he goes into this… IRREVerent as REVerent … Watch out you'll want a tattoo after reading….

You say: I would be interested in reifying transcendence after the death of God such that it is compatible with the plane of immanence that Deleuze and others have mapped out.

I know this is an intense conversation, but I don't know how one could do this. In fact, Deleuze's entire project seems to be against any sort of recovering of transcendence, and I think others like the speculative realists have taken this as a banner to argue for a non-anthropocentric philosophy.

It seems difficult. I also remain skeptical that one can have a theology divested of transcendence that is simultaneously apocalyptic in orientation. Ultimately, I think Caputo following Derrida could never advocate an apocalyptic theology or at least it would have to be an apocalypse with/out apocalypse. This might also explain why he focuses on a view of Jesus borrowed from Crossan's work that almost completely neglects the apocalyptic undertones of Jesus' ministry.

2) I've already addressed this above somewhat. I think Caputo would refuse to ever emphasize the singularity of the Christ event insofar as it leads to exclusivism. Also, his reading of the atonement in the WoG seems to me to be entirely Abelarian, which makes me wonder just how different is his theology of the event from liberal Protestantism. I still remain struck by Kotsko's criticism of the WoG here: http://tinyurl.com/mbw9bx, which led to a fertile discussion as well.

Perhaps, one could make the pneumatological move. I dunno. The Holy Spirit is never something I've been comfortable dealing with, although I could see how one could get some mileage out of process theology.

I realize we're perhaps reaching an impasse, but I appreciate you engaging me in this conversation. Also, I apologize for the linkage to my blog, but I've been addressing these issues over the last year or so.

1.) I certainly don't want to sweep the gravity of the death of God (historically, culturally, metaphysically, etc.) under the rug. I accept it has axiomatic, for the most part. So in the post what I am calling a theology of inexistence or a theology of the hyperreal is also a way of returning to God after God, of theologizing after the death of (a certain) God, to borrow Caputo and Vattimo's title. Now, where things get really interesting is once we admit to this death and move past the eulogizing. Your question, “Can we think of a theology that wholly immanent, and is this immanent theology reconcilable with an eschatological orientation?” strikes to the root of this, I think. I wonder, thought, if theology can pack an eschatological punch if it is in fact “utterly divested of transcendence.” It seems to me that transcendence, in some sense, constitutes the eschatological horizon. Now, I don't think it is as simply as retreating back into old wineskins (Radox comes to mind). I would be interested in reifying transcendence after the death of God such that it is compatible with the plane of immanence that Deleuze and others have mapped out. I wonder if one way of doing this would be to link up transcendence with the apocalyptic, to have an apocalyptic theology of the event. This is one of the ideas I may be working through next year in my thesis. We'll see.

2.) Like I've already mentioned, I think the Christological question is a fair criticism of Caputo's deconstructive theology. And I agree with you here even if I find Caputo more congenial than you do. Callid has also written a new post/vlog which addresses this point as well. For his part, Caputo has a strong theology of the Cross but I wonder if his theology of the event does give due credence to the singularity of the Christ event, indeed one could even say that he trivializes it in some sense. The best he can do, it seems, is to draw on the trope of the messianic from Blanchot and Derrida and say that the advent of any messiah is predicated on some sort of second coming. I like this, to be sure, but I don't think it necessarily gets him off the hook. I don't want to give ground on the eschatological and hyperreal orientation, but I wonder if there is a way to get at it which upholds the singularity of the Christ Event. As far as I know there is no one dealing with the question in that manner, except maybe the Radox-ers, but I'm not too interested in that approach. I wonder if a pneumatologically situated Christology (Catherine Keller comes to mind) might help with this problem. I've always found it interesting that Caputo is reticent to speak of the Spirit in any substantial sense. Might it be that the Spirit is that which animates all events, perhaps most saliently the Christ Event? I can't go into right now, but I also think that this problematic and tension cannot be resolved without an adequate discussion of time as well. Indeed that may strike to the heart.

I think I appreciate Tillich only insofar as he is the grandfather of radical theology. He opened up radical theological thinking which influenced later theologians like Altizer, Winquist, Crockett, etc. But the content of his acutal theology has never really intrigued me. I also initially didn't see what big deal was about Barth until I began making headways into his Church Dogmatics. It really is that impressive. I certianly have my diagreements, but his theology is just so damn thorough and rigorous. Also, I think my love for Altizer is what has really increased my respect for Barth and his radical revisions of the doctrine of election, etc.

I understand your aversion to strong ecclesial institutions. I don't go to church either, and I find that many of recent theologians who fetishize the church (Hauerwas et al.) are way off base, which is why I think the dissolution of the church/world dicothomy as advanced by liberation theologians is a really helpful way to get around this temptation.

I've read a few selections from A Thousand Plateaus with Guatarri but not enough to have any thoughts on it. Hopefully I can finish it and Anti-Oedipus soon.

We may actually be getting somewhere with Barth/Tillich, as I've never really found the former all that helpful while I feel indebted to the latter as the headwaters or originary impetus for my own theology (though I do have noticeable differences with him). Even though I would call myself a Caputoian(?) in some sense I think those are important criticisms of his work. (As a side-note, I think that biographically a lot of this may have to do with my distancing myself from the hyper-confessional religious environment in which I was raised.)