Infinity, Insomnia, and the (im)possibility of Theology

Abstract

Theology is an ineluctable challenge with its compelling yet impossible testimony to Infinity in thought and language. Levinas' metaphor insomnia, in its vigilance without intentionality in which the subject is hostage to thinking Infinity without circumscribing this thought, is useful for interpreting this theological challenge. The image of insomnia suggests the other's (transcendent) claim upon us. If we are wakened and vigilant without being the source of this wakefulness, it is the other who generates this vigilance in the self-same, yet we can never be certain who this other is — “God” or otherwise. In this insomnia, the subject is hostage to a vigilance of risk — questioning and uncertain as to the source of the other's alterity or transcendence. This is the challenge of faith and ethical responsibility to an other as a visage of this assignation to infinity.