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Saved by Trauma: A Psychoanalytical Reading of the Atonement
Author(s) -
Alwyn Lau W. W.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
dialog
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.114
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1540-6385
pISSN - 0012-2033
DOI - 10.1111/dial.12263
Subject(s) - atonement , sacrifice , reading (process) , element (criminal law) , philosophy , psychoanalysis , death drive , order (exchange) , theology , literature , art , psychology , law , linguistics , finance , political science , economics
This work offers a Lacanian account of the work of Christ on the cross. It proffers a Holy Saturday theology in which God has to embrace suffering and death in its entirety in order to end the stranglehold of the world's system of sacrifice; the divine took on death as a constitutive factor. A reading of the atonement is constructed in which a diabolical system is shattered from within by the actions of a unique victim; it also relates the vicarious element of the atonement to the psychoanalytical concept of transference. Ultimately, this article hopes to contribute to the ongoing interaction between psychoanalysis and theology. Naturally it also hopes to influence the debate over which discursive “model” of the atonement is most helpful.