Sacrifice, Conflict, and the Foundation of Culture

A Response to Merold Westphal

Jayne Svenungsson, Th. D., Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, Stockholm School of
Theology, Sweden

While preparing my reflections for this article, a film scene has recurred
in my mind several times. It is one of the key scenes in the German-Turkish
director Fatih Akin’s celebrated drama Auf der anderen Seite, one of the
most thought-provoking depictions of cultural conflicts and perhaps also of
sacrifice in European cinema in recent years. While watching people on their
way to celebrate the Kurban Bayram, the Feast of Sacrifice, from a window
in Istanbul, Nejat – the son of a Turkish guest worker in Germany, increas-
ingly distanced from his father – recalls how the story of Ibrahim’s willing-
ness to sacrifice his son used to scare him as a child, and how he once asked
his father what he would have done if he had been in Ibrahim’s place. “And
what did your father answer?” The question is asked by the person to whom
he has just confided the memory, his newly made acquaintance Susanne, a
German woman whose daughter has become victim, a few days earlier, of
inter-cultural conflict and violence at its most tragic and pointless level. “He
said he would even have made God his enemy in order to protect me”.1

I. Kierkegaard, Levinas and the Akedah

Like the Akedah story itself, this film scene brings to the fore the ques-
tion of loyalty, or rather, of conflicting loyalties. On the one hand, there is
our loyalty to those who are near and dear to us, but also to the shared
norms of our society or culture. On the other hand, there is our loyalty
to God’s commands, to divine otherness, to that which transcends the pre-
vailing norms of a particular social or cultural context. Following Merold
Westphal’s inspiring reflections on two famous philosophical comments on
the Akedah, by Søren Kierkegaard and Emmanuel Levinas respectively,
one could say that the father’s answer in the film illustrates a very anti-
Kierkegaardian turn, choosing the ethical before the religious, fatherly duty
towards the son before obedience to God’s commands. Levinas, strongly
rejecting the argument put forth by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling,
would probably have rejoiced if he had seen the film. In fact, it offers an
even more radical version – the father’s complete refusal of God’s com-

1 Fatih Akin, Auf der anderen Seite (2007), official English film title: The Edge of Heaven.

NZSTh, 50. Bd., S. 331–342 DOI 10.1515/NZST.2008.023

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332 Jayne S v e n u n g s so n

mands – of what Levinas regards as the highest moment in the story of the
Akedah: when Abraham hears the second voice, the one that commands
him not to go through with the sacrifice of his son.2
As Westphal points out, however, there are several weak points in
Levinas’ adamant rejection of Kierkegaard’s argument. What Kierkegaard
draws attention to in an unparalleled way in his reading of Abraham –
especially of the way in which God interacts with Abraham – is how the
biblical image of God provides us with a unique notion of transcendence,
a transcendence that by definition cannot be reduced to any particular hu-
man culture, moral order, or legal system. Even those who would not ad-
here to the biblical idea of God in any literal sense would be – and have
been – able to see the principal value of such a notion.3 However, in order
to recognize the link between this more principal level of the argument and
Kierkegaard’s close reading of the Akedah story, it is important to observe –
as does Westphal – that “the ethical” set forth in Fear and Trembling is not
in any simple way identical with the ethical as such (e.g. as it is construed
in Platonic, Thomistic, or even Kantian contexts), but precisely with partic-
ular social norms, embodied in particular institutions and practices. Thus,
throughout the text, Kierkegaard links “the ethical” or “universal” to the
term det sædelige – Hegel’s Sittlichkeit – denoting the prevailing laws and
customs of a particular people.4
If the principal value of Kierkegaard’s argument lies precisely in this,
i.e. in providing a notion of transcendence never reducible to a function
of any human culture, then one might find it a bit perplexing that Levinas
is so much at odds with Kierkegaard. As few other philosophers in mod-
ern time, Levinas advocated a strong concept of transcendence, even to the
point of being accused of bearing the major responsibility for the so-called
theological turn which aspects of Western philosophy have taken in recent
decades.5 However, those familiar with Levinas’ thought know that his con-
cern with transcendence and alterity is not primarily of a theological nature,
but rather of an ethical one. Transcendence is invoked by Levinas first and
foremost as a safeguard against immanentism; a limit concept preventing
the subject from closing in on itself, ultimately becoming totalitarian and
violent. Against this backdrop it is, as Westphal rightly remarks, indeed
astonishing that Levinas does not to a higher degree recognize his kinship
with Kierkegaard. Above all, it is remarkable that he does not recognize

