"Only theologians can be true atheists." (J. Lacan)

by Narkissos 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  BurnTheShips

  ROFL. Remember the one when the Internet went out? And they all had to go West Grapes of Wrath style? LOL!
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  AllTimeJeff

  Yes, it was quite hillarious. (and as I recall, messy...)

  Sorry Narkissos for the brief hijack of your thread....
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  Narkissos

  No problem ;)

  Btw, ATJ, your last post (the last on topic, I mean) was quite helpful in clarifying the foregoing discussion.

  Just a few words on the possible meaning(s) of the sentence in a Lacanian context as promised. I won't claim to introduce to Lacan's work and problematics, let alone summarise his thought. There are plenty of English websites about that. Besides the ones already referenced above I found the following blog interesting: http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/atheism-theology-a-theology-a-theology-and-god-ii/

  Suffice to say that the Lacanian approach is diametrically opposite to objectivity as an ideal description of reality, -- from an outsider's perspective as it were (the aporia implicit in the latter formulation pointing to one congenital problem of objectivity: it requires a position of observation and as such cannot apply to a totality.

  Lacan as a psychiatrist and a (creative) reader of Freud focuses on the (speaking and "knowing") subject, which he approaches through the intersubjective and linguistic relationship of the analytic process. He "looks for" the subject as a mobile and basically empty spot (that which speaks) in a particular structural configuration (the so-called "Borromean knot") of three "orders" -- the "real" (the wordless "happening" which precedes and resists language, especially the "symptom" which knocks at the door of linguistic consciousness through repetition), the "symbolic" (language and meaning) and the "imaginary" (the mental representation, picture, map of "reality"). Language (the symbolic order) "normally" holds an intermediate and mediating position, allowing for the reception of the "real" (or, at least, the part of it that emerges to consciousness) into words and its subsequent integration in the imaginary (through restructuration). But how it works depends on the particular articulation of the three "orders" and the particular position of the subject. Sometimes it becomes painful (neurosis) or it doesn't work at all (psychosis).

  The central problem is, how does the subject relate to language (symbolism) as a mediation? The basic answer is a sort of radical, implicit faith, or trust. Faith or trust in meaning itself which ultimately rests on nothing. And this faith Lacan construes as a relationship to a (non-existent and unknowable) warrant of meaning which he calls "the Father's name" (le nom du Père). This relationship can be smoother or more painful, or even impossible in the case of psychosis (which Lacan analyses as "forclusion of the Father's Name"). The connection of extreme lucidity and scepticism with mental troubles he expresses in a French pun on the plural form les noms du Père (the Father's names) -- les non-dupes errent (the non-dupe, those who are 'not fooled,' err).

  I don't mean to discuss the merits and limits of the theory (especially in this oversimplified presentation). It is not religious (it says strictly nothing about "gods" or a "God" "out there"). But it is structurally theological as it points to a kind of "God" position as correlative and respondent to the "subject" position -- although both positions are ultimately empty.

  Now back to the enigmatic saying. In that context every speaking subject is a "believer"; none is subjectively an "atheist" (Lacan himself used to play on the religious connotations of his vocabulary, for example saying to the far-left Parisian students in May '68 "I will show you that you are not atheists." However, the theologian -- he that speaks about "God" in an objective, realistic, hence (in Lacanian terms) imaginary manner subjectively moves away from the believer's position which it the only one from which "God" makes sense (in a very fundamental sense: makes meaning). Ironically, this also applies to the a-theologian, i.e. the Lacanian theorist who moves from the intersubjective position of the analyst and constructs a metapsychological system which tends to objectivity (about the subject!). This reminds of another famous saying of Lacan: "There is no metalanguage."