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Towards a Lacanian Theology of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Marcus Pound
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Religion has not fared very well under psychoanalysis. Freud is construed as reducing religion to a form of obsessional neurosis or wish- fulfilment; Jung had little respect for tradition offering up only universal archetypes, while today’s trendy psycho-dynamic counselling dispels the question altogether. What about Lacan? I think Lacan offers the theologian some valuable tools not only for the analysis of theological debate, in particular the theology of religions, but also and not unrelated, sorting out just what it is we name when we name religion. I suggest that a Lacanian view of religion refuse the pluralist stance that religion is a universal genus, thereby allowing traditions differences to be taken seriously. However, he also refuses an exclusive position suggesting that there are only separate traditions and no common meeting points.

I shall begin by outlining the thought of Lacan. I shall then argue that the subject positions diagnosed by Lacan, psychosis, obsessional neurosis, and hysterical neurosis correspond to the three positions delineated in the theology of religions debate, the pluralist, the exclusivist, and the inclusivist. I suggest that Lacan’s strategy in the psychoanalytic situation be used with regard to the debate between religions. In the final part I shall draw on the work of Slavoj Zizek. I shall use his Lacanian working of ideology to give a Lacanian definition of religion.

Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 84 , Issue 993 , November 2003 , pp. 510 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 See Jacques, Lacan, Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan, (London: Routledge, 2001)Google Scholar, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis, ed. Jacques-Alain, Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan, (London: Vintage, 1998)Google Scholar, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freud’s Papers on Technique, 1953-1954, ed.Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. John Forrester, (New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 11: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Sylvana Tomaselli, (New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: Psychosis, 1955-1956, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Russell Grigg, (London: Routledge, 2000), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Dennis Porter, (London: Routledge 1999), and Bruce Fink, A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis (Harvard Harvard University Press, 2000).

2 For a good introduction to the object petit a see B. Fink, A Clinical Introduction, pp. 38-41,52-53,57-59.

3 Gavin, DCosta, Theology and Religious Pluralism: The Challenge of Other Religions, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986)Google Scholar.

4 John, Hick, God and The Universe of Faiths, (London: Macmillan, 1973), p. 120Google Scholar.

5 Kraemer, H., Religion and the Christian Faith, (London: Lutterworth Press, 1961), p. 193Google Scholar.

6 Karl, Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. 5 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd, 1966)Google Scholar, pp. and Ibid., pp. 80-115.

7 Ibid., p. 85.

8 Ibid., p. 86.

9 Ibid., p. 87.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., pp. 88-89.

12 Ibid., p. 129.

13 Ibid.

14 D’Costa, Religious Pluralism, p. 89.

15 Rahner quoted in Ibid., p. 91.

16 John, Milbank, ‘The End of Dialogue’ in D’Costa, G. (ed.), Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered. The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religion, (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1996), pp. 174-191Google Scholar.

17 J. Milbank, ‘End of Dialogue’, p. 178.

18 Ibid.

19 Zizek, S., Plague of Fantasies, (landon: Verso, 1997), pp. 10-11Google Scholar.

20 G. D’Costa, “The End of ‘Theology’ and ‘Religious Studies” in Theology, XCIX, NO. 791, 1996, pp. 338-351.

21 Hans, Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1074)Google Scholar, in Ibid., p. 341.

22 Hick, Philosophy of Religion, (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1983), p. 113.

23 Zizek, Plague of Fantasies, p. 13.

24 Rowan, Williams, On Christian Theology, (Oxford Basil Blackwell, 2000), p. 126Google Scholar.