The Ideological Function of the God-Concept in Faulkner's Light in August

Michael Lackey

THE IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTION OF THE GOD-CONCEPT IN

FAULKNER'S LIGHT IN AUGUST

I.Cod and the word of God have been used to perpetuate

the wicked idea of human inferiority.I. Saunders Redding, On Being Negro in America (147)

There has been a remarkable shift in the culturally marginalized per-son's treatment of Cod and religion from the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries to the twentieth century.' Writers as varied as Sam-son Occom, Olaudah Equiano, William Apess, Harriet Jacobs, and

Frederick Douglass consistently fault Christians for mistreating non-whites.And yet, as believers, these writers invariably invoke a discourse of hypocrisyin order to spare the Faith. Their argument runs like this: True Christianitywould never sanction abuse. But Christians consistently abuse Native Ameri-cans and people of African descent. Therefore, these Christians are not trueBelievers. Such an argument leaves intact the purity of true religion by criticiz-ing only the erring practitioners ofthe Faith.-

Because writers like Ludwig Feuerbach, Friedrich Nietzsche, and SigmundFreud conceive of knowledge not as an ontologically pre-given, mind-inde-pendent reality, but as psychosemiotic construction, a psychological projectiontbat assumes a provisional form in and through a semiotic sign, they do notrecognize the existence of a pure spiritual ideal like true religion or true Chris-tianity. For these writers, religion is nothing more than an all-too-human-

'I would like to thank Kevin Railey for giving me valuable suggestions for rcorganii^ing and revisingthe argument of this essay. I would also like to thank the library staff, especially loan Campbell, at WellesleyCollege Library for helping me with the research for Ihis essay.

M.et me supply just a few examples to clarify and illustrate this approach to Christianity. In The Life ofOhiudah Eijiiiiino, Equiano criticizes Christians for lhe horrorsof .slavery, but instead of criticizing the Rible,which laysoul the conditions for and never condemns slavery, he faults "nominal Christians" (38). In otherwords, true Christians would never sanction slavery. In The Narrative ofthe Life of Frederick Douglass, Dou-glass condemns the religion of the South, which "is a mere covering for tbe most horrid crimes,—a justifierof the most appalling barbarity,—a sanctifier of tbe most hateful frauds,—and a dark shelter under, whichthedarkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deed.s of slaveholders find the strongest protection" (sic, . lOI).But in his "Appendix," be qualifies his critique by claiming that bis condemnation applies "to the slavehold-ing religion of this land, and with no possible reference to (Christianity proper" (326). In A Son ofthe Forest,William Apess documents how Native Americans regularly suffered a "violation of tbeir inherent rights" (4)at the bands of Christians, but he considers this violation inconsistent with Christianity: "I felt convincedthat Christ died for all mankind—tbat age, sect, color, country, or situation made no difference" (19).

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constructed institution that reflects the limitations and biases of the human.Moreover, as a cultural form, there is something intrinsic to the God-mentalitythat makes religious folks and institutions extremely destructive and danger-ous. To put this in the words of Feuerbach: "In faith there lies a pernicious prin-ciple' (376).' Nietzsche develops this idea further, claiming that "all religionsare at the deepest level systems of cruelties" (61)." Freud incorporates the ideasof both Feuerbach and Nietzsche into his work by arguing that "cruelty andintolerance towards those who do not belong to" the chosen faith "are naturalto every religion" (Group 39).

Beginning in the early- and mid-twentieth century, African Americanwriters started to reject the distinction between perversions of Christianity and"Christianity proper," and not surprisingly, many prominent writers, like NellaLarsen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and J. Saun-ders Redding, renounced Christianity and even the Cod-concept. For instance,Hurston notes in Dust Tracks on a Road that the God-concept "is a creature of"our "own minds" (207), and since humans are governed "by the selfish hand"(244), the gods and religions that they create will be equally twisted and self-ish. As evidence to support this claim, she encourages her reader to turn tothe Bible, which uses a Chosen People philosophy to sanction slaughters andeven genocide (244-45). In Black Boy, after Wright experiences the wrath ofhis family's church for resisting the community's faith, he draws a bitter con-clusion about religion: "Wherever 1 found religion in my life 1 found strife,the attempt of one individual or group to rule another in the name of God.The naked will to power seemed always to walk in the wake of a hymn" (136).The most important critic of the God-concept for the purposes of this essay isRedding, who claims in his work On Being Negro in America that the principalfunction of "God and the word of God" has been "to perpetuate the wickedidea of human inferiority" (147). Unlike eighteenth- and nineteenth centurycritics, who fault practitioners of the Faith, these writers trace the horrors ofreligion back to the psychology of belief. The idea of a true faith or religionindependent of the one wielded by the erring practitioners is, for these writers,simply incoherent.

A casual glance at the way the God-concept makes possible and even prob-able such violations of culturally designated inferiors explains why so manyprominent writers and thinkers ultimately rejected the theological mentality.

'The German text reads: "Im Glauben liegt ein boses Prinzip." But here is how George Eliot translatesthe passage: "In faith there lies a malignant principle" (252). Because "malignant" has a biological associa-tion (a malignant tumor), I have decided to translate lhe German word "bose," which could also be trans-lated as evil or bad, to "pernicious." This captures the extremely negative quality of faith that Feuerbach triesto depict.

^The German text reads: "alle Religionen sind auf dem untersten Grunde Systeme von Grausamkeiten"(295). It is important to note that Grausamkeiten can be translated as cruelties or atrocities,

It is worth noting that Hreud's writing took a distinctively antireligious turn just hefore Faulknerstarted working on Light in August. In 1921, be published Croup Psychology and the Analysis ofthe Ego, awork that suggests that religion is on the wane. But in 1927, he revised this view with his publication of TheFuture of an Illusion. By 1930, witb the publication of Civilization and Us Discontents, he was horrified bythe return and rise of religion. It is within this world-wide context of a religious resurgence that Faulknerpenned Light in August.

68 Miehael Lackey The Ideological Function ofthe God-Concept

For instance, in 1900, Charles Carroll published his shocking book, The Negroa Beasty'^ a 380-pagc biblical exegesis that attempts to justify 1) that people ofAfrican descent do not have a soul and are therefore beasts, 2) that white peopleviolate God's "Plan of Creation" (93) by supporting a religious and/or politicalphilosophy of "social equality" (145, 212, 219) and 3) that Christians can onlyfulfill God's will by asserting "dominion" (145, 218) over"lower animals" (20).Carroll's whole theology hinges on the view that humans have a "direct line ofkinship with God" Rut this line of kinship does not extend to all beings. To givehis reader a visual representation ofthe nature of kinship with the Divine, Car-roll opens the book with an illustration of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden[Fig. 1 j . Strategically placed at the center are the figures of Adam and Eve, whosewhiteness (which is significantly faded in the enclosed illustration) extends intoHeaven as a symbol unifying the world's original parents with the Creator. Or,read from the other direction, the Creator, shrouded in heavenly whiteness, beamsdown His spiritual essence to the original pair, thus uniting Himself in a bond ofkinship with His creation. To the right looms a less perceptible but ominous face,which, given the racist intent of the text, is supposed to be that of a black maleor an ape. Carroll's essential point is embodied in the ambiguity. Both in termsof location and shading within the illustration, the person of AfVican descent isprohibited from entering into a bond of kinship with God.

