Апостол Павел. Обоснование универсализма

by Alain Badiou, Алан Бадью

Издание 1999 года. Сохранность хорошая. В книге излагается секуляризованная трактовка учения и деятельности апостола Павла как фигуры, выражающей стремление к истине, которая в своей универсальности противостоит всякого рода абсолютизированным

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, Nonfiction, Theology, Christianity, Theory, France

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Alain Badiou, Ph.D., born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937, holds the Rene Descartes Chair at the European Graduate School EGS. Alain Badiou was a student at the École Normale Supérieure in the 1950s. He taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) from 1969 until 1999, when he returned to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department. He continues to teach a popular seminar at the Collège International de Philosophie, on topics ranging from the great 'antiphilosophers' (Saint-Paul, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan) to the major conceptual innovations of the twentieth century. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel at the center of L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works.

Trained as a mathematician, Alain Badiou is one of the most original French philosophers today. Influenced by Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze, he is an outspoken critic of both the analytic as well as the postmodern schools of thoughts. His philosophy seeks to expose and make sense of the potential of radical innovation (revolution, invention, transfiguration) in every situation.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy trinities provide a cadence. They tend to cover the bases. We know the reverence Badiou has for set theory. Does the father need to bless magic numbers?

Badiou places Paul in the ranks of anti philosophy, along with Pascal, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Lacan. Defining characteristics include aversion to systems and the notion of language as rupture. Given his card carrying status Paul loses the scales and goes militant, spreading the word, meeting the definition of apostle, parsing the distinctions between Christianity and its geographical neighbors: Judaism and Hellenic philosophy. He also moves the epicenter of his Good News to Rome—where apparently he’s arrested and killed: thus even before the untimely he’s a witness, thus satisfying the definition of martyr: a witness. All of this is apocryphal but Badiou appreciates the universalism, he claims Paul and Nietzsche were kindred spirits and then in the last pages he broaches the idea of how Paul’s faith is akin to anxiety as understood by Lacan. That should have been a separate volume all its own.

[Mohammad Mahdi Fallah · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتاب به تمام معنا یک شاهکار است و نمونه مثالی از تفسیر یک شخصیت تاریخی براساس نظام فلسفی بکر و ناب. فارغ از اینکه تا چه میزان تفسیر بدیو از پل صحیح باشد و تا چه میزان بتوان از خلال بحث‌های کلیشه‌ای، او را متهم به بدفهمی پل کرد، تفسیر بدیو کاملاً منسجم و سرراست یک حرف را می‌خواهد بزند: پل را می‌توان در خارج از سنت مسیحی به‌عنوان سوژه‌ای فهمید که در مقام اعلام حقیقت ایستاده و این حقیقت را با صدای رسا برای همگان اعلام می‌کند؛ بی‌هیچ تفاوتی و به اقتضای همین اعلام‌کردن است که رسول (نه فیلسوف و نه نبی) می‌شود و می‌تواند در عین تکینگی و خاص‌بودگی، در مقام بنیان کلی‌گرایی قرار گیرد.
کتاب شامل یازده فصل است که در هر کدام از فصل‌ه، بدیو مخاطب را با پل خودش آشنا می‌کند؛ از «پل کیست؟» شروع می‌کند تا به «عشق» و «امید» به‌عنوان ارکان ایمان مسیحی برسد و حتی به شبهه‌های فمنیستی علیه پل جواب می‌دهد. برای همین تقریباً تصویری کلی از او بدست می‌آید و درتفکر بدیو، صورت «عشق» حقیقت ظاهر می‌شود. پل پیامبران همگان است تا جایگاه سوژه انسانی در مقام پسر را مستقر سازد و اعلام کند چگونه باید از طریق موقعیت تکینه و انضمامی زندگی، انسان به‌مرتبه کلیت ارتقاء یابد و چگونه باید در این موقعیت، وفادارانه پابرجا باقی بماند.
بدیو برای تبیین چنین موضعی لاجرم باید از قانون و نص عبور کند و درنهایت از پل عملاً مسیحیت‌زدایی کند؛ در عین حالی که فصل‌های نهایی با تکیه بر اقرار پل به یهودی بودنش تلاش می‌کند که موقعیت انضمامی وی را حفظ کند، ولی درنهایت پل در تصویر نهایی‌اش از نقطه‌نظری دینی یک دئیسم است: سوژه‌ای ایستاده دربرابر حقیقت که عملاً به هیچ شرعی پایبند نیست و عملاً هر چیزی به واسطه اعلام حقیقت روا می‌دارد.
چنانچه در ابتدا نیز گفته شد، فارغ از این که تا چه‌میزان این تصویر از پل به‌لحاظ تفسیر قابل خدشه است، در مواجهه با حقیقت نیز جایگاهی برای عمل باید گشوده شود. برای بدیو ایمان به‌معنای عشق به حقیقت است و ازجمله ضرورت‌های ایمان، اعلام آن برای خطاب قراردادن همگان است؛ حلقه مفقوده ولی هنوز عمل است که باید مورد بازنگری واقع شود. در نسخه‌ی کنونی این کتاب عملاً راه‌حل بدیو نفی هر قانونی است، در نسخه اینجایی و اکنونی و انضمامی ما راه‌حل چه خواهد بود؟

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

In Saint Paul, Alain Badiou argues that, throughout the apostle 'authentic' writings we can find a clear fidelity to a universal and an event (an event is something that happens without any anticipation - like a thief in the night). The event, for Paul, is the resurrection of Christ. The universal, for Paul, is that Jesus rose from the dead. Unlike conceptual or material universals, Paul's universal is not opposed to falsehood. There is no way that Paul's truth - his objective truth - can be countered because it is not in the order of the noetic or the physical. In other words, Paul's universal is not simply a maxim (a conceptual universal) or a historical event (a physical/material/historical universal). Rather, it exists aside from these two orders.

Now, the universal - Jesus rose from the dead - reaches out to the particulars because it applies to all, irrespective of any differences. There is neither Greek nor Jew, man nor woman; and yet, at the same time, there are Greeks and Jews, men and women. As Badiou argues, the differences between the Greek and the Jew, the man and the women are not of prime importance. What matters first of all is the truth of the universal (which is neither conceptual nor historical). In Badiou's terms this is the fidelity to the truth-event (the resurrection of Jesus). All differences are secondary.

In order to proclaim his message, Paul, therefore, becomes "all things to all men" (is indifferent to particulars) and yet acknowledges that not all men are the same. Hence, Paul is neither a Jewish prophet (who provides signs from God) nor a Greek philosopher (who persuades through reason). He is, rather, a new kind of figure - an anti-philosopher and an apostle.

Why did I give this book only one star?

Because Badiou's lack of thorough research was extremely aggravating.

