“Only a God Can Resist a God.” Political Theology between Polytheism and Gnosticism

This article revisits the intersection of myth and political theology through readings of relevant texts by Carl Schmitt, Ernst Cassirer, and Hans Blumenberg. At stake is the question of whether myth can inform a concept of political polytheism that avoids the absolutist threat to democracy of Schmitt’s monotheistic brand of political theology. To answer this question, the present essay proceeds in three steps. It reconstructs the Schmittian model in contrast to polytheistic concepts of the political, then traces the notion of the myth of the state in Cassirer’s and Blumenberg’s work. Finally, it shows how Blumenberg arrives at a preliminary yet operative model of political polytheism that goes beyond conceptions of the liberal democratic consensus and reveals a political form of resistance to power.

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The Metaphysical Contention of Political Theology

Carneiro

2023

Open Theology

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The question of the exact role of theology in Schmitt’s political theology remains undecided. Several authors have raised this question and distinct answers have been given. In order to reach an accurate representation of the political–theological dimension in Schmitt’s work, I will attempt an interpretation which takes into account not only Schmitt’s more widely known theses, but also the perceived esoteric and unsaid aspects of his work. Against Heinrich Meier’s prominent thesis, in his The Lesson of Carl Schmitt, of the strict theological nature of political theology, my thesis is that Schmitt gives precedence to the political over theology and that political theology is a theology and metaphysics of the political. Starting from Peterson’s theological objections, centered on Trinitarian dogma and eschatology, I will reconstruct the trail of political theology throughout Schmitt’s work in view of its epitome in the notion of a Trinitarian stasiology and in the figure of the katechon. It is the connection between these two themes which defines Schmitt’s positive and polemical political theology, which can be designated as a katechontic and metastatic political theology. The katechon itself will be defined as the metapolitical and transcendental condition of possibility of the political. The Nomos of the Earth will also be a necessary reference point for the correct understanding of the connection between theology and politics, given the theme of “detheologization,” as well as Schmitt’s lifelong engagement with the problem of the state in the work of Thomas Hobbes.

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“Only a God Can Resist a God.” Political Theology between Polytheism and Gnosticism

Cited by 3 publications

References 33 publications

Erik Peterson’s Political Theology of the Modern Nation-State

Erik Peterson’s Political Theology of the Modern Nation-State

Polytheism as Political Form: Schmitt, Cassirer, Blumenberg

The Metaphysical Contention of Political Theology

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