Girard v. Genesis

Over many decades and in voluminous
writings, René
Girard has elaborated a theory of sacrifice, scapegoating, and violence that purports
to unveil things hidden from the foundations of the world. He has become a
guru, not least to Christian theologians eager to formulate non-violent
versions of atonement.

Girard has not persuaded
everyone. Among the unconvinced is Moshe Halbertal, whose elegant 2012 essay On Sacrifice offers an alternative. To see the differences
clearly, yet another summary of Girard’s well-known theory is necessary.

According to Girard, human desire
is mimetic. We want what we want because we mimic others wanting it. Our
desires thus make us rivals. Rivalry breeds violence, and when society collapses
into a Hobbesian war of all against all, a plague that Girard calls a “sacrificial
crisis,” it casts about to find the cause. It soon fixes on an outcast—a foreigner,
a cripple, a crippled foreigner—ready-made to bear the burden of society’s rage.

Once its
violent energy is spent on the scapegoat, the society finds itself miraculously
whole again. The city welcomes the expelled scapegoat back home, acknowledging
him as a savior, honored and elevated, perhaps deified. When another
sacrificial crisis erupts, the process is repeated: another crisis, another
scapegoat, another god.

And
another myth. The “scapegoat mechanism” survives by its own occlusion. All societies
have violent origins, but they clothe their naked violence in the myth of the
scapegoat’s guilt. This works until the New Testament Gospels unmask the myth
by insisting on the utter innocence of the scapegoat, Jesus. The Gospels tear away
the mystifications of myth, and, exposed, the machinery grinds to a halt.

For his part, Halbertal begins canonically,
from the biblical story of Cain and Abel. He points out that Genesis 4
characterizes the offerings of both brothers as minchot,
“gifts.” When the Lord accepts a sacrificial gift, the worshiper enters into an
exchange relationship with him and hopes for a return.

When a gift is brought by an
inferior to a superior, it is an offering rather than, strictly
speaking, a gift. Gifts are not gifts unless received. An offering is “brought
before” God, who may or may not receive it. For God to receive it is an act of condescension
and grace, not a guarantee. This gap between offering and reception is inherent
in sacrifice, and as a result sacrifice takes place in an atmosphere of
anxiety. The possibility of failure haunts sacrifice.

Halbertal says that this accounts
for the fraternal violence recounted in Genesis. Abel brings his offering
before Yahweh; Yahweh accepts it. Cain also brings an offering, but Yahweh rejects
it. It’s sad not to receive a gift; it is far worse to offer a gift that gets
rejected. Refusing a gift is an insult, a slap in the face, an “annihilation.” By
refusing Cain’s gift, God excludes him from the circle of exchange. Outraged in
his unrequited love, Cain kills his brother, “offering” blood to the earth.
There will certainly be no return on that anti-sacrifice. Cain is instead condemned
to wandering and barrenness.

Girard’s theory of violence
focuses on our desire to receive: I resent a rival because he wants the same
thing I do, and he may get it. Violence arises from resentments about not-getting.
Halbertal argues that “exclusion from the possibility of giving is a
deeper source of violence than the deprivation that results from not getting.”
Violence expresses the frustrated worthlessness felt by someone who doesn’t
measure up, who cannot contribute.

More
generally, Halbertal suggests that biblical sacrifice is not “a substitute for
venting [man’s] anger and rage, thereby satisfying his desire for revenge
without opening a new cycle of violence,” but “a substitute for the violence
that the offerer himself might deserve.” Sinners know they are treading on
dangerous ground when they approach God, and they hide behind the shield of
substitutionary sacrifice. Sacrificial violence again arises from fear rather than
anger. Halbertal concludes, quite traditionally, that biblical sacrifice is
both substitutionary and penal.

Halbertal’s
conclusions will appall Girardians, who will charge that he perpetuates rather
than exposes mythic scapegoating. That charge is tricky because its target is ultimately
bigger than Halbertal. Halbertal is Jewish, and his theory of sacrifice is
rooted in exegesis. Thus the Girardian rejection of Halbertal raises questions
about the Girardian evaluation of the Hebrew Scriptures: Do Genesis and
Leviticus perpetuate mythology?

I doubt
that either Girard or Halbertal gets sacrifice entirely right. It’s hard to
imagine that anyone will isolate a single motivation for something as complex
and varied as sacrifice. But Halbertal’s counters to Girard’s powerful theory
are too firmly based in text and tradition to be dismissed. Girard has not yet
fulfilled the modern dream of a theology that finally transcends primitive
savagery, and that suggests the savagery might be here to stay.

Peter J. Leithart is president of Trinity House. He is the author most recently of Gratitude: An Intellectual History. His previous articles can be found here.

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