Abstract
The philosophical oeuvre of Emmanuel Levinas is both complex and multi-faceted, making significant demands upon its readers. When taken together with his Talmudic works, that demand increases. And so it is, I think, fair to say that Nigel Zimmerman has set himself a weighty task in his recently published Levinas and Theology. Attempting to weave together aspects of the two ‘sides’ of Levinas’s work, Zimmerman presents the reader with some food for thought. However, it is when Zimmerman takes the further step of bringing these aspects of Levinas’s work to Christian theology that, to borrow from Bernasconi and Wood, the provocation of Emmanuel Levinas truly begins.
While some of the moves that Zimmerman makes are not entirely simpatico with the Levinasian concepts to which he marries them (and, of course, Zimmerman asserts that they are), he nevertheless makes a compelling and thought-provoking case for his claims. Beginning with some important and carefully researched biographical points, Zimmerman goes on to explore several essential elements of both Levinas’s work and its inspiration. These include: the question of being; Levinas and phenomenology; the primacy of the Other; the French phenomenological ‘theological turn’; Levinas’s relationship with theology; the ‘atheistic’ concept of God; and Levinas’s controversial stance on the state of Israel. Each theme is clearly explicated, making this book a very good choice for the postgraduate student wishing to find out more about the enigmatic Levinas (Chapters two and three are particularly useful in this regard). In addition, some interesting, if not always entirely tenable, lines of argumentation (especially from Chapter four onwards) are put forward which should appeal to academics working in the fields of both philosophy and theology.
In Chapter four: The Disturbance of Theology—in my view the strongest chapter in the book—a very clear explication is provided of Levinas’s rather troubled relationship with theology. Although very clearly concerned with what appear to be theological matters (and this is true of both his philosophical and his religious writings), Levinas himself was not happy to be referred to as a theological philosopher or a philosophical theologian fearing, as Zimmerman is careful to point out, that such a categorization would place him squarely in the zone of thematizing God. Zimmerman notes that: ‘explicitly, Levinas distanced himself from theology. He was concerned at theology’s appropriation of the category “God” into a “thematization,” which circumvents the divine into the thematic structure of Being’ (p. 69). Instead, Levinas wishes to consider God as the ‘other Other’ or the ‘absolutely other’—something beyond thematization and beyond reduction but yet, at the same time, somehow bound to us human others and informing—demanding, in fact—their ethical interaction.
It is also in this chapter that some of the more interesting lines of argumentation appear. In particular, Zimmerman appeals to Levinas’s account of prayer and liturgy (found in both ‘sides’ of his oeuvre) in order to begin to promulgate his argument for bringing Levinas to Christian theology. Zimmerman goes so far as to contend that: ‘Levinas provides … a means of envisaging theology as prayer’ (p. 90). However, as one reads this section of the book one has the suspicion that this is a step too far. While it is the case that Levinas identifies something unique in prayer and its ability to aid in the ethical task, I am not entirely convinced that he would be happy to conceive of it as a form of theology given his misgivings (noted earlier by Zimmerman) about the latter. And so, while I find the notion of theology as prayer rather compelling—Zimmerman does a very good job of outlining what such an approach would entail—I am not so sure that it is as compatible with Levinas’s thinking as Zimmerman would have us believe.
In sum, Zimmerman has written an interesting and provocative book which, though flawed, is nevertheless worth a careful read. His explanations are clear and concise, making this a good text for an interested postgraduate or bright undergraduate to turn to for guidance regarding Levinas. His arguments are interesting and original, if a little skewed at times, making the book an engaging read for the professional academic looking for a fresh take on Levinas. Finally, the book is logically structured, clearly written, and well researched. In short, I recommend this book as a course textbook that will provide the bedrock for some lively debate about the relationship between Levinas and theology.