IRENAEUS, DERRIDA AND HOSPITALITY: ON THE ESCHATOLOGICAL OVERCOMING OF VIOLENCE1
HANS BOERSMA
Questions about the nature of divine hospitality have a renewed urgency in light of current discussions surrounding hospitality and the fear of violence and exclusion. In a recent essay, Jacques Derrida questions modern restric-tions on hospitality. Modern approaches to hospitality, he argues, have tended to limit and circumscribe the notion of hospitality, and as a result have been unable to overcome hostility and violence. In order to overcome violence, Derrida believes we must be absolutely radical in offering our hos-pitality to the other. In this essay, I want to analyze Derrida's vision of hos-pitality and compare it to the eschatological vision of hospitality as we find it in the second-century Church Father, Irenaeus. I will argue that Derrida insufficiently appreciates the need for a tension between the demands of apophatic and kataphatic theology, while Irenaeus's grounding of hospital-ity in what I will call God's "eschatological hospitality" allows for this tension and holds out true hope of overcoming violence and attaining the Kingdom of Peace. First I will discuss Derrida's radicalizing of the apophatic vision of hospitality. Although Derrida's vision has structural similarities to apophatic theology, I will argue that because of the differences Derridean hospitality is unable to stem the tide of human violence. I will then analyze the apophatic elements in Irenaeus's eschatology, which holds out a future in which we will share in the glory of God. Next, I will analyze the kataphatic tendencies in Irenaeus's eschatology, the determinacy of which is necessary for a situation of true justice to obtain. I will end with a concluding corn-
Hans Boersma Religious Studies Department, Trinity Western University, 7600 Glover Road, Langley, BC Canada V2Y 1Y1
parison between Derridean "pure hospitality" and Irenaean "eschatological hospitality".
Derrida and Pure Hospitality
Derrida's reflections on hospitality are firmly rooted in Levinas's ethical approach to philosophy. According to Lévinas, the Western philosophical tradition has consistently displayed a penchant for ontological categories, and because of its imposition of rational categories on the exterior world has been inclined to violence: "The ontological event accomplished by philoso-phy consists in suppressing or transmuting the alterity of all that is Other, in universalizing the immanence of the Same (le Même) or of Freedom in effacing the boundaries, and in expelling the violence of Being (Être)/'2
Lévinas wants to remove this oppressive violence by means of the ethical demand that the other places upon me. The alterity of the other puts me immediately under the obligation of hospitality: "[T]he other facing me makes me responsible for him/her, and this responsibility has no limits."3 It is the face of the other that places me under the ethical obligation of respond-ing with hospitable love, before I am capable of making any sort of rational, analytic judgement call on the identity of the other. "The relation between the Other and me," says Lévinas, "which dawns forth in his expression, issues neither in number nor in concept. The Other remains infinitely tran-scendent, infinitely foreign; his face in which his epiphany is produced and which appeals to me breaks with the world that is common to us, whose vir-tualities are inscribed in our nature and developed by our existence."4 Thus, rather than trying to impose my rationality upon the other, my primary atti-tude should be one of absolute openness and hospitality.
Derrida's reflections on hospitality are characterized by a similar stance of openness. Taking Immanuel Kant's notion of "universal hospitality" in his essay on Perpetual Peace (1795) as an example, Derrida decries the limitations placed on this universal hospitality as the conditions of perpetual peace. Kant believed that nations could only grant hospitality under two condi-tions: (1) the stranger must behave peaceably in another's country and (2) he is only given the right to visit, not the right to stay.5 Such hospitality is not nearly radical enough for Derrida's deconstructionist approach. Hospi-tality, he believes, is an unconditional openness toward the other, regardless of what the other is going to bring:
I must be unprepared, or prepared to be unprepared, for the unexpected arrival of any other. Is this possible? I don't know. If, however, there is pure hospitality, or a pure gift, it should consist in this opening without horizon, without horizon of expectation, an opening to the newcomer whoever that may be. It may be terrible because the newcomer may be a good person, or may be the devil; but if you exclude the possibility
that the newcomer is coming to destroy your house—if you want to control this and exclude in advance this possibility—there is no hospitality.6
Derrida advocates what he calls "unconditional" or "pure" hospitality.7 His motivation is a laudable desire to escape the violence inherent in the particu-larities of modern politics. When we restrict hospitality along Kantian lines, it seems impossible to avoid violence: we will ward off, violently if needed, any unacceptable behaviour of the stranger. By taking control of the situa-tion, the host determines, at least to a degree, what he or she wants the future to be like. The ideal Kantian messianic future, therefore, has a fairly strong sense of determinacy. Derrida believes that there are problems with such restrictions on hospitality and with such attempts to determine the future. As soon as we try to determine, be it ever so carefully, what the messianic future might hold, Derrida believes that we become restrictive in our hos-pitality toward the other and in fact undo the alterity of the other by recast-ing him in our own image, so that it becomes impossible to avoid the wars of religion that have plagued us in the past. Only pure hospitality, he believes, is adequate as an answer to the violence that particular belief systems introduce.