For instance, near the beginning of the book, Badiou simply states that, of all the canonical epistles attributed to Paul "at least six are certainly apocryphal" (32) without providing any references. Now, I believe that all of the canonical epistles were either written or dictated by Paul and I believe there is a lot of evidence to back up my view. This having been said, I know that most critical scholars still regard II Timothy and Ephesians to be authentic. Badiou, however, does not. This leads me to believe that he's only relying on a minimal number of scholarly sources (the fact that Badiou does not reference his historical statements really bothers me).

Secondly, Badiou simply states that the resurrection was a fable and not a historical event (in the colloquial sense of event). Only those who are quite ignorant of recent (and historical debates) can assert such a claim with this kind of confidence (once again, Badiou makes no effort to reference his assertion). There are numerous monographs and debates available showing that there is far more evidence in favour of the bodily resurrection of Christ than the non-resurrection or a merely spiritual resurrection. Just think of the works by N.T. Wright and Gary Habermas to name but two. Shimon Gibson, a non-Christian archeologist has, himself, stated in his book The Final Days of Jesus, that "[t]he reality is that there is no historical explanation for the empty tomb, other than if we adopt a theological one, i.e., the resurrection" (165). So, once again, the fact that Badiou simply states that the resurrection is a fable, without even acknowledging the controversy, suggests that he hasn't been doing his homework.

Thirdly, it is only because Badiou dismisses the book of Acts as 'ideologically tainted' (a common Marxist tactic) - the book, Badiou claims, was most likely written to appeal to Roman society "[Acts] is [probably] an official document, whose function is to provide an account of the first decades of Christianity that would be as uniform, organization, and "Roman" as possible" (26) - that he can assert that Paul avoided using rational arguments and miracles to authenticate his message. Throughout Acts, Luke reports that Paul and Barnabas/Silas performed a number of miracles: with the Jews in Iconium "they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands" (Acts 14:3); with Gentiles in Malta, Paul survived a poisonous snake bite. These are but two instances (of many others). Badiou, however, does not need to deal with them because he has already eliminated the book of Acts from the 'authentic and trustworthy writings'. This, for those who are interested, is an easy way to make research and argumentation easier: simply assert that all the books that challenge your thesis are 'ideologically tainted' and then carry on without worry. (To be fair, Badiou does discuss Paul's message to the philosophers on Mars Hill, though only to show that Paul was an anti-philosopher - throughout Badiou makes it clear that he does not believe the Mars Hill-debate really happened).

What do all of these criticisms amount to? Perhaps you will charge me with 'missing the point'. Badiou's argument does not stand or fall because of any historical details, you might say. I disagree. Whether the resurrection did or did not happen does affect the status of Paul's message. If the resurrection did happen (there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the fact that it did) then Badiou's claim that the truth-event of resurrection is neither conceptual nor historical must be altered. Moreover, if we incorporate the book of Acts (as well as the rest of Paul's epistles) into the study, Badiou will have to admit that there were times when Paul reasoned, and other times when he performed miracles.

The most problematic aspect of Badiou's book, however, is the lack of references used. Were Badiou to acknowledge controversial claims wherever they are, his book would have profited immensely.

[Karl Steel · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Badiou, and it would feel as if it were my first Paul, had it not been for my fundy upbringing. This is a Paul freed from the "religious thaumaturgy[,...] charlatanism....[and] masochistic propaganda extolling the virtues of suffering" of the Gospels (which, at any rate, appeared only after Paul wrote); a Paul freed from "obscurantist" mysticism; a Paul freed from Acts--fascinating for students of narrative, but unchallenging philosophically; and freed from Pascal and Nietzsche's misreadings to rest only in those few epistles that we can confidently assign to him (Romans, Corinthians I and II, Galatians, Philippians, and Thessalonians 1). This is a Paul without Hell, without any interest in the words or life of Christ, whose only interest in Christianity is in the resurrection, in the universal address articulated on the site of Judaism. It's a Paul that would be completely unfamiliar to the church that raised me. Good.

It's still not as atheist as all that, despite Badiou's claims for his secular bona fides and despite his repeated assertions of his nonbelief in the resurrection. After all, he takes the literal existence of Jesus for granted, and, more to the point, he's reading Paul, not, say, Rashi or some other figure typically excluded from the so-called Western and especially "French" tradition. Thus he remains French, despite his disdain for "French identitarian fanaticism" as evidenced in Le Pen and French anti-veiling laws. And He still calls the Hebrew scriptures the "Old Testament"! He takes Paul's statements about the constraints of the Jewish law for granted (and he may be as credulous when it comes to Paul's attitudes towards Greek philosophy), and he engages in what strikes me as special pleading about Paul's attitudes towards women preachers (and note Badiou's dance with the word "filiation!"), towards effeminate men, towards bodies and sex, and so forth, all that makes Paul embarassing for the decent Christians I know. Badiou's Paul is therefore an ok Paul, without remainder, but only because Badiou decides not to engage the whole of the Pauline corpus, even within the limits he sets.

So, a few representative bits from this thinker we might call Alain Paul Badiou:

" Paul is a poet-thinker of the event, as well as one who practices and states the invariant traits of what can be called the militant figure"
"the absolute sovereignty of capital's empty universality, had as its only genuine enemy another universal project"
"there is nothing more captive, so far as commercial investment is concerned, nothing more amenable to the invention of new figures of monetary homogeneity, than a community and its territory or territories"
"every truth procedure breaks with the axiomatic principle that governs the situation and organizes its repetitive series"
"The "culture-technology-management-sexuality" system, which has the immense merit of being homogeneous to the market, and all of whose terms designate a category of commercial presentation, constitutes the modern nominal occlusion of the "art-science-politics-love" system, which identifies truth procedures typologically."
"since truth is evental, or of the order of what occurs, it is singular. It is neither structural, nor axiomatic, nor legal. No available generality can account for it, nor structure the subject who claims to follow in its wake."
"A truth procedure is only universal insofar as it is supported, at that point through which it indexes the real, by an immediate subjective recognition of its singularity. Failing which, one resorts to observances or particular signs, which can only fix the Good News within the communitarian space, blocking its universal deployment."
"Greek discourse bases itself on the cosmic order so as to adjust itself to it, while Jewish discourse bases itself on the exception to this order so as to turn divine transcendence into a sign. Paul's profound idea is that Jewish discourse and Greek discourse are the two aspects of the same figure of mastery.....The result is, firstly, that neither of the two dis courses can be universal, because each supposes the persistence of the other; and secondly, that the two discourses share the presupposition that the key to salvation is given to us within the universe, whether it be through direct mastery of the totality (Greek wisdom), or through mastery of a literal tradition and the deciphering of signs (Jewish ritualism and prophetism)....Paul's project is to show that a universal logic of salvation cannot be reconciled with any law, be it one that ties thought to the cosmos, or one that fixes the effects of an exceptional election. It is impossible that the starting point be the Whole, but just as impossible that it be an exception to the Whole. Neither totality nor the sign will do. One must proceed from the event as such, which is a-cosmic and illegal, refusing integration into any totality and signaling nothing."
"He simply reminds us, even if only by deliberately neglecting to mention these extraneous virtuosities, that none of this is enough to found a new era of Truth. What the particular individual named Jesus said and did is only the contingent material seized upon by the event in view of an entirely different destiny. In this sense, Jesus is neither a master nor an example. He is the name for what happens to us universally."
"What can measure up to the universality of an address? Not legality, in any case. The law is always predicative, particular, and partial. Paul is perfectly aware of the law's unfailingly "statist" character. By "statist" I mean that which enumerates, names, and controls the parts of a situation. If a truth is to surge forth eventally, it must be nondenumer able, impredicable, uncontrollable."