2 Emmanuel Levinas, Noms propres (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1976), 108–109.

3 Cf. Jacques Derrida’s reading of Fear and Trembling in Idem, Donner la mort (Paris: Galilée,
1999).
4 See, in addition to Merold Westphal ’s article in the present volume, Idem, “Kierkegaard and
Hegel,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by Alastair Hannay and Gordon
D. Marino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 101–124.
5 See Dominique Janicaud, Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (Combas:
L’Éclat, 1991).

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 Sacrifice, Conflict, and the Foundation of Culture 333

the strong similarities between Kierkegaard’s ethical stage – the universal

in which the individual loses his singularity – and his own concept of the
political, associated with totality, violence and war. The idea of having this
order disrupted by the advent of the truly transcendent should not be that
strange to Levinas.
To be entirely fair, however, one should acknowledge that in certain
remarks Levinas is indeed more generous in his reading of Kierkegaard,
seemingly aware of the fact that the latter’s concept of the ethical has quite
other connotations than his own concept of the ethical as infinite respon-
sibility for the other.6 Yet, in the end, he parts company with Kierkegaard,
refusing to buy into his fascination for Abraham as a “solitary tête-à-tête”
with God, enjoying unmediated contact with divine transcendence, inde-
pendently of the ethical other. So, what is ultimately at issue between the
two thinkers?
Westphal’s answer – and I partly agree with him – is that we are
ultimately concerned with two rather different notions of transcendence.
Whereas the truly transcendent for Kierkegaard is the biblical God, it is for
Levinas first and foremost the neighbor. It should, of course, be recognized
that there is a notion of God present also in Levinas’ philosophy, a notion
closely tied to his idea of radical otherness. But it is a notion that seems
to be more of a philosophical nature than of a religious or biblical one,
although this might be a matter of interpretation. What is incontestable,
nevertheless, is that Levinas simply does not share the image of God that is
presupposed by many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible and the New Tes-
tament, most prominently the belief in God as an interlocutor, as a speaker
and agent interacting with humanity at particular times and places in the
course of history. Referring to Levinas’ recurrent rejection of a “world be-
hind the scenes,” of a notion of transcendence understood in spatial terms,
Westphal thus concludes that what ultimately seems to be at issue between
the two thinkers is hardly the gap between Jew and Christian, but rather
the gap between monotheist and non-theist.
This conclusion also leads Westphal to part ways with Levinas, posing
the critical question: “If, as Levinas insists, there is no ‘world behind the
scenes,’ where might one find a truly divine agent?” Westphal’s unease with
Levinas, if my interpretation is correct, above all concerns the failure of his
notion of transcendence – as indissolubly linked to the face of the ethical
other – to offer something truly external to human inter-sociality, something
in the name of which our cultures and societies can be challenged the day
they tend to close in on (or, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, become
“tired of”) themselves.
In Kierkegaard’s reading of Abraham’s sacrifice, by contrast, Westphal
finds a truly challenging account of divine transcendence. It should be made

6 Cf. Levinas, Noms propres (see above, n. 2), 100.

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334 Jayne S v e n u n g s so n

clear, however, that it is not the focus on God’s command to Abraham

to sacrifice his son which infuses the account with a challenging force. As
Westphal states already in the opening of his article, Kierkegaard’s argument
is to a very small degree an argument about sacrifice. Rather, it is about
faith; about trust in God’s promises and obedience to God’s commands.
The same could also be said of the Akedah story itself, especially when seen
in the light of its larger context (i.e. the Hebrew Bible). In other words,
although the story does tell of a God whose justice and holiness require
sacrifice, it also – and above all – tells of a God whose love and mercy
provides Abraham with a substitute – the ram – and in so doing gives him
his son back. Thus, the story offers a kind of prototype for the way in which
God will continue to provide his grace to those who put their trust in him.
If there is anything culture-founding to be found in the Akedah story, it is
accordingly not the commanded sacrifice, but rather this “providing” from
God’s side and the “obeying” and “trusting” on the part of Abraham (and,
by extension, the covenant people).
Still, to conclude Westphal’s argument, the most pertinent point to
be drawn from the story is perhaps not the extent to which it is culture-
founding, but precisely the fact that it offers – at least in Kierkegaard’s
interpretation – a notion of transcendence that challenges and unsettles hu-
man culture. Westphal thus concludes: “Since God as speaker and agent is
never reducible to a function of any human culture, biblical sacrifice strikes
me more as the disruption and displacing of human culture than its foun-
dation. It is rather an ever recurring shaking of the foundations.”