As offensive as this illustration is, it accurately depicts one of the most trou-bling features of the scripture's epistemology of belief. When discussing the nec-essary conditions for spiritual knowledge, the Apostle Paul says:

We speak of these, not in words of human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit,thus interpreting spiritual things in spiritual terms. The natural man does not acceptwhat i.s taught by the Spirit of God. For him, that is absurdity. He cannot come to knowsuch teaching because it must be appraised in a spiritual way "I'hc spiritual man, on theother hand, can appraise everything, though he himself can be appraised by no one. (ICor. 2:13-15)

The spiritual man is obviously in a privileged position—his epistemological cho-senness leads to ontological chosenness. This systern works on two separate lev-els. First, on the basis of a person's epistemological capacity, we can make someinferences about a person's ontological state of being. If a person can see spiritualthings, we can assume that this person is (ontologically) an earthly and spiritualbeing, but if a person cannot see spiritual things, we can assume that this personis (ontologically) only a natural being. Second, once the chosen people norma-tivize their epistemology, they can begin the process of ontologizing the world.In very concrete terms, God communicates with believers but not infidels, and,not surprisingly, believers are told that they are special beings (Chosen People),God's treasured possession, whereas infidels are not.'

'•The following citations are Irnm the 1991 reprint of Carrolls book.Rcgina M. Schwartz has written u very insightful book, The Curse of Cam: Vie Violent Legmy of Mono-

theism, which tries to delail why believers so iiften perpetrate extreme acts of violence against other people.Schwartz focuses on the monothei.stic principles of csclusion and scarcity, exposing how belief in a single Godleads to a particularly violent construction of a comniunal identity.

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XDAM ANIN THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

Where does the line of kinship betweenGod ond Adam and Eve connect withthe N e g r o ?

Fig, I. Illustration from The Negro a Beast (\900). Courtesy of the Wt'llesley College Library

Special Collections."

"I vvanl lo thank the Wellesley Library staff for their assistante wilh this copy.

70 Michael Lackey The Ideological Function of the God-Concept

Infidels may want to question or challenge this claim, but since they lack aspiritual faculty of perception, they are not equipped to assess or judge the lifeof the spiritual man. Logically, if the believer is both epistemoiogically andontologically chosen, the infidel must be epistemoiogically and ontologicallynon-chosen. This means that the infidel is a being that lacks a spiritual prin-ciple. As Paul says in first Corinthians, "The first man was of earth, formedfrom dust, the second is from heaven. Earthly men are like the man of earth,heavenly men are like the man of heaven" (15:48). Put simply, infidels will lookbut not see, listen but not hear. Until they take the leap of faith and accept thecommunity's system of truth, unbelievers will not possess the epistemologicalfaculty that enables believers to see what unbelievers cannot. Moreover, sincebelievers can see from both a material and spiritual perspective, they can assessand judge the life of the infidel, whereas the believer's life is simply out of theinfidel's epistemological reach.

The God-concept has been consistently used to establish this closed episte-mological/ontologica! recursive loop and thereby marginalize and dehumanizeculturally designated inferiors, which explains why Redding says that God isan idea that perpetuates a politics of human inferiority. But it is Hurston whoprovides one of the most astute and intricate analyses of this theological mod-el. Let me quote a lengthy passage from her autobiography, for it brilliantlyoutlines the theological model that has been used so effectively to dehumanizeculturally designated inferiors:

The Old Testament i.s devoted to what was right and just from the viewpoint of theAncient Hebrews. All of their enemies were twenty-two carat evil. They, the He-brews, were never aggressors. The Lord wanted His children to have a country full ofbig grapes and tall corn. Incidentally, while they were getting it, they might as wellget rid of some trashy tribes that He never did think much of, anyway. With all of itsfigs and things, Canaan was their destiny. God sent somebody especially to tell themabout it. If the conquest looked like bloody rape to the Canaanites, that was becausetheir evil ways would not let them see a point which was right under their nose. Soyou had to drive it in under the ribs. King David, who invented the "protection"racket in those days before he was saved by being made king, was a great hero. Hewas a man after God's own heart, and was quite servicable in helping God get rid ofno-count rascals who were cluttering up the place. (244-45)

Notice how Hurston underscores "what was right and just" from a particu-lar perspective. The Ancient Hebrews, who are God's Ghosen People, controlthe epistemological/ ontological recursive loop. Given their capacity to knowGod's will, that which is "right and just," we can infer that they are ontologicallysuperior—they must be endowed with a superior epistemological capacity thatallows them to see what others cannot. Not surprisingly, God specifically tellsthe Ancient Hebrews that he favors them—he wants them "to have a countryfull of big grapes and tall corn." So the Ancient Hebrews are ontologically su-perior because of their capacity to know God's spiritual Truth and because Godtells them that they are his Chosen People.


The Ancient Hebrews' enemies, by contrast, are ontologically inferior("no-count rascals," who are "twenty-two carat evil") for two reasons. First,because they do not have the capacity to know God's will {"their evil wayswould not let them see a point which was right under their nose"), we can inferthat they are ontologically inferior. Not surprisingly, God specifically tells theancient Hebrews that their enemies are "some trashy tribes that He never didthink much of, anyway." Of course, the Ancient Hebrews' behavior may seem"like bloody rape to the Canaanites," but this interpretation is immediately dis-missed, since it is the Ancient Hebrews who control the intellectual means ofproduction. By controlling the epistemological/ontological recnrsive loop, theAncient Hebrews can justify committing atrocities against the Canaanites withemotional, psychological, and legal impunity.

To be sure, the Canaanites, who feel that the Ancient Hebrews's treatmentot them is nothing less than "bloody rape," would be within their right to ask:how do we know that the Ancient Hebrews are actually in communication withGod? It is possible, after all, that they have fabricated not just their relation-ship with God but the God-concept altogether in order to justify their coloniz-ing politics. Hurston certainly realizes that the Ancient Hebrews' portrayal ofGod is a "creature of their own minds," since she explicitly states that it is bi-ased. But more importantly, by using American colloquialisms and referencingdistinctive American products in her contemporary version of the scriptures,Hurston suggests that the same theological model is in operation in the UnitedStates. For instance, here is how she refers to the Bible's promised land: "TheLord wanted His children to have a country full of big grapes and tall corn."The egregious error of mentioning corn in a passage that is supposedly para-phrasing the Old Testament is too flagrant to ignore. A distinctively North andSouth American product, corn is never mentioned in the Bible. As a carefulreader ofthe Bible, Hurston certainly would not have made such a careless mis-take.'' So what is the purpose of including this reference in her updated versionof the Bible? One logical and compelling possibility would be that Hurston isdrawing our attention to the way the Chosen People mentality continued todetermine the socio-cultural relations in America in her day. Just as the An-cient Hebrews were favored by Cod, who were given choice land, so are whiteAmericans, and just as the Canaanites were "no-count rascals," who did notqualify as people in the strict sense of the word, so too are African Americans.

What makes this Chosen People model functional is the God-concept. Letme illustrate how this works in The Negro a Beast. According to Carroll, thereare three modes of creation: "matter, mind and spiritual life" (22). The earthis composed of matter; animals possess "physical and mental structures" (20),while humans consist of matter, mind, and the "spiritual, immortal life" (22),which is"apartof the substance of Cod" (23). Lacking a "spiritual" part, non-or sub-humans "must be subject to accident, disease, decay, and final

^Hurston published an updated version uf the Moses story litlcd Moses, Man of the Mountain. Sheknew the scriptures well.

72 Michael Lackey The Ideological Function ofthe God-Concept

dissolution" (22). Since the African "simply stands at the head of the apefamily, as the lion stands at the head of the cat family" (87), it follows that theblack person is not in possession of the "spiritual, immortal life" and thereforecontains within him or herself no "part of the substance of God." in short,Carroll's black person is the Apostle Paul's natural man, a being that lacks aspiritual principle and thus cannot assess the life ofthe believer.