[Slow Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took too many notes to relay here but the stuff about Paul's anti-dialectic, Nietzsche, as well as the general thesis about gratuity, the universal, and anti-philosophy are incredible. The last 20 pages or so are riveting and a great summary of Badiou's political project of universal subjectivity, the post-evental, and so on. Don't think I'll ever read or think of the Pauline epistles the same way again (especially Corinthians, Romans and Thessalonians)

[Licinius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cet ouvrage est une bonne surprise. J’avais peur qu’un philosophe athée comme Badiou nous ressorte les mêmes ficelles critiques envers Saint-Paul, accusé à tort de professer la haine de la vie, des femmes et d’être d’un soit disant dogmatisme écrasant. Badiou nous montre réellement ce qu’est Saint-Paul et en quoi son œuvre est un point de départ vers un certain universalisme.

Du temps de Saint-Paul, deux visions du christianisme s’affrontent. Le premier groupe, emmené par Pierre et Jacques, représentent les partisans d’un Christianisme résolument tourné vers la judaïté/la Loi. Le second, celui de Paul où seule la résurrection du Christ est l’événement, une singularité universelle que tous, Grec (=Païens) et Juifs (=non-paiens) doivent adhérer. Saint-Paul ne cherche pas à respecter la Loi, elle ne permet pas le salut et les Grecs n’ont donc pas à s’y conformer. Bien sûr, ses paroles font polémiques. Les partisans d’un christianisme communautaire refusent de laisser tomber ce particularisme religieux.

Cette lutte presque idéologique peut nous sembler obsolète de nos jours, mais il n’en est rien. Le combat de Saint-Paul reste très contemporain. Badiou n’y va pas par quatre chemins en choisissant un exemple qu’il affectionne particulièrement : le capitalisme actuel. En effet, pour lui le capitalisme ne vit que pour et à travers les sous-ensembles, les communautés. Les islamistes radicaux, les homosexuels, les jeunes actifs, les catholiques traditionnalistes, les jeunes retraités, les adolescents, les enfants de « bas âges » et j’en passe ! A chaque sous ensemble, communauté, ses traditions (dont l’astuce est de faire croire qu’il faut y faire parti pour les comprendre) et surtout son marché potentiel où le capitalisme peut faire son chiffre d’affaires. Pas d’universalité dans notre monde actuel, en fait, on s’en méfie même beaucoup. L’universalisme s’apparente à un totalisme, c'est-à-dire à une idée totalitaire dont on agite l’épouvantail nazi. Badiou a une formule très belle, un peu pédante pour réagir à cela : « Non, nous ne laisserons pas les droits de la vérité-pensée n’avoir pour instances que le monétarisme libre-échangiste et son médiocre pendant politique, le capitalo-parlementariste, dont le beau mot de « démocratie » couvre de plus en plus mal la misère ».

Badiou continue son exposé actuel en expliquant que notre monde postmoderne supporte mal les procédures de vérité. C’est même une véritable hostilité qui se déclenche à leurs égards. Le symptôme de cette hostilité se trouve représenté par le remplacement des mots, du sens. « Le nom de culture vient oblitérer celui de l’art, le mot technique oblitère celui de science, gestion celui de politique, sexualité oblitère l’amour. […] Le système culture-technique-gestion-sexualité qui a le mérite d’être homogène au marché et désigne une rubrique de présentation marchande, recouvre donc l’ancienne dénomination du système art-science-politique-amour qui représentait les procédures typologique de vérité. »

Et justement, Saint-Paul, lui, est bien sûr au dessus de ces sous-ensembles. « Dieu ne fait point acceptation de personnes » dit la bible. Il ne parle pas pour un groupe de juifs conduits par quelques apôtres dont Jérusalem est le centre, mais il veut parler pour tous (d’où cette notion d’apôtre des « nations » qu’on lui confère). Badiou laisse entendre qu’il y a une possibilité qu’il fut falsifié, en partie pour combattre l’hérésie de Martion qui stipulait que le seul vrai apôtre fut Saint-Paul, guidé par le dieu de l’amour, du bien du nouveau testament, contre les méchants apôtres, Pierre et Luc en tête, guidé par le dieu du mal, celui de l’ancien testament qui punit et condamne. Le seul moyen pour que l’hérésie soit stoppé fut d’inclure les textes de Paul dans la future Bible, avec quelques ajouts pour confirmer le compromis de Jérusalem où historicité judaïque et message universel se voient unis.

Saint-Paul use de la dualité Juif/Grec pour montrer le discours derrière ces deux notions. Le discours juif est celui du prophète, de l’interprétation des signes, de l’exception. L’histoire du peuple juif est exceptionnelle, c’est le peuple élu parmi bien d’autres. Pour le discours grec, c’est celui du sage, du logos, du cosmique, de la totalité. Le discours juif a besoin du discours grec pour affirmer son exception parmi le cosmos. Et donc, pour Saint-Paul, l’universalisme n’est pas possible entre ces deux discours car ils sont dépendants. D’où sa constante référence au Christ, au fils. Le Père étant la figure donnant des discours, celui à qui on obéit. Le fils étant celui qui n’a pas de discours. Le discours chrétien est donc résolument nouveau, révolutionnaire. Contrairement à Jean qui s’efforcera de placer le discours chrétien dans le logos grec pour montrer son antijudaisme, Paul veut montrer que le discours chrétien est une autre voie parmi ces deux autres. Le fait que Paul recherche la déchéance du maitre, aussi bien chez les juifs (le père), que chez les grecs (la sagesse) tends à montrer cette nouvelle voie, qui n’est ni plus ni moins que la résurrection du Christ comme possibilité du fait que nous pouvons nous aussi réussir à ressusciter et vaincre la mort.

