Not only is Stanislas Breton’s The Word and the Cross about a fundamental contradiction that lies at the heart of the gospel, but Breton himself seems a kind of contradiction, at least when juxtaposed with the usual American image of “le philosophe français.” Born in 1912 and orphaned as a child, Breton was educated in the Thomistic tradition as a novice in the Passionist order. During World War II he found himself in a German prison camp with three beloved texts: Bochenski’s Elements of Mathematical Logic, Brunschwig’s Modality of Judgment, and Hamelin’s The Principle Elements of Representation—hardly the sort of stuff American philosophers associate with contemporary “French philosophy.” Although Breton moved away from a strict Thomism—becoming influenced by phenomenology, Neoplatonism, and Marxism—even his later philosophy bears a Thomistic influence and a continuing concern with logical relations, such as the “being-in” and “being-towards” of the persons of the Trinity. As he so charmingly puts it (in an interview appended to the text), such prepositions and conjunctions are “little servants of the Lord.” Much of the fascinating history of Breton’s intellectual development can be found in that appendix and the fine introduction by the translator, Jacquelyn Porter, to whom we can be grateful for a beautiful, flowing translation.
The Word and the Cross (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
Fordham University Press
154 pages
$28.45
Of course, there is another at least seeming contradiction here. With the notable exception of Paul Ricœur and (more recently) Emmanuel Levinas, phenomenology has never been particularly associated with religious reflection. Not that phenomenology ever ruled that out in principle (as Husserl’s assistant Edith Stein made clear). But, at least in France, phenomenology was more associated with the atheism of, say, Jean-Paul Sartre. All that has significantly changed in the past few decades. As Dominique Janicaud points out in his “report” on the state of French philosophy from 1975 to 1990, phenomenology in France has become almost dominated by religious and ethical concerns.1 Although many Americans are now acquainted with the likes of Levinas and perhaps Jean-Luc Marion, they are only just discovering thinkers such as Breton, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean-François Courtine, Jean Greisch, and Michel Henry. Needless to say, these are exciting times for Christians working in the Continental tradition.
As to the contradiction in Breton’s text, it centers on the juxtaposition of logos, moria, dunamis—word, folly, power. In 1 Cor. 1:18, Paul writes, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” How can the phrase “ho logos gar ho staurou” [“For the logos of the Cross”] make sense? After all, the Greek notion of logos is all about order and rational explanation. In contrast, to the Greek mind the Cross was perhaps the ultimate symbol of the irrational, not to mention the immoral. If Aristotle is right that being virtuous is synonymous with acting rationally, then the crucified seems not merely an outlaw but insane. There is good reason, then, for Paul to describe this logos staurou as folly. It can’t make sense to the Greek mind—at least to that which is perishing.
Yet the problem goes even further. Breton connects this verse with what Paul goes on to say (in verse 22) regarding the Jews, who seek signs, and the Greeks, who seek wisdom. The logic of the Cross transcends both Jerusalem and Athens, both the demand of a sign and the demand of giving reasons. Says Breton: “We have left the home of Israel just as we have left the home of Greece. We feel homesick for both.” Leaving those homes, though, is not the same as forgetting them. Indeed, for us in the 21st century, being in the world but not of it means that our present state of mind is framed by demands for empirical evidence (signs) and plausible reasons (rationality). But, thinks Breton, the Cross simply doesn’t give us either.
At this point, one might imagine Breton taking a strategy like the following: while the Cross upsets the wisdom of the world, it reveals (“to us who are being saved”) a new sort of wisdom. But, of course, Paul doesn’t exactly say that. Rather he gives us the enigmatic formula that “the cross is the power of God.” Here Breton makes a move that is undoubtedly controversial but one that should be taken seriously. Instead of arguing that the logos sets up a new “reason” or order, he emphasizes the folly of the Cross. It is, thinks Breton, truly folly: “The folly of the Cross brings us to a chaos. It suggests less the critique of order than the impossibility of realizing it.” So, on Breton’s read, when Paul talks about the confrontation between the word of the Cross and the wisdom of the world, there is as severe a confrontation as can be imagined. In this showdown, the word of the Cross loses—at least in earthly terms. The wisdom of the world retains its mastery in the here and now.
And Breton makes this even more problematic. If we take the doctrine of kenosis seriously, according to him, then Christ really empties himself—in a way that is never recouped or undone. Speaking in highly Neoplatonic terms, Breton characterizes Christ’s very identity as “nothing.” What makes the Cross truly folly is “the literally enormous distance between the true God who is Nothing and these diversely named principalities that share among themselves the empire of being.” This talk of Christ as “nothing” is bound to make the orthodox Christian uneasy, to say the very least. Indeed, Breton seems to be giving an account of kenosis that sounds more Buddhist (in more ways than one) than Christian. Yet it is important to read Breton as speaking not just in the hyperbolic tones that are almost de rigueur in French philosophy but as emphasizing that Christ is in no way part of “the empire of being” that is a creation of human logos and controlled by metaphysics. This “nothingness” is not of this world and cannot be explained by any of its logic. The result is that “the idol of power” is shattered.
But how do we reconcile this emphasis on “nothing” and “emptying” with accounts in the Apocalypse (and elsewhere) of Christ being raised and exalted? Breton never really answers such a question, and I take that to be a significant deficiency in the text. On the other hand, whether there’s truly a contradiction between Breton’s particular emphasis and that exaltation is not quite clear. For one could imagine him saying that Christ’s exaltation—being literally “out of this world”—in no way conflicts with the emptying that takes place within this world. Moreover, Breton readily agrees that “faith has need of a creed that gives it a body of propositions,” so he is hardly substituting “nothing” for the richness of Christian theology. Instead, he is forcing us to take the doctrine of kenosis very seriously. Whether we should affirm his conclusions, of course, is a rather different matter.
A further question might be: is The Word and the Cross too much of an exercise in logic and thus too removed from the practice of Christianity? As is so often the case, the greatest strength of Breton’s little book is its greatest weakness: it is suggestive—often quite powerfully so—but leaves the reader wishing for so much more. At times the book sounds as if it’s driven primarily by logical concerns. But the real question is: what would it look like to live in such a way that we take the folly of the Cross seriously? That question, of course, concerns what it means to experience true metanoia or conversion. To be fair to Breton, the answer to that question is—putting it mildly—difficult to spell out. That Breton does so only inadequately is not a great fault on his part. Jesus himself resorts to stories and parables that give us more a glimpse than a final answer. It is not surprising, then, that Breton ends with a discussion of the beatitudes, which he describes as a “commentary on the decision” of metanoia. Whereas “morality” is all about making rational sense, the beatitudes leave us uneasy. As Breton points out, even the true believers end up being confused at the Last Judgment in Matthew 25, for they have no memory of having clothed or fed the Lord. And Breton is quite content to leave this void unfilled.
Many of us who read Breton will find that unsatisfying. I certainly do, in a number of respects. But the question—one that can hardly be decided here—is the degree to which that lack of satisfaction is due to Breton’s ideas or to a fundamental lack of satisfaction of the demands of reason by the gospel message itself. In either case, Breton’s little text will undoubtedly spur much continuing thought on what it means for the Cross to be truly scandalous.
Bruce Ellis Benson is professor of philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author most recently of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry (InterVarsity) and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music (Cambridge Univ. Press). He is at work on a study of Nietzsche.
1. Dominique Janicaud et al., Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn”: The French Debate (Fordham Univ. Press, 2001).
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