St. Paul: Apostle, Militant, Communist (Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism ) (Book Review‪)‬

Alain Badiou, Saint Paul. The Foundation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 0-8047-4471-8 It may seem curious that a philosopher who thinks that the basis of ontology is mathematics, and who still identifies himself as a communist, should be interested in St. Paul. This book is not, however, concerned with ontology; instead, Badiou, like St. Paul himself, is concerned here with that which 'is' other-than-being. According to St. Paul, this other-than-being is Christ's resurrection. Badiou sees this myth as one of the first attempts to think the true nature of the subject as a process of subjectivization and universalization. In Saint Paul, Badiou argues that to become a subject is to labour for the universalization of love; another name for this task is communism. It should be added that neither communism nor resurrection have any guarantees.