Ce qui ressemble à un scandale, à un blasphème pour le discours juif, est tout autant folie et déraison pour le discours grec. Saint Paul le dit : l’annonce de l’Evangile ne se « fait pas à la sagesse des discours, afin que la croix du Christ ne soit pas rendue vaine »
Badiou évoque enfin un quatrième discours qui va monter en puissance quelques siècles après Paul. Pascal en est un des apôtres de ce discours, celui de la Gloire, des Miracles, du mysticisme chrétien. Paul n’est pas forcément contre ce discours, mais il doit rester personnel et ne surtout pas être utiliser dans l’évangélisation, car on retombe alors dans le discours juif. Pour Paul, seul l’événement Christ, sans signes, sans miracles, sans sagesses, juste à travers sa mort et sa résurrection suffit. Il est plus rationnel que Pascal qui lui tente de justifier la prééminence des miracles du christianisme pour attirer le chaland…

Nietzsche en prend pour son grade dans cet essai et c’est mérité. Sa haine de Saint-Paul est basé sur des exagérations et des aprioris que Badiou s’est bien senti de rappelé. Nietzche a toujours vu en Saint-Paul la haine de la vie, le triomphe de la mort et la figure du juif errant. Mais Saint-Paul dépasse ces notions, il n’est pas juif, ni grec, il est au dessus de cela. Dans un sens, Saint-Paul veut que les juifs et les grecs du monde entier deviennent des nouveaux hommes avec cet événement du Christ sur la croix et sa résurrection ! Ce n’est pas pour montrer que la mort est à obtenir, mais juste que celle-ci est dépassable. Tout cela sonne très nietzschéen finalement.

L’explication sur le fait que Saint-Paul soit contre la Loi (les dix commandements) est bien amenée.
Pour Saint-Paul, la Loi est un péché par essence, car elle provoque le désir de transgression qui n’existait pas avant. Cette transgression est un interdit, une négation de la vie, la mort. Cela se résume dans cette pensée « La lettre tue, mais l’esprit crée la vie ». Le salut ne peut donc provenir de la Loi, qui ne provoque qu’un désir de transgression inconscient, un automatisme de ce qui est interdit, elle nomme le pêché. Face à la loi, Saint-Paul met en avant l’amour comme puissance universelle et l’accomplissement de la loi. « Aime son prochain comme toi-même» remplace les 10 commandements. Face à l’objection des commandements, la maxime unique d’aimer son prochain incarne l’unicité et l’affirmation positive.

Un bel essai donc, cependant, Badiou (et en cela il est bien athée) voit peut être trop Saint-Paul comme un militant politique "proto-communiste" qu’un réel leader religieux. Pour lui, la résurrection n’est qu’une « fable » et on a l’impression qu’il veut nous amener à croire que Saint-Paul pensait aussi cela…

[John Pawlik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting book. It was a wild combo of insightful frameworks and incorrect appropriations of Paul’s theology.

As an atheist’s appropriation of Pauline theology for the purpose of explaining the event, it makes sense that the content would be of mixed helpfulness. Badiou takes a post-modern framework and shows how Paul is the first to “universalize” a grand truth and frame everything in light of it. All actions and ideas are subjectively subsumed under the all-encompassing event of the death and resurrection of Christ. Though Badiou believes the event which Paul imagines to be a fable, the insights he gives as an outsider we’re pretty interesting at times.

My favorite part was his discussion of the four discourses, where he takes from Paul that Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom. He then adds the third sign of spiritual proclamation which subsumes all things under the Christ-event. He adds a fourth discourse as well, which is the “inutterable” (ἄρρητα ‘ῥήματα for Paul in 2 Cor 12:4). The inutterable is just that, but yet constantly people to try to frame their religious experience in terms of it. He shows that when the inutterable is uttered it reverts back to the second discourse of the signs of the Jewish faith and no longer embodies Paul’s gospel of grace.

Interesting book! I’m not sure whether I would recommend it unless you are particularly interested in it because of something else. I was interested in how it relates to Barclay’s Paul and the Gift.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically, Paul was a revolutionary in spirit

[Thomas Fackler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read. A dense read. Badiou analyzes those texts linked to St. Paul and shows him to be an antiphilosopher in the same vein as, but more consistent then, Pascal and Nietzsche. This consistency stems from the nature of St. Paul's work - his travels to unify (not codify) a growing group of believers who are organized around (and for St. Paul, in) an event that, for him, transcends history. The event becomes the locus for St. Paul's antiphilosophical progression - a militant universalism to which any person with faith, hope, and love can relate.

[Jaeyde · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very different perspective on Paul than the normal religious one I am used to.

Difficult to read if you're not familiar with the writings of Paul. I felt Badiou missed the point on a LOT of things, but at the same time, I enjoyed this book a lot for the intellectual challenge it posed, not to mention the fact that it incited me to look much more deeply on my own into the biblical cannonization process.

[Anders Edstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knew that a Marxist Atheist could write some of the most profound theology I’ve ever read. This is an incredibly thought provoking rereading of Paul not as the champion of the status quo, but a revolutionary who announced “the event” of the resurrection. By event Badiou means a rupture within the world as it is. The event as a rupture cannot be described according to existing categories or structures, instead it creates a new reality in the world. It does not obliterate the distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, but rather creates an indifference to those differences.

To be sure Badiou sees the resurrection as a “fable.” Still, there is fertile ground for constructing theology around the resurrection as Event. Since it is an Event is demands our “fidelity” or living in response to the Truth of the event. Truth for Badiou isn’t about knowledge but about the reality opened by the Event. In response to the Resurrection Event we live in a new way in traversing differences and living in love.

Would highly recommend—just be sure to look Badiou’s terminology first.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense as hell but actually really got me thinking. Never would have read this if it wasn't for class but the first chapter is truly fantastic.

I really enjoyed the way he talked about (what I think falls under) the perils of identity politics as well as his overall objection to relativism. I think he raises interesting points that match well to our issues in the world today. Not sure I completely understand what he means by "events." But hopefully will have time to read more of his work during the summer. Already had a 2 hour class discussing this so CBA to really go into the specifics at the mo.

[Amir Javadi · Rating 2 out of 5]

بدیو در این بازخوانی پولس، نگاهش دلالت‌های سیاسی داره. شریعتی هم با همین نگاه می‌گفت برگردیم و ابوذر رو از نو بشناسیم و ...

[Jacques · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strasznie mnie ta książka zmęczyła.

[Sam K · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly unique and revolutionary work. Rare to see a thinker of his time and view of the world (strictly atheist) give analysis on Biblical text with the reverence and interest for that Badiou does here. Very enjoyable read.

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting secular appreciation of the Apostle Paul.

[samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

[woofah]
For me, truth be told, Paul is not an apostle or a saint. I care nothing for the Good News he declares, or the cult dedicated to him. But he is a subjective figure of primary importance. Epistles: no transcendence, nothing sacred, perfect equality of this work with every other
The register here is not religious. Paul is a poet-thinker of the event. Evinces a militant figure. Intention is neither historicizing nor exegetical, but subjective
1. Paul: Our Contemporary
How are we to inscribe Paul, with his tie to Christianity’s least open and most institutional aspect (Church), to the project (which is: to refound a theory of the Subject that subordinates its existence to the aleatory dimension of the event as well as to the pure contingency of multiple-being without sacrificing the theme of freedom
Paul, for crucial reasons reduces Christianity to single statement: Jesus is resurrected– his Christianity is a fable, fabulous, he reduces it to its element of fabulation (fable as that which fails to touch on any Real)
Paul is distant in three senses 1. Historical site 2. His role as church founder 3. His provocative centering of thought upon its fabulous element
What is essential for us is that this paradoxical connection between a subject without identity and a law without support provides the foun- dation for the possibility of a universal teaching within history itself.
Paul invents connection between a proposition concerning the subject and an interrogation concerning the law. Paul is investigating which law is capable of structuring a subject devoid of all identity and suspended to an event whose only “proof” lies precisely in its having been declared by a subject.
Paul rests everything on the subjective gesture, reduced to fable, that ruins any attempt to assign the discourse of truth to reconstituted historical aggregates (instead, there is something universal in the discourse of truth).
Relativism sucks. He wants access to the universal, which neither tolerates assignation to the particular, nor maintains any direct relation with the status of the sites from which its proposition emerges.
Paul is the one who, assigning to the universal a specific connection of law and the subject, asks himself with the most extreme rigor what price is to be paid for this assignment, by the law as well as by the subject. This question we also ask ourselves.
By confronting the question of how truth and subject connect, philosophy can assume its temporal condition without becoming a means of covering up the worst.
Badiou is frustrated by the cultural and historical relativism that defines the contemporary milieu: our tendency to fracture society and ideas into subsets (infinite combinations of language, race, religion and gender) is seen not as indicative of freedom but as a symptom of Capitalism’s endless need for new markets; the commodification of both ideas and identity. Globalisation then represents the hegemony of capital’s empty universality; it renounces truth, affirms the ever-expanding inventory of minorities then offers monetarist free exchange under the guise of democracy. With this in mind he seeks to reorient the subject not in relation to cultural specificities (race, religion or gender) but in relation to truth; to score one for the possibility of universality. The priority is universalizable singularity of truth. Hence it is not Paul’s gospel specifically that interests Badiou but Paul’s insistence and success in universalising his message: freeing it from the rigid enclosure of Judaism (cultural specificity), and equally refusing to have it conform to political and legal specificities of Rome: Jews, Greeks, slaves, women, ad infinitum (Galatians is central here). Badiou seeks to learn from Paul’s method.
Identitarian (and minoritarian) and communitarian categories must be absented from truth procedures (only a homosexual can understand what a homosexual is–this is dangerous)
So what are the conditions for a universal singularity? Answer lies with Paul.
What does Paul want? To never let the Good News be determined by the available generalities, be they statist (belonging to Roman legalism and citizenship) or ideological (the philosophical and moral discourse of the Greeks)
Paul’s procedure
If there is an event, and if truth consists in declaring it and then in being faithful to this declaration, then there are two consequences. 1. Since truth is eventual, it is singular. It is not structural or axiomatic or legal 2. Truth being inscribed on the basis of a declaration that is in essence subjective, no preconstituted subset can support it; nothing communitarian or historically established can lend its substance to the process of truth. Truth is offered to all, or addressed to everyone, without condition of belonging being able to limit this offer
Paul’s articulation follows the requirements of truth as universal singularity
1. The Christian subject does not preexist the event he declares (Christ’s resurrection). Thus, extrinsic conditions of his existence or identity will be argued against. He is required to be neither Jeish, nor Greek, or of this or that class, or this or that sex)
2. Truth is entirely subjective (it is of the order of a declaration that testifies to a conviction relative to the event). Thus, every subsumption of its becoming under a law will be argued against. It will be necessary to proceed at once via a radical critique of Jewish law, and of Greek law.
3. Fidelity to declaration is crucial, for truth is a process, not an illumination. In order to think it, one requires three concepts 1. One that names the subject at the point of declaration (faith/pistis) 2. One that names the subject at the point of his conviction’s militant address (charity/agape) 3. One that names the subject according to the force of displacement conferred upon him through the assumption of truth’s procedure’s completed character (hope/elpis)
4. A truth is of itself indifferent to the state of the situation, to the Roman State for example.
2. Who is Paul?
This biography is unsanctimonious. Moves past the “year 33/34 road to Damascus divine apparition converts mission)” or the “born 1 ad father tent maker roman citizen dad bought citizenship paul is a jew of pharisaical tendency”
Is “conversion” an appropriate term? His becoming-subject on Damascus evades this. The event-"it happened," purely and simply, in the anonymity of a road-is the subjective sign of the event proper that is the Resurrec- tion of Christ.
[Hes doing canonical criticism, assuming internal coherence of Pauline texts]
Turning away from all authority other than that of the Voice that personally summoned him to his be- coming-subject, Paul leaves for Arabia in order to proclaim the gospel
Doubtless, in his own eyes, his militant efficacy provides a sufficient guarantee, so that having endured this delay he is finally entitled to meet the Church's "historic leaders."
Audience divided 1. God-fearing sympathizers 2. The adherents, the converted, the circumcised.
He resists differencing these. For him, a truth procedure does not have degrees.
Paul isolated from Jewish community as he fixates, according to them, on Gentiles, on small cores of the constituted faithful in a town and the entire region. His epistles are nothing but interventions in the lives of these enclaves.
After fourteen years of organizational wandering, of which no writ- ten trace remains, we are roughly in the year 50. About twenty years have passed since the death of Christ. It has been seventeen years since Paul received the Damascus convocation. He is in his fifties and refers to him- self as "the old Paul." His earliest texts that have been handed down to us date from this period. Why? A few hypotheses can be proposed.
He’s a city-boy, urban cosmopolitanism shape him, shape his universalism (his internal geography is not that of a perennial landowner).
If Paul begins to write about points of doctrine, if his texts are copied and circulated, we believe it is because he becomes aware of the necessity of engaging in a large-scale struggle. The situation forces him to conceive of himself as leader of a party or faction.
His insistence on non-degrees to truth adherents (Gentiles count, he says!) yields disagreement that moves to Jerusalem Conference (ca 50). Paul’s second encounter with Peter. Specifically at stake is circumcision, but in the background the question is: Who is called? What is it to be called? Is the call indexed by visible signs? And finally: Who is a subject? What marks a subject?
One faction: dialectical conception of subject. The Christ-event accomplishes the Law, it does not terminate it. Marks from inherited tradition are still necessary.
Paul’s faction. The event renders prior markings obsolete, and the new universality bears no privileged relation to the Jewish community. Although the event depends on its site in its being, it must be independent of it in its truth effects.
The debate, philosophically reconstructed, bears upon three concepts: interruption (what does an event interrupt, what does it preserve?); fidelity (what is it to be faithful to an eventual interruption), and marking (are there visible marks or signs of fidelity?). The fundamental interrogation is crystallized at the intersection of these three concepts: Who is the subject of the truth procedure?
