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Beyond Monotheism: A Theology of Multiplicity
Laurel Schneider takes the reader on a vivid journey from the origins of "the logic of the One" - only recently dubbed monotheism - through to the modern day, where monotheism has increasingly failed to adequately address spiritual, scientific, and ethical experiences in the changing world. In Part I, Schneider traces a trajectory from the ancient history of monotheism and multiplicity in Greece, Israel, and Africa through the Constantinian valorization of the logic of the One, to medieval and modern challenges to that logic in poetry and science. She pursues an alternative and constructive approach in Part II: a "logic of multiplicity" already resident in Christian traditions in which the complexity of life and the presence of God may be better articulated. Part III takes up the open-ended question of ethics from within that multiplicity, exploring the implications of this radical and realistic new theology for the questions that lie underneath theological construction: questions of belonging and nationalism, of the possibility of love, and of unity. In this groundbreaking work of contemporary theology, Schneider shows that the One is not lost in divine multiplicity, and that in spite of its abstractions, divine multiplicity is realistic and worldly, impossible ultimately to abstract.
248 pages, Paperback
First published August 20, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 22, 2008
NB: My review of this book will be appearing in the International Journal of Public Theology.
Schneider has two not entirely compatible goals: to articulate a ‘theology of multiplicity’ drawn in large part from Deleuzean ontology, while maintaining that this theology, though no longer monotheistic, is not at all polytheistic. She denounces polytheism, oddly enough, because it cannot adequately attend to immanence and ‘incarnation’:
'[T]he answer to monotheism’s totalitarian limitations is not polytheism. Polytheism is monotheism’s supporting cast and neither polytheism nor monotheism can attend to the uncompromising thereness of incarnate divinity. Incarnation is, after all, about bodies. And bodies … are always a problem for abstract theologies, which function foundationally on principles that tend toward stasis.' (5)
Schneider never provides an adequate argument for why a polytheistic theology would not be congenial to an ontology of multiplicity. Her argument against ‘abstract theologies’ as such depends upon her reading of Greek philosophy in chapter 4; but this is centered around the notion that Greek philosophy advanced toward monotheism as a reaction against polytheism. That this is an outdated, evolutionist narrative is beside the point; if ‘abstract theology’ arises as a repression of polytheism in the first place, how can polytheism be just such a theology? Furthermore, the attempt to position her own theology as in no way ‘abstract’ risks a performative contradiction insofar as she wishes to claim for it any stable principles.
The consequences of Schneider’s attempts to repress any polytheistic implications of the ontology she has appropriated are evident in her remarks on ‘the many’:
'It bears repeating here that ‘multiplicity’ is not the same as ‘the many’. It does not refer to a pile of many separable units, many ‘ones’, and so it is not opposed to the One or to ones … ‘The multiple’ … or ‘multiplicity’, results when things—ones—so constitute each another that they come to exist (in part, of course) because of one another … The whole is constituted by its parts but, then, the parts are also constituted by their participation in the whole.'(142)
Schneider’s recourse to the logic of whole and part here shows that her ‘multiplicity’ has but little to do with the Deleuzean theory of assemblages, which is based upon the exteriority of relations, that is, the autonomy of the terms involved in a relation. Schneider’s ‘multiplicity’ is an organic totality whose parts possess no autonomy or individuality. She speaks of individuality at times as though there were something sinful about it: ‘The logic of multiplicity has room for individuals … in the place and time that makes them … the logic of multiplicity remains compatible with individuality in the form of ones that come and go, as they do,’ (p. 199).
In this way Schneider’s critique of the ‘logic of the One’ trades a totalizing transcendent unity for a totalizing immanent unity, instead of disentangling the different senses of ‘unity’ routinely conflated in monotheistic onto-theology. Logic is not the problem. There is no logical inference to monotheism from the successful use of the concept of ‘unity’ in any of the various senses Aristotle enumerates in Metaphysics 1015b16-1017a7. Schneider’s ‘logic of the One’ is only a narrative linking diverse uses of the concept of unity to the monotheistic assertion that there is only one God, a narrative she reinforces by making multiplicity a question purely of ‘bodies’. Why reinscribe the dichotomy of incorporeal unity and fleshly multiplicity in this fashion?
At certain points, however, Schneider seems to glimpse the possibility of a different ‘logic of the One’. Two aspects of this jump out. The first is the notion of the One as the unique as such: ‘incarnate divinity … is an inexchangeable individual,’ (p. 198). This is a unity unbounded as to number, for there is no a priori limitation on the number of unique individuals, while also still capable of acting as the limit upon all forms of conceptual unification. The second is the notion of ‘a-centered relationality’ by virtue of which ‘[d]ivine multiplicity … has no single center, origin, or root. Every point of emergence, or incarnational occurrence, is a center’ and ‘[e]ach center is a margin in relation to other centers,’ (p. 176). Schneider borrows this concept from Barbara Holmes, who terms it ‘omnicentricity’, but Schneider remarks that ‘omnicentricity can slip from its own marvelous multiplicity in the totalizing direction that All, rather than ‘every’ or ‘each’ implies … For this reason only I use ‘a-centered relationality’ instead, to keep in focus the mode of relation that Holmes intends,’ (p. 178). The One that is Each, as opposed to the One that is All, can do all the logical work ontology demands. Whether it is good enough for Schneider depends on whether she can allow that the Christian God be one among many.