Derrida's concern for pure hospitality stems from his interest in justice, in democracy, and in a messianic future. In attempting to safeguard this future from the violence of particularity, Derrida distinguishes his messianic future from the messianisms of particular religions—such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Messianisms, because of the particularity of their eschatological visions, imply a conditional hospitality and hence lead to violence. Derrida is afraid both of the particular nature and of the realizable character of the hopes of messianic religions. His structural messianicity is a formal category, without content. It is free from all determinacy and particularity—a religion without religion. The promise, says Derrida,
will always keep within it, and it must do so, this absolutely undeter-mined messianic hope at its heart, this eschatological relation to the to-come of an event and of singularity, of an alterity that cannot be anticipated. Awaiting without horizon of the wait, awaiting what one does not expect yet or any longer, hospitality without reserve, welcom-ing salutation accorded in advance to the absolute surprise of the arrivant 8
Hospitality, for Derrida, if it is to be pure hospitality, can never be restricted by conditions. As soon as we put certain conditions in place, hospitality becomes particular or determinate in character. Neither can this hospital-ity—and this point is related to its indeterminacy—ever arrive within the structures of our world. Pure hospitality means an unconditional and struc-tural openness to the advent (invention) of the wholly other (tout autre): "It
is a messianicity whose eschatological future always remains to come (à venir). In Caputo's words, "If the tout autre ever won the revolution, if the Messiah ever actually showed up, if you ever thought that justice has come— that would ruin everything."9
Derrida's insistence on the indeterminate character of the messianic future indicates a structural similarity between his philosophy and the apophatic theology of Eastern Orthodoxy:10 just as in negative theology the future of deification transcends the boundaries of language, so also Derrida's hopes for a messianic future cannot be captured in words.11 What is more, just as in Eastern Orthodoxy the apophatic (God's welcome to us) implies at least a sense in which we are taken up into the divine life and so are transformed,12
so also in Derrida our welcome of the other implies a hospitality or open-ness that is entirely unconditional or complete and that impinges therefore on the integrity of our individual identity. At the same time, however, there are three important differences between the way in which hospitality func-tions in Derrida and the way in which it functions in apophatic theology. First—and this difference is commonly recognized—Derrida describes negative theology as concerned with "superessentiality" or "hyperousiol-ogy". That is to say, apophaticism has recourse to negations with the distinct purpose ultimately to affirm the utter transcendence of God. Apophaticism is "always concerned with disengaging a superessentiality beyond the finite categories of essence and existence, that is, of presence, and always hasten-ing to recall that God is refused the predicate of existence, only in order to acknowledge his superior, inconceivable, and ineffable mode of being".13
Derrida rightly intuits that "[w]ay down deep, negative theologians know what they are talking about; they have not entirely lost their way or their balance... ."14 In other words, while disavowing determinacy, negative theology tends to smuggle it in again through the back door. Such a Neoplatonic search for some transcendent signifier, some Being beyond being, is not Derrida's search. For Derrida, hospitality means a desire for and openness to a future of which we can absolutely not say anything—except that it is in no way contaminated by "the historically restricted concepts of humanity, ethics, and democracy under which we presently labor".lD
There are some additional differences, not so commonly focused upon, between Derridean and traditional apophaticism. One is a difference in direction. Whereas traditional apophatic theology is predicated on the hos-pitality of the tout autre (the Triune God) toward us, Derrida speaks of our hospitality toward the tout autre. It is impossible for Derrida to speak about the hospitality that the tout autre extends to us, because—in line with Lévinas—we can only concern ourselves with our own responsibilities toward the other, never with the other's responsibilities toward us. This means that Derrida's notion of hospitality has an anthropocentric tendency. Mystical union and deification are not part of the picture because there is no transcendent signifier that would enable our entry into the divine life.
Derrida does not dare claim some divine hospitable transcendent signifier (as traditionally understood) that underwrites our human hospitality.16 The result of such a claim would be, for Derrida, a fundamentalist absolutism that cannot but lead to violence, as witnessed most poignantly in the war for the "appropriation of Jerusalem".17
The final difference between Derrida and apophaticism has to do with the possibility of the realization of the eschatological future: for apophatic theology the future visio Dei will be realized; the messianic future is not structurally "to come". For Eastern theology, God's people will, in the eschatological future, ascend into the glory of God and so—in a real sense— be deified. Mystical union is today's foretaste of our ultimate theosis or deifi-cation. Regardless of the indeterminacy of the beatific vision, this state of bliss will not forever remain à venir. Derrida, as we have seen, cannot grant the possibility of hospitality ever leading to the consummation of commu-nion within the historical and temporal conditions of existence: for him the messianic future is ever still to come: its very realization—its determinacy— would imply the continuation of violence and injustice.
Derrida's philosophy is apophatic—but it is an apophaticism of a particu-lar brand: apophaticism without divine transcendence (or "superessential-ity"), without divine hospitality (it is always our hospitality toward the other), and without determinate future realization.18 The result is that Derrida's hospitality turns out to have some restrictions of its own—not the Kantian restrictions of universal hospitality but restrictions that may render it no less vulnerable to the danger of unjustified violence. First, Derrida's demand of pure hospitality means—in his own words—that I must be open for even the devil to come in. Many will find such a radically unconditional hospitality even less appealing than the restrictions imposed by Kant's uni-versal hospitality.19 A Derridean unconditional hospitality in our universe would lead to chaos and likely to more violence than a Kantian universal hospitality. Attempts fully to embody unconditional hospitality will lead to an increase of violence and will so restrict hospitality rather than encourage it.
Second, Derrida's radicalization of apophaticism in the direction of a closed universe has a dramatic consequence. His ideal of pure hospitality cannot possibly lead to the situation of absolute or undeconstructible justice that he envisages. Every situation in time and space is already characterized by violence. The eschatological future always remains to come (à venir). Derrida's awareness of the impossibility of pure hospitality means that he makes some interesting Kantian concessions. "Just hospitality," says Derrida, "breaks with hospitality by right; not that it condemns or is opposed to it, and it can on the contrary set and maintain it in a perpetual progressive movement; but it is as strangely heterogeneous to it as justice is heterogeneous to the law to which it is yet so close, from which in truth it is indissociable."20 Here Derrida makes the remarkable comment that "just hospitality" (his pure or
unconditional hospitality) maintains "hospitality by right" (Kant's condi-tional hospitality). Elsewhere, Derrida speaks about a "hospitable narcis-sism", and he argues that we must practise hospitality despite the narcissism that accompanies and characterizes it: "I believe that without a movement of narcissistic reappropriation, the relation to the other would be absolutely destroyed, it would be destroyed in advance."21 Derrida realizes that his demand of absolute hospitality lies in a messianic future that always remains out of reach, but nonetheless wants to act hospitably and strive for justice. He wants to engage in the practice of hospitality today despite the convic-tion that he will never truly attain it. Put in theological terms, he appears to realize that he needs to make some concessions to the Western emphasis on kataphatic theology if he is to engage in apophatic theology.