Compromise reached was unstable. Peter to circumcised, Paul to non. This conference prevents Christianity from becoming a Jewish sect, and yet also prevented it becoming merely a new illuminism, severed wholly from historic Judaism.
The incident at Antioch about whether one can share ritual meals with non-Jews. Peter does it until he’s seen by James’ disciples (the circumcision party)–Paul sees this as Peter betraying initial compromise.
"If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
This reveals to Paul that the Law, in its precious imperative, is not, is no longer, tenable, even for those who claim to follow it. This will nourish one of Paul's essential theses, which is that the Law has become a figure of death.
For Paul, it is no longer possible to maintain an equal bal- ance between the Law, which is a principle of death [or the suddenly ascendant truth, and the evental declaration, which is its principle of life.
Paul wanders off again. At Athens he’s laughed at by the Greek philosophers. His antiphilosophy isn’t well loved here.
The problem lies in knowing how, armed only with the conviction that declares the Christ-event, one is to tackle the Greek intellectual milieu, whose essential category is that of wisdom (sophia), and whose instrument is that of rhetorical superiority (huperokhe logou)
Paul believes the power of God/spirit/pneuma intervenes the wisdom of language. This can’t be supported by philosophy: a subjective upsurge can- not be given as the rhetorical construction of a personal adjustment to the laws of the universe or nature.
Back to Jerusalem. There he acts as a Jew among Jews. He goes to Temple, is accused of smuggling Gentile in. Who knows if he did. Executed for it.
Yet after all, Paul himself teaches us that it is not the signs of power that count, nor exemplary lives, but what a conviction is capable of, here, now, and forever.
3. Texts and Contexts
Paul's texts are letters, written by a leader to the groups he has started or backed. They cover a very brief period (from 50 to 58). They are militant documents sent to small groups of the converted. In no way are they narratives, in the manner of the Gospels, or theoretical treatises, of the kind later written by the Church Fathers, or lyrical prophecies, such as the Apocalypse attributed to John. They are interventions.
Four problems for the historical center in Jerusalem that emerge bc Paul is canon
1. Paul’s epistles predate Gospels and are simply the oldest Christian texts we have
2. Gospels emphasize Jesus’ exploits; Paul emphasizes not what is real in conviction, but what obstructs, or even falsifies it. These are the only doctrinal texts in NT.
3. Between Paul’s texts and Gospels is Jewish uprising in 66 and destruction of temple in 70. Begin Jewish diaspora, end Jerusaelm’s central significance in Christian movement. Rome will become true capital. Paul precursor to this displacement (his attentions are never Jerusalem)
4. Marcionism on the rise when canon composed (it is not the same God in question in these two religions, he claims). Ultra-Paulinism constructed to oppose this. Centrist Paul, reasonable Paul, portrayed.
When one reads Paul, one is stupefied by the paucity of traces left in his prose by the era, genres, and circum- stances. There is in this prose, under the imperative of the event, something solid and timeless, something that, precisely because it is a question of orienting a thought toward the universal in its suddenly emerging singularity, but independently of all anecdote, is intelligible to us without having to resort to cumbersome historical mediations (Gospels need these!)
Pier Pasolini’s poetical exegesis underlines the uninterrupted contemporaneousness of Paul’s prose.
For him, Paul embodies saintliness intersected with militant. He believed you could transplant Paul into contemporary world without modifying any of his statements.
Paul, in revolutionary fashion, wanted to destroy a model of society based on social inequality, imperialism, and slavery. There resides in him the holy will to destruction.
Three theses:
1. Paul is our contemporary bc the sudden eruption of chance–the event, the pure encounter–is always the origin of saintliness.
2. Our society and Paul’s is every bit as corrupt and criminal, but ours more supple and resistant
3. Paul’s statements are endowed with a timeless legitimacy.
Ultimately though, thesis is a relation between actuality and saintliness. Whenever the world of History tends to escape into mystery, abstraction, pure interrogation, it is the world of the divine (of saintli- ness) which, eventually descended among humans, becomes concrete, operative.
ACTUALITY as in the Real?
4. Theory of Discourses
Paul, designated by Jerusalem council as apostle of the ethnē, one would think his preaching is to relate to an absolutely open multiple of people and customs, to all human substets. Yet he names two–Jews and Greeks–as if this metonymic representation suffices, or as if, with these two referents, the multiple of the enthē had been exhausted
Status of Jew/Greek couple
These are subjective dispositions, or regimes of discourse (two schemas of discourse to be precise)
Greek discourse=constituted by subjective figure of wise man. Wisdom consists in appropriating the fixed order of the world, in matching logos to being. This discourse is cosmic, deploying the subject within the reason of a natural totality. The discourse of totality (it upholds the sophia (wisdom as internal state) of a knowledge of phusis (nature as ordered and accomplished deployment of being). Emphasis on cosmic order to justify itself
Jewish discourse: constituted by subjective figure of the prophet, who works in signs. This is a discourse of the sign. Discourse of exception–sign, miracle, election lies beyond the natural totality. Emphasis on exception of cosmic order to turn divine transcendence into sign
Christian discourse=whatever is left after those two (formed negatively)
Paul says that Greek and Jewish discourse are two aspects of same figure of mastery. The exception of the sign is the only point of incoherence between the two.
In the eyes of Paul the Jew, the weakness of Jewish discourse is that its logic of the exceptional sign is only valid for the Greek cosmic totality. The Jew is in exception to the Greek. The result is, firstly, that neither of the twO dis- courses can be universal, because each supposes the persistence of the other; and secondly, that the two discourses share the presupposition that the key to salvation is given to us within the universe, whether it be through direct mastery of the totality (Greek wisdom), or through mastery of a literal tradition and the deciphering of signs (Jewish ritualism and prophetisrn).
Paul's project is to show that a universal logic of salvation cannot be reconciled with any law, be it one that ties thought to the cosmos (Greek), or one that fixes the effects of an exceptional election (Jewish). It is impossible that the starting point be the Whole, but just as impossible that it be an exception to the Whole. Neither totality nor the sign will do.
Greek and Jewish discourse are both discourses of the Father. That is why they bind communities in a form of obedience (to the Cosmos, the Empire, God, or the Law). Only that which will present itself as a discourse of the Son has the potential to be universal, detached from every particularism.***
That discourse has to be that of the son means that one must be neither judeo-Christian (prophetic mastery), nor Greco-Christian (philo- sophical mastery), nor even a synthesis of the two.
For him, Christian discourse can maintain fidelity to the son only by delineating a third figure, equidistant from Jewish prophecy and the Greek logos. This figure is APOSTLE.
The philosopher knows eternal truths; the prophet knows the univocal sense of what will come (even if he delivers it only through figures, through signs). The apostle, who declares an unheard-of possibility, one dependent on an evental grace, properly speaking knows nothing.
Apostle begins when knowledge breaks down.
It is through the invention of a language wherein folly, scandal, and weakness supplant knowing reason, order, and power, and wherein non-being is the only legitimizable affirmation of being, that Christian discourse is articulated. In Paul's eyes, this articulation is incompatible with any prospect (and there has been no shortage of them, almost from the time of his death onward) of a "Christian philosophy."
Even Pascal is off-put by this.
1. Pascal insists on mediation that Paul does not. Christ is NOT A MEDIATION; he is not that through which we know God. Jesus Christ is the pure event, and as such is not a function, even were it to be a function of knowledge, or revelation. Can the event be a function, be a mediation? Paul says yea; Christ is a coming. He is, in himself and for himself, what happens to us.
2. Only reluctantly does Pascal say that Christian discourse is a discourse of weakness, folly, and nonbeing. For Paul, it is not a question of knowledge, but of the advent of a subject. Can there be another subject, a subjective path other than the one we know, and which Paul calls the subjective path of

