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Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/187226311X555473

Journal of the Philosophy of History 5 (2011) 84104 brill.nl/jph

Secularization, History, and Political Teology:Te Hans Blumenberg and Carl Schmitt Debate

Celina Mara BragagnoloStony Brook University [email protected]

Abstract Considering the enormous outpouring of scholarly work on Schmitt over the lasttwo decades, the absence of an adequate treatment in English of Schmitts conceptof history and the problem of secularization is quite surprising. After all, it isSchmitt himself who claims that all human beings who plan and attempt to unitethe masses behind their plans engage in some form of philosophy of history, suchthat the attempt to make sense of Schmitts program remains incomplete without

a serious treatment of his philosophy of history. Tis article is an attempt toaddress this problem by means of his exchange with Hans Blumenberg who, morethan any other critic of Schmitt, was privy to the political intentions behindSchmitts metaphorical use of theology. While their discussion is extensive and

wide-ranging, I focus here on their diverging philosophies of history, precisely thataspect that is most relevant to gaining a more expansive understanding ofSchmitts arguments, and indeed the relationship between political thought andhistorical thought.

Keywordspolitical theology, secularization, Carl Schmitt, Hans Blumenberg

o construct a philosophy of history is a thing quite different from makinghistory. We might well make it as we please, even as we try to cover overthat fact, and declare our construction to be determined precisely by cir-cumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.1 In

1) Karl Marx, Te Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte in Selected Writings , (Indianapo-lis, Hackett, 1994), 188.


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C. M. Bragagnolo / Journal of the Philosophy of History 5 (2011) 8410485

some sense, this is the nature of Carl Schmitts philosophy of history. Astheorists, we all like to claim that: we can do no other. Worse than beingable to do no other, however, is nding that we do what we do in pursuitof untenable political goals.

Considering the enormous outpouring of scholarly work on Schmittover the last two decades, the absence of an adequate treatment in Englishof Schmitts concept of history and the problem of secularization is quitesurprising.2 Tis is not to say that the importance of Schmitts concept ofhistory to his critique of liberalism has gone unnoticed; it is rather to claimthat it has not received the systematic treatment demanded by its central-

ity. After all, it is Schmitt himself who claims that all human beings whoplan and attempt to unite the masses behind their plans engage in someform of philosophy of history,3 such that the attempt to make sense ofSchmitts program remains incomplete without a serious treatment of hisphilosophy of history.

Readers of Schmitt limited to research in English have at their disposalsome of the major works of Hans Blumberg who, more than any othercritic of Schmitt, was privy to the political intentions behind Schmittsmetaphorical use of theology. Blumenbergs rich correspondence with Sch-mitt, however, remains untranslated a fact which has delayed the long-overdue examination of his critique of Schmitt.4 While their discussion isextensive and wide-ranging, I focus here on their diverging philosophies ofhistory, precisely that aspect that is most relevant to gaining a more expan-sive understanding of Schmitts arguments, and indeed the relationshipbetween political thought and historical thought.

2) Until Charles aylors, Our Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2008) the prob-lem of secularization from any kind of philosophical perspective has been wanting in the

Anglo-American literature in comparison with debates in France. For treatments of Blu-menberg in particular see Jean-Claude Monod,La querelle de la secularization de Hegel Blumenberg , (Paris: Vrin, 2002) as well as hisHans Blumenberg , (Paris:Belin, 2007).3) Carl Schmitt, Tree Possibilities for a Christian Conception of History, M. Wenig,(trans.) elos , 147 (Summer 2009), 167.4) Tere are two exceptions to this. Hans-Werner Mller treated the Blumenberg-Schmittdebate hurriedly in A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-war European Tought (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 2003). See also Oliver Mller, Beyond the Political: HansBlumenbergs Criticism of Carl Schmitt in Svetozar Minkov and Piotr Nowak (Hg.): Manand his enemies. Essays on Carl Schmitt. (University of Bialystok Press: 2008). Tis is theonly article in English that makes reference to theBriefwechsel .


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Blumenberg argues that the exigency of the moment that Schmittseeks is founded upon a historical substantialism that, in Schmitts own

words, insert[s] the eternal into the course of time.5 Blumenbergs projectis to fend off this substantialism and the specter of decisionism it repre-sents by appeal to a narrative of historical self-consciousness. While heconcedes to Schmitt that there have been persistent attempts throughoutmodernity to reintroduce the absolute into the political order, he deniesthe necessity of the reoccupation of the void left by religion by an imma-nent absolutism. Schmitts political theological project is thus unmasked asan attempt to cover over its conscious and active efforts at retheologizing

history and politics with the cloak of necessity. Tis I take to be one of thevaluable lessons of Blumenbergs critique.I lay the groundwork for Blumenbergs critique in section one, where I

focus on his account of modern historical self-consciousness. In sectiontwo, I undertake a critical examination of the Gnostic conception of his-tory developed by Schmitt in his rst response to Blumenberg. Tis provesfundamental to understanding Schmitts concept of the political as a dual-istic, ahistorical and transcendental order, an order left unscathed by theEnlightenment and Bourgeois revolutions. I then conclude with the ques-tion of Schmitt as a political actor, and the diagnosis of his intentions aspresented by Blumenberg.

