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Abstract
Michel de Certeau’s thinking is surely theological, but what kind of theology are we talking about when describing as “theology” a thought that has so boldly crossed over many “secular” disciplines ? This article examines this question by focusing on his discourse on mysticism. “The search for the Word (Parole) of the Absent” seems to be Certeau’s consistent theological motif. Since modern times, it has been a voice barely audible as a “murmur.” However, what Certeau found in mystical texts, and what he himself aspired to, is a voice that transforms the modern subject and its writing, like a footprint on the beach which flurried Robinson Crusoe. Our purpose is to show that reading and listening to these “murmurs” of the Absent is an essential moment of Certeau’s theological thought. We shall see that his theology is a “humiliated theology” that is penetrated by a belief in the “multitude.”