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let us focus on Paul's Jewishness. Paul may be the most confusing figure in Jewish history because he offers an iteration of Judaism at a higher, universal level.

The "Christ-event" which Paul experiences as a devout Jew is marked not in psychological terms as some might attempt to reduce it, but as part of the history of all events; it is no more and it is no less than the parting of the Red Sea; it is no more and it is no less than Christ on the Cross; it is no more and no less than the Holocaust. Events are events. We will not bother with the fact/fiction arguments which lead nowhere, only to the publication of more obscure and pointless books, feeding the publishing industry.

What does this event mean? For us? Here, now? It means what it also meant for him: prior sacred signs are obsolete. The new "universality" bears nothing toward the Jewish community. Yet the message and the event are embedded within the very heart of Judaism. Paul is unthinkable as a non-Jew. He is no more a pagan than Herod. He is no more a pagan than Jonah. He is no more a pagan than Joseph. Hear Oh Israel, one of your most glorious sons has achieved great things among the nations.

As Badiou points out throughout his discourse the Hebrew Bible means more to Paul than the words of Christ Himself. But the effects are clearly non-Jewish, because strictly universal. All the categories have been shattered. Holiness has been redefined. Holiness is now in the "hands" of the Holy Spirit, Praise be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever, world without end.

Today the holy man and woman no longer needs "ceremonial markings." Badious' identification of the three shifts is an important addition to our ongoing search for Holiness: interruption and continuity; fidelity and harlotry; markings and mystery.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just re-read-skimmed this, and was pleasantly surprised. I read it first as an undergrad, thrilled to be up to date and onto the next big thing and all that. Since then I've become a little jaded- more than a little. And there are definite eye-rolling moments in this one, but it's also a pretty gripping plea for progressive political thinking to be at least as idealistic as it is critical. Combined with his little book Ethics, in fact, he's managed to provide a great argument against much of what passes as 'radical' thinking: identity politics, relativism etc etc... Turns out that there's nothing politically impressive about these things at all. That said, his ontology's even more ridiculous than the fact that he has a real, serious ontology; and this book has very little to do with Paul. But then, it was never meant to.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hm, Badiou: I understand that you are, to some degree, responding to theories that you think are overly deconstructive and despairing - while still pushing against the trappings of capitalism - but I think your investment in the Pauline event is whiggidy whack. You ask the question: What are the conditions for a universal singularity? and you attempt to answer that these conditions exist here in this world, but I am not convinced. Try again?

It’s funny to me that I read a book earlier this year written by a gay man about a womanizer, and now I read a book written by an atheist about the merits of the road to Damascus. Irony. Geez.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is beautiful and alive. I want to go to a church where they study this in Sunday school. Badiou's plowing this ground for his own reasons, which is perhaps part of how it can be so spiritually and intellectually challenging at once.

"Or let us posit that it is incumbent upon us to found a materialism of grace through the strong, simple idea that every existence can one day be seized by what happens to it and subsequently devote itself to that which is valid for all, or as Paul magnificently puts it, 'become all things to all men'."
-pg 66

Oh yes.

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really one of the most moving philosophical meditations on faith I've read, and from an atheist no less. I was afraid he would be spouting about events and set theory the whole time, and there was actually fairly little of that and quite a bit about faith, hope, love, universality (of affirmation) and transcendence (of critique).

[Holly Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Universalism or sectarianism? The radical "for all" or the remnant? Chronos or kairos? Do you like Alain Badiou or do you like Agamben? I like Agamben, but this book was still pretty good. Badiou lands some pretty savage blows on Pascal and Nietzsche. I didn't know he had it in him.

[Jamie! · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little book was a delight to read. As a Badiouist and a comparative religions major, it tickles me in all the right places. Highlighted Paul as a profound thinker rather than the faceless ghoul behind dusty texts from two thousand years ago.

[Jeremy Sabol · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful, strange, provocative reading of Paul. Paul is an important figure for Badiou, and I think Paul actually helps understand Badiou as much as the other way around.

[Joe Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down, the best book I've come across on Paul, though written by an atheist!

[Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent primer on Badiou’s thought, economically tracing the coordinates of truth procedures and the ontology of the event. Paul isn’t a fungible conduit for Badiou’s idiosyncratic alethiology; as the title unabashedly proclaims, he sees the Saint as “the founder of universalism”, or “the poet-thinker of the event”.

Before the christian world rejoices over an eminent philosopher’s sudden conversion, let’s be very clear: Badiou is resolutely NOT a Christian by any stretch of the imagination. It’s really hard to find a thinker more systematically opposed to transcendence in any form. He fundamentally concieves the very event in question (Jesus’ resurrection) as a “fable”, but of course, for Badiou this has no bearing on its truth — a truth emergent and constructed in its very proclamation rather than its “real occurence”, and the consequences subsequently drawn.

Paul is of course the proclaimer in question, and what both fascinates and captivates Badiou is the singular character of this announcement in content and form. For Paul (as Badiou takes it), the event of Christ’s resurrection heralds a new, sophisticated universalism, a truth worthy of profound recognition and fidelity.