I. Historical Substantialism versus the Historicity of Reason:wo Conceptions of History in Blumenbergs Te Legitimacy of the

Modern Age

Te Legitimacy of the Modern Age was published in 1966 as a response toKarl Lwiths Meaning in History , a book which described modern philo-sophical consciousness, in particular the idea of progress, as a product ofthe secularization of Christian ideas.6 Part one of LMA, dealt not only withLwiths secularization thesis but also with a wide variety of instantiations

5) Schmitt,Tree Possibilities, 170.6) Hans Blumenberg, Te Legitimacy of the Modern Age , R. Wallace (trans.), (Cambridge,MA: Te MI Press, 1983). Te English translation is based on the revised edition whichcame out in three volumes in 1973, 1974 and 1976. Hereafter LMA. Karl Lwith, Meaningand History: Te Teological Implications of the Philosophy of History , (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1949).


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of the thesis, including Schmitts which claimed that all signicant ( prg-nanten) concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theo-logical concepts.7 Blumenbergs line of attack here was to depict allsecularization theses as forms of historical substantialism reminiscent of aPlatonism committed to the original property in ideas theory. It wasBlumenbergs view, furthermore, that the secularization thesis presupposesa theological conception of history which is not transparent to theoryitself. Contrary to Christian Platonism, the modern age produced theaxiom that the legitimate ownership of ideas can be derived only fromtheir authentic production.8 Under the self-assertion of reason, the self-

inherence of truth is guaranteed by its self-generation which is available toall rational subjects by carrying out the work of knowledge.9 What distin-guishes the modern age is precisely the attempt to ground knowledge noton a divine intervention but on the basis of a self-assertion expressed in theidea of method which is potentially available for anyone to carry out. ForBlumenberg, the theological element in the concept of secularization isthus unavailable to our historical understanding. Tis is what ultimatelyundermines the critical standpoint of secularization theorists. Te sort ofphilosophy of history that makes use of secularization as an explanation ofhistory involves itself in the contradiction that it excludes its own tool (thesecularization thesis) from the rational criticism that it assigns to itself asthe characteristic of its historical standpoint.10

Blumenbergs explanation of why the modern state does in fact displayabsolutist elements is realized by means of an account of the developmentof the modern state as an unnished product of modernity. In his view, theabsolute state displayed both, a self-assertive moment (its founding outof the rationality of a contract) while still containing pre-modern elements

(remnants of theological absolutism). While Schmitt takes the state of theius publicum Europaeum to be a nished product of Western rationalism,Blumenberg takes it to be an unnished product of modernity, the absolute

7) Carl Schmitt, Political Teology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty , (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2005), 36.Politische Teologie , (Mnchen: Dunker & Hum-blot, 1922), 35. 8) Blumenberg, LMA, 29. 9) Blumenberg, LMA, 73.10) Elizabeth Brient,Te Immanence of the Innite: Hans Blumenberg and the Treshold to Modernity (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 24.


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state being a short-lived interlude within history.11 Perhaps it was thebleakness of the times that led Blumenberg to the prediction that the Cold

War was the ultimate conict of the experiment of absolute authorities.12 In his view, the concept of the absolute state is a reoccupation of ananswer position absoluteness. Te absolute state took on the function oftheological absolutism and served only to bring the cause of politicalabsolutism into the sphere of what was familiar and sanctioned and henceto be accepted fatalistically.13 Perhaps, Blumenberg suggests, a new formof cosmopolitanism is in order, one which does away with the primacy ofthe political and the sense of peril to which states and citizens are con-

stantly exposed.14

Te rest of LMA traces the proper development of modern conscious-ness and culture out of the contradictions of late medieval Christian con-ceptions of the cosmos and our relation to it; contradictions that wereunsolvable within the Christian framework. Te shift in attitude fromcontemplation to self-assertion means that the question about the funda-mental grounding of our knowledge can be ignored because all that wehave available to us are rhetorical transactions, in the vocabulary thatBlumenberg picks up later, that help us come to terms with the provision-ality of reason.15

It is not within the scope of this paper to offer a critique of Blumen-bergs concept of rationality and historical self-consciousness. Needless tosay, the functionalist account underlying these concepts provides little interms of a normative framework by which to chose or reject among a vari-ety of cultural and political institutions.16 Te point here is to provide anoutline of Blumenbergs characterization and critique of any kind of secu-larization thesis which is based on an ontology of substance such as Lwiths

and Schmitts. Blumenbergs rst attempt at a refutation of Schmitt ended11) Carl Schmitt, Political Teology II: Te Myth of the Closure of any Political Teology.(Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2008), 117118. Blumenberg, LMA, 91.12) Blumenberg, LMA, 91.13) Blumenberg, LMA, 90.14) Blumenberg, LMA, 91.15) Hans Blumenberg, An Anthropological Approach to the Contemporary Signicanceof Rhetoric in Ken Baynes, J. Bohman and . McCarthy, (eds.) After Philosophy: End orransformation? (Cambridge, MA: Te MI Press, 1987), 452.

16) For a classic critique of Blumenberg along these lines see Robert Pippin.Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations . (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).


