Eindigheid, eie opstanding en die politiek van differance *

Abstract

Finiteness, own resurrection and the polities of differance Employing Derrida's notion of diffirance, the author approaches the conviction of life after death (-own resurrection -) as a conviction which has been typically marginalized and even disallowed by modernity. The politics of differance, which could be regarded as a postmodern strategy for rehabilitating those aspects of reality which were marginalized by modernity, is shown to have critical consequences for the linear (modern) understanding of finiteness and death. Rather than understand finiteness and own resurrection as being in linear relation, the author appeals to the postmodern persuasion of the siclical nature of reality: death is own resurrection. Death is a life giving gift: The Self dies so that Others may live - and the Self is resurrected when it lives on in the lives of Others. Thus parting company with the empirical understanding of history, death and resurrection, the author leaves us with the tadt question: is this not the way the resurrection of Christ is to be understood? He lives on in us, as we will live on in Others. Wie dood is, is dood, en wie dood is, sallewe - Georges Bataille -