Irenaeus and Eschatological Hospitality: An Apophatic Approach
Since the Derridean vision of hospitality does not remove our fears of unjus-tified violence, we need to search for a different kind of hospitality—one that holds out hope for an eschatological community of true shalom. It may be worthwhile to ask the question what would happen if we were to bracket Derrida's three restrictions on hospitality and would try to envisage hospi-tality in terms of what it might mean when applied to God. Suppose, in other words, that hospitality is not first of all a human attempt to affirm the arrivant, but is God's affirmation and acceptance of the creature, what would such divine hospitality look like? If we were to take our starting-point in the hospitality of God, what would this do to our understanding of the mes-sianic future? What would this do for a possible integration of apophatic and kataphatic strategies? Could it imply an affirmation of the eternal continua-tion of materiality and temporality, on the one hand (the Western strand), as well as an affirmation of human maturation and growth in the divine life (the Eastern strand), on the other hand?22
Derrida's radicalized apophatic eschatology means that his concessions to the restrictions of determinacy and to the conditionality of embodied hos-pitality come only grudgingly. We are always again faced with the absolute demand for hospitality toward the other. It is at this point that I believe Derrida's vision of hospitality could benefit from the balanced eschatology of Irenaeus, because the tension between apophatic and kataphatic theology is inherent to the very structure of the latter's theology. In what follows, I will take my starting-point in Irenaeus's understanding of redemption as a model of combining apophatic and kataphatic approaches to eschatology, which leads to an eschatology that affirms a hospitable God who draws tem-porality and materiality into the divine future. I will describe an Irenaean model of "eschatological hospitality", and I intend to show how it is able to overcome each of the three restrictions that plague Derrida's notion of pure hospitality and thus is able to open up a future of true shalom.
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Irenaeus, Derrida and Hospitality 169
Interpretations of Irenaeus have tended to oscillate between a "physical" and an "ethical" approach. The physical understanding interprets Irenaeus' theology along the lines of later Eastern theology with its apophatic ten-dencies. This reading of Irenaeus takes the incarnation as the central salvific moment, which is, in and of itself, regarded as constitutive of the redemp-tion of humankind.23 According to this approach, the obstacle that bars the arrival of perfection is humanity's spiritual immaturity. Hence the Fall into sin plays a less significant role, and redemption becomes the gradual spiri-tual growth of human beings leading to the indescribable goal of deification in eternal life.24 The ethical understanding tends to view Irenaeus through the grid of later Western theology. Here the cross becomes the more central salvific moment, and the salvation of individuals requires their appropria-tion of Christ's work by means of faith and repentance. The obstacle for salvation here is typically the Fall into sin. It is therefore the forgiveness of sins and final judgement that become the key moments in this theological approach.
By juxtaposing the two approaches in this way, I am necessarily painting with a broad stroke. The realities of individual theologians, both Eastern and Western, are more nuanced than I have just indicated. One might argue that the two perspectives are not mutually exclusive. Eastern theologians do not deny the need for the forgiveness of sin, and Western theologians have often emphasized the importance of sanctification and life in fellow-ship with God.25 Neither do the interpretations of Irenaeus clearly fall into two different camps: a number of interpreters see a more or less successful combination of physical and ethical elements in Irenaeus.26 Nonetheless, it is fair to say that there are extremes on both ends among students of Irenaeus.
The two models of salvation tend toward different eschatologies. A physical understanding of salvation tends to emphasize growth in maturity and ultimately deification. One of the questions, from a Western perspec-tive, would be how deification is able to do justice to the resurrection of the flesh: if in eternal life we are deified, how will it be possible for us still to have human bodies and live in time (albeit a time that is everlasting)? In other words, is it possible for deification to go hand in hand with continued ma-teriality and temporality? Does deification not short-change the need for kat-aphatic theology?27 From an Eastern perspective, one of the questions would be how, with an emphasis on the juridical category of forgiveness that is lacking in appreciation for the influx of the divine in the transformation of temporality and materiality, one can do justice to the mystery of the perfec-tion of all things in eternal life and thus to the need for apophatic theology. The issue comes down to what it means to affirm that God welcomes us into eternal life. If, on the one hand, this welcome is a welcome into the divine life itself, is it not so totally different from our experiences here that we can say nothing concrete about the eschaton and that we can only resort to
negative or apophatic theology? If, on the other hand, this welcome is a welcome into a creaturely mode of existence that in essence is no different from the material world in which we live today, does this not imply that in the new world we will continue to suffer from the limitations, shortcomings and exclusions that are inherent in an existence that is restricted by time and space? In Derridean terms: wouldn't an ethical soteriology and a kataphatic approach to eschatology ensure that the messianic future is just as violent as the everyday realities that we are experiencing today? In short, considering all these questions, is divine eschatological hospitality truly a plausible reality?