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here. From here on, their debate never shifted ground; Blumenberg hold-ing fast to a conception of historical consciousness that in its attempt tobreak away from absolutism makes use of non-totalizing and non-essentialist discursive practices and Schmitt who, working from the oppo-site tendency, never let go of the exigency of absolutism whether it be inimmanent or transcendent form.

2. Schmitts Teological Grounding of the Political: Gnosticism as Absolute Politics

Blumenberg conceded in a letter to Schmitt that out of all the criticismsLMA received, Schmitts was the one that unsettled him (innerviert ) themost.17 Schmitts rst and most scathing response to LMA came in a post-script to his 1970 Political Teology II.Here he began by protesting Blu-menbergs generalizing mixture of his secularization thesis with all sortsof confused parallels between religious, eschatological and political ideas.18 Before getting to Schmitts postscript, however, let me contextualize it bygiving a broad overview ofPolitical Teology IIsince Schmitts exposure

of Blumenberg as a closet political theologian follows the same logic as hisindictment of Erick Peterson. As Schmitt confesses,Political Teology II is, rst and foremost, a reply

to Erick Peterson in an attempt to settle old scores.19 Petersons 1935 Monotheism as a Political Problem, claimed to refute the possibility of apolitical theology based on two reasons. First, political theology is incapa-ble of accounting for the Christian trinity since it has no correspondinginstitutional example on earth.20 Secondly, political theologies fail to

17) Blumenberg to Schmitt, 3/24/1971 in Hans Blumenberg, Carl Schmitt. Briefwechsel19711978 (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp 2007), 105.18) Schmitt, Political Teology , 117. Blumenberg would later say in a letter that his general-izing mixture has to do with the method by which he criticizes positions. Here, he makesuse of gewisse Formulierungshilfen in order to pin down the general intention of the vari-ous positions on an issue. Letter to Carl Schmitt, 24/3/1971 inBriefwechsel , pp. 105106.19) A comment made by Hans Barion in a study on the Second Vatican Council publishedin a Festschrift dedicated to Schmitt, provoked Schmitt to recall an old challenge and torip the Parthian arrow from the wound. Political Teology II , 32.20) Erik Peterson,El monotesmo como problema politico, Agustn Andreu (trans.), (Madrid:Editorial rotta, 1999).


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properly understand the role of the church in the history of salvation. HerePeterson makes use of Augustines teaching of the two kingdoms and thediscontinuity between the church and the Roman Empire. UnderlyingPetersons treatise is the idea of a pure theology based on an Augustineaneschatological understanding of time. Te kingdom of god cannot beidentied with any secular empire, thus heavenly and earthly matters (pol-itics) remain distinct. Petersons critique found widespread acceptance inthe aftermath of the war since it ruptured the connection between religionand politics. During the Nazi regime many Catholic and Protestant theo-logians had attempted to legitimize the partys power in the name of

Christ.21

Secondly,Political Teology II is an intervention in the aftermathdiscussion of Vatican II where a new wave of political theology from theleft pushed for more progressive involvement of theology in social issues.Schmitt did not question the ability of theology to intervene in social andpolitical issues. For Schmitt at issue were the politicalgoals of such inter-vention; whether they were progressive or conservative, whether they fos-tered democracy or authority.22

One of the ways in whichPolitical Teology II differs fromPolitical Te-ology is that here Schmitt attempts to theologically ground the friend-enemydistinction. For many, this provides Schmitts concept of the political witha theological grounding missing in his early Weimar period writings andproves that Schmitts theological claims have to be taken seriously.23 akinga closer look, however, it becomes evident that inPolitical Teology II ,Schmitt makes use of theological vocabulary as a tool for the grounding ofthe political and that little of his concept of the political derives fromtheological dogma. In other words, the primacy of the political over otherspheres (the economy, aesthetics, or theology) is still operative inPolitical

Teology II . Teology here is subsumed under the imperatives of the polit-21) M. Hoelzl and G. Ward, Editors Introduction to Political Teology II , 9; Peter Hohendal,Political Teology Revisited: Carl Schmitts Postwar Reassessment, inKonturen1 (2008), 3.22) Hohendal, Political Teology Revisited, 4, 8, 11.23) See M. Hoelzl and G. Ward in the Editors Introduction toPolitical Teology II ; AlfonsoGalindo Hervs, Autonoma o secularizacin? Un falso dilemma sobre la poltica mod-erna in Reyes Mate, (ed.)Nuevas teologas polticas: Pablo de arso en la construccin delOccidente , (Barcelona: Anthropos, 2006). Hohendal waivers between interpreting Schmittsconcept of the political as theologically grounded and understanding his use of theology asbeing in the service of the friend-enemy distinction. See Hohendal, Political TeologyRevisited.


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ical, not the other way around. Tis further puts into relief Schmitts onto-logical grounding of the political as the constitutive basis for struggle inother areas. Tis ontological grounding lends authority to decisions thatresult from confrontation, a grounding that would upset modernitys post-metaphysical and post-ontological orientation. How does all this play outin Political Teology II??