II. Transcendence and mediation

Before I move on to some critical considerations, let me first empha-

size that I agree with Westphal’s basic arguments as well as his conclusion,
i.e. the rejection of the idea of sacrifice as culture-founding, but also the ad-
vancement of a notion of transcendence which might offer critical resistance
to the prevailing beliefs and customs of our cultures. I also agree in large
part with the way in which he juxtaposes Kierkegaard and Levinas with
each other, and not least of all with the way in which he problematizes Lev-
inas’ occasionally unnuanced reading of Kierkegaard. Still, it is precisely in
this juxtaposition that I wish to take my point of departure, in order to out-
line my critical response and in due course to develop my own contribution
to the topic.
In brief, I wonder whether it is not oversimplifying matters somewhat
to state that what is ultimately at issue between Kierkegaard and Levinas
is the difference between monotheism and non-theism; between truly di-
vine transcendence and inter-subjective ethical transcendence. Is not the
real question rather how and where transcendence breaks through in the

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 Sacrifice, Conflict, and the Foundation of Culture 335

first place? I shall return to this question below, but let me first take a short
detour and examine more closely the notion of transcendence put forth by
Levinas.
As Westphal lucidly reveals elsewhere, there is a significant common
structure in the notions of transcendence propounded by Kierkegaard and
Levinas: both could be described as attempts to go beyond onto-theology.7
This is, of course, avant la lettre in the case of Kierkegaard, as the entire en-
terprise of overcoming onto-theology is defined and launched by Heidegger.
In the case of Levinas, however, the attempt to think of God as “otherwise
than being” is set forth precisely within this Heideggerian framework.8 In
other words, Levinas’ argument is developed within a deeply phenomeno-
logical discourse, something which Westphal also underlines in other writ-
ings on Levinas.9
Against this backdrop, it is indeed somewhat astonishing to find in the
present article such an uncharitable reading of Levinas’ statement that there
is “no world beyond the scenes,” as though this statement would stand in
opposition to divine transcendence. Far from being a simple rejection of
the depth or mystery of the world (to use theological terms), the statement
is rather a renunciation of the mythological idea of a world beyond (with
its philosophical counterpart in the Platonic dualism of two worlds); of
transcendence conceived of in spatial terms. Furthermore, it is important
precisely to recognize the phenomenological context within which Levinas’
quest for a truly transcendent transcendence is set forth. Thus, transcen-
dence is above all an issue linked to human subjectivity or consciousness;
this is the site where transcendence occurs. But how does this actually take
place? A possible answer would be in the form of our experience of divine
otherness, of a supersensible being beyond sensible beings. The problem
with such an answer, however, is that this experience will always already be
conceptualized by our imagination, which is why there is no guarantee that
we are really dealing with something truly transcendent. In phenomenolog-
ical terms, we are still trapped within being, within onto-theology, running

7 See Merold Westphal , Transcendence and Self-Transcendence: On God and the Soul (Bloom-
ington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004), ch. 7–8, and Idem, “Commanded
Love and Divine Transcendence in Levinas and Kierkegaard,” in The Face of the Other & the
Trace of God: Essays on the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, ed. by Jeffrey Bloechl (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 200–223.
8 See Emmanuel Levinas, Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence (La Haye: Martinus Ni-
jhoff, 1974). In the academic year following the publication of Autrement qu’être, 1975–1976,
Levinas gave his last courses at the Sorbonne, one of which was on the subject of “God and
onto-theology”; see Idem, Dieu, la mort et le temps (Paris: Grasset, 1993), Le Livre de Poche:
135–279.
9 See Westphal , Transcendence (see above, n. 7), 177–200, notably 192.

