Bilderverbot Meets Body in Theodor W. Adorno's Inverse Theology

Abstract

A recurring issue in analyzing the work of the critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno (d. 1969) is how to understand his professed adherence to the biblical commandment that prohibits the manufacture of images of the divine-referred to as the "image ban" or Bilderverbot (Exod 20:4-5). Adorno writes, "I see no other possibility than that of extreme asceticism toward any faith in revelation, and extreme allegiance to the Bilderverbot." 1 Some readers' interest in the significance of Adorno's allegiance to the Bilderverbot is primarily theological; they focus on whether this allegiance is tantamount to a "negative theology." 2 1 Theodor W. Adorno, "Vernunft und Offenbarung," Gesammelte Schriften (20 vols.; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970-1993 10:616. See also Gesammelte Schriften 6:207, 293-94; idem, Negative Dialectics (trans. E. B. Ashton; New York: Continuum, 1994) 207, 298-99. Gesammelte Schriften 3:40; idem and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (trans. John Cumming; New York: Continuum, 1994). Adorno also prohibits pronunciation of the divine name; see Gesammelte Schriften 6:394; Negative Dialectics, 402.2 The Bilderverbot and negative theology are often associated in both Adorno scholarship and theological scholarship insofar as they are read as attempts to communicate divine transcendence by prohibiting its depiction. The term Bilderverbot refers to the biblical commandment: "You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them" (Exod 20:4-5). This commandment obviously forbids the making and worshipping of images. These activities are forbidden, so the text reads, because YHWH is a jealous god. Negative theology refers to those traditions, predominantly Neoplatonic and Christian (although it is also associated with Philo and Maimonides), which advocate the use of negative attributes or the systematic denial of all attributes in order to convey the idea that the divine is utterly transcendent or ineffable, i.e., beyond the confines of discursive reason. Whereas sources of negative theology declare that the divine, qua divine, is unknowable, the Bilderverbot, per se, does not include this declaration. It should be noted, HTR 95:3 (2002) 291-318 292 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEWOthers' interest, particularly that of his successors in critical theory, is primarily political. In their estimation, Adorno's allegiance to the Bilderverbot undermines any contribution he might make to contemporary formulations of an emancipatory praxis.Jürgen Habermas, for instance, recognizes that, for Adorno, the "prohibition upon graven images" requires that reconciliation of human antagonisms, much then, that to see a connection between the Bilderverbot and negative theology is to insist that the "message" of the Bilderverbot is that of divine transcendence, i.e., that the divine, per se, does not admit of description. It need not, of course, be read this way. Nevertheless, a number of Adorno's read...

Concerning Some Marrano Threads in The Aesthetic Theory of Theodor W. Adorno

“…133-36, 189-90, 197, 199). 57 In my opinion, the most comprehensive definition of inversion in this context is presented by Elisabeth A. Pritchard in her paper entitled: Bilderverbot Meets Body in Theodor W. Adorno Inverse Theology (Pritchard 2002). 58 (Adorno 2002, p. 84).…”

Utopia as ‘genuine progress’

“…‘Utopia would be above identity and above contradiction’ (Adorno, 1973: 150) insofar as the particular human being, no longer mimicking social repression by way of dominating its inner nature, can finally be able to recognize what is non-identical to itself in a different light, as an expression of diversity rather than a threat or potential cause of adversity. Although Adorno refrains from offering a blueprint for utopia in accordance with his adherence to the tradition of Bilderverbot (Pritchard, 2002), the fact that he interlaces the state of diversity with togetherness, an essentially political category, attests to the historically embedded nature of his utopianism. Furthermore, Adorno’s perspicuous reference to the necessity of eliminating material needs and wants, wherewith human life would no longer be burdened with the question of survival and togetherness no longer appears as enforced community, prevents his idea of utopia from ending up, unlike a great many number of utopic projects, as abstract wish-statements divorced from reality.…”

Open thinking

“…20 According to Elizabeth Pritchard, Adorno's ban on images is by no means categorical or absolute. 21 In fact, I would argue that the sole passage in Negative Dialectics where Adorno speaks about a ban on images (a passage on which some commentators have based their claims about his refusal to speculate about a better state of affairs) should be read more carefully. For in this passage Adorno bans attempts to imagine the "full object" (das volle Objekt)-that is, he places a ban on attempts to provide a full or complete image of a more rational state of affairs, a utopia.…”