Schmitts belated response to Peterson inPolitical Teology II raises twopoints which bring us back, full circle, to his concept of the political asoutlined in his earlier Weimar period. 1) First he reaffirms the historic andpolitical mission of the Church rst broached inRoman Catholicism and

Political Form.24

Against Augustines distinction between the two citiesand his characterization of Christianity as spiritual rather than political,Schmitt evaluates the role of the Holy Roman Empire in light of the escha-tological expectations of the early Church. In Schmitts eschatological viewof history, the Roman Empire is a power which delays the coming of the

Antichrist at the end of history. Troughout Political Teology II as well asin his correspondence with Blumenberg, Schmitt frequently makes use ofthe gure of theKatechon as that person or power which delays, or restrainshistory.25 While Petersons strict eschatological interpretation of historydevalues history, the work of theKatechon, in this case the Roman Empire,gives history meaning by establishing a political order in the face of chaos.Te theological immerses itself in the political once it begins to occupythe public space of the church. As Schmitt argues, Te church of Christis not of this world and its history, but it is in this world. Tat means: it islocalised and opens up a space; and space here means impermeability, vis-ibility and the public sphere.26 While Peterson wanted to restrict the inu-ence of the church, Schmitt endeavored to extend it.27 In Schmitts

argument, political theology is not derived from theological dogma. Onthe contrary, for him, anything that is engaged with human affairs, in this

24) Carl Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, G. Ulmen (trans.), (Westport, C :Greenwood Press, 1996).25) Katechon is a biblical concept/gure which appears in Paul (2 Tessalonians 2: 67).

According to one letter, the question of theKatechon is the ultimate problem (Kernfrage ) ofhis political theology. Letter to Blumenberg, 10/20/1974,Briefwechsel , 120.26) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 65.27) Tis is Schmitt interpretation of Petersons text. For a reading of Schmitts misinterpre-tation of Petersons account of the proper role of the church see Gerby, Political Teologyversus Teological Politics, 26.


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world, regardless of its self-conception must necessarily be political: [t]hemere fact that a theological argument extends into the realm of praxismakes it political.28 Clearly, the political maintains its autonomyvis-a-vis theology.

2) Schmitts second objection towards Peterson also takes us back to hisformulation of the concept of the political outlined during the Weimarperiod. Against Petersons argument that a political theology is impossiblesince the Christian trinity cannot be translated into rule by one MonarchSchmitt reaffirms the friend-enemy distinction as the essence of the politi-cal when he provides a Gnostic interpretation to the trinity.29 Schmitts

Gnostic interpretation pits a godly Christ against a human Christ at thesame time that it provides a concept of human nature as inherently evil.Te doctrine of the rinity accommodates the identity of the God ofcreation as the God of salvation through the unity between Father andSon . . . Tereby a dualism of two natures, God-human, becomes a unity inthe second person.30 Te unity of God thus includes the hostility betweenGod the father and God the son and therefore, the possibility of uproar. Itis the states function, asKatechon, to contain the implications of this con-tinuous stasis (civil war, political unrest).31 Schmitts Gnostic interpretationof the trinity also serves to ground his belief in the fundamental enmitybetween humans theologically so as to legitimate the function of the polit-

28) Hohendal, Political Teology Revisited, 10.29) As Schmitt indicates, Te main structural problem with Gnostic dualism, that is, withthe problem of the God of creation and the God of salvation, dominates not only everyreligion of salvation and redemption. It exists inescapably in every world in need of changeand renewal, and is both immanent and ineradicable.Political Teology II , 125.30) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 124. One could also take Schmitts argument here asdirected against Hobbes account of the rinity in the Leviathan. Hobbes understanding ofthe rinity as a series of representations of God by articial persons such as Moses, Jesus,and the Apostles, is crucial to his construction of the concept of the Sovereign as an office

which different, replaceable persons can occupy in their representation of the people.Schmitts distinction between liberal representation (Vertretung ) as against a more substan-tive form of representation (reprsentieren) was of crucial concern to him beginning withthe book Roman Catholicism and Political Form, G. L. Ulmen, trans., (Greenwood Press,1996). For an analysis of the importance of Hobbes rinity for the construction of a peace-ful and secure political community see Jonothan J. Edwards, Calvin and Hobbes: rinity,

Authority, and Community in Philosophy and Rhetoric , 42 (2009): 116133. I thank oneof the reviewers for this insight.31) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 123.


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ical sovereign. One cannot get rid of the enmity between human beingsby prohibiting wars between states in the traditional sense, by advocatinga world revolution and by transforming world politics into worldpolicing.32

Although some interpret Schmitts Gnosticism as deviating from ortho-dox Catholic dogma into a private form of mythology or Gnosticism,33 I would argue that Schmitt is still working here with his early Weimarconcept of the political as total. As Schmitt suggests, the trinity should beunderstood as partaking in the structure of the political, a structure whichcan also be detected in its entirely de-theologized counter-image. Te

reality of the enemy is present in the old political theology as much asit is the totally new, purely secular and humane humanity.34 Schmittsdraws on the motto that prefaces Goethes fourth book of Dichtung undWarheit , nemo contra deum nisi dues ipse [no one is/can do anything againstGod except God himself] in order to reinforce the discord inherent inevery unity. Much of Schmitts assessment of Blumenbergian conceptssuch as self-assertion and self-empowerment arise out of what he thinksto be the modern ages blindness towards its inbuilt political theologicalconstitution.

Much of the debate surrounding Schmitts Gnostic interpretation of thetrinity came through in his correspondence with Blumenberg. TeExtraordinary Saying, as Goethes motto is oftentimes called, is of centralconcern beginning with their rst contact which was initiated by Blumen-berg. In his rst letter Blumenberg lends the motto a polytheistic interpre-tation linking it to the gure of Prometheus.35 Goethes motto capturesthe general meaning of Polytheism as the separation of powers, its hinder-ing of absolute power, and every religion as the feeling of the absolute

impossibility of becoming independent of it.36 With this strategy, Blu-menbergs critical analysis of myth from the anthropological standpoint in

32) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 125.33) Ruth Groh, Arbeit an der Heillosigkeit der Welt. Zur politisch-theologischen MythologieCarl Schmitts , (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), cited in Hohendal, Political Teology Revis-ited, 19. For Hohendal, however, Schmitt does displays Gnostic ideas. Hohendal, 1920.34) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 123.35) Letter to Schmitt, 24/3/1971 in Briefwechsel , 105. See also letter to Schmitt, 7/8/1975,133.36) Letter to Schmitt, 7/8/1975, 133, my translation.


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his Work on Myth is already foreshadowed.37 Blumenbergs anthropologicalturn can be taken as a programmatic rejection of political theology. At theheart of this project is Blumenbergs anthropogenesis, a story about howour primitive human ancestors were able to reduce the Angst provoked bythe absolutism of reality by means of cultural symbolization, the paradig-matic form being myth. Polytheistic mythology succeeds in reducing Angst because each power works within a limited domain. Competing powersare balanced out resulting in a separation of powers, a restraint on abso-luteness, the elimination of arbitrariness, and nally, to an overall masteryof the environment.38 As Blumenberg argues, myth rationalizes general,

undened Angst into fear of specic and separate agencies that can benamed and accounted for. Blumenberg extended his account of myth toinclude other forms of rationality that serve as a devices for coping in a

world which for us lacks coherence, harmony and a unied conception ofthe good. Blumenberg labeled rhetoric all those forms of rationality

whose objective is to establish, by means of a consensus, meaning wherethere is none.39 Lacking denitive evidence and being compelled to actare the prerequisits of the rhetorical situation.40 Te opposite of this, forBlumenberg, results in a potentially violent decisionism. Consensus, in theabsence of absolute truths, becomes an alternative to terror.41

One could say that the necessity of familiarizing oneself with the uncanny, with the absolutism of reality, as myth does, underlies Blumenbergsnotion of self-assertion and his account of secularization in LMA. Godsabsolute sovereignty grew more and more unwieldy throughout theadvancement of the middle ages until it reached a stage where any salvage-able notion of divine order was out of sight leaving humans disoriented

37) Hans Blumenberg, Work on Myth, Robert M. Wallace, trans. (Cambridge, MA: MIPress, 1985).38) Myth is a way of expressing the fact that the world and the powers that hold sway in itare not abandoned to pure arbitrariness. However this may be signied, whether by a sepa-ration of powers or through a codication of competences or through a legalization ofrelationships, it is a system of the elimination of arbitrariness.Work On Myth, 4243.39) Blumenberg, An Anthropological Approach.40) Blumenberg, An Anthropological Approach, 441.41) o see oneself in the perspective of rhetoric means to be conscious both of being com-pelled to act and of the lack of norms in a nite situation. Everything that is not force heregoes over to the side of rhetoric, and rhetoric implies the renunciation of force. Blumen-berg, An Anthropological Approach, 437.


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and at their own mercy. Te idea of Gods absoluteness run wild gave way to the modern ages self-assertion with its inbuilt disposition towardsself-preservation.42 While the guiding principle of Gnosticism is the notionof das Fremde the strange, the foreign, the other, the uncanny,43 the secu-larizing impulse could be understood as its opposite. Gnosticism privi-leged Entweltlichung , literally a deworldlication, an evacuation ormaking-absent from the world . . . Against GnosticEntweltlichung , to secu-larize involves aVerweltlichung , a making-of-this-world.44 As one readingsuggests, Blumenbergs LMA could be read as the attempt at a third over-coming of Gnosticism, modernity constituting its second overcoming.45

Indeed, Gnostic thought had made a return in early Weimar culture; inparticular it had made a strong resurgence in theology. Barths theology ofkrisis , for example, centered around the rejection of human centered solu-tions to the historical situation of post World War I Europe establishing anabsolute dichotomy between the divine and the profane.46 Needless to say,

42) In his typically functionalist approach, Blumenberg notes that what he then describedas reoccupation is nothing other than a rhetorical transaction: In our traditions system ofthe explanation of reality there is a position for this historical subject, a position to which