Schneider has two not entirely compatible goals: to articulate a ‘theology of multiplicity’ drawn in large part from Deleuzean ontology, while maintaining that this theology, though no longer monotheistic, is not at all polytheistic. She denounces polytheism, oddly enough, because it cannot adequately attend to immanence and ‘incarnation’:
'[T]he answer to monotheism’s totalitarian limitations is not polytheism. Polytheism is monotheism’s supporting cast and neither polytheism nor monotheism can attend to the uncompromising thereness of incarnate divinity. Incarnation is, after all, about bodies. And bodies … are always a problem for abstract theologies, which function foundationally on principles that tend toward stasis.' (5)
Schneider never provides an adequate argument for why a polytheistic theology would not be congenial to an ontology of multiplicity. Her argument against ‘abstract theologies’ as such depends upon her reading of Greek philosophy in chapter 4; but this is centered around the notion that Greek philosophy advanced toward monotheism as a reaction against polytheism. That this is an outdated, evolutionist narrative is beside the point; if ‘abstract theology’ arises as a repression of polytheism in the first place, how can polytheism be just such a theology? Furthermore, the attempt to position her own theology as in no way ‘abstract’ risks a performative contradiction insofar as she wishes to claim for it any stable principles.
The consequences of Schneider’s attempts to repress any polytheistic implications of the ontology she has appropriated are evident in her remarks on ‘the many’:
'It bears repeating here that ‘multiplicity’ is not the same as ‘the many’. It does not refer to a pile of many separable units, many ‘ones’, and so it is not opposed to the One or to ones … ‘The multiple’ … or ‘multiplicity’, results when things—ones—so constitute each another that they come to exist (in part, of course) because of one another … The whole is constituted by its parts but, then, the parts are also constituted by their participation in the whole.'(142)
Schneider’s recourse to the logic of whole and part here shows that her ‘multiplicity’ has but little to do with the Deleuzean theory of assemblages, which is based upon the exteriority of relations, that is, the autonomy of the terms involved in a relation. Schneider’s ‘multiplicity’ is an organic totality whose parts possess no autonomy or individuality. She speaks of individuality at times as though there were something sinful about it: ‘The logic of multiplicity has room for individuals … in the place and time that makes them … the logic of multiplicity remains compatible with individuality in the form of ones that come and go, as they do,’ (p. 199).
In this way Schneider’s critique of the ‘logic of the One’ trades a totalizing transcendent unity for a totalizing immanent unity, instead of disentangling the different senses of ‘unity’ routinely conflated in monotheistic onto-theology. Logic is not the problem. There is no logical inference to monotheism from the successful use of the concept of ‘unity’ in any of the various senses Aristotle enumerates in Metaphysics 1015b16-1017a7. Schneider’s ‘logic of the One’ is only a narrative linking diverse uses of the concept of unity to the monotheistic assertion that there is only one God, a narrative she reinforces by making multiplicity a question purely of ‘bodies’. Why reinscribe the dichotomy of incorporeal unity and fleshly multiplicity in this fashion?
At certain points, however, Schneider seems to glimpse the possibility of a different ‘logic of the One’. Two aspects of this jump out. The first is the notion of the One as the unique as such: ‘incarnate divinity … is an inexchangeable individual,’ (p. 198). This is a unity unbounded as to number, for there is no a priori limitation on the number of unique individuals, while also still capable of acting as the limit upon all forms of conceptual unification. The second is the notion of ‘a-centered relationality’ by virtue of which ‘[d]ivine multiplicity … has no single center, origin, or root. Every point of emergence, or incarnational occurrence, is a center’ and ‘[e]ach center is a margin in relation to other centers,’ (p. 176). Schneider borrows this concept from Barbara Holmes, who terms it ‘omnicentricity’, but Schneider remarks that ‘omnicentricity can slip from its own marvelous multiplicity in the totalizing direction that All, rather than ‘every’ or ‘each’ implies … For this reason only I use ‘a-centered relationality’ instead, to keep in focus the mode of relation that Holmes intends,’ (p. 178). The One that is Each, as opposed to the One that is All, can do all the logical work ontology demands. Whether it is good enough for Schneider depends on whether she can allow that the Christian God be one among many.
May 23, 2013
I am not prepared to present a proper review of this astounding work. To do so, I will have to read the book again and dedicate sufficient time to allow my mind to assimilate the ideas Schneider presents. My first reading became an unexpectedly emotional and spiritual experience. The book is full of liberating ideas that seemed to awaken and illuminate parts of my psyche of which I was unaware. As Schneider states, "Divinity is nothing if not free." Reading that phrase at the close of the book combined with its last sentence made me feel in the depths of my being that to touch the divine is to experience absolute freedom - if only for a moment. One rarely expects moments like the one I experienced from a formal work of theology and, that I did have such a moment, is a testimony to Schneider's gifts as a writer, thinker, and, theologian. (I am tempted to add the title of shaman to that list.) I look forward to reading this work again and I hope that I will be able to read more works of this exceptional human being.
August 16, 2008
I highly recommend this book. It's very theoretical but brilliant and provocative. My favorite chapter is on Dante's Divine Comedy, which I'm adding to my list.
August 1, 2008
Best new theology I've read recently. I'm imagining new possibilities...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews