Derrida and God: Opening a Conversation

The work of Jacques Derrida has promoted much controversy, and a theological application of Derrida's way of thinking has frequently been seen to be impossible. Yet since Derrida's concern is chiefly with the impossible, and since the question of God provokes what is impossible for thought, it may be that Derrida is an important participant in theological conversations. Derrida's understanding that metaphysical thought inevitably undoes itself does not forbid us from thinking, but makes us more sensitive to what resists thought. His writings on negative theology suggest the possibility that thought might be marked by what escapes it. Yet the aporia — what cannot be thought — is not to be resolved by proof but by decision, which leaves open the possibility of religious faith. Religion is a response to what remains secret and the attestation of the secret before the Other.