Significantly, it was not only people of African ancestry who were sub-jected into being as culturally designated inferiors through the God-concept.For instance, as a homosexual, E. M. Forster examines in his posthumouslypublished novel Maurice, which was written between 1913 and 1914, how theGod-concept was used to justify the animalization of all Oscar Wilde types.The novel opens with Mr. Ducie, a senior schoolmaster, giving the title charac-ter an impromptu tutorial on the topic ofthe proper relationship between thesexes. To illustrate the only acceptable form ofsexual union and communion,Ducie draws a diagram of a man and woman in the sand. After completing thelesson, "the poor old pedagogue" concludes with hardly containable enthusi-asm: "It all hangs together—all—and God's in his heaven. All's right with theworld. Male and female! Ah wonderful!" (15). By itself, this passage merelyconfirms what we all already know, that many early-twentieth century school-teachers had ridiculously simple and overly rigid notions of sexuality. But if weconsider Ducie's remarks in relation to the philosophy ofthe clergyman ofthenovel, Mr. Borenius, then Ducie's comments would be much more perniciousthan they might at first seem. For Borenius, human "conduct is dependent onfaith," and consequently, "if a man is a 'bit of a swine' the cause is to be foundin some misapprehension of God" (236). When he says "a bit of a swine,"what Borenius really means is sexual "perversion," for as he claims, "when thenations went a whoring they invariably ended by denying God" (237). Thestructure of mind at work here is the same one in Carroll's frontispiece. Thereare certain people (whites/heterosexuals) who have the epistemological ca-pacity to apprehend a God-mandated moral law. By contrast, there are some(blacks/sexual "deviants") who lack this spiritual epistemological capacity andthus, as immoralists, stand outside the direct line of kinship between Cod andthe human. Civen the absence of this spiritual faculty, sexual 'deviants' are notentirely human; they are 'a bit of a swine,' an animal reference that certainlyrecalls Carroll's picture ofthe marginalized African/ape.

To cast a person or a group of people outside the direct line of kinshipbetween Cod and man, it is not necessary to reduce the person or the groupto an animal. All that is necessary is to demonstrate that certain people lack aspiritual faculty of perception. Such is the strategy the black preacher. Rever-end Pleasant Green, deploys in order to cast women outside the hne ot kinshipin Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928).'" After her conversion, Helga Crane, thenovel's cosmopolitan protagonist, assumes the role of a traditional Southernhousewife, which consists of having "a garden, and chickens, and a pig." All of

"1-or a tiiore comprehensive analysis of Larsen's critique ot relij ion and the God-concept, see my essay."American Prayer: A Spiritual Exercise in Race and Gender Subjfttion in Nella Larsen's Quicksand."


this, along with "a husband," resuUs in her being "right with God" (120). Butafter birthing three children and living for two years as a domestic drudge,Helga begins to question the role her preacher husband has assigned to her.According to Green, however, such questioning is unacceptable and unjusti-fied. Instead, Helga should defer to her husband, for as a minister of the Lord,he is "concerned only with things of the soul, spiritual things" (115). As such,he, unlike Helga, knows God's will, which enables him to say with certainty thatHelga's discontent is "an act of God" (125). Indeed, it is his spiritual faculty ofperception that allows him to know God's will. As a woman, Helga apparentlyhas no such capacity, which implicitly casts her on the margins ofthe bond ofkinship between God and man. Therefore, if she wants to do God's will, shemust submit, in all humility, to the dictates of her Godly husband.

While Forster and Larsen create characters who use the God-concept tojustify violence, oppression, and abuse in order to critique the theologicalstructure of mind, T.S. Eliot actually uses the God-concept in order to justifybanishing a particular group from the body politic." Following the ApostlePaul, Eliot asserts "the primacy ofthe supernatural over the natural life" ("Re-ligion" 108). This supernatural/natural distinction necessitates two separatetypes of knowledge, which Eliot defines in terms of tradition and orthodoxy.For EHot, tradition is "a way of feeling and acting which characterizes a groupthroughout generations" {After 31), so it "is of the blood, . . . rather than ofthe brain" (32). By contrast,''orthodoxy is a matter which calls for the exerciseof all our conscious intelligence." In other words, where a tradition can existonly in the context of a human community, orthodoxy can exist even if therewere no humans. Eliot is unambiguous on this point: "while tradition, beinga matter of good habits, is necessarily real only in a social group, orthodoxyexists whether realized in anyone's thought or not" (32). And as a Ghristian,Eliot specifically calls for a tradition of "Christian orthodoxy" (22). To ap-prehend Eliot's Ghristian orthodox Truth, one must be capable of "spiritualperception" (Notes 103), and if a person poses a threat to the orthodox com-munity, then Eliot suggests banishment. As he claims in After Strange Gods, atext that was presented as a series of lectures in 1933, only one year after thepublication of Light in August: "reasons of race and religion combine to makeany large number of free-thinking lews undesirable" (22). For Eliot, contactwith those races and religions that are unorthodox would threaten the purityof "spiritual perception" and thereby make orthodox Truth, which is God-cre-ated non-ideological Truth, inaccessible. Therefore, it is imperative that theorthodox community cast non-orthodox individuals on the margins. Failureto do so would threaten the bond of kinship between God and man.

I supply only a few examples here, but 1 could have easily included JosephConrad's Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim, Forster's Jiowards End or A Passageto India, or Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Orlandoy or The Waves, for eachone of these works examines the same dynamic: the claim that there exists

' 'For D more detailed discussion of the way Eliot's theology justifies his anti-Semitism, see iny es.say,"Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot; An AtKeisl's Commentary on the Epistemology of Belief."

7A Miehael Lackey The Ideological Function ofthe God-Concept

a spiritual, non-ideological Truth, which only those beings with a spiritualfaculty of perception can apprehend.'- Given their ability to know such non-ideological Truths, the spiritual beings are in a position to cast non spiritualbeings in slave-like roles within the culture, and if the non-spiritual beingsresist, violence, marginalization, and/or banishment is not just allowed; it ispsychologically and politically necessary. Of course, the non-spiritual beings(blacks, "mixed-bloods," homosexuals, women, Jews, Patusanis, Indians, Afri-cans, Moors, wealthy people, poor people, etc.) will differ on the basis of aculture's specific ideology, but the dynamic is always the same.

Light in August, I argue, is Faulkner's contribution to this cultural conversa-tion about the function ofthe God-concept to subject certain people into beingas ontological inferiors. By analyzing the novel in light of this critique of theGod-concept, it is possible to challenge one ofthe dominant interpretations ofthe text. The standard approach underscores Faulkner's critique of racist andpatriarchal ideologies, and within the context of this interpretation, significantcharacters (McEachern, Doc Hines, Joanna Burden, and Percy Grimm) look tobiblical texts and the Christian tradition to justify their bigoted views. One ofthe more recent formulations of this interpretation can be found in John Lutz'sessay, "Faulkner's Parable ofthe Gave: Ideology and Social Criticism in Light inAugust!' For Lutz, it is "the racist and patriarchal ideology of Southern society"that sets into motion the tragic events leading to the brutal murders of JoannaBurden and Joe Christmas (477-78)." Religion certainly plays an importantrole in this interpretation, but only insofar as it is at the service ofthe culture'sracist and patriarchal ideologies. Gontra Lutz, 1 argue that Faulkner gives pri-macy to religion in his novel. Indeed, for Faulkner, the God-concept creates, Iargue, the necessary ideological conditions for the possibility of violence andabuse, which are manifested in both the public and private spheres. Accordingto my argument, without a firmly-established theological mentahty in place,legal, psychological, and/or physical violence against tbe culture's designatedinferiors could not be sanctioned. In short, what Faulkner critiques in Lightin August is the God concept, which is the foundation of the culture's "racistand patriarchal ideology" as well as the legitimizing force of egregious acts ofviolence.

'"In "The Moral Conditions for Genocide in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness" I argue that Conradexposes the Biblical and theological justification of European atrocities in Africa. For discussions of Wooif'scritique of the God-concept and theological Knowledge, see my essays, "Atheism and Sadism: Nietzche andWoolf on Post-God Discoiirse"and"ThcGender of Atheism in Virginia Wooif's'A Simple Melody.'"

