Theocentrism

From Structuralism/Poststructuralism: http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/1derrida.html

“Structuralism is appealing to some critics because it adds a certain objectivity, a SCIENTIFIC objectivity, to the realm of literary studies (which have often been criticized as purely subjective/impressionistic).”

I think that is precisely why I like structuralism. To be honest the subjectivity of literary studies sometimes nearly kills me. I think I am a paradox of an English major, because in many ways I prefer realism over that which is imaginative, I prefer objectivity over subjectivity. Please don’t disown me for being honest.

Structuralism simply makes sense to me. This notion that authors merely inhabit pre-existing structures (langue) that enable them to create a sentence, or more than a sentence, even a novel. I like how this article I read says that structuralism is simply the idea that “language speaks to us, rather than that we speak to language.” If nothing more it allows me, as a writer, to move away from egocentricity. Perhaps structuralism isn’t well taken by some because it demands a certain amount of humility. It suggests that our perception of reality is limited because we understand reality only through the structure of language. I think it would be interesting to consider what it might look like if we placed God as the center structure. It seems that structuralism could potentially really serve Christian thought. Hmmm…maybe this is something I could consider working with in graduate school next year. I know, I’m a dork, but I am already considering different aspects of theology I might be able to research and study, and I am hoping that some of my background in English studies will provide assistance to me.
I’ve read quite a bit of Derrida in some of my higher level religion classes and he seems to get at some of the concepts of structuralism a great deal. I have read works by Derrida that focus on this concept of logocentrism, and this got me to thinking. I studied biblical Greek here at Messiah and from it I know that logos is koine greek for word, as in the word of God. Soooo…what if we replaced logocentrism with theocentrism in which of course theos, God, would be at the center. Maybe I am on to something. Maybe not. I tend to have a lot of lofty theological ideas floating around in my mind. Clearly, this might just be another of them. If all things including the way we think and everything are based upon structures, then that is why it is so vital that God remain at the center of who we are. I know we , Christians, throw the concept of God as center around a lot, and it has become a part of what I like to term our “Christianese language”, but maybe we ought to seriously consider its implications.