Students of Irenaeus have focused primarily on his theology of recapitu-lation and on his affirmation of the unity of God and of the Old and New Testaments. His eschatology, where it has received any attention at all, has often been treated as a peculiar appendix—a vision of a coming millennial Kingdom that simply does not have the positive theological potential that characterizes his understanding of salvation and of the history of revela-tion.28 To a degree, the focus on issues of theology, soteriology and revela-tion is understandable. Irenaeus faced Gnostic and Marcionite opponents who assailed the catholic understanding in each of these areas. There is every reason, however, not to limit ourselves to the more familiar Irenaean themes and to spend some time trying to gauge the concerns of his eschatological views. After all, it is in the eschatological future that both the physical and the ethical approaches to redemption find their telos. What does the beckoning future of God's hospitable Kingdom look like for Irenaeus?
Irenaeus's eschatology contains significant elements that correspond closely to a physical understanding of redemption. He comments, for instance, that the world of "temporal things" will disappear.29 He realizes, in other words, that this-worldly categories are inadequate to describe the situation of God's eschatological hospitality. Repeatedly, the Bishop of Lyons affirms the idea of theosis or divinization. To be sure, he mostly speaks of humans attaining "incorruptibility" or "immortality". I suspect that Irenaeus's preference for these terms over the notion of "deification" can be traced back to his desire to safeguard the ethical elements of his soteriology. In order to protect the creational integrity of human beings in the Kingdom of God—against all Gnostic spiritualizing—Irenaeus only hesitantly affirms the language of deification.30 Nonetheless, several times Irenaeus makes use of Psalm 82 ("I have said, Ye are gods, and all sons of the Most High"), which he interprets as speaking of our adoption as sons.31 He says not only that adoption means that we will become sons of God, but he also states that we were "at first merely men, then at length gods"32 and comments that in the end we will "pass into God".33
The tendency toward a physical soteriology is also noticeable in Irenaeus's emphasis on visio Dei as the ultimate purpose of the history of redemption.34
Throughout history there has been a gradual increase in this vision of God,
ranging from the manifestation of God in creation to prophetic visions in the Old Testament, to the vision of the Lord in his incarnation, and to the eschatological vision of God in eternal life. It is the vision of God that will ultimately make people immortal: "For as those who see the light are within the light, and partake of its brilliancy; even so, those who see God are in God, and receive of His splendour. But [His] splendour vivifies them; those, therefore, who see God, do receive life Men therefore shall see God, that they may live, being made immortal by that sight, and attaining even unto God."35
Even as he strains to describe the bliss of the visio Dei, however, Irenaeus draws back from a thoroughgoing affirmation of union with the divine. In eternal life, we will see God in regard to his love, kindness and power; but, Irenaeus adds, "in respect to His greatness, and His wonderful glory, 'no man shall see God and live,' for the Father is incomprehensible".36 Irenaeus is intent on maintaining the Creator/creature distinction, for he realizes that if he does not hold back on the visio Dei and its accompanying physical view of redemption he will not be able to claim the high ground in his struggle against the Gnostics. It is thus his opposition to Gnosticism that tends to restrict Irenaeus's apophatic tendencies.
Irenaeus describes the process by which we come to share in the glory of God also as a transition from merely being created in the "image" of God to sharing in the "likeness" of God. This distinction would become common in later Eastern Orthodoxy and fits with a physical notion of redemption leading toward deification.37 For Irenaeus, the image of God consists of the human flesh.38 By breathing his Spirit into Adam, God created him at the same time in his "likeness", that is to say, free and immortal, with the poten-tial to grow further and so become accustomed to have God dwell in him.39
While in the Fall humans retained their freedom, they lost their immortal-ity.40 The incarnation meant the restoration of the likeness and thus of immor-tality. For Irenaeus, a human being bears the likeness of God when the Spirit of God acts on that person and when the person by his own free will opens up his spirit to the Spirit of God. It is then that one becomes immortal and incorruptible.
Irenaeus's understanding of God's eschatological hospitality has obvious apophatic tendencies: his physical soteriology emphasizes growth in matu-rity in the likeness of God, which means that in the end, when the temporal world will disappear, we will live in eternity in incorruptibility and immor-tality. Our sharing in the divine likeness means that we will even pass into God. These apophatic tendencies, however, are different from Derrida's radical apophaticism. Interestingly, it is apprehension about Gnosticism that restrains Irenaeus's apophaticism. His understanding of eschatological hos-pitality envisions the God of the Old and the New Testaments welcoming us into union with him. The eschatological situation may be ineffable, but it is a hospitality that originates in the transcendence of the divine Wholly
Other (tout autre) whom we know in Jesus Christ and through the pages of the Scriptures. Furthermore, it is a hospitality that will be realized in the eternal Kingdom of God. In other words, unlike Derrida's pure hospitality, Irenaeus's eschatological hospitality is based on divine transcendence and divine hospitality, and assumes a future point at which this absolute eschatological hospitality will be realized.
Irenaeus and Eschatological Hospitality: A Kataphatic Approach
We have seen that Irenaeus's apprehension about Gnosticism restricts the physical elements of his soteriology and the apophatic tendencies of his eschatology. What is more, his anti-Gnostic polemic also leads to the inclu-sion of kataphatic elements in his eschatology.41 It is these kataphatic ele-ments, of course, that make Derrida nervous: their determinacy means limitation, exclusion, and violence. I want to explore, therefore, how Irenaeus is able to hold to these kataphatic elements while affirming the integrity of God's eschatological hospitality.
The Bishop of Lyons outlines his millenarian eschatology in some detail in the last book of Adversus haereses. He discusses there the coming of the Antichrist, which he believes will be followed by the resurrection of the just.42 He describes the resurrection in very affirmative, earthly terms. In his anti-Gnostic polemic, Irenaeus considers it of supreme importance that the resurrection be a literal resurrection of the flesh, just as Christ's resurrection was a resurrection of the flesh.43 His opponents, after all, saw the flesh as inherently and radically compromised by evil. They regarded the created order—all temporality and materiality— as inherently associated with vio-lence and evil, and hence problematic.44 Material substance had, according to the Gnostic mindset, its origin in "ignorance and grief, and fear and bewil-derment".43 If the transcendent God were to associate with the created order, he could not help but fall prey to its particularities and limitations, and hence become mired in its exclusions and its violence.