"There have been many studies that focus on racist and patriarchal ideologies in Faulkner's text. Forthe ones that have influenced my interpretation of Faulkner, see Sundquist, Davis, and Wittenberg.

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II,In the realm of power, Christianity has operated with anunmitigated arrogance and cruelty—necessarily, since areligion ordinarily imposes on those who have discoveredthe true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels.

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (45)

I n Light in August, the God-concept plays a significant role in producingcertain people as culturally designated inferiors. For instance. Doc Hines,who could be considered the legitimate offspring of Carroll, claims toknow God's Will (382) and insists that he is "the instrument of His Will"

(380). As a God-appointed minister, Doc Hines feels compelled "to preach"to the black community God's plan, which consists ofa doctrine of "humilitybefore all skins lighter than theirs, preaching the superiority ofthe white race,himself his own exhibit A" (343). Such racist ranting, which appealed to somany poor white Southerners, is certainly calculated to dehumanize AfricanAmericans.''' To counter such a pernicious philosophy and thereby humanizedowntrodden blacks in the United States, it would only make sense to reverseCarroll's and Doc Hines's racist theology by dubbing African Americans God'sChosen People. Such is the Northerner's view in the novel of "'the black manwho will be forever God's chosen own because He once cursed him'" (253).This is the view of Joanna Burden's father, who bequeaths it to his daughter,and while such a philosophy was intended to reverse the curse that was onceplaced on the black race and thereby restore the black person's humanity, ithad the opposite effect. After outlining her father's philosophy for Christmas,Joanna notes that it was at this time that she "seemed to see" black folk "not aspeople, but as a thing, a shadow in which I lived, we lived, all white people, allother people" (253). It does not matter whether the God-concept is used todegrade or to elevate the condition of African Americans; it ultimately has thesame effect in either case, which is to dehumanize them. Indeed, somethingintrinsic to the God-concept, Faulkner suggests, makes it dangerous and de-structive.

That something is the type of Knowledge that the God-concept autho-rizes. From Plato and Ghrist through Augustine and Aquinas to Kant and T.S.Eliot, Knowledge is authentic and true only when it is non political and non-ideological.'^ Edward Said insightfully exposes the idea on which this viewis based. The assumption in the West has been that "'true' knowledge is fun-damentally nonpolitical (and conversely, that overtly political knowledge isnot 'true' knowledge)" (10). Let me briefly indicate what is behind this view.

'••CarroU's book had "a very wide circulation," especially in the South. For a discussion of this book andits circulation, see Stokes.

'Hn this essay, I examine only one tacet of ideology, but it is a crucial one. Once we clarity how"knowledge" is human constructed rather than ontologically pre-given, we would be in a better position tounderstand some of the more subtle and complicated formulations of ideology, as in the works of MichelFoucault, Louis Althu.s.ser, and Judith Butler, who argue that ideology situates and constitutes (interpellates)us as "subjects," or as in the work of Raymond Williams, who make.s valuable distinctions among dominant,residual and emergent ideologies. For discussions of tbe way ideology functions in Faulkner's text, see Railey,Meilard, and Karliganer and Abadie.


Authentic Knowledge is a pre-given, mind-independent Reality, which, like itscreator, is subject neither to the vicissitudes of the historical moment nor thevagaries of cultural context. For Knowledge to be Knowledge it must be truefor all people in all places at all times. But to access such Knowledge^ a personmust possess a spiritual faculty of perception, an epistemological organ that,like its object, is bodiless and immutable. Therefore, the counter claim, "thatovertly political knowledge is not 'true' knowledge," is a logical extension ofthe True-Knowledge philosophy. Were the knowing faculty merely developedinside of humans within an historical or cultural context, it would be capableof apprehending only ideological or political "knowledge," which is the cul-turally contingent knowledge of the institutions of power. Looked at from aslightly different angle, if there is no true, objective, metaphysical Truth that isuniversally valid, then all "knowledge" would be a mere cultural construction,contingent and ephemeral at best, which would mean that it does not qualifyas Knowledge at all.

This True-Knowledge philosophy, which figures prominently in Faulkner'snovel, is also central to Carroll's book. The "law of God" (177) is "that theWhite must be the master of the Negro," otherwise the two races "can never livetogether in peace" (176-77). To know such a "law," a person must "be endowedwith mind almost God-like in its power; mind at once legislative, executiveand judicial" (96). It is this God-like mind, which is not subject to "final dis-solution" and which can apprehend God's spiritual "Plan of Creation," thatdefines the human as human. Since blacks are animals, the kind of "mind"they have is subject to "final dissolution" and cannot apprehend any spiritualtruth or concept. Therefore, they must always be inferior and subject to whites.Even blacks who have considerable white blood can never rise to the level ofa spiritual being because their animal-like subjectivity will make them foreverincapable of apprehending "the law of God." As Carroll claims: "If mated con-tinuously with pure whites for millions of generations, you could never breedthe ape out, nor breed the spiritual creation in, the offspring of Man and theNegro" (161). This view of the black person and "mixed-bloods" as apes ex-plains why the African/ape figure in the frontispiece is both marginalized andominous. Given the black person's lack of a God-like mind, he or she can neverenter into that direct line of kinship between God and the white man—theblack person will be forever marginalized. But more importantly, should whitepeople reach out to the black person, they would forever destroy the direct lineof kinship between them and God, which would ultimately undermine the very"Plan of Creation." Therefore, the black person poses a threat to the society'sdivine order, which white people are called upon to institute by controlling andgoverning non-spiritual beings.

Doc Hines, Simon McEachern, Gail Hightower, Joanna Burden, and PercyGrimm all internalize an epistemological model that presupposes the existenceof God-created, mind-independent Knowledge, and as a consequence, they allexplicitly or implicitly perpetuate a socio-political structure that necessitatesthe construction and subsequent degradation and violation of culturally des-


ignatcd inferiors. In her attempt to compel Christmas into prayerful submis-sion, Joanna sheds most light on the destructive dynamics of this authenticKnowledge apparatus. Having finally accepted God and His Will, Joanna asksChristmas to kneel with her in prayer. Joe refuses. But Joanna persists, de-manding and demanding until she eventually points a cap-and-ball revolverat the infidel and then pulls the trigger. Significantly, each time that Joannaorders Christmas to kneel and pray, she tells him that it is not she who asks:

"Will you kneel with me?" sbe said, '7 dont ask it.""No," he said.'1 dont ask it. It's not 1 who ask it. Kneel witb me.""No."They looked at one another, "joe," sbe said. "For the last time. I dont

ask it. Remember that. Kneel witb me." (282; emphasis mine)

It might seem that the major offense in this scene is Joanna's tyrannical im-position on Christmas, which certainly recalls Joe's horrific experiences at thehands of his abusive father, McEachern. But, what lies behind Joe's resistanceand ultimate violent reaction is his rejection of and rage against the whole ap-paratus of non ideological Knowledge, the very Knowledge that has marginal-ized him and that, were he to accept it at Joanna's behest, would marginalizehim even more than he already is.

Plato provides a specific and more comprehensive understanding ofthisapparatus of non-ideological Knowledge. In the Ion, when discussing the typeof Knowledge that poets and seers possess, Socrates defines it in such a waythat would make American fundamentalists giddy with joy. In a moment ofinspiration, "the deity" divests the inspired ones of their senses. The deity doesthis so "that we listeners may know that it is not they who utter these preciousrevelations while their mind is not within them, but that it is the god himselfwho speaks, and through them becomes articulate to us" (220). Notice howSocrates, like Joanna, underscores the fact that it is not humans "who utterthese precious revelations." Were the humans to participate in the utterance ofthe "precious revelations," the "knowledge" that they would express would betainted by the subjective element, thus rendering it historical and/or cultural,in short, ideological. But because "these revelations" are not tainted by a hu-man agenda ("not of man or human workmanship"), we can conclude thatthey are "divine and from the gods," which is to say that the "precious revela-tions" would qualify as non-ideological and therefore authentic Knowledge.