vacancy and occupation refer. Te accomplishment and establishment of the reoccupationare rhetorical acts. An Anthropological Approach, 451. Blumenberg recalls the old rhe-torical gure oftranslatio imperii [the transfer of power] as the act by which the historicalsubject is determined and legitimized. What goes on under reoccupation is thebertra- gung , the carrying over of metaphorical functions. Te link between LMA and his workon myth can be further extended in that myth, in contrast to someone like Cassirer istreated as something fully and radically historical. Tere are no archetypal images, guresor species-specic rhetorical devices as in Cassirers account of myth.Te following quotefrom Pippin illustrates Blumenbergs non-essentialist approach to myth: What we take up,use, alter, and expand in some standard narrative always represents a working out of ahistorically particular version of the fears and anxieties Blumenberg has identied asunavoidable in human experience. Pippin, 291.43) Benjamin Lazier, Overcoming Gnosticism: Hans Jonas, Hans Blumenberg and theLegitimacy of the Natural World in Journal of the History of Ideas , 64 (2003), 619.44) Benjamin Lazier, Overcoming Gnosticism, 623.45) Benjamin Lazier, Overcoming Gnosticism, 620. It seems more plausible to think ofLegitimacy as a monumental but occulted response to the crisis theologians of the 1920s,and to eschatological crisis though more generally. 624. Lazier goes on to note an additionBlumenberg made in the second edition of LMA in which he implicitly makes reference tocrisis theologians such as Barth. See LMA, 5, cited in Lazier, 624.46) Douglas J. Cremer, Protestant Teology in Early Weimar Teology: Barth, illich, andBultmann in Journal of the History of Ideas , 56, No.2 (1995), 294.


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gnosis, as a type of knowledge dependent on revelation issued from a tran-scendent source went counter to the system of knowledge particular to themodern age as defended by Blumenberg. As I argued above, Blumenbergscritique of the secularization thesis focuses on a critique of historical expla-nations predicated on a continuity of substance. For Blumenberg, themodern age derives its radicalness from divorcing human existence fromnature and the cosmos, or in Blumenbergs anthropological term theabsoluteness of reality (realms to which we have no natural connection)and ties it to the capacity to create a life world (as our brief description ofmyth shows). One could say that the rejection of absolutism, in either of

its theological or political variants, is BlumenbergsLebensthema .47

Tis is why Blumenberg had such a strong reaction to Schmitts Gnosticism andhis political theology in general. Dened by the friend-enemy distinction,political theology deals in unmediated absolutes and thus cannot affordconsensus or the endlessness of the type of discursive rationality charac-teristic of the modern age hence Schmitts distaste for Parliamentarism,the institutional form of rhetoric par excellance .

3. Te Political as the otal: Schmitts Political Use of Teology

But perhaps more important for Schmitt is that Peterson, insofar as heclaimed to bring to an end a political question (the possibility of politicaltheology) is intervening in a political issue. For Schmitt, a theology which

47) Alexander Schmitz und Marcel Lepper, Nachwort in Hans Blumenberg, Carl Schmitt,Briefwechsel , 305. A quote from Blumenbergs essay Political Teology III neatly sum-marizes this position: If anthropogenesis has already become itself the crisis of all crises,because it made the non-extinction of humans into a biological inconsequence of evolu-tion, then it is at the same time the cultivation of the conditions of life which earns the titleof an absolutism, and this in the most general and theologically unspecied sense: that ofan absolutism of reality itself. Humans, escaped from a situation of the near impossibilityof life, had the absolute animosity of nature directly behind them, but so close behind themthat they always had to survive under actually inhospitable, or selectively hospitable condi-tions. Whichever absolutisms humans might have created over the course of their history,this at their origin was not to be overcome. All others [absolutisms] stand rather in theservice of its overcoming. Te creature that came into being was a master in dealing withthe absolute in its always already depotentiated forms. Politische Teologie III inHansBlumenberg/Carl Schmitt, Briefwechsel 19711978 und weitere Materialen, Frankfurt: Suhr-kamp, 2007, 171. My translation.


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takes itself to be separate from politics (such as Petersons) is in itself apolitical intervention. Here we can detect the basis of Reinhart Koselleckscritique of the Enlightenment bourgeoisie as hypocritical in that thisclass either refused or did not recognize their quest for political power atthe same time that they were engaged in repressing the political realm.48 Te Bourgeoisies positioning of itself within the moral realm as against thepolitical realm served, Koselleck argues, to enhance their claim todomination.49 Similarly as regards Petersons thesis,

Te theologian can reasonably declare the closure of issues of political signi-

cance only by establishing himself as a political voice which makes politicalclaims . . . Te statement political monotheism is theologically brought to anend implies the theologians claim to the right of making decisions in thepolitical sphere too, and his demand for authority over the political power.Tis claim becomes politically more intense along with the degree to whichtheological authority claims to supersede political power.50

Of course, this seems to be one of Schmitts favorite tactics to accuse hisopponent of being a political theologian in disguise. Schmitt even ends his

Political Teology by accusing Bakunin of being the theologian of the anti-theological and the dictator of an anti-dictatorship.51 Bakunins anarchyfaces authority as its negation. Schmitt sees both positions as absolutes one decides for the decision, the other decides against the decision; hence,for Schmitt, Bakunins decisionism. InPolitical Teology II , Schmitt extendsthe same kind of accusation towards Blumenberg. After having shownPetersonstheologicalclosure of political theology to be incorrect, Schmittdirects his efforts at Blumenbergsscientic closure of political theology.Blumenbergs was the latest and most recognized account of all matterspertaining to the historical development of modernity. While Schmittsattempt to refute Peterson remained within the horizon of Hellenistic

48) Reinhart Koselleck,Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of ModernSociety , (Cambridge, MA: MI Press, 1988), 12. I thank one of the article reviewers forreminding me of this relationship.49) Koselleck,Critique and Crisis , 61.50) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 113. Tis is identical to Schmitts claim in Political Teol-ogy , that those who claim theyre unpolitical are being political because the political is thetotal. 2.51) Schmitt, Political Teology , 66.


