The Guide to Gethsemane: Anxiety, Suffering, Death (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

Anxiety, suffering and death are not simply the "ills" of our society, nor are they uniquely the product of a sick and sinful humanity. We must all some day confront them, and we continually face their implications long before we do. In that sense, the Garden of Gethsemane is not merely a garden "outside the walls" of Jerusalem but also the essential horizon for all of us, whether we are believers or not. Emmanuel Falque explores, with no small measure of doubt, Heidegger's famous statement that by virtue of Christianity's claims of salvation and the afterlife, its believers cannot authentically experience anxiety in the face of death. In this theological development of the Passion, already widely debated upon its publication in French, Falque places a radical emphasis on the physicality and corporeality of Christ's suffering and death, marking the continuities between Christ's Passion and our own orientation to the mortality of our bodies. Beginning with an elaborate reading of the divine and human bodies whose suffering is masterfully depicted in the Isenheim Altarpiece, and written in the wake of the death of a close friend, Falques's study is both theologically rigorous and marked by deeply human concerns. Falque is at unusual pains to elaborate the question of death in terms not merely of faith, but of a "credible Christianity" that remains meaningful to non-Christians, holding, with Maurice Blondel, that "the important thing is not to address believers but to say something which counts in the eyes of unbelievers." His account is therefore as much a work of philosophy as of theology--and of philosophy explicated not through abstractions but through familiar and ordinary experience. Theology's task, for Falque, is to understand that human problems of the meaning of existence apply even to Christ, at least insofar as he lives in and shares our finitude. In Falque's remarkable account, Christ takes upon himself the burden of suffering finitude, so that he can undertake a passage through it, or a transformation of it. This book, a key text from one the most remarkable of a younger generation of philosophers and theologians, will be widely read and debated by all who hold that theology and philosophy has the most to offer when it eschews easy answers and takes seriously our most anguishing human experiences. Cover 1 The Guide to Gethsemane 2 Title 6 Copyright 7 Dedication 8 Contents 10 Translator’s Note 14 Preface to the English-Language Edition 16 Opening: The Isenheim Altarpiece or “The Taking on Board of Suffering” 18 Introduction: Shifting Understandings of Anxiety 34 PART I: THE FACE TO FACE OF FINITUDE 38 1 From the Burden of Death to Flight before Death 40 §1 The Burden of Death 40 §2 Fleeing from Death 41 2 The Face of Death or Anxiety over Finitude 43 §3 Death “for Us” Humans 43 §4 Genesis and Its Symbolism 44 §5 The Mask of Perfection 45 §6 The Image of Finitude in Man 46 §7 Finitude: Finite and Infinite 49 §8 Finitude and Anxiety 49 §9 The Eclipse of Finitude 50 §10 The Face of Death 51 §11 To Die “with” 52 3 The Temptation of Despair or Anxiety over Sin 55 §13 Inevitable Death 55 §14 The Conquest of Sin 55 §15 Sin and Anxiety 56 §16 The Temptation of Despair 57 4 From the Affirmation of Meaninglessness to the Suspension of Meaning 59 §17 The Life Sentence 59 §18 The Christian Witness 60 §19 Meaninglessness and the Suspension of Meaning 60 PART II: CHRIST FACED WITH ANXIETY OVER DEATH 62 §20 Two Meditations on Death 62 §21 Alarm and Anxiety 64 5 The Fear of Dying and Christ’s “Alarm” 66 §22 Taking on Fear and Abandonment 66 §23 The Cup, Sadness, and Sleep 67 §24 Resignation, Waiting, and Heroism 68 §25 The Silence at the End 69 §26 The Scenarios of Death 70 §27 The Triple Failure of the Staging 71 §28 From Alarm to Anxiety 72 6 God’s Vigil 74 §29 Remaining Always Awake 74 §30 The Passage of Death, the Pres ent of the Passion, the Future of the Resurrection 75 §31 Theological Actuality and Phenomenological Possibility 76 7 The Narrow Road of Anxiety 78 §32 Indefiniteness, Reduction to Nothing, and Isolation 78 §33 The Strait Gate 79 §34 Anxiety over “Simply Death” 80 §35 Indefiniteness (Putting off the Cup) and the Powerless Power of God 80 §36 Reduction to Nothing and Kenosis 85 §37 The Isolation of Humankind and Communion with the Father 87 §38 Of Anxiety Endured on the Horizon of Death 88 8 Death and Its Possibilities 90 §39 Manner of Living, Possibility of the Impossibility, and Death as “Mineness” 90 §40 Being Vigilant at Gethsemane 92 §41 From the Actuality of the Corpse to Possibilities for the Living 93 §42 The Death That Is Always His: Suffering in God; The Gift of His Life and Refusal of Mastery 96 §43 The Flesh Forgotten 99 PART III: THE BODY TO BODY OF SUFFERING AND DEATH 102 §44 Disappropriation and Incarnation 102 §45 Embedding in the Flesh and Burial in the Earth 103 9 From Self-Relinquishment to the Entry into the Flesh 106 §46 Suffering the World 106 §47 Living in the World 107 §48 Otherness and Corruptibility 107 §49 Self-Relinquishment 108 §50 Passing to the Father 109 §51 Oneself as an Other 110 §52 Destitution and Auto-Affection 111 §53 Alterity and Fraternity 112 §54 Entry into the Flesh 113 §55 The Anxiety “in” the Flesh 114 §56 Toward Dumb Experience 115 10 Suffering Occluded 117 §57 An Opportunity Thwarted 117 §58 Called into Question 119 §59 Toward a Phenomenology of Suffering 119 11 Suffering Incarnate 121 §60 Perceiving, or the Challenge of the Toucher-Touching 121 §61 The Modes of the Incarnate Being 124 §62 The Excess of the Suffering Body 127 12 The Revealing Sword 130 §63 Sobbing and Tears 130 §64 Fleshly Exodus 132 §65 The Vulnerable Flesh 133 §66 The Non-Substitutable Substitution 134 §67 The Act of Surrendering Oneself 136 §68 Toward a Revelation 137 §69 Useless Suffering 137 Conclusion: The In-Fans [without-Speech] or the Silent Flesh 140 Epilogue: From One Triptych to Another 144 Notes 148 Index 190 Already widely debated upon its publication in French, this book offers a provocative account of Christ's Passion in terms not of faith but of a "credible Christianity" that can remain meaningful to nonbelievers. For Falque, anxiety, suffering, and death are not simply the "ills" of our society but the essential horizon of what we confront as humans. Doubtful of Heidegger's famous statement that the notion of salvation renders Christians unable authentically to experience anxiety in the face of death, Falque explores the Passion with a radical emphasis on the physicality and corporeality of Christ's suffering and death, and on continuities with the mortality of our bodies. Written in the wake of a friend's death, Falques's study is theologically and philosophically rigorous, yet engagingly written and deeply humane