Faith and Lacan

Drawing on The Triumph of Religion (first ed. 1975), "Discourse to Catholics" (1960), as well as on texts like "Introduction to the Names-of-the-Father" (1963) and "The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis" (1953), where Lacan illuminates the experience of speech in psychoanalytic practice, and with the help of Saint Augustine's Confessions (through Jean-Luc Marion's work), discussion proposes that the most compelling feature that joins faith and psychoanalysis is welcoming the word of another. The presentation further considers the deep connection between Lacan's primordial question of the experience of speech in its essentially enigmatic quality and the equally enigmatic biblical view of speech (Sirach 27: 4-7; John 1: 1) as both human test and temptation (peirasmós). The word (speech) is symbol, hence transformative of the interhuman bond, but, because it brings jouissance, it also involves the seizing and taking of voice from somewhere, an enigmatic quality that is implied in Lacan's notion of speaking being (parlêtre).