The Logic of Expression in Philosophy of Religion: Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty

Shakespeare, Steven (2024) The Logic of Expression in Philosophy of Religion: Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty. Melita Theologica. ISSN 1012-9588 (Accepted for Publication)

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Abstract

Can God be expressed in the world? This question touches on problems of divine essence and agency as much as on issues of religious language. How is it possible for God to express Godself without compromising the absoluteness of God or the veracity of the expression? And yet, without such expression, reference to or experience of ‘God’ seems to lack all sense.
This article will trace the logic of expression in the work of Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty to suggest ways to address this impasse. Both thinkers argue that expression occupies its own distinctive ontological and/or phenomenological space. Expression is irreducible to what is expressed, whether that is the objects expressed or the form of the expression itself. Expression is thus constituted by a paradoxical resistance to expression.
Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty offer distinctive approaches to the implications of expression for issues of immanence and transcendence. In reading them together, I will argue that the logic of expression can help philosophical theology reconcile the immanent self-expression of God with the non-sufficiency of any finite expression, the necessary silence and the openness of texture that inhabits and shapes the word and our lived experience of the world.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, Expression, Philosophy of Religion, Transcendence, Immanence
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Creative Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities
Depositing User:	Steven Shakespeare
Date Deposited:	07 Jun 2024 10:16
Last Modified:	16 Dec 2024 15:26
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4288

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