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philosophy, Schmitt would confront the closure of political theology inthe contemporary, secular horizon by means of a critique of Blumenberg.

Schmitts tactic here is to expose the modern phenomenon of self-assertion outlined in LMA as a decisionistic force of creationex nihilo it is the creation of nothingness as the condition for the possibility of theself-creation of an ever new worldliness52 and whats more as a vehiclefor that which is radically aggressive.53 Te modern age is nothing but atheology turned inwards . Te modern ages foundation, as well as its prac-tices, presuppose a form of sovereign decision-making since by its natureKnowledge does not need any justication, it justies itself . . . Its imma-

nence, directed polemically against a theological transcendence, is nothingbut self-empowerment.54 We can begin to see here the relation betweenthe concepts of the political and political theology. Political theology, inthis context, is an attempt to hide the decisionistic core of modern self-assertion. Self-assertion occupies the same structural position God does intheology. Tis position is none other than sovereignty.55

Political Teology II thus reaffirms Schmitts illiberal and anti-modernreaction towards the Western process of secularization and its claim toproduce legitimacy through the generation of its own epistemic standards.He condemns the modern ages mechanistic nature while exposing, at thesame time, the political (i.e., transcendent) element underlying it. If one

were to narrow down on Schmitts conception of secularization, one wouldhave to say that secularization is for him the transguration of divine powerinto the immanent transcendental subject.

When a god creates the world from nothing, he then transforms nothingnessinto something utterly astonishing, namely something out of which a world

can be created. oday, we dont even need a god for this any longer. Self-expression, self-affirmation and self-empowerment one of the many phrasesprexed by self, a so-called auto-composition are enough to allow a newand unforeseen world to emerge. Tese new worlds produce themselves and,

52) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 129.53) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 120.54) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 120.55) Here I rely on Andrew Norris reading in Carl Schmitts Political Metaphysics: Onthe Secularization of the Outermost Sphere,Teory and Event 4, no. 1 (Summer 2000),272295.


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moreover, they produce the conditions for their own possibility at leastthose articial laboratory conditions.56

Secularization did not change the (politico-theological) structure of the world, it made it less visible. For Schmitt, however, this new transguredsubject is an aggressive negation of what precedes it. In a highly sarcasticpassage towards the end, Schmitt portrays Blumenbergs self-assertivemodern subject as an aggressive, divinely self-produced God whose newscience (which is really a new theology) expresses human freedom as aproduct of neutrality, use and objectivity. As Schmitt warns us, the new,

secular world originated through an aggressive negation of the old. Tus,the reality of the enemy is still present in the secular, de-theologized world.Te transposition of the enemy from the old political theology into apretentious and totally new, purely secular and humane humanity needs tobe watched closely and critically, for it remains indeed the permanentfunction [Officium] of any scientic struggle for knowledge.57 PoliticalTeology II follows thus in the footsteps of the early Te Age of Neutrali-zations and Depoliticizations, an essay where Schmitt showed how Euro-pean history developed according to shifts in central intellectual domainsleading to the current age of economic technicity whose center is stillshrouded in a magical religiosity.58

For Schmitt, however, almost any kind of epistemic stance or attitude isconsidered to be a form of decision and a decision, furthermore, is alwaysraised against some other decision. Schmitts use of the concept of politicaltheology is not used to expose political theories that contain theologicalarguments or ideas. Te gures he attempts to expose make no use oftheology or, in the case of Bakunin and Blumenberg, outright reject it.

Under Schmitts concept of the political as the total, one cannot declineto take a side. Neutrality is impossible and whoever disagrees with thisclaim only attempts to disguise their decision.

56) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 34.57) Schmitt, Political Teology II , 128. For an excellent paper that explains why Blumen-bergs concept of self-assertion is not a form of Nietzschean will to power see Lazier,Overcoming Gnosticism, 636ff.58) Carl Schmitt, Te Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations, inTe Concept of thePolitical (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 85.


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Schmitts secularization thesis does is make something visible the struc-tural analogy between god and sovereignty but it does not entail that onestructure is derived from the other or that they both are derived from athird prototype. For Blumenberg, what really lies behind Schmitts secu-larization thesis is a dualistic typology of situations. Here two conceptssuch as political authority and the omnipotence of god are structurallycomparable only in terms of a coordination of positions within a system-atic context. Tis is not, he argues, enough to warrant the characterizationof political theory as political theology.63

So what is at the bottom of Schmitts secularization thesis? As Blumen-

berg suggests, Schmitts decisionistic conception of the state is not thesecularization of a theological creationex nihilo but a skillful metaphoricalinterpretation of revolutionary starting points. Much like the revolutionsof 1848, which made their historical appearance in disguise, as Marxinformed us in his Eighteenth Brumaire , Schmitts approach consists inemploying the old language, rhetoric and costume in order to establishhistorical continuity. According to Blumenberg, the choice of linguisticmeans is not determined by the system of what is available for borrowingbut rather by the requirements of the situation in which the choice is beingmade.64 As a result, what underlies the phenomena of linguistic seculari-zation cannot be an extensively demonstrable recourse to theology as such;rather it is a choice of elements from the selective point of view of theimmediate need, in each case, for background and pathos.65 As Blumen-berg sees it, Schmitts political theology could be understood as a set ofmetaphors, as a particular rhetoric, which says more about the immediatepresent than about the origins of these metaphors and rhetoric.

