Immanence and the Re-expression of the World

Deleuze’s philosophy seems to say very little about religion. One could claim, in fact, that his thought remains indifferent to the question of religion. This indifference does not arise out of a strategy that would leave religion with its own limited, if autonomous domain. On the contrary, it arises out of an atheism so confident that it need not defend, much less name, itself. Such indifference has become increasingly rare, insofar as it is no longer remarkable to see contemporary philosophers invoking Pauline thought, investigating the structure of messianicity, or, inversely, imprecating against the return to religion. It would seem that Deleuze’s philosophy, with its manifest atheism and its indifference to the question of religion, has no part in these more recent concerns. Yet while the intuition that Deleuze stands apart from these debates is correct, I do not think it follows that Deleuze has nothing to say about religion. I want to consider the distinct–and more interesting–proposition that Deleuze’s philosophy does not speak about religion because his philosophy is already religious.