But to access such non-ideological Knowledge, one must be in possessionof a spiritual faculty of perception, an epistemological organ that is capable ofovercoming the limitations of its spatial and historical context as well as of ap-prehending a more-than-human Truth. Not surprisingly, Faulkner draws hisreader's attention to the bodilessness ofthe spiritual characters throughout thenovel, the very bodilessness that is a prerequisite for obtaining non-ideologi-cal Knowledge. For instance, when Doc Hines and his wife narrate their storyto Hightower, they are described as "two bodiless voices recounting dreamily

78 Michael Lackey The Ideological Function ofthe God-Goncept

something performed in a region without dimension by people without blood"(376). When Percy Grimm's band of crusaders chase down Christmas, "theirfaces seemed to glare with bodiless suspension as though from haloes" (463).As for Joanna, when she is "talking to God as if He were a man in the roomwith two other men" (280-81), ber voice is "still, monotonous, sexless" (281),"the monotonous dogmatic voice which'' Christmas believes "will never cease go-ing on and on forever" (230). To have dogmatic Knowledge, the Knowledgethat makes "the blind and untroubled faitb in the Tightness and infallibilityof" one's "actions" (459) possible, it is mandatory that a person be "bodiless,"unaffected by the subjective or the ideological. Given the logic ofthis bodilessphilosophy, if Joanna believed that she were acting in ber own interest whenforcing Christmas to pray, she would not have been able to justify to herself hercoercive and violent behavior. But because she is convinced that she is actingindependent of her subjective interest ("sexless"), because she believes that sheis behaving non-ideologically ("it's not I who ask it"), she feels perfectly justi-fied in treating Christmas as she does.

Ironically, Burden's invitation to Christmas to pray marginalizes in exactlythe same way as do the philosophies of Doc Hines and Charles Carroll. Atthe level of action, all tbree subscribe to the frontispiece philosophy picturedin Carroll's book. They consider themselves spiritual beings who, given theirspiritual faculty of perception, can have Knowledge of God's Will or the Lawof God. On the basis of this privileged relationship, they are "clothed withDivine authority to 'have dominion'" (Carroll 38) over all of creation. Indeed,tailure to take control would be an outrage against "the design of God" anda violation of "Divine law" (Carroll 145). In commanding loe to kneel andpray. Burden implicitly assumes the role ofthe privileged spiritual person, butshe also implicitly casts Joe into the margins, outside the direct line of kinshipbetween God and humanity—because he cannot know God's will, she mustinstruct and guide him. So Christmas can kneel and pray in Joanna Burden'sspiritual world, but it is Joanna who actually knows God's will. Therefore, ifJoe would do God's will, he must obey Joanna, a person who, unlike Joe, hasthe necessary spiritual faculty to know the "Divine law." In short, Burden, likeCarroll, reduces Joe to the ape/African who does not have the spiritual facultytbat makes a human human.

This theological structure, which implicitly casts Christmas outside thedirect line of kinship between God and man, dominates the novel, leading tothe tacit marginalization of various groups of people. For instance, McEachernis a spiritual man who, given his bodilessness, can know the will of God. Fol-lowing Socrates, who considers Knowledge authentic only when it is untaint-ed by "man or buman workmanship," McEachern exorcises human impulsesand urges from bis body. After Joe fails to learn his Presbyterian catechism,McEacbern takes his adopted son to the barn to give the boy a whipping. ButMcEachern notices that joe has forgotten his catechism. As McEachern tellstbe young Christmas to retrieve the book, he exhibits no anger, no frustration,no human emotion at all. Clearly anticipating the monotonous, dogmatic


voice of Joanna Burden, McEachern conducts himself as non-human, all-too-non-human: "His voice was not kind. It was not human, personal, at all" {149).This non-personal, non-human posture is absolutely essential, for if his actionswere governed by the human, the personal, or the ideological, he would no lon-ger be able to claim that it is not he who is acting. 7'herefore, beating Joe (andit is important to note that McEachern does not know that Joe is potentiallyof African descent) is God-mandated, willed by God so that McEachern caninstruct his adopted son in the ways ofthe Lord.

McEachern sees himself as most thoroughly non-ideological when he con-fronts his son in the one-room schoolhouse where Joe is dancing with Bobbie.But notice how the reader is given a picture of McEachern not as he is seenby others, but as he imagines himself: "Very likely he seemed to himself to bestanding just and rocklike and with neither haste nor anger while on all sidesthe sluttishness of weak human man seethed in a long sigh of terror aboutthe actual representative ofthe wrathful and retributive Throne. Perhaps theywere not even his hands which struck at the face ofthe youth" (204). As a "justand rocklike" emissary of the Divine, McEachern believes that his actions areuncorrupted by secular or human desire. Indeed, for McEachern, acknowledg-ing that his actions are determined by an in-bodied human interest would be atacit admission that he is governed by the personal and the ideological, an ad-mission that would implicitly cast him on the margins ofthe direct line of kin-ship between God and man. But since he considers himself a non-ideologicalbeing, a "representative" of the Almighty and therefore motivated by nothingpersonal, nothing human, and nothing ideological, he does not even believethat it is his hand that strikes his thoroughly secular and all-too-human son.

It is exactly this kind of non-ideological posturing that governs McEach-ern's abusive relationship with his wife. For instance, after McEachern catchesloe in a lie about a suit that the youth has secretly purchased, Mrs. McEacherntries to defend her adopted son by claiming that she bought the suit for him.But McEachern is not fooled:

"You are a clumsier liar than even he," the man said. His voice came, measured, harsh,without heat, up the cramped stair to vvherc ioe lay in bed. He was not listening toit. "Kneel down. Kneei down. KNEEL DOWN, WOMAN. Ask grace and pardon ofGod; not of me." (165)

Again, McEachern refuses to allow the human or the personal to control hisactions; his monotonous, dogmatic voice is "without heat." But more impor-tantly, he, like loanna, insists that he is the non-ideological instrument oftheDivine Will. By lying for Joe, Mrs. McEachern has offended God, not McEach-ern, so she must ask pardon of God, not of McEachern.

Consistent throughout the novel is the way that the God-concept func-tions to justify psychological abuse and physical violence. But it does not mat-ter whether a person is a black male or a "mixed-blood," a biological daughteror a submissive wife, the violation and abuse as well as the theological justifica-tion are the same. Consider, for instance, Mrs. McEachern and Joe. A character


tries to force both figures to kneel and pray; this tyrannical character claims tobe driven by nothing personal, nothing human; this character insists that he orshe is following God's will; and, by virtue of this character's communicationwith the Divine, he or she assumes the right to govern and, when necessary,violate his or her inferiors—and what constitutes a person as superior is hisor her ability to know God and thereby act non-ideologically. Highlightinghow the God-concept functions to justify McEachern's abuse of his adoptedson and wife implicitly undermines the interpretations that reduce Faulkner'snovel to a critique of a white supremacist ideology. Such interpretations do notadequately explain the theological structure of mind that produces violenceand abuse in Light in August. It is my contention that Faulkner, like Redding,examines the theological mentality that makes the abuse and violation of cul-turally designated inferiors po.ssible.

Let me specify how this works in the novel. As a being on the margins ofthe bond of kinship between God and the human, the only type of "knowl-edge" that C'hristmas can produce is ideological, that which is governed byhuman and personal interest and desire. As such, his "knowledge" can onlybe provisional, ephemeral, and untrustworthy. Consequently, whatever viewChristmas espouses will be suspect, which includes any discourse he tries toproduce to name or define himself. By contrast, the Knowledge that Joannaproduces, which does not emanate from her, is non-ideological and thereforeobjective and true. Consequently, she is in a position to define Joe and therebycontrol him, while Joe can define neither her nor himself. This closed systemthat divests Christmas of power over his own body is what inspires his violentreaction to Joanna's attempt to pray over him. Joe is not angry because theprayer brings McEachern to mind. He is furious because she uses the sametheological structure of mind to cast him on the margins of full-fledged hu-manness.

