; 4. Releasing Theological Events; Paradox and Becoming; Christ as the Incarnation of God; The Aleatory Point; The Line of the Aion; The Metaphysical Surface; Sexuality and Pious Intentions; The Liberation of Acting; 5. Assembling Theological Machines; Desiring-Machines; Christ as the Judgment of God; Theology and the Territorial Machine; Theology and the Despotic Machine; Theology and the Capitalist Machine; Theology and the War Machine; The Liberation of Feeling; 6. Secreting Atheism; The Production of Atheism; The Gospel According to Deleuze; The Forces of Theology; Bibliography.