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336 Jayne S v e n u n g s so n

the risk of confusing divine otherness with a “highest being” or, in Levinas’
terms, an “idol.”10
It is in order to avoid this risk that Levinas proposes another answer, an
attempt to remove divine transcendence from the realm of onto-theology by
situating it in the pre-ontological presence of the ethical claim placed on me
by the other human being. This is not to say that the divine other is identical
with the ethical other; that the alterity of God in the end amounts to the
alterity of the neighbor.11 It is, however, to say that divine transcendence –
if it is to remain transcendent and not become reduced to my intentionality
– is ultimately manifested in and through (the infinite resistance of) the face
of the other human being. In other words, by commanding me to (assume
infinite responsibility for) my neighbor, God or “the Desirable” inverts my
intentionality and so disrupts my desire to render divine transcendence fully
present to mind (and thus create an “idol”).12
One could, of course, raise the question of the precise nature of the
“God” presupposed by Levinas. However, I wish to set this question aside,
as it is of no crucial significance for the more important question which is
opened up by his argument and which I wish to redirect attention to: the
question of how and where transcendence breaks through, but also of how
to keep transcendence “truly transcendent” and avoid “idolatry.” Whether
we conceive of divine transcendence as something remote and abstract or
assume the idea of a personal God interacting with humanity throughout
the course of history, we still need to ask these questions. On a more general
level, we touch upon hermeneutical questions pertaining to (claims to) di-
vine revelation. To claim that transcendence – or divine revelation – occurs
by way of unmediated contact between the divine other and the individual
consciousness is to make ourselves immediately vulnerable to idolatry, to
the temptation of confusing our own imaginations and convictions about
God (or God’s will) with divine transcendence as such. Furthermore, as
these convictions are never truly challenged, idolatry always carries with it
the risk of growing violent, of disregarding or denying every claim to di-

10 Cf. Levinas, Dieu, la mort et le temps (see above, n. 8), 190–194, and Idem, De Dieu qui
vient à l’idée, 2nd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1986), 103–104.
11 Cf. Levinas, De Dieu (see above, n. 10), 115: “Dieu n’est pas simplement le ‘premier autrui’

ou ‘autrui par excellence’ ou ‘l’absolument autrui,’ mais autre qu’autrui, autre autrement, autre
d’altérité préalable à l’alterité d’autrui, à l’astreinte éthique au prochain, et différent de tout
prochain, transcendant jusqu’à l’absence, jusqu’à sa confusion possible avec le remue-ménage
de l’il y a.”
12 Cf. Levinas, De Dieu (see above, n. 10), 113–115: “Pour que le désintéressement soit possible

dans le Désir de l’Infini, pour que le Désir au-delà de l’être, ou la transcendence, ne soit pas
une absorbtion dans l’immanence qui ainsi ferait son retour, il faut que le Désirable ou Dieu
reste séparé dans le Désir; comme desirable – proche mais différent – Saint. Cela ne se peut que
si le Désirable m’ordonne à ce qui est le non-désirable, à l’indésirable par excellence, à autrui.
[. . . ] Dans ce retournement éthique, dans ce renvoi du Désirable au Non-désirable [. . . ] Dieu
est arraché à l’objectivité, à la présence et à l’être.”

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 Sacrifice, Conflict, and the Foundation of Culture 337

vine revelation which does not correspond to the proper experiences of the
singular subject. Needless to say, this risk is not eliminated by stressing that
transcendence, if it is to remain truly transcendent, has to be deciphered
in and through the other human being.13 Yet, by removing claims to divine
revelation from an individual to an inter-subjective level, the risk of idolatry
is certainly decreased (this is where the significance of traditions comes into
the picture).
In drawing these conclusions, I am of course stretching Levinas’ ar-
gument far beyond the strictly phenomenological level on which it is orig-
inally made. Nevertheless, I wish to claim that his argument has an im-
portant principal value precisely when we approach this more general – or
perhaps rather more concrete – level. This leads me back to Westphal’s con-
clusions. Like Westphal, I see the value of a notion of transcendence which
might “disrupt” and “displace” human culture from time to another. How-
ever, I would be reluctant to put forth such a notion in terms of “God as
speaker and agent,” especially in relation to the story of the Akedah. To
express my reservations bluntly: God might very well be a speaker and an
agent, but as human beings are trapped in finitude, in the end there will
always be someone who is (i.e. claims to be) God’s spokesman. And this
is precisely where Levinas’ argument becomes significant, in that it points
to the fact that transcendence as such never occurs as an unmediated af-
fair between God and the individual, and also to the potential violence
inherent in claims to having such unmediated access to divine transcen-
dence.
This is also why, for me, it does not really make sense to state, as
does Kierkegaard, that Abraham has no language in which to communicate
his horrendous experience of God.14 As finite beings we are never entirely
without a language; on the contrary, being immersed in language is precisely
what constitutes us as finite beings. Thus, even when we interpret our most
personal experiences of divine transcendence – for those of us who claim
to have such experiences – we do so in a more or less common language,
in enduring collective conceptions and narratives (of course, to claim tran-
scendence to be “divine” is already part of these interpretative schemes).
Moreover, such conceptions and narratives are never innocent; they do not
merely mirror our experiences of divine otherness, but rather shape these
experiences, as well as the consequences for our thought and actions which
we draw from them.

