Immanence is fuller than the naturalist fallacy dressed up in post-structuralist vocabulary

On the whole most philosophy of religion concerns itself with constructing a secular a/theology. This is true of both the analytic and the Continentalist wings, as the majority of analytic philosophers of religion participate in a neo-scholasticism of attending to how many propositions can lay dead on the page of a book [head of a pin] and the majority of Continental philosophers preach the Good News of religion without religion. This repeats in philosophy a phenomenon in the life of religion – theological determination.

Today I want to suggest that philosophy of religion abandon theological determination and turn to immanence if it hopes to direct attention to what matters most in religion. While there are some who will argue that immanence is a commitment to “naturalism” or simply not resorting to or thinking the supernatural, I hope to show that immanence is fuller than the naturalist fallacy dressed up in post-structuralist vocabulary. Immanence is, in Deleuze’s enigmatic definition, a life and the plane of immanence is a simulacrum of reality that reveals humanity not as the king of creation able to take a view from nowhere,

‘but rather as the being who is in intimate contact with the profound life of all forms or all types of beings, who is responsible for even the stars and animal life, and who ceaselessly plugs an organ-machine into an energy-machine, a tree into his body, a breast into his mouth, the sun into his asshole: the eternal custodian of the machines of the universe.’

Posted by Anthony Paul Smith Filed in philosophy, politics, religion June 21st, 2007 An und für sich “Integrity through hypocrisy.”