4
For Taylor, following the lead of Derrida, this perspective also implies the
elimination of any translinguistic referent for linguistic signs, because signs only refer to
other signs -- there is no "real thing" beyond language. This denial of a translinguistic
referent is deduced from the death of God but also from experience. We have no access
to uninterpreted data, nor to a prelinguistic world.
20
As Taylor submits,
The free play of signs subverts the economy of signification that grounds the
ontotheological tradition of the West. ... Without a signified to serve as a secure
anchor, signifiers float freely within a field that appears to be endless. Signs, in
other words, are always signs of signs.
21
II. Taylor's Optimistic Nihilism: An "Erring" Grace
As one can imagine, Taylor's radical deconstruction of these crucial areas of
theology certainly leave an empty hole in Western thought.
22
In their place Taylor
proposes an a/theological "affirmative" nihilism: "rather than suffering these losses
passively, it actively and willingly embraces nihilism and thereby overcomes it."
23
He
says "it might be defined as something like a nonnegative negative theology that
nonetheless is not positive. A/theology pursues or, more precisely, is pursued by an
alterity that neither exists nor does not exist but is beyond both Being and Nonbeing."
24
Yet, ironically, Taylor likens death of God theology to Christian redemption in that
death leads to rebirth. Taylor adds: "When negation is doubled, it yields affirmation.
By negating transcendence, the death of God leads to the total presence of Being here
and now."
25
A. Erring
"Erring," according to Taylor, is wandering -- a deviation from the intended
course.
26
Consequently, the erring thinker is not black or white, not necessarily
theological nor nontheological, theistic nor atheistic. An a/theology is for those in the
margin. This / of Taylor's a/theology (which can be written, yet not spoken) signifies
. . . . Write to betray nothing. An end "beyond" the end of theology. And end that never arrives but always
betrays."
20
Griffin, "Postmodern Theology and A/theology," p. 33.
21
Taylor, Erring, p. 172.
22
See Tilley, Postmodern Theologies, pp. 61-62.
23
Griffin, "Postmodern Theology and A/theology," p. 34. See also Taylor, Erring, p. 140.
24
Taylor, Disfiguring, p. 316 as quoted in Tilley, Postmodern Theologies, p. 62. Taylor's approach should not be
confused with pure "negative theology." Taylor succinctly articulates the difference: "While negative
theologians tend to regard nothing as the binary or dialectical opposite of being, the a/theologian interprets
nothing as neither being nor nonbeing." Taylor, Tears, p. 225.
25
Mark C. Taylor, "Reframing Postmodernisms," p. 19.
26
This term does not originate with Taylor. For example we may note Hiedegger's usage of this term in his
essay, "On the Essence of Truth," in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: HarperCollins,
1993), pp. 132-135. Heidegger states: "Man's flight from the mystery toward what is readily available, onward
from one current thing to the next, passing the mystery by this is erring." (p. 133)