13 After all, collective convictions about divine alterity can become just as good “idols” as indi-
vidual ones.
14 This is not to deny the complexity of the notion of silence operating in Fear and Trembling;

nor to deny that silence indeed contains a critical potential against an empty and objectifying
language. Such silence, however, is precisely already part of language in the fundamental sense
to which I refer below.

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338 Jayne S v e n u n g s so n

The way in which the story of the Akedah for the early Jesus movement
served as an interpretative key for the understanding of the life and death of
Jesus (c.f. John 1:29; 3:16; 1 Rom. 8:32; 1 Pet. 1:18–20) is illustrative in this
respect.15 One could even claim that the interpretation of Jesus as the sac-
rificial lamb provided by God for the sake of our atonement had the effect
of preserving and reinforcing the Akedah as one of the most durable and
influential motifs in Western civilization. As such, it has not only fueled our
theological imagination, but also shaped cultural, social and psychological
patterns throughout history. And – to return to my reservations regarding
an all too easily made appeal to the God of Genesis as speaker and agent –
these patterns are not only of benign character. For instance, as psychoana-
lysts, philosophers and theologians – notably from a feminist perspective –
have pointed out, the image of a God demanding sacrifice (and, according
to certain Christian theologies of atonement, offering his own son as a sub-
stitute sacrifice) has tended to sanction structures of violence, victimization
and glorification of undeserved suffering, which afflict women and children
in particular.16
To conclude my argument, I have no problem with the idea of divine
transcendence as such, or even the idea of divine transcendence unsettling
human culture. But we must be very careful about how and when we ap-
peal to such transcendence. In a world – and I am now referring to con-
temporary European societies – where a father can still throw his daughter
from a fourth-floor balcony in the name of some perverse idea of divinely
commanded honor, I do believe there are good reasons to remain skeptical
towards a too strong fascination with Abraham’s unconditional obedience
to God’s command.17 On the contrary, we should persistently ask ourselves
where true transcendence is situated – which is also a question of how we
read and draw on common, culturally constitutive narratives, such as the
story of the Akedah. Once again, narratives are never innocent, neither are
15 See e.g. Jesper Svartvik, Skriftens ansikte: Konsten att läsa mellan raderna (Lund: Arcus,
2001), 42–50.
16 See e.g. Alice Miller, Der gemiedene Schlüssel, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,

1988), and Rita Nakashima Brock, Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power (New
York: Crossroad, 1988). A good overview of different critiques of sacrificial theology is given
by Joanne Marie Terrell in “Our Mothers’ Gardens: Rethinking Sacrifice,” in Cross Exam-
inations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today, ed. by Marit Trelstad (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2006), 33–49. To do justice to Westphal, it should once again be underlined that
it is not that God commands sacrifice, but rather that God provides a substitute that is central
to his argument. Still, as womanist theologians in particular have pointed out in recent years,
there is also a problem linked to the idea of Jesus as a substitute or a surrogate figure, in that
it has tended to reinforce the particular form of oppression afflicting black women throughout
history, i.e. being forced into surrogate roles in relationship to white men, women, and chil-
dren, but also to black men. See notably Dolores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The
Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993).
17 I am referring, in particular, to yet another case of honor killing that has taken place in a

European city – this time in Sweden – during the time I have been working on this article.

