Schneider articulates straightaway one of the main concerns of the chapter:  “A logic of multiplicity is not opposed to unity (the inclusive sense of One) or oneness (the exclusive sense of One), which means that divine multiplicity does not exclude either unity or oneness except in their absolute or eternal sense” (198).  The fact that multiplicity opposes the One does not mean that it abandons any account of unity (or to use a more DeleuzoGuattarian term, “consistency”)—it is simply that multiplicity refuses to absolutize unity, to make it something that transcends and pre-exists the flux of existence.  Thus oneness and unity “are proximal and partial aspects of the divine,” but never “the ‘whole’ story of reality” (198).  They are, one might say, the effect rather than the cause of reality.

Continue reading “Beyond Monotheism — 14. A Turn to Ethics: Unity Beyond Monotheism” →

Schneider begins this chapter, which signals the book’s final part, with an introductory “snapshot memoir” (185).  This recounts her trip, just after graduating from college, to the German village from which her grandfather emigrated to the USA.  Here she finds, inscribed on an obelisk, the conjunction: “One people, one nation, one God” (185).  It is against this background that she commences discussion of the link between monotheism and nationalism.  The connection that the natives of her ancenstral village saw between monotheism and nationalism is all too common.

We can understand why a theology critical of monotheism will be interested in applying the same criticsm to the logic of nationalism.  Thus Schneider remarks that “it is not difficult to see in nationalist feeling everywhere distinct elements of religious feeling, and in definitions of ‘the nation’ ambiguities similar to those inherent in doctrinal explanations” (186).  Nonetheless, while theologians often observe the duplication of monotheistic sentiment in political ideologies, contemporary social scientists are less likely to return the favor.  This is primarily due to the latter group’s alleigance to objectivity, which makes theological categories (such as “soul” or “spirit”) rather unattractive.  What is necessary is a “more flexible posture” (188) whereby the problematics of religion and nation are understood to be imbricated in one another. 

Continue reading “Beyond Monotheism — 13. A Turn to Ethics: Beyond Nationalism” →