The Virtue of Joy Spinoza in Jean-Luc Nancy's Deconstruction of Christianity

In this article, I examine the presence of Spinoza within Jean-Luc Nancy's deconstruction of Christianity project. Although the debt Nancy owes to other philosophers such as Derrida and Heidegger has been recognized, less well known is his reliance on a Spinozist frame of reference throughout his writings on Christianity. Analyzing Nancy's reading of key moments within the deconstruction of Christianity-the doctrines of creation ex nihilo and the incarnation-I explore how the coupling of transcendence and immanence in a Heideggerian ontological mode can be enlightened by Spinoza's philosophy. What takes shape is a profoundly embodied and affective relationality that I argue is the central resource Nancy wishes to expose at the heart of both Christianity and the secular West.