The resurrection of the just constitutes the beginning of the thousand-year reign of Christ, in which a number of Old Testament promises made to Israel will come to fulfilment.46 Irenaeus assigns these promises to the Church as the seed of Abraham.47 They involve the just inheriting the earth and drink-ing the wine new with Christ, as well as dominion for the Church, enormous fertility on earth, harmony among animals and human beings, and a rebuild-ing of the earthly Jerusalem.48 God will never abandon his good creation, which is why Irenaeus strenuously objects to any allegorical interpretation of the millennial Kingdom of Christ. In this Kingdom, "neither is the sub-stance nor the essence of creation annihilated".49 With rhetorical grandeur, Irenaeus maintains that "it is just that in that very creation in which they toiled or were afflicted, being proved in every way by suffering, they should receive the reward of their suffering; and that in the creation in which they
were slain because of their love to God, in that they should be revived again; and that in the creation in which they endured servitude, in that they should reign".50 The millennial Kingdom is to be followed by the final judgement, after which the millennial Kingdom of the Son will give way to the eternal Kingdom of God.
The boundary between the Kingdom of the Son and the Kingdom of God remains blurry. The growth toward incorruptibility and immortality starts already during the millennial reign of Christ, and it simply continues into the eternal Kingdom of God. The millennial Kingdom "is the commence-ment of incorruption, by means of which Kingdom those who shall be worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of the divine nature (capere Deum) "51 Once this state of perfection has been reached, the last judge-ment will take place and the Son will "yield up His work to the Father" (cf. 1 Cor. 15:25-26).52 Christopher R. Smith rightly concludes: "The Irenaean 'millennium' ends with a decided whimper in terms of earthly events."53
The porous boundary between the millennium and the eternal life that follows is indicative of the difficulty that Irenaeus experiences in attempting to describe the reality of eternal life. On the one hand, he wants to insist on the creaturely integrity of eternal life, with all the particularity of historicity and temporality that this implies. Hence, Irenaeus sees the down-to-earth character of the Kingdom of the Son stretch beyond the millennium into the very Kingdom of God:
For neither is the substance nor the essence of the creation annihilated (for faithful and true is He who has established it), but "the fashion of the world passetti away;" that is, those things among which transgres-sion has occurred, since man has grown old in them But when this [present] fashion [of things] passes away, and man has been renewed, and flourishes in an incorruptible state, so as to preclude the possibility of becoming old, [then] there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, in which the new man shall remain [continually], always holding fresh converse with God And as the presbyters say, Then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of paradise, and others shall possess the splendour of the city; for everywhere the Saviour shall be seen according as they who see Him shall be worthy.54
Irenaeus insists on the continuation of the created order after the millennium has given way to the Kingdom of God itself. This created order is seen in the various "mansions" of the righteous—descending in levels of glory: heaven itself, paradise, and the city of Jerusalem. This eternal glory shall "ever continue without end".5D Immortality, for Irenaeus, is not entry into a time-less eternity but is simply time without end.56
One of the consequences of this affirmation of an eternal continuation of time and matter is that the linguistic structures of human existence will also
continue. The creaturely activities of learning and interpretation will con-tinue in the eternal Kingdom of God.57 Irenaeus says that we must leave certain matters of interpretation "in the hands of God, and that not only in the present world, but also in that which is to come, so that God should for ever teach, and man should for ever learn the things taught him by God".58
Human beings will never have the perfect knowledge that God has. The continuation of learning and interpretation is an affirmation of the limited nature of creaturely existence, and seems to imply that the human activities of searching, discerning, and discriminating will continue.
Irenaeus and Derridean Restrictions on Hospitality
Throughout his eschatological musings, Irenaeus appears to be walking a fine line. On the one hand, against the Gnostics, he wants to hold on to the physicality and temporality of eternal life. God's welcoming us into the divine life thus maintains the Creator/creature distinction. God's eschato-logical hospitality confirms the creaturely mode of existence. On the other hand, Irenaeus realizes that the hospitality of God is such that it cannot possibly be comprehended in categories taken from this side of the escha-tological equation. The result is a consistent affirmation of both physical and ethical soteriological tendencies, of both apophatic and kataphatic approaches to eschatology. This vision of eschatological hospitality holds some notable gains when compared to Derrida's pure or unconditional hospitality. Irenaeus's eschatological hospitality contains a strong element of determinacy. He claims to know some significant aspects of the eschatologi-cal future. Hospitality is for Irenaeus not a pure hospitality that is open for anyone to step in and potentially abuse the hospitality. This eschatological hospitality is, therefore, not bedeviled by the potential violence to which Derrida admits his pure hospitality is prone.39 Of course, such determinacy may be accompanied by fears of totalitarianism and the violence of war. Is it true, however, that any kind of determinate hospitality implies a virulent fundamentalism? It seems to me that this depends on the question of what exactly those determinate elements look like. Irenaeus safeguards his eschatological hospitality from stifling oppression in two ways: first, his descriptions of eschatological abundance and shalom indicate a flowering of community that is not accompanied by violence. If it be objected that time and matter necessarily are accompanied by violence, Irenaeus might take refuge in the apophatic components of his eschatology, that safeguard a contingency and indeterminacy preventing an absolutizing stake on the eschaton.
Irenaeus does not pursue apophaticism with a rigour that would make him lose sight of the Triune God revealed in history. God's transcendence does not stand in the way of union with this particular God. In fact, visio Dei is for Irenaeus a remarkably historical journey that starts with the prophetic
vision of God in the Old Testament and that leads to the eschatological vision of that same God in the Kingdom of God. Irenaeus's transcendent signifier (God) means the possibility of a future visio Dei that promises to satisfy the human longing for hospitality. Derrida's lack of a divine transcendental sig-nifier (his rejection of the "superessentiality" or "hyperousiology" of nega-tive theology) means that no matter how affirmative he may want to be of justice, democracy, and messianicity, his pure hospitality can never hope to enjoy the arrival of that future. Hospitality is always and only our hospital-ity to the other; it is never the hospitality of the other toward us, let alone the hospitality of the divine other toward us. However well intentioned, it means that Derrida's absolute hospitality always remains a far-off messianic ideal that we cannot possibly hope will ever come to fruition.
The impossibility of Derrida's hospitality goes back to his radicalizing of the apophatic tradition by insisting on an unconditional or pure hospitality here and now. If we could only appropriately refer to a particular act as an act of hospitality when it is an act of pure or unconditional hospitality, this would indeed mean that hospitality would be unattainable in our world. It is not clear to me, however, why it wouldn't be possible to refer to certain acts in this world as acts of hospitality despite their creational limitations and even the presence of some degree of violence.60 If God's eschatological hospitality reaches into our world through concrete acts of hospitality, they of course share in the restrictions and violence that accompany these actions.61 But that does not make it impossible for us to refer to such acts as acts of hospitality. As long as it is God's absolute or eschatological hospital-ity that lies behind and sustains this-worldly acts of hospitality, we have warrant to trust that his eschatological hospitality will deal with any injus-tice or violence that still accompanies this-worldly imperfect and conditional acts of hospitality.
Derrida's vision of hospitality would gain credibility if it included the structural tension inherent in Irenaeus's vision of eschatological hospitality. For Irenaeus, the apophatic strain always needs to be qualified by kataphatic elements. Such qualification is necessary to shield the eschatological vision from a Gnostic depreciation of the created particularity. To be sure, the Irenaean tension is not entirely absent from Derrida. As we have seen, he does affirm the need to engage in the practice of hospitality here and now, despite the conviction that we will never truly attain it.62 But for Derrida this practice will always be a concession to the "hyperousiology" of Eastern Orthodoxy and ultimately to the particular messianic visions of kataphatic theology. Our necessarily conditional acts of hospitality will therefore always remain for him a betrayal of unconditional or pure hospitality.
Irenaeus, on the other hand, is capable of accepting the tension because he is willing to live with the mystery involved in the dividing line between the here and now and the eschaton. He acknowledges the mystery of the hospitality of God: it is a future in which the Father will be "bestowing in a
paternal manner those things which neither the eye has seen, nor the ear has heard, nor has [thought concerning them] arisen within the heart of man". Even the angels "are not able to search out the wisdom of God, by means of which His handiwork, confirmed and incorporated with His Son, is brought to perfection "63 In the end, therefore, the mystery of the combination of the physical and the ethical remains exactly that—a mystery, unresolved by human predication. This acknowledgement of mystery is hardly an abdica-tion of epistemic responsibility; rather, it is an admission of an epistemic fissure between the conditions of our present existence and those of the eschatological Kingdom of Peace.64
Irenaeus's struggle to live with the tension between the apophatic ten-dencies of a physical redemption and the kataphatic tendencies of an ethical redemption may well have its weaknesses, most notably the absence of a comprehensive rationality that explains how the Eastern and Western lines of thought might be combined or held in balance. On the other hand, it is not at all clear that Derrida is able to overcome this difficulty: the tension is, at least latently, present also in Derrida; he cannot escape the tension of having to embody the practice of what he terms "hospitable narcissism". It must be pursued, despite its narcissism, in the interest of absolute hospital-ity and justice. Moreover, while Irenaeus's two approaches may be in tension, they are not contradictory: eschatological hospitality is, after all, divine hospitality. It is not at all evident that the limitations that our current conditions impose on hospitality extend also to the divine reality of escha-tological hospitality. The demand for a logically tight system of thought may well be a remnant of a rationalist Enlightenment mindset that leaves little room for the mysteries of faith. An Irenaean approach to hospitality would be quite justified in appealing to the mystery of God and in positing not only that God's eschatological hospitality is able to combine the apophatic and the kataphatic, but also that it does so in a way that in the end overcomes all violence. Our lack of comprehension encourages us to implement a welcoming spirit of openness and grace within the particularities of our time-space universe, in the awareness that when God implements his eschatological hospitality it will infinitely transcend ours.
Irenaeus's genius is that he grounds human hospitality—our openness toward an eschatological or messianic future to come—in God's own escha-tological hospitality. An immanent foundation of hospitality (whether it be Kant's universal hospitality or Derrida's pure hospitality) means that we can hold out little hope of a hospitality by which God will actually "draw all things to Himself".63 An anthropological grounding of pure hospitality evokes little trust and hope for a better future. I conclude, therefore, that Irenaeus's understanding of eschatological hospitality contains a transcen-dent warrant that allows for the flourishing of a human hospitality, which, unhindered by Derridean restrictions, acts today in the hope of the arrival of the Kingdom of Peace.
NOTES 1 I want to express my appreciation to Dr. Robert E. Webber, Dr. Dennis L. Okholm and the
other members of the CCCU Faculty Development Workshop in Theology held at Wheaton College (May 27-June 3,2001) for their interaction with some of the material that I am pre-senting in this paper. I also thank Dr. James K. A. Smith, as well as the two peer reviewers for Modern Theology, for their extensive and helpful comments.
