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Zizioulas locates the central difference between patristic and postmodern views of "otherness" in the way each conceives the relation of old and new. For postmodernism, "alterity involves negation, rupture, 'leaving behind', for patristic thought the 'new' relates to the 'old' in a positive way." He demonstrates this by appealing to patristic treament of the Old Testament. Instead of saying that the church's rites were "good" and Israel's "bad," or saying that the new "abolished" the old, they insisted that "since ever 'old' receives its raison d'etre from its significance for the 'new' that follows it, its replacement by the 'new' affirms rather than negates it. Between the 'old' and the 'new,' just as between one particular and another, there is no gap of nothingness, or rupture or separation, but mutual affirmation." For the Fathers, "otherness coincides with communion."
Two thoughts: First, Jesus' "I did not come to abolish but to fulfill" appears to be a leading anti-Derridean proof text. Second, this "teleological or eschatological" ontology is also a Trinitarian ontology. For postmodernism, the later voids the earlier and the Son is not image but parricide. For Trinitarian thought, the later fulfills the earlier because the Son is the exact represention of the Father.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, January 26, 2007 at 07:24 AM
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