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 Sacrifice, Conflict, and the Foundation of Culture 339

they one-dimensional, which is why we constantly have to take responsi-

bility for our interpretations, and for the interpretative schemes we choose.
For the very concrete reasons indicated above, I am, for my part, inclined
to choose Levinas’ reading of the Akedah story, suggesting that divine tran-
scendence is not situated in the bizarre voice commanding Abraham to sac-
rifice his son – even if only for the sake of putting his faith to the test – but
rather in the fear and trembling expressed in the child’s face, conveying the
truly divine command: “Thou shalt not kill.”

III. The Anti-sacrificial Foundation of Human Culture

Against this backdrop I would like to offer some more explicit reflec-
tions on the question whether sacrifice is to be seen as constitutive of human
culture. As I have already pointed out, like Westphal, I reject the idea of sac-
rifice as culture-founding, or, to be more specific, as culture-founding in any
ultimate way. I am thus not denying that sacrifice de facto can have a func-
tion that could be labeled “culture-founding” in a broad sense. It is precisely
this function, I believe, which has been brought to light in an unpreceded
way by René Girard’s numerous studies on the “scapegoating” structures
which seem to accompany any human culture. In other words, in history
as well as in contemporary life, we tend to reinforce our sense of belong-
ing together by arbitrarily identifying an enemy or outsider who – literary
or figuratively – is sacrificed. It is not hard to come up with examples to
highlight this logic; one need only think of the paranoid depictions of the
Muslim presence in Europe conveyed by the so-called “Eurabia literature”
in recent years.18
However, although Girard recognizes this process of identifying (albeit
not necessarily expunging) something which is “other” or “different” as an
inevitable part of the very creation of identities, the most pertinent claim put
forth by him is rather that sacrifice is not culture-founding – if by culture
we mean something wider and deeper than merely sticking together against
a common enemy. In other words, Girard recognizes that sacrifice can –
and all too often does – have the effect of serving as glue for our cultural
identities. But then we are speaking of “culture-founding” in a negative
sense, since someone is obviously paying the price for this glue, i.e. the
scapegoat. And it is precisely the necessity of this logic that Girard wishes
to challenge.
Interestingly, this leads us back to the discussion of biblical sacrifice.
As those familiar with the work of Girard well know, this is exactly where

18 See e.g. Bat Ye’or, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Univer-
sity Press, 2005), and Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the
West from Within (New York: Broadway Books, 2006).

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340 Jayne S v e n u n g s so n

he takes his point of departure in his endeavor to challenge the belief in sac-
rifice as a necessarily constitutive part of human culture. Through a number
of anthropological readings, Girard identifies in the Hebrew Scriptures an
emergent tendency of questioning our scapegoating mechanisms by reveal-
ing the innocence of the victim and thus undermining the entire logic of vic-
timization. His examples run from God’s recurrent rehabilitation of figures
who have unjustifiably suffered, such as Joseph and Job, to the prophets’
taking sides with precisely those figures who are normally most likely to
become scapegoats: the widow, the stranger, and the orphan. This entire
development reaches, according to Girard, its climax in the Gospel stories
of the New Testament, where God’s identification with the victim and thus
rejection of sacrifice is fully revealed.19
Rather than considering sacrifice as essential to the founding of human
culture, Girard is in fact suggesting the opposite. In other words, it is the
biblical rejection of sacrifice which ultimately paves the way for modern
civilization, including its democratic tendencies. Looking at Western civi-
lization, it is thus possible to discern an essential link between the biblical
rehabilitation of the victim and the gradual historical development towards
less inhumane punishment; towards improved social and legal protection
of potential victims; towards recognition of our duties and responsibilities
beyond family bonds, etc. – in short, towards culture in the more complex
sense of the word.20
In one sense, I believe, Girard’s argument offers an interesting parallel
to Westphal’s suggestion that the biblical view of sacrifice implies a disrup-
tion and displacement of human culture rather than its foundation. At least
if we conceive of human culture as something self-absorbed, discarding ev-
ery kind of otherness (cf. Pope Benedict XVI’s diagnosis of Europe), we
come close to Girard’s analysis of human cultures governed by the scape-
goating logic. It is also clear that both Westphal and Girard wish to disrupt
this form of culture by invoking a sort of transcendence, or at least an order
which is transcendent in relation to this culture. However, having recog-
nized these similarities, I think that Girard points to an important aspect
which is lacking in Westphal’s rather pessimistic account of human culture
per se: the fact that the biblical view of sacrifice not only disrupts a certain
form of (perverted) human culture, but also inaugurates human culture in
a more benign sense (cf. above).
This difference has significant implications for the question I discussed
earlier, i.e. how and where transcendence ultimately occurs. In Westphal’s
conclusion, it seems we are left with the rather sordid picture of contempo-