2 Emmanuel Lévinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, ed. Adriaan T. Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 11. Cf. Bruce Ellis Benson, Graven Images: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p. 113.
3 Adriaan Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993), p. 22.
4 Emmanuel Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Interiority, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1961), p. 194.
5 Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace, ed. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), pp. 20-21.
6 Jacques Derrida, "Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida/' in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, ed. Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 70; cf. John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion (Bloomington, LN: Indiana University Press, 1997), p. 145; Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 77.
7 Derrida also calls this pure hospitality the "hospitality of visitation,,/ which he contrasts
with the "hospitality of invitation", which we extend on our own terms and is conditional. See Brian Russell, "Developing Derrida: Pointers to Faith, Hope and Prayer", Theology Vol. 104 no. 822 (November-December, 2001), p. 406.
8 Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York, NY: Routledge, 1994), p. 65.
9 John D. Caputo, Prayers and Tears, p. 74. 10 In the face of God's transcendence, apophatic theology only negates and denies: we can
only say what God is not. Kataphatic theology, on the other hand, positively or affirma-tively states what God is like. Although apophatic theology has also influenced mystical strands of Western theology, Western apophatic theologians have tended to be marginal. In Eastern Orthodoxy, apophatic theology has always been central.
11 Cf. Harold Coward and Toby Foshy, ed., Derrida and Negative Theology (New York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992).
12 It remains of course a question of debate whether the Eastern notion of deification is ap-propriate to describe this transformation or whether it compromises the integrity of the Creator/creation distinction.
13 Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 6. Cf. Caputo, Prayers and Tears, p. 7.
14 Caputo, Prayers and Tears, p. 11. 15 Ibid., p. 56. 16 For Derrida, prayer is not addressed to a transcendent being but is an empty space (khôra)
of waiting, beyond all being and non-being. Cf. Russell, "Developing Derrida", pp. 403-411. 17 Derrida, Specters of Marx, p. 58. 18 These modifications may, in fact, move Derrida closer to Gnostic than to apophatic
theology. For Derrida, the material and the historical are inherently violent and as such problematic. Fortunately, Derrida is hardly consistent in his disavowal of determinacy. See James K. A. Smith, "Hope Without Hope?: A Phenomenological Critique of Derrida's 'Messianic' Expectation", forthcoming in Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments, eds. Yvonne Sherwood and Kevin Hart (London: Routledge, 2003).
19 Derrida is aware that his notion of pure hospitality may itself lead to violence: "Why did Kant insist on conditional hospitality? Because he knew that without these conditions hos-pitality could turn into wild war, terrible aggression. Those are the risks involved in pure hospitality, if there is such a thing and I am not sure that there is" ("Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility", p. 71). For incisive criticism on this point, see Richard Kearney, "Desire
of God" in God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, ed. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 126-128.
20 Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality, pp. 24-25 (emphasis added); cf. p. 79. 21 Jacques Derrida, Points . . . ; Interviews, 1974^-1994, ed. Elisabeth Weber, trans. Peggy Kamuf
et al. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 199. 22 For an analysis of the presence of the various atonement motifs in Irenaeus, see my
"Redemptive Hospitality in Irenaeus: A Model for Ecumenicity in a Violent World", Pro Ecclesia Vol. 11 no. 2 (2002), p. 207.
23 The common terminology of a "physical" understanding of redemption is somewhat confusing and unfortunate. The term, coined by Harnack, describes the notion that the physicality of the union of the two natures m the incarnation magically effects a redemption that is described in the language of ontological transformation—deification. This "physi-cal" redemption does not imply, however, a corresponding emphasis on the continuation of materiality in eternal life. On the contrary, a "physical" understanding of redemption tends to coincide with notions of mystical union and deification that tend to soft-pedal physicality in eternal life.
24 For interpretations that more or less fall into this category, see Demetrios J. Constantelos, "Irenaeos of Lyons and His Central Views on Human Nature", St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly Vol. 33 no. 4 (1989), pp. 351-363; Gabriel Daly, "Theology of Redemption in the Fathers" in Witness to the Spirit: Essays on Revelation, Spirit, Redemption, ed. Wilfrid Harrington (Dublin: Irish Biblical Association; Manchester: Koinonia Press, 1979), pp. 137-139.
25 Cf. Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1994), p. 124; Michael C. D. McDaniel, "Salvation as Justification and Theosis" in Salvation in Christ: A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue, ed. John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Press, 1992), pp. 67-83,174-177.
26 Some interpretations see a contradiction between the physical and ethical lines of thought in Irenaeus: Robert F. Brown, "On the Necessary Imperfection of Creation: Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses IV, 38", Scottish Journal of Theology Vol. 28 no. 1 (1975), pp. 17-25; Adolph von Harnack, History of Dogma, trans. Neu Buchanan, second edition (London: Williams & Norgate, 1896), Vol. 2, pp. 267-275. Others are more sympathetic, attempting to show the unity of Irenaeus's thought: Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (London: SPCK, 1970), pp. 16-35; Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Chris-tianity to Irenaeus, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1970), pp. 442-446; Emil Brunner, The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith, trans. Olive Wyon (London: Lutterworth Press, 1934), pp. 249-264; Douglas Farrow, "St. Irenaeus of Lyons: The Church and the World", Pro Ecclesia Vol. 4 no. 3 (1995), pp. 333-355; Trevor A. Hart, "Irenaeus, Recapitulation and Physical Redemption" in Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World, ed. Trevor A. Hart and Daniel P. Thimell (Exeter: Paternoster; Allison Park: Pickwick, 1989), pp. 165-167; Gustaf Wingren, Man and the Incarnation: A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus, trans. Ross Mackenzie (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1959), pp. 26-28.