Joe sheds most light on his situation when he reflects on his life after hav-ing killed Burden: "he believed with calm paradox that he was the volitionlessservant of the fatality in which he believed that he did not believe" (280). Whatfatality does Joe serve? The answer is the theological structure that Carroll pic-tures in his frontispiece. But to understand this theological model, we need toconsider much more than just the relationship between God and the believer;we must also take into account how the theological mode! determines the lifeforms of the marginalized animal/human as well, that non-spiritual being whocannot know God and must therefore be controlled and defined.

Christmas is that animal/human. Throughout the text, Joe clearly rejectsGod and religion. In fact, as a youth in the McEachern household, he harbors asense of "religious hatred" (1H4). Not surprisingly, when others communicatewith God, he can only look on in puzzled amazement. Here's how he respondswhen his adoptive father makes his nighttime oblations: "Even the air seemedstill to excrete that monotonous voice as of someone talking in a dream, talk-ing, adjuring, arguing with a Presence who could not even make a phantomindentation in an actual rug" (153-54). Christmas is an empiricist, and he


certainly sees no evidence to suggest the existence of a Divine Being. This sceneis repeated Vi'hen Joanna talks "to God as if He were a man in the room withtwo other men" (280-81). In both cases, Joe Ioo]<:s on in disbelief.

But loolcing on in disbelief is part of the overall structure of the theo-logical modeJ—the Apostle Paul and Carroll define spiritual people by settingthem off from natural (non-spiritual) people. Spiritual people, who can inter-pret spiritual things in spiritual terms, can have authentic Knowledge, whereasnatural people, for whom spiritual Knowledge is an absurdity, cannot cometo know God-created spiritual realities. Consequently, the "spiritual man . . .can appraise everything, though he himself can be appraised by no one," asthe Apostle Paul claims. With Paul's distinction in mind, Joe is a natural man,a non-spiritual being who cannot appraise anything, specifically a spiritualperson's life, while Joanna is a spiritual being, who can appraise everything andanything, including Joe's life. Moreover, as a spiritual being Joanna is obligedto have dominion over the created world, which includes non-spiritual beingslike Joe. To put this in the words of Carroll: "Man alone is responsible to Godfor his acts; the lower animals are responsible to man, under whose 'dominion'they were placed in the creation, and into whose 'hands' God delivered them"(38). When Joanna prays over Joe and claims that it is not she who is acting,she is implicitly casting him into the role of the animal/human, that non-spiri-tual being who stands outside the direct line of kinship between God and thehuman and must therefore be placed in the inferior roie of servant, never leg-islator."'

While Joe never believes in the bond of kinship between God and the hu-man, he nevertheless implicitly and fatally accepts the role of the marginal-ized non-spiritual being nevertheless. For instance, when Joe first comes toBurden's old colonial plantation, instead of approaching the woman as on anequal footing, he fixes himself up in a "tumble down negro cabin" (36) onher property. After being in a sexual relationship with Burden for some time,Joe realizes "that she had never invited him inside the house proper. He hadnever been further than the kitchen" (234). On arriving at the sawmill, ratherthan applying for a "respectable" job, Christmas accepts "the work of a niggerslave" (96). At all levels, Joe willingly, fatalistically, accepts the marginalizedrole scripted for "inferiors," a role that does not allow Christmas to have poweror authority over anyone.

Even in his relationship with Burden, Christmas is cast as an "inferior."This relationship puzzles Joe, who believes that as a man he has a natural rightto dominate and control hen But as he reflects on his relationship with her, heconcludes: "'it was like I was the woman and she was the man'" (235). At thispoint in the novel, Christmas is in search of a discourse that could explain whyJoanna feels so comfortable and justified exerting power over him. While he

'"In a recent essay, Laura Doylf, instead of examining and interpreting the way prayer functions inthe novel, uses Emmanuel Levinas's concept of prayer to interpret the text, and as a consequence, she makesFaulknerian prayer do ihe exact opposite of what it does in the text. According to her interprt-tation, wereChristmas to pray"(i]t would be a giving over of himself to himself as himself" (356), Given the numerousand consistent negative references to prayer in the text, this interpretation is simply not plausible.


initially offers a gender interpretation, he soon realizes that that explanation"'was not right'" (235). It will not be until he kills Burden that he finally under-stands. From Joanna's perspective, Joe is a "Negro" (260). This is not primarilya racial designation; it is, first and foremost, a theological expression, code forPaul's "natural man," a non-spiritual being who, because he can never interpretspiritual things in a spiritual way, must always be controlled, a servant at thebeck and call of spiritual people like Burden.

Let me briefly explain what I mean by calling tbe "Negro" reference primar-ily a theological expression. The theological structure posits a relationship be-tween God and the theological subject, a spiritual being who has the epistemo-logical capacity to know spiritual things. The natural person lacks the spiritualfaculty of perception and therefore cannot come to know spiritual things. Con-sequently, the natural person must always stand on the margins of the divine/human bond of kinship, which means that the marginalized, non-spiritual be-ing can never apprehend non-ideological Knowledge. This is the socio-culturalstructure that determines who should rule and who should serve, and while thestructure remains the same from one culture to the next, the individuals thatwill be marginalized and violated will change in relation to a culture's specificideology. So in Forster's Maurice, heterosexuals can be spiritual beings, whereashomosexuals can only be natural beings, while in the last chapters of Larsen'sQuicksand, black males can be spiritual beings, whereas black women can onlybe natural beings. Whatever being is plugged into the structure is, first andforemost, a theological being, either an epistemologically trustworthy subjectthat can have authentic (non-ideological) Knowledge and therefore can act asa responsible agent or a non-trustworthy (ideological) subject that cannot haveauthentic Knowledge and therefore must be placed in a position of servitude.It is within the context of this theological model tbat a person's position withinthe cuhure is determined.

Given this theological model, even if Joe were to kneel and pray, this wouldnot alter his condition as a non-spiritual being, for Burden has Joe's whole lifescripted; she will send him to a black school so that he can become a black law-yer.'' What Joe would decide for himself is irrelevant: as a natural man he mustaccept the rule of the spiritual people who "have dominion" over natural peoplelike himself. This is the theological fatalism to which he is a "volitionless ser-vant." Since he rejects the God-concept, he thinks that he does not support thetheological model's vision of socio-cultural forms and relations. But little doeshe know that the theological model also has a script for non-spiritual beings likehimself, a script that he follows nearly his whole life. Jt is in this sense that hebelieves what he believed he did not believe.

'"Robert Dale Parker claims thai Christmas, Ihroiigh marriage with Burden, would significantly in-crease his "chantes for a peaceful life," but instead, Christmas "chooses to continue his lift- of loneliness andwaste" (95). The problem with this interpretation is that Parker assumes that Burden does or could treatChristmas as a human, but given her views ahout blacks as "things" and her dehumanizing religious orienta-tion, such a relalionship would ultimately destroy Christmas. Christmas secretly desires marriage, but onlyif he wiil be treated as a human, and this is something Burden could never offer Christmas.


