Abstract
This paper attempts to read Derrida’s dense and slightly bewildering piece, “How to Avoid Speaking: Denials” (Coward and Forshay 1992). The aim is to show how deconstruction resembles but ultimately differs at the deepest levels from any positive or negative theology; yet, even that statement has to be qualified. For, Derrida’s response to those who may see similarities is itself the subject of critique so that any conflation of deconstruction with negative theology becomes impossible. The logic of an aporia dictates this outcome. By returning to key terms that Derrida puts to innovative use in his powerful critique of the history of metaphysics, religions, and their onto-theological interrelations, namely ‘différance,’ we explore various possibilities as to why the ‘avoidance of speaking’ (Coward and Forshay 1992) even occurs. This framing sets up a chance to revisit Heidegger’s intriguing confession about whether and if he were to write a theology in the future, he would avoid using the word ‘Being’ (Coward and Forshay 1992, 126-127). We argue that in order to truly plumb the depths of this confession, we would have to return to the deepest moments of Being and Time (1962). The goal is to understand why Heidegger’s attempt to articulate the possibility of fundamental ontology departs from not only theology, but any traditional deployment of phenomenology in its engagement with theology. The effect of this is not any kind of defense of dogmatic atheism, particularly on how philosophy can engage fruitfully with questions on time, death, transcendence, and finitude. The paper concludes with the consequences of comparing and contrasting Derrida and Heidegger on the relation between phenomenology and theology for continental philosophy’s future in general.