On Faith: Relation to an Infinite Passing 1 On Faith: Relation to an Infinite Passing Robyn Horner ABSTRACT Faith is a dynamic concept that has been understood both according to its content (as beliefs) and in terms of the relationship that evokes it. In this article faith is considered as event, and the work of three contemporary French thinkers (Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jean-Luc Marion) is used to elucidate what thinking faith in this way might mean for Christian theology. * * * * * In Christian theology, faith is understood to have two dimensions: it can be understood as a set of beliefs (fides quae), or as that by which we believe (fides qua). Of interest to me here is how we understand the latter—what we might call the faith event—since it grounds the very possibility of belief. Here I propose to examine briefly contributions that might be made to a theology of faith from three significant contemporary thinkers: Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jean-Luc Marion. In drawing from their works I do not presume to make them speak on behalf of Christian faith, except where they might choose to, but aim to sketch ways of approaching faith that try to take seriously faith’s nescience and its radical character as act. It seems to me that being able to engage with thought such as this, which is undertaken always with an eye to the limits of metaphysics, is rightly part of the challenge of theology today. Jacques Derrida: faith without object We turn first to Derrida, that apparently atheistic man of faith, although in recalling his often-quoted phrase, “I quite rightly pass for an atheist,” we must be careful not to assume too quickly that we know what he means. 1 Reflections on faith occur in many contexts in Derrida’s work, but he often considers faith in the context of reason, and in terms of the Kantian opposition between faith and knowledge. In broad terms, for Derrida, faith is the condition of relation: “that is why,” he says, “I constantly refer to the