Significantly, in the novel Faulkner underscores how the theological mod-el, which justifies the existence of non-ideological Knowledge, is a thoroughlyideological construct. We see this most clearly through the characterization ofPercy Grimm, a "prophetlike" (453) character, like "a young priest" (464), whose"face had that serene, unearthly luminousness of angels in church windows"(462). Grimm is a man certain of his faith, totally committed to a righteousprogram of justice and truth, and this certitude serves him well, for he is guidedhy "the blind and untroubled faith in the Tightness and infallibility of his ac-tions" (459). Indeed, with each movement, he proceeds "as though under theprotection of a magic or a providence," and when the laws of biological necessitywould seem to limit his action, Grimm is inspired, energized, invigorated, as ifhe were somehow beyond the human: "He seemed indefatiguable, not fiesh andblood, as if the Player who moved him for pawn likewise found him breath"(462). Like McEachern and Burden, Grimm's thoughts and actions are moti-vated by nothing personal, nothing human ("unearthly,""not flesh and blood").As an instrument ofthe Divine, he is the quintessential non-ideological being.

Not only does Percy consider himself an instrument of the Divine, so toodo the townspeople. Just before the castration scene, Faulkner briefly exam-ines the psychological process whereby Grimm comes to represent the divinewill. Christmas is in jail awaiting his indictment. The day is Sunday and "thequiet church bells rang and the congregations gathered" (456). The towns-people know that the Grand Jury will convene the next day, but it is the words"Grand Jury," that inspire so much awe: "Somehow the very sound of the twowords with their evocation secret and irrevocable and something of a hiddenand unsleeping and omnipotent eye watching the doings of men, began to reas-sure Grimm's men in their own makebelieve" (456). The references to religion(church bells and congregation) highlight the sense of mystery, the feeling thatan omnipotent and impartial judge is paying particular attention to the humanevents in Jefferson. For Grimm's men, this sense of religious mystery functions,on a psychological level, to sanction their actions as divinely inspired, not just"their own makebelieve." The next day, with a deputy escorting Christmas tothe courthouse, the prisoner escapes and the chase begins. When Christmasdashes into Hightower s home, Grimm and his men follow, and it is there thatthe pursuers are transfigured: "It was upon them, of them: its shameless savage-ness. Out of it their faces seemed to glare with bodiless suspension as thoughfrom haloes" (463). The men are no longer of this world—they are "bodiless."The God concept has so taken control of their persons that they appear as saints(with "haloes"), ministers of impartial justice and bearers of non-ideologicaltruth. But since Faulkner's narrator has already pointed out that the "omnipo-tent eye" which seems to be "watching the doings of [the] men" is really nothingmore than a communal illusion ("their makebelieve"), we as readers are notfooled by the pretence of being objective, neutral, or non-ideological. In fact,the Grimm episode underscores not just that the knowledge possessed by theseemingly bodiless characters in the novel is human-created and ideologicallydriven, but also that the whole theological apparatus, which includes the spiri-


tual and natural man, is an arbitrary construction. In short, Grimm, Burden,Hines, and McEachern are the most dangerously ideological characters in thenovel precisely because they convince themselves that they are non-ideologicai.

But for Faulkner, the problem is not just that the God-concept and the sub-sequent claim to non ideological Knowledge are misguided makebelieve; theproblem is that this makebelieve leads to violence, despair and sometimes death.Like Hines, McEachern, Burden, and Grimm, Hightower has internalized thedehumanizing structure of faith, an internalization process that has led him torenounce his humanity and become an instrument of the divine will: "'I acqui-esced. Nay, I did worse: 1 served it'" (487). Typical of Faulkner's believers, onceHightower commits himself to the God-concept, he sees himself as a personwho has access to authentic, non-ideological Knowledge, while he sees others,like his wife, as mere natural people, individuals whose lives must be controlledand determined by spiritual people like himself. Therefore, instead of attendingto or respecting the interests, needs, and desires of his wife, he looks past heraltogether. But after witnessing how the God-concept ultimately blinds peoplelike Doc Hines to the quotidian realities of everyday people, he begins to realizehow this theological model has had the same effect on him, which leads him tothe discovery that he has failed to see his wife just as Hines has failed to see hisgrandson: "he did not see her face at all" (479). The same applies to his con-gregation: "I did not see them" (487). Unlike McEachern, Burden, Hines, andGrimm, however, Hightower realizes that in being an instrument ofthe Divinehe has also been an instrument of death and despair and that consequently heis responsible for his wife's doom: "if I am the instrument of her despair anddeath, then I am in turn instrument of someone outside myself" (491). Theword "instrument" clearly brings to mind Doc Hines, who is "the instrument ofHis will" (380).''

The theological model, which effectively alienates and dehumanizes somany, ultimately destroys everyday people like Milly Hines, Ghristmas's father,Mrs. Hines, Mrs. McEachern, Mrs. Hightower, and Joe Christmas. Is it any sur-prise, then, that Hightower's wife is seen "shaking her hands at him [Hightower]or God" (65), the same way that Christmas is heard cursing "God" (323) in ablack church? The God-concept has been responsible for suffering, alienation,and despair. But just because Hightower's wife and Christmas curse God, it doesnot follow that they believe in God. Like the title character from Jean Toomer sexperimental short story "Kabnis," these characters curse a non-existent God:

'"Without taking into account Faulkner's complex critique of the God-concept, il is difficult to ex-plain, in aesthetic terms, how Hightower and Christmas relate to one another. For this reason, Sundquistconsiders Faulkner's discussion of Hightower's past in the penultimate chapter to be an aesthetic lapse: "Thelong, most isolating plunge into the past of Hightower that follows Christmas's death offers little that isrelevant to Christmas's life, or even to Hightower's act of providing him with a futile, last-minute alibi" (91).Contra Sundquist, we could say that the Hightower chapter is absolutely necessary for two reasons. First,by renouncing prayer, Hightower's humani/alion is complete-—he renounced God in the previous chapter,which was also necessary for him to recover his humanity. Second, it is only by rejecting God and prayerthat Hightower can finally see people for the first time. In essence, the chapter indicates that, in providing "afutile, last-minute alibi," Hightower may not save Christmas, but he himself is 'saved' through the action.


"God, he doesnt exist, but nevertheless He is ugly. Hence, what comes fromHim is ugly" (Toomer 85). God does not exist, yet belief in Him has causedunspeakable suffering and psychological damage, which explains why He is uglynevertheless. As Faulkner suggests throughout Light in August, positing the ex-istence of a spiritual reality that only a certain group of people can see necessar-ily leads to a stratification of humanness that ultimately perpetuates the wickedidea of human inferiority.

Therefore, to make truly humane interactions between people and peoplespossible, it is necessary to renounce God and the theological model. Such iswhat Hightower does. As Grimm and his men enter the house in search ofChristmas, Hightower yells out: "'He was with me the night of the murder. Iswear to God—'" (464). To save a supposed black man who has supposedlymurdered a white woman, Hightower lies.' But he does not just lie. He swearsto God. In God's name, the God whom he serves and represents as a minister,he purposely and consciously lies. If God is the basis and foundation of non-ideological Truth, then to lie in his name is to pervert the very essence of God'sbeing; it is to invoke God in order to simultaneously denounce God; it is to callon God in order to abolish God. But at the same time, in renouncing God,Hightower pledges allegiance to Christmas, to the innocent human who hasbeen God's victim, the Isaac who never chose to have his life sacrificed in thename of faith. Indeed, by renouncing God, Hightower can finally see the hu-man, the human as a being, the human being independent of God, independentof all systems of truth. In all his years as a minister, the one thing Hightowercould never do was to see the human, to connect with another human; oniy bydenouncing God can he finally achieve this.

Not surprisingly, after the dreadful event, after his private discovery that hehas been responsible for his wife's and other people's deaths, Hightower can seehuman faces for the first time. In fact, he sees "all the faces which he has everseen . . . his wife's; townspeople, members of the congregation which deniedhim, which had met him at the station that day with eagerness and hunger; By-ron Bunch's; the woman with the child; and that ofthe man called Christmas"(491). At this moment, Hightower, when he is on the verge of prayer, finds thatprayer is as insignificant as God:

Then it seems to him that some ultimate damned flood within him breaks and rushesaway. He seems to watch it, feeling himself losing contact with earth, lighter and light-er, emptying, floating. 'I am dying,' he thinks. 'I should pray. I should try to pray.' Buthe does not. He does not try. (492)

Now that he has found humanity, now that he has been released from God andprayer, the harrowing vision of his grandfather is beginning to fade, "skywardsucking" (493), becoming only a distant memory. Hightower has experiencedthe liberation that Christmas so passionately desired.

