The Satanic and the Theomimetic: Distinguishing and Reconciling ‘Sacrifice’ in René Girard and Gregory the Great (original) (raw)
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Sacrifice and Redemption: A New Approach From Mimetic Theory
2021
What is the meaning of theories of redemption, and what use do they have? This dissertation answers these questions from the vantage point of two ideas from Girardian Mimetic Theory: the hypothesis that human relationality is rooted in triangular structures of desire, and the hypothesis that the sacrificial death of Christ is what Girard calls a scapegoating event.For Girard, ritual sacrifice is a repetition of an original scapegoating event on which social cohesion depends. With the death of Christ, scapegoating has been denuded and sacrifice rendered inoperable, bringing humanity into a novel historical situation. Using Girard’s early seminal texts alongside crucial developments in his later work, I develop the thesis that the redemptive work is structurally a sacrificial act, but aimed at the transcending of sacrifice and the transformation of the generative potential of scapegoating; correspondingly with this objective redemptive work, believers in Christ undergo a conversion th...
RENÉ GIRARD’S CONCEPT OF MIMETIC DESIRE, SCAPEGOAT MECHANISM AND BIBLICAL DEMISTIFICATION
2014
This article provides an overview of René Girard’s concept of mimetic desire, scapegoat mechanism and biblical demystification. It also attempts to explain the basic notions of his anthropology and to contextualize them in relation to the conceptions of philosophers like Freud, Durkheim and Nietzsche. The paper starts with an introduction to the widely discussed problem of mimetic desire. It sees Girard’s mimetic theory as a theory of conflict. Then, it analyzes how violence emerges through mimetic rivalry. From that point, the essay moves to discuss the scapegoat mechanism and the relation between violence and the sacred in archaic societies. Finally, it examines the conception of Judeo-Christian demystification of mimesis and surrogate victim.
Christianity as a sacrificial religion in the dramatic soteriology of René Girard & Raymund Schwager
The ancient relationship between Christianity and sacrifice is deeply complicated. The mimetic theory of René Girard (1923-2015), a French anthropologist and literary critic, has provided many helpful new insights for this question in the last few decades. Theologians who have engaged with Girard’s ideas, or even adopted a “Girardian” approach to their theology, have further contributed to elucidating the specifics of what is contained within the meaning of the word “sacrifice” and how exactly Christianity incorporates these meanings, rejects them or subverts them. Christianity can well be described as a sacrificial religion - in more ways than one, depending on terminology, interpretation and context.
Reflective Mimesis and Sacrifice in the Mimetic Theory of Rene Girard
The judgement of king Solomon recorded in the first book of the kings, chapter three, is for the great literary critic, Rene Girard a paradigm of the difference between the pre-Christic and Christic cultures of sacrifice. The former is characterized by unanimous violence or scapegoating against the innocent, while the latter is a creative renunciation of violence to save the innocent. The Christic culture of sacrifice according Girard, is informed by the Cross and built on the principles of the mimetic theory, namely, mimetic desire. Mimetic desire is the unconscious, involuntary and uncontrollable driving force of human events. Unfortunately, creative renunciation of the will to violence understood as the Christic form of sacrifice, involves a mental reflection that is inconsistent with the mimetic theory. This paper presents the reflective mimesis as a necessary prerequisite for the renunciation of the will towards violence. It is an ethical disposition informed by the cross and built on a rational expression of mimesis. The sacrifice that is informed by the action of the cross is premeditated and not spontaneous.
Anselm, Girard, and Sacramental Theology
In celebrating the Eucharist, Christians unite themselves to the sacrifice of Jesus, representing it in an unbloody way that realizes its role in human salvation. But what does Christ’s death, which Anselm’s atonement theology sees as the necessary cause of redemption, mean to us personally? What is our experience of sin and how does the Eucharist save us from it? Rene Girard, in his later writings, posits a biblical anthropology that shifts our focus from Christ’s satisfaction of God’s justice to the transformative effect his death has on our human self-understanding. Far from contradicting Anselm, Girard suggests Christ’s sacrifice unmasks our sinful patterns of violence against the weak in a way that humanizes atonement theology. By explicating Girard and Anselm in terms of each other, I will argue in this essay that Christ is indeed a scapegoat who substitutes himself in satisfaction for our sins, and that this substitution is necessary insofar as it reveals sin as a satanic pattern of violence against the weak. In a sacramental context, it follows that the Eucharist becomes effective in our lives when it leads us to acknowledge our sinful participation in Christ’s death, translating our nonviolent imitation of his love into care for the people we collectively victimize.
The Dark God: The Sacrifice of Sacrifice
Religions
The Frazerian question of murder turned into ritual sacrifice is foundational to cultural anthropology. Frazer described the antinomian figure of a king, who was, at once, a priest and a murderer. Generations of anthropologists have studied sacrifice in ethnographic contexts and theorized about its religious significance. But sacrifice itself may turn into a problem, and René Girard wrote about “the sacrificial crisis”, when the real issue is the failure of a sacrifice that goes wrong. The present paper addresses such a “sacrificial crisis” in the experience of my own Basque generation. I will argue that the crisis regarding sacrifice is pivotal. But my arguments will take advantage of the background of a more recent ethnography I wrote on the political and cultural transformations of this generation. This requires that I expand the notion of “sacrifice” from my initial approach of ethnographic parallels towards a more subjective and psychoanalytical perspective. As described in my ...
We cannot think about the ideal of a humanity that is pleasing to God other than by the idea of a man who would be willing not only to perform all human duty himself and at the same time spread good as widely as possible through teaching and example, but also, though tempted by the greatest enticements, to assume all suffering, even to the point of the most ignomious death, for the sake of the best in the world and even for his enemies. Kant