19 See notably René Girard, Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde: Recherches
avec Jean-Michel Oughourlian et Guy Lefort (Paris: Grasset, 1978), and Idem, Je vois Satan
tomber comme l’éclair (Paris: Grasset, 1999).
20 Girard , Je vois Satan (see above, n. 19), ch. 13.

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 Sacrifice, Conflict, and the Foundation of Culture 341

rary culture drawn by Pope Benedict XVI, a condition which can only be
challenged by invoking a “God who transcends and relativises every cul-
ture,” senkrecht von oben as it were. If we assume, by contrast, that we not
only live in a culture where our selfish and scapegoating inclinations en-
dure, but that this very culture is, at the same time, the gradual realization
of the anti-sacrificial logic revealed in the Scriptures, then the “disruption”
and “displacement” becomes something that persistently takes place pre-
cisely within this culture – within its Sittlichkeit, one might even say. This,
I believe, is how and where transcendence breaks through and challenges
us, although deciphering the exact “how” and “where” involves an ongo-
ing hermeneutical task; a daily practice of asking whose side I am on, the
oppressor’s or the victim’s. Or, in Girard’s words, a practice of constantly
responding to the question posed by Jesus to Paul on his way to Damascus:
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4).21

SUMMARY

In the wake of the geo-political development in recent years, the question of sacrifice has
come to the fore in the contemporary philosophical discussion. Does sacrifice merely sharpen con-
flicts between cultures, or should it be seen as an inevitable part of their foundation? This article
addresses the question from the perspective of the biblical view of sacrifice, expressed paradigmat-
ically in the story of the Akedah. The author picks up Merold Westphal’s argument – developed
in extension to Kierkegaard – that the biblical view of sacrifice rather implies an unsettling of
human culture, by pointing to a God whose transcendence disrupts and relativises every human
culture. However, although Westphal’s appeal for transcendence is greeted, a more discriminating
approach to transcendence, involving phenomenological and hermeneutical questions, is pleaded
for. The author seeks to outline such an approach by combining Emmanuel Levinas’ critical read-
ing of the Akedah with René Girard’s argument that the Bible ultimately reveals an anti-sacrificial
logic.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Als eine Folge der geopolitischen Entwicklung der vergangenen Jahre rückt die Frage des
Opferns in den Vordergrund der aktuellen philosophischen Debatte. Verschärft dieses Thema die
Konflikte zwischen den Kulturen, oder sollte es als ein unumgänglicher Teil der Begründung der
Kulturen betrachtet werden? Der vorliegende Artikel widmet sich dieser Frage aus der Perspek-
tive des biblischen Opferverständnisses, wie es exemplarisch in der Geschichte von der Akedah
(Opferung Isaaks) expliziert ist. Die Autorin nimmt Merold Westphals Argument auf, das aus-
gehend von Kierkegaard entwickelt wurde und das besagt, dass der biblische Umgang mit dem
Opfern die Destabilisierung der menschlichen Kultur darstellt, indem auf einen Gott verwiesen
wird, dessen Transzendenz jede menschliche Kultur unterbricht und relativiert. Auch wenn West-

21 Girard , Je vois Satan (see above, n. 19), 295: ”La conversion chrétienne c’est toujours cette
question posée par le Christ lui-même. Du seul fait que nous vivons dans un monde struc-
turé par des processus mimétiques et victimaires dont nous profitons tous sans le savoir, nous
sommes tous complices de la crucifixion.”

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342 Jayne S v e n u n g s so n

phals Anspruch auf Transzendenz zu begrüßen ist, wird eine differenziertere Antwort angestrebt,
die phänomenologische und hermeneutische Fragen mit einbezieht. Die Autorin skizziert diesen
Ansatz, indem sie Emmanuel Levinas’ kritische Lesart der Akedah mit René Girard’s These zusam-
menbringt, dass die Bibel letztlich eine Logik offenbart, die sich gegen den Vorgang des Opferns
richtet.

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