'M say "supposedly murdered a white woman" because I follow )ohn N. Duvall, who argues that Ghrist-mas was, to some degree, justified in killing Burden. From a legal perspective, Joe could legitimately claimself-defense.


III .Life is at an end where the

'kingdom of God' begins....Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (55)

Within the context of Light in August, liberation can occur onlythrough a radical affirmation of the humanness of "knowledge,"which is an implicit renunciation of the non-human and thenon-ideological, in short, God. Had Faulkner been a less astute

or more simple-minded cultural critic, he would have countered the racist ide-ologies of people like Carroll by creating marginalized characters who wouldhave been able to enter into a bond of kinship with God, thus making the theo-logical model more inclusive. But Faulkner's target is not the surface injusticesof his culture. His focus is the foundationa! structure that makes the construc-tion of an oppressive ideology a logical necessity. The idea of non-ideologicalKnowledge, which only true spiritual ("bodiless") subjects can access, leads—necessarily—to a stratification of humanness. Those who have epistemologi-cal access to God-created, non-ideological Knowledge are full-fledged Humansand therefore best prepared to rule and govern sub- and non-humans. Such astratification principle ultimately allows those who believe that they have ac-cess to non-ideological Truth to think that they have a right to decide for anddefine natural beings, like Christmas. Therefore, to make it possible for theculture to overcome its dehumanizing ideology, to enable people to see peopleas people, Faulkner implicitly calls for the humanization of'knowledge' andthe concomitant deconstruction of the theological apparatus. He makes thatplea in and through the human, all-too-human, character of Joe Christmas,who, in his search for connection with other humanized humans, embodiesideology.

In a strangely original way, Faulkner offers his readers in Light in Augusta seemingly counter-intuitive approach to ideology. Let me articulate this ap-proach by challenging Donald M. Kartiganer's view of ideology. In his "Intro-duction" to Faulkner and Ideology, Kartiganer discusses the "decidedly sinisterquality" (xi) of ideology, specifically the idea that ideology divests humans ofauthorial autonomy or personal agency: "That this life could somehow con-stitute a compelling argument of its own, could 'speak' him [Faulkner] as ifhe were nothing more than a passive vocabulary for predetermined values, issomething he could not conceive of" (ix). Actually, Faulkner could and didconceive of sucb an idea, but ironically, it is the characters who believe in Godand the non-ideological, glibly assuming they could overcome their humaninterests and desires, that become "nothing more than a passive vocabulary forpredetermined values." Not only are these characters' lives scripted; they wantto script the lives of everyone around them, especially natural men, like Christ-mas, who have supposedly been created to serve spiritual men and women.It is, ironically, the characters who renounce God and the concomitant ap-paratus of non-ideological Knowledge that behave outside the framework of


the culture's "predetermined values." Byron Bunch chooses, against ail reason,to pursue Lena Grove, a "whore" (6), ''another mans laidhy crop" (416), rath-er than fulfill his weekly church service obligation, while Hightower, in clearviolation of his society's religious values, renounces God and simultaneouslypledges allegiance to Joe Christmas. And yet, given the logic of the novel, it isby renouncing God and the attendant non-ideological Knowledge that Byronand Hightower experience something we could almost call human intimacy.In their post-God worlds, both men look at the Other, not as natural men andwomen who are inferior because they supposedly stand outside the bond ofkinship between the human and the Divine, but as wounded beings, like them-selves, in search of human companionship. Given Faulkner's treatment of Godand non-ideological Knowledge, we could say, contra Kartiganer, that what hasa decidedly sinister quality is the theological apparatus, which implicitly au-thorizes the existence of a type of Knowledge that only superior humans, whoovercome humanness, can access. For Faulkner, by admitting that knowledgeis'human'-constructed and ideological, humans can live and experience theirhumanity. Put simply, what makes humans human and humane is the recogni-tion that al! 'knowledge' is human-constructed and ideologically based. Sucha recognition effectively deconstructs the stratification of humanness that theGod-concept and the theological apparatus institutes.

This critique of the God-concept and the concomitant belief in a non-ide-ological Truth is the basis ofthe novel's aesthetic unity. In the very first chapter,we are introduced to Lena's brother, who is described in exactly the same wayas Doc Hines: "He was a hard man" (6, 126). At this point in the novel, wedo not know what makes him such a hard man, who is willing to call his ownsister a "whore" (6), but after meeting McEachern, Burden, Hines, Hightower,and Grimm, we see how the God-concept has created such hard people. By theend ofthe novel, Hightower finally discovers how the God concept ideologyhas converted him and many others into dangerous and destructive people.In the name of compassion, intimacy and love, he abandons God, an act thatenables him to see and embrace others. Unfortunately, he makes his discoverytoo late to save Ghristmas from his God-mandated crucifixion. Witnessinghow the God-concept ideology leads so many characters to marginalize andviolate godless characters {natural people) with impunity can only make thereader fearful of the ominous possibilities in store for Lena, an unwed mother.But fortunately, after Byron meets Lena, he turns his back on the church, and,as a consequence, he is liberated from his God-concept ideology. Notice howFaulkner draws the reader's attention to Byron's transformation when Byronreflects on his emotional response to Lena:

He did not care now, though a week ago it would have been different. Then lie wouldnot have stood here, where any man could look at him and perhaps recognise him:Byron Bunch, that weeded another man'i laidhy crop, without any halvers. The fellowthat took care of another man's whore while the other fellow was busy making a thousanddollars. {'i\t)


"[W]hore" and "laidby crop" (377)—these are the expressions of Doc Hines,though they are also the ideological pronouncements of the whole community.And it is this ideology that almost prevents Byron from pursuing Lena. Thatthis ideology determines Byron's experience of the world he admits by sayingthat he would not be here were it a week earlier. At that point in time, Byronwas still committed to God and the church, but now, after distancing himselffrom the church, he has also distanced himself from its ideology. This is for-tunate for Lena, because as a godless immoralist (an unwed mother), she is indanger of being crucified, like so many other characters in the novel. But inconnecting with the now godless Byron, Lena has the hope of experiencingintimacy and agency (she can choose Byron or not, while he is free to pursuewhat is ideologically forbidden by his culture), two things that Christmas mostdesired.

Not surprisingly, by the end ofthe novel, the hierarchical model that is es-tablished in and through the God-concept has been effectively deconstructed.Luckily, for it is only in a world beyond God and authentic Knowledge thatpeople can engage people as people. For Faulkner, it is in the denial of ideol-ogy that humans lose their humanity, a dehumanization that makes people likeMcEachern, Hines, Burden, and Grimm incapable of connecting with others,but also capable of violating the rights and dignity of others with impunity.Contrariwise, ideology humanizes us; it is the prerequisite for meaningful hu-man connection. From Joanna Burden, Christmas does not want an emptyconcept like God or non-ideological Knowledge. Having "prepared himselflike a bridegroom," though "unaware of it" (267), he wants connection andintimacy with another flesh and blood human. But such connection will notbe possible until others, like Hightower and Byron, renounce the source ofthenon-ideological, which is God. In short, like Nietzsche, Wright, Hurston, andRedding, Faulkner faults not perverted versions of theology and religion, butGod, the source of all our woe. For Faulkner, and this is the unifying idea ofLight in August only by renouncing God and embracing ideology can humanintimacy become a real possibility.

Wellesley College


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The Ideological Function of the God-Concept in Faulkner's Light in August

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