Atheist and immanentist, Gilles Deleuze seems to be fairly useless for theology. But Christopher Ben Simpson is able to mine some ore in his Deleuze and Theology , even for theology proper:
“The Trinity is ‘the Christian multiple’ as ‘an absolute that is itself difference,’ names ‘divine difference, gives ‘the trinitarian name of difference.’” He cites Milbank and David Hart who argues that “In God is an Ur-space, and Ur-time – ‘divine differentiation’ of ‘original distance’ and ‘primordial displacement.’ Christian difference is not between the infinite One and the finite, plural world, but as itself the infinite ‘One’ – God is eternally difference and relation, otherness and relation in Himself. Difference is not the product of the origin, but it itself at the origin . . . . This difference is not a ‘Plotinian descent from unity to plurality’ but ‘God’s perichoresis as unity and difference,’ as ‘situating the infinite emanations of difference within the Godhead itself.’” According to Milbank, “as much as Deleuze, Christianity places in the arche (the Trinity) a multiple which is not set dialectically ver against the one, but itself manifests unity” (70-1).
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