27 To be sure, Eastern Orthodoxy understands deification to involve the transfigured resur-rection body (Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, new ed. [London: Penguin, 1997], pp. 232-235). Nonetheless, the question remains how union with God can go hand in hand with a continuation of the material, especially considering the fact that the Eastern Church has undergone the strong influence of a Neoplatonic devaluation of the body in mystical theology.
28 For some notable exceptions, see Christopher R. Smith, "Chiliasm and Recapitulation in the Theology of Ireneus", Vigiliae Christianae Vol. 48 (December, 1994), pp. 313-331; Terranee Tiessen, "Irenaeus on Salvation and the Millennium," Didascalia Vol. 3 no. 1 (October, 1991), pp. 2-5.
29 Irenaeus against Heresies [henceforth AH\, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (1885; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), V.36.1.
30 H. E. W. Turner's classic study puts it well: "The idea of deification is clearly present, but it is almost as if a reverential glottal-stop prevents the use of the actual term" (The
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Irenaeus, Derrida and Hospitality 179
Patristic Doctrine of Redemption: A Study of the Development of Doctrine during the First Five Centuries [London: Mowbray; New York, NY: Morehouse!Gorham, 1952], pp. 76!77). Cf. also Hart, "Irenaeus, Recapitulation and Physical Redemption", p. 153.
31 AH m.6.1!3;IV.48.4. 32 AH IV.38.4 33 AH IV.33.4. 34 See especially Mary Ann Donovan, "Alive to the Glory of God: A Key Insight in St.
Irenaeus", Theological Studies Vol. 49 (June, 1988), pp. 283!297. 35 AH IV.20.5!6. 36 AH "#.20.5; cf. IV.20.1; 20.7; cf. Terranee L. Tiessen, Irenaeus on the Salvation of the Unevan!
gelized (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1993), pp. 84r!86. 37 Cf. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, pp. 133!134. 38 AH V.6.1; 9.1. 39 St. Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (henceforth Dem.), trans. Joseph P. Smith (New
York, NY: Paulist Press, 1952), pp. 11,15; cf. AH #".20.2. Irenaeus appears to make a dis-tinction also within the concept of the "likeness" of God, between homoiotes, which consists of human freedom (and remains after the Fall) and homoiösis, which consists of the incor-ruptibility of the Spirit (which is lost in the Fall). See Donovan, "Alive to the Glory of God", pp. 293-296; John Behr, Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 89-90.
40 AH V.16.2. 41 Kataphatic or positive theology makes positive (or determinate) assertions about God
and about the eschatological future that he brings. Kataphatic theological statements may, however, still be analogical or metaphorical in character, so that kataphatic theology does not imply a theological positivism that in some idolatrous fashion claims to capture the divine.
42 AH V.25.1-36.3. 43 AH V.31.1-2. 44 Cf. Douglas Farrow's comment about Gnosticism: "The temporal exists, insofar as it does
exist, only as a kind of defection from the eternal, the finite as a defection from the infinite, the creaturely as a defection from the divine. In particular, everything that takes material form and presents itself to the senses is fundamentally flawed" ("St. Irenaeus of Lyons", p. 335).
45 AH 1.2.3. 46 Several authors argue that Irenaeus does not know of a millennial Kingdom (Smith,
"Chiliasm and Recapitulation", pp. 315-318; Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, pp. 188-192). Denis Minns, however, using the Armenian version of Adversus Haereses, convincingly captures Irenaeus's position as follows: "Humankind was created on the sixth day, and the course of human history occupies the sixth of the thousand-year periods of creation. The seventh thousand-year period will be occupied by the Kingdom of the Son" {Irenaeus [Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1994], p. 127).
47 AH V.32.2. 48 AH V.32.2; 33.1.3^; 34.4; 35.1-2. 49 AH V.36.1. 50 AH V.32.1. 51 AH V.32.1. 52 AH V.36.2. 53 Smith, "Chiliasm and Recapitulation", p. 319. 54 AH V.36.1. 55 AH V.36.1. 56 The tension in Irenaeus's theology at this point leads to the paradoxical affirmation in one
and the same paragraph of the disappearance of the world of "temporal things" as well as of the continuation of "time without end" (AH V.36.1).
57 For a carefully argued defence of the continuation of temporality and language in eternal life, see James K. A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).
58 $%".28.3. 59 This is not to say that I endorse Irenaeus's chiliast eschatological outlook.
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180 Hans Boersma
60 Derrida refers to "hospitable narcissism" where I believe it would be better to speak of "hospitality" (though tinged with narcissism and violence).
61 This is witnessed both in Sie divine violence of the Old Testament and in the divine involve-ment in the cross. See my "Hospitality and Violence: The Role of Punishment in the Atonement", Psyche en Geloof Vol. 13 (2002), pp. 12-23.
62 Mark Dooley emphasizes Derrida's appreciation for the need to mitigate hospitality by an economy of exchange in "The Politics of Exodus: Derrida, Kierkegaard, and Lévinas on 'Hospitality'" in WorL· of Love, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon, G A: Mercer University Press, 1999), pp. 167-192.
63 AH V.36.3. James K. A. Smith makes a distinction between "determinate" and "definitive" predication, regarding only the latter as "objectification" and hence violent. He proposes an Augustinian laudatory strategy of praise as a "third way" alongside the apophatic and kataphatic strategies ("Between Predication and Silence: Augustine on How [Not] to Speak of God", The Heythrop Journal Vol. 41 no. 1 [January, 2000], pp. 66-86). This is similar to the Irenaean acknowledgement of mystery.
64 It seems to me that the combination of deification and of the continuation of creational cat-egories is structurally similar to the mysteries of paradox in other doctrines, such as the Trinity and the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ. All of these affirm mysteries of faith (in which the transcendent or eschatological reaches into our world), without involving logical contradictions.
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