His universalism of the “not… but” emerges not by means of analytical prowess or dialectical thinking (contra Agamben?), but rather in a militantly antiphilisophical “speech of rupture”, rendering the previous cultural situation (inscribed in the Law) obsolete through its very fulfillment. Negation and mediation as such are entirely foreign to Paul (no matter what Nietzche says, who for that matter is actually far more proximate to Paul than he would dare to admit)

The Jewish Law is, for Paul, a “figure of death” emblematic of a discourse of exception structurally incompatable with universalism (“the Greek discourse” hardly gets off easy either). It delineates difference, instantiates particularities, assigns predicates — all operations hostile to the universal. Badiou’s psychoanalytic tools are here finally deployed in full force, interpreting Paul’s rejection of the law as a necessary correlate to his recognition that it binds desire into an automatism unconsciously fixed to its object; this is precisely sin, the sickness unto death.

Only love — the law beyond law — can save us from sin, declared in faith and sustained with hope.

“The work of love is still before us; the empire is vast”

Paul’s conspicuous disinterest in the Christ of the gospels comes as no surprise to Badiou; it’s hardly a problem to be solved. Paul is the apostle of the event! What preceded is mere history, paltry memory. All pales in comparison to the universal grace of Christ’s resurrection.

Paul’s relevancy for Badiou culminates in how he addresses difference under the universal not as something to be steamrolled but instead traversed and united by the new truth.

”Differences, like instrumental tones, provide us with the recognisable univocity that makes up the melody of the True”

[Thomas]

Mastery always requires a dimension of incoherence, a certain threshold where the Other’s understanding falls short. Totality is vulnerable without limit of knowledge to sustain it. This is a testament to, not the noble labor of totalitarian identity-formation, but rather the integral, inevitable contradictions of nom du père itself. But while the incoherence can be utilized to sustain the status quo, it can likewise welcome collapse.

While both function as reactions to the Badiouian, Event of Jesus Christ, the ecclesiastical tradition has greatly favored Saint Peter over Paul, largely due to the former being lenient to institutionalization and the opportunities for power therein. Still, for Badiou, Saint Paul is the only reaction which demonstrates fidelity to the event. As Badiou states, “Through the event, we enter into filial equality” as “an event is falsified if it does not give rise to a universal becoming-son”. Here, the Son is the only true evidence of a defeated Father, a collapse in the order of things. In this way, we should treat the event as “pure beginning”.

One’s mind evidently goes to Robespierre’s appeal to the committee responsible for the fate of Louis XVI. There should be no compromise between the before and after of an event. The only proper fidelity to an event must be demonstrated in the dismantling of the last remains of the old. This was the message of Robespierre: The King should not go on trial. The people’s rebellion was the trial.

Any modern scientific attempt to discredit Christ as an event is thus akin to putting the king on trial. This is misguided. As Badiou states: “There is no proof of the event; nor is the event a proof”. Saint Paul’s turn to universalism signals a re-beginning, a ‘beyond’ where there is no opportunity to reinstate The Name of The Father. Scientism’s fetishization of the pre-evental can only be read as the obvious: an attempt to qualify itself as an omni-temporal dogma, what is and has always been true. But such an attack is reactionary, and any reactionary retort must admit part of the event’s legitimacy to qualify its own retort. Here enters incoherence, and the process continues once again. ¨

Christ as Son is a Son of the Father, a new beginning from the old. Here we read the contradiction of the crucifixion – the finite born out of the infinite, the partial out of the absolute – as that which illegitimizes the old, the stale particulars which births universalism. Badiou’s Saint Paul isn’t really a testament on theology or spiritual romanticism, but a preparation for the events of the future, for any resurrection, any further beginning.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Prof. Ted Jennings lectured at First Central earlier in the month, he spoke of the non-Christian, even atheist and Marxist thinkers, who were drawing upon Paul as the revolutionary figure needed for our age. I was not familiar with this body of work, which surprised me, as I have read a lot in Paul studies the last dozen years and radically altered my views on him. So, I Googled to learn more and discovered a rich literature and even textbooks of selections of such writings on Paul.

I decided to order this one, as I have also never read Badiou, so I could check the box of having read one of his books and thus kill two birds with one stone.

When I began the book, I rolled my eyes, for a sentence like this is what makes contemporary French philosophy almost impossible: "How are we to inscribe this name into the development of our project: to refound a theory of the Subject that subordinates its existence to the aleatory dimension of the event as well as to the pure contingency of multiple-being without sacrificing the theme of freedom?"

I also had to look "aleatory" up.

But as I finished the first chapter, I had to take back some of my snark, for it was quite good. And this was one of those books I stayed up late and got up early to keep reading.

That doesn't mean it was easy, for it had some dense sentences like that one. And I'm certain I did not grasp all of Badiou's meaning. But here I encountered a Paul who is knew to me. Yet, also familiar enough that I could resonate with Badiou's discussion.

Paul centers his thought upon a fabulous event--the resurrection--which opens up the opportunity to create a new, universal humanity, a new creature. Particularity and wisdom, law and difference, are all overcome in this revolution.

When Jennings lectured on these developments in Pauline thought, but ended with an emphasis on resurrection, one of my congregants was puzzled, and we've had follow-up conversations. He felt that if Paul was to be used by atheists and Marxists, surely the resurrection would be cast aside. I enjoyed texting him that for Badiou the resurrection, while fable and as fable, is essential to understanding Paul and his ideas for revolution.

I also commend Badiou's exegesis, which is quite good. I will use some passages in sermons, I'm sure.

Two drawbacks to the book--no bibliography and no index. Puzzling in an intellectual work.

[Max Zur · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profound account of Saint Paul's theoretical contribution. However, without faith in the reality of the "fable" its sense is somewhat sterilized. With a huge background of fighting for the values like equality, Badiou tries to be that man who once again draws inspiration and tips from the religion to secure benefits for a materialistic cause. Some of the moderate projects of this sort have succeeded, the others - and it's exactly them, and not the spiritual quest, - have led to the darkest antiutopias. To lead a spiritually founded project towards a purely materialistic goal is a doomed enterprise, however, on its way it might bring some fruit.

That said, it was a delight to read some illuminated observations on things that are regularly dismissed in the sermons and cults. For instance, suffering and self-justifying in front of God are not the necessary evil that some of the more conservative churches argue them to be according to the Paul's writings. Being weak so that God is glorified is not an ode to suffering. Another point of discussion: Paul had not tried to solidify the ancient societal structures with their strict domination of one over another and slavery. On the contrary, he has tried to shift the focus from rules to the grace. And there's much more to note and discuss. The central point on universalism deserves, of course, an appraisal and further theoretical considerations. To restore the universal values today without giving up the liberal causes, it's a worthy project and it's totally just.

Simply, I don't think that as a manual for a left-wing activist who believes in a universal truth that unites people in love, but who does not have an anchorage in the real faith in the reality of Jesus's divinity, it would work. But for those who believe and continue trying to get to know God closer, this is, again, a master-class of an open-minder re-interpretation that rather gives you new important angles than juggles with the Scripture's words.