Future Christ: A Lesson in Heresy

by François Laruelle, Anthony Paul Smith (Translator)

Future Christ is one of the first English translations of the work of François Laruelle, one of the most exciting voices in contemporary French philosophy and the creator of the practice of 'non-philosophy'.

In this work Laruelle draws on material from the traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Gnosticism, but he does so by suspending their authority. This adventure in non-philosophy does not claim to think for religion, but from it as material and with disinterest towards its self-given status as ultimate authority. This provocative, yet remarkably accessible book introduces philosophy to the lessons of heresy and makes use of them in a non-philosophical "dualysis" of messianism and apocalypticism. Laruelle investigates the "heretic question", analogous to but historically distinguished from the "Jewish question", to develop a "non-Christian science" that struggles against and for our World. Future Christ thus opens up novel ways of thinking within existing religious and philosophical thought and marks an incisive and wide-ranging non-philosophical engagement with key contemporary debates in philosophy and theology.
Future Christ is one of the first English translations of the work of François Laruelle, one of the most exciting voices in contemporary French philosophy and the creator of the practice of 'non-philosophy'.

In this work Laruelle draws on material from the traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Gnosticism, but he does so by suspending their authority. This adventure in non-philosophy does not claim to think for religion, but from it as material and with disinterest towards its self-given status as ultimate authority. This provocative, yet remarkably accessible book introduces philosophy to the lessons of heresy and makes use of them in a non-philosophical "dualysis" of messianism and apocalypticism. Laruelle investigates the "heretic question", analogous to but historically distinguished from the "Jewish question", to develop a "non-Christian science" that struggles against and for our World. Future Christ thus opens up novel ways of thinking within existing religious and philosophical thought and marks an incisive and wide-ranging non-philosophical engagement with key contemporary debates in philosophy and theology.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, Theology, Metaphysics, Theory

184 pages, Hardcover

First published May 21, 2002

About the author

François Laruelle was a French philosopher, of the Collège international de philosophie and the University of Paris X: Nanterre. Laruelle began publishing in the early 1970s and had around twenty book-length titles to his name. Alumnus of the École normale supérieure, Laruelle was notable for developing a science of philosophy that he calls non-philosophy. Until his death, he directed an international organisation dedicated to furthering the cause of non-philosophy, the Organisation Non-Philosophique Internationale.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Struggle Without a Cause

Laruelle is a French academic philosopher (which makes him a celebrity) who does not want to fight... with anyone. Except those who claim to know reality... who are many in the philosophical community (and other places). With them he wants to struggle. Not to prove anything; such an aim would be fruitless. But to engage in the struggle. This is a struggle without reasons in the usual sense. Things like inequality, injustice, evil in general are not part of it. This is a metaphysical struggle. It is not based upon the material alienation of man as in Marxism. Laruelle is engaged in a rebellion, not for any particular reason but as a matter of principle. But this rebellion has nothing to do with the gnostic protest of the world as inherently evil, a view echoed in dogmatic Christianity which sees the world as needing salvation from such evil.

There may be inequities and injustices in the world. Indeed it may be that the world is inherently evil. What Laruelle objects to is the mere reflexive response to these conditions, either in offence or defence. “How to make of rebellion something other than a reaction of autoprotection against aggression? That is our question.”

This is a struggle “against the World and for the World.” The World in this case includes philosophy in all its historical forms, since the “World itself has a philosophical form.” Indeed, the World includes Reason as part of philosophy and as the conquest and defence mechanisms against which Laruelle is struggling.

It is clear that this struggle is about power, but not about either gaining or losing it. Rather it seems to be about continuously worrying about it in a way that many would consider neurotic. I admit to total bafflement, especially when confronted with page-length paragraphs similar to this:

[This radical struggle] is the vision-in-One of that struggle which is determined by Man who gives himself his reality and prevents it from returning to him, as to his self-sufficiency. When it is thus dual, but from a unilateral duality – a phase of struggle and one which is no longer of revolt but of human determination of revolt – it escapes from sufficient reason and makes itself a struggle-of-the-Stranger against . . . and for. . . the World according to a considered measure. We gain in this way from the most innovative practical part of Gnostic rebellion as well as from class struggle in order to gather with faith as so many simple aspects in the figure of Future Christ as subject-in-struggle.”

I think I have sympathy with Laruelle’s project; but I really have no idea what that is. I implore anyone who can précis Laruelle’s intention and argument without jargon to step up to the plate. You owe it to the world to tell us all whether this stuff is important or a very clever French confidence trick.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

This work functions as an extension of the framework of non-philosophy into a field which Laurelle argues exhibits analogous tendencies to that of philosophy, namely: Christianity. Just as philosophy for non-philosophy is material to be subjected to a ´non-philosophical dualysis´, (to subject the ideal-real mixture of philosophy to a thinking in terms of the irreversible force of the one-real), so too can Christianity, also functioning through possessing an ideal real-mixture, be subjected to a similar process. In Christianity, the consequences of the ideal-real mixture will be the creation of subjects-in-expectation-of-Christ. The ideal-real mixture of Christianity will be the world´s creation by an ideal God, which, created in a deficient state of sin, can be the subject of an imminent, future redemption. It is exactly this temporal structure (expectation perpetually holding the one-real over against a transcendental possibility of its redemption) which mirrors internalised processes of deferral which act as the grounds of possibility for philosophies of difference; for example Heidegger´s reversible holding out of beings over and against Being. In this instance the potential applications to Marxism seem pretty strong. For Laurelle then elucidating this formal condition of Christianity allows the possibility of determining in-the-last-instance a subject who will be man-in-person. The sense of this hyphenated neologism is actually pretty straight forward. In Laurelle´s prioritisation of the real-one, the real existence of the subject can always be held out against any attempt to transcendentally determine it via an ideal-real mixture. Laurelle gives to the subject as man-in-person an absolute Identity which is real and Identical because real.

The adoption of the non-philosophical method however begs the question of Laurelle´s engagement with the category of Christianity at all, but further makes ambivalent the sense of the project as a whole. Laurelle sustains the category of Christianity in order for it to become a ´symptom´ which we can use as material for the practice non-philosophical dualysis. However it could be read that non-philosophy is inimical to the sense of Christinaity at all, insofar as Christianity functions for Laurelle through its possession of an ideal-real mixture, then the one-real will have always already reversed Christian reversibility absolutely anyway. Hmmmmm. All up I liked it though. It is very well written, Laurelle has a real authorial sense, consistent and clear. It often has a really inspired style of writing. The only problem is that the translation is not great. You often have to make your own mini editions of sentences to make them comprehensible. Prepositions and conjunctions get left out all over the place. Some of the sentences are flat out ungrammatical which is annoying when you´re trying to follow the argument.

[Nicholas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Made it half way through but couldn't finish out of frustration. I can handle only so much french obscurantism...

[Zack2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laruelle is a place of respite for me, a clearing among tangled and thorny vines.

[Rowan Tepper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did I not read this sooner?

Uncanny correspondences between Laruelle's thought and mine - without possible influence in any direction.

Meta-performative, no?

[Tero Nauha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A significant contribution to studies on heresy and orthodoxy on philosophical thought.