But the use of old ideas and metaphors for the purposes of increasing

legitimacy is not the only explanation behind their recurrence. As Blumen-berg attempts to highlight throughout Part I, the persistence of theologicallanguage in the modern age can also be interpretable within the sameframework of functions and reoccupations. Linguistic constancy goes handin hand with the reoccupation of systematic functions. When an interpre-tive framework loses its ability to orient human beings in a meaningful

way a new context of meaning comes into play which, in the process,

63) Blumenberg, LMA, 94.64) Blumenberg, LMA, 93.65) Blumenberg, LMA, 94.


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utilizes for its own purposes the old frameworks sanctioned status assomething that is beyond questioning.66 For Blumenberg, this is particu-larly evident for the new political theory. At yet other times the appropria-tion of old language and expressions for a new form of thinking is duesimply to a deciency in language and the difficulty, for lack of new con-cepts, of constructing a new secular terminology.67 Evidence for this sort ofdifficulty can be found in Ciceros plight to translate Greek philosophyinto Latin. At the modern threshold, persistence of the old language cre-ates the appearance of secularization but it is, nevertheless, the result ofthe reoccupation of answer positions.68 As Blumenberg states, there is

nothing in which language is more productive than in the formulation ofclaims in the realm of the intangible.69 Te use of religious language thuscannot be mechanically ascribed to a transguration of sacred concepts.Tis is the case, especially for Schmitts critique which, as Blumenberginsists, is a critique of modernity which selectively makes use of chargedlanguage in order to conjure an exigency that would otherwise be hard toconvey.

Ultimately, for Blumenberg, Schmitts secularization thesis is a means tond legitimacy for a sovereign dictator. In a move reminiscent of Hegel,Schmitt deduces the necessary existence of an absolute willing person (orsovereign) from the necessary existence of an absolute will, although forHegel, legitimacy does not come by means of an implant from the Chris-tian tradition but rather from a rational consolidation that lls the abstract

with concrete contents.70 Without the ontological deduction of the exist-ence of the sovereign Schmitt would have to nd legitimacy elsewhere.71 Tus arises Schmitts need for the kind of secularization spelled out inPolitical Teology . Particularly, Blumenberg notes, Schmitts secularizationthesis requires a special concept of the person in order to ll the positionof the highest decision-maker. Tis person can only be thought of in a

66) Blumenberg, LMA, 78.67) Blumenberg, LMA, 78.68) Blumenberg, LMA, 86.69) Blumenberg, LMA, 86.70) Blumenberg, LMA, 100.71) Blumenberg, LMA, 100. Obviously, as Blumenberg rightly notes, this is not a form ofargument that Schmitt attempts to imitate if only because absolutism of sovereignty pro-hibits arguments even about its concept . . . Quoting Schmitt: About a concept as suchthere will in general be no dispute, least of all in the history of sovereignty. LMA, 100101.


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metaphorical sense because the person of the sovereign needs to be vested with legitimacy. A person in the literal sense will not do. In Blumenbergsview,

Political theology is a metaphorical theology: the quasi-divine person of thesovereign possesses legitimacy, and has to possess it, because for him there isno longer legality, or not yet, since he has rst to constitute or to reconstituteit. Te enviable position in which the political theologian places himself bymeans of his assertion of secularization consists in the fact that he nds hisstock of images ready to hand and thus avoids the cynicism of an open theo-logical politics . . . Te assumption of secularization allows the political theo-logian to nd ready for use what he would otherwise have had to invent, onceit turned out after all not to be something whose existence could bededuced.72

For Blumenberg, political theology is a masked theology employed at theservice of legitimizing decisionism. Te absoluteness of theological con-cepts serves to express the exigency of the situation.

Reading through Blumenberg and Schmitts correspondence it becomes

clear that Blumenberg struggled from the outset to nd a common vocab-ulary in order to deepen and enrich his intellectual exchange with Schmitt. While at times their exchange reads as if they were talking past each other,the strength in Blumenbergs position lies in its critical standpoint, a stand-point unavailable to a philosophy of history mired in the extra-worldly.In his rst letter, Blumenberg states that if he had to formulate the differ-ence in their position in a simple way it would be that Schmitts positionis an answer to the question where can we nd the extreme condition?[Wo liegt der extreme Zustand? ]73 Only in the extreme can the decisive,absolute, come forth. Tis is the extreme moment of the binding of Isaac,the precursory tale for any absolutist politics since it is the moment

where our true allegiance is revealed.74 For Blumenberg, in contrast, thequestion is how can this maintain itself ? [Wie kann dies sich erhalten?]75 Modern self-consciousness is able to understand itself, as well as any other

72) Blumenberg, LMA, 101.73) Letter to Schmitt, 3/24/1071, Briefwechsel , 105.74) Jan Assman,Te Price of Monotheism, Robert Savage (trans.), (Stanford: Stanford Uni-versity Press, 2010), 38.75) Letter to Schmitt, 3/24/1071, Briefwechsel , 105.


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