Carl Schmitt's Political Theology of Revolution

Humanitas, 2007

In societies where religion plays a strong and important role, the institutions of the society reflect the religion. Yet in societies where religion plays a more secondary role to say that all political concepts are secularized theological concepts is an overstatement. While Carl Schmitt does make a persuasive argument on the role of religion in political thought, he is also mistaken. In this article, I shall attempt to show that political concepts in the medieval period were built upon theological ideas but in a way different from that described by Schmitt. Toward that end I'll describe the difference between "political theology" and a "theology of politics" and focus on the revelatory political theology of the medieval period as contrasted with the "re-paganized" theology of Schmitt. Finally, by reviewing the process of papal decline with particular emphasis on the writings of Martin Luther, I shall argue that the political theology Schmitt describes reflects a post-Reformation loss of competing "exception-bearers" in the West and that this loss has had profoundly negative consequences for Western civilization.

Political Theology

Bijdragen: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie en Theologie, 2012

Carl Schmitt describes his work as an instance of political theology, but this does not mean he is a theologian in the strict sense of the word. Many theological readings of Schmitt underestimate the deeply profane thrust of his basic concepts, such as sovereignty, the political, or decision. This paper argues that Schmitt's starting point is not a theological position, but the attempt to think 'the political' against other 'types of spirit'. In theology, he finds the closest analogy to political thinking. The logic of the concept of the political itself, however, remains deeply profane.

History of European Ideas, 2009

Before going into the details of their disputatio, it is necessary to provide a definition of political theology. In his work on Carl Schmitt, Bo ¨ckenfo ¨rde listed in 1983 three possible conceptions of political theology: the juridical, the institutional and the 'appellative' (i.e. performative). According to Bo ¨ckenfo ¨rde, Schmitt had a juridical conception, which presupposed the analogical transposition of theological concepts onto the state and juridical spheres. The institutional conception rather concerned the incarnation of a dogma or of a religious belief in a political order (for example as in the 'theory of the two wealths' by Luther). Finally, the appellative conception refers to the Christian commitment to the maintenance or transformation of a given sociopolitical order (as manifested for instance in the Liberation Theology). Bo ¨ckenfo ¨rde is right in connecting Schmitt's political theology with the juridical conception, and thus highlighting the analogy between the state and juridical field and the religious one. 1 It was that juridical acception that was challenged by Kelsen. Kelsen's references to political theology constituted a critical reply to dualist theories of the state in general, and in particular a criticism of Schmitt's intention to make the state independent from law. In this article, the opposition between dualism and monism mainly refers to the relation between the state and law. In that specific context, dualist doctrines are those considering law and the state as distinct entities, as opposed to monistic doctrines, which view them as a unity. In different contexts, monism would refer to the indivisible character of sovereignty, of which Bodin's, Hobbes's or Carl Schmitt's conceptions are representative. In that context monism would for instance be opposed to pluralism; famous representatives of pluralism included G.D.H. Cole, J.N. Figgis, or H.J. Laski, all of whom Schmitt strongly opposed. 2 It should be added that, particularly in the 1920s, Schmitt did not describe himself as a dualist, even if he vehemently denounced the Kelsenian identity between state and law. Therefore, applying the concept of dualism to Schmitt's doctrine is a way to emphasize his will to make the state's power autonomous from the juridical order. In their references to political theology, Kelsen and Schmitt both had in mind the same question: What is the relationship between the state and law? This question also concerns the definition of the state and the sources of its unity. After the World War I and the fall of the German and Austrian Empires, fierce controversies raged about this issue, which was addressed not only by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt but also by Hermann Heller, Erich Kaufmann or Rudolf Smend. This debate gave birth to very divergent conceptions of the essence of the state and can be seen as a real-time commentary on the new democratic institutions that desperately tried to achieve stability in the 1920s. The extremely divergent solutions these authors provided as responses to a situation of political crisis illustrate the controversy between positivists and antipositivists. Yet this should not obscure a common enquiry and anxiety about the stability of the state and the integration of political plurality. In providing his juridical (positivist) definition of the state, Kelsen struggled with sociological, psychological, political, and religious explanations of the state's unity. As a positivist, Kelsen considered the cohesion of the state to be exclusively the result of a collective submission to 'the rules.' Only the juridical sphere could ensure this unity; all other attempts to explain the unity of the state were, for him, vain and delusive. In return Schmitt maintained in an antipositivist vein that the unity of the state was eminently political. Schmitt was strongly concerned with the stability of state institutions and one of his greatest fears-very hobbesian in its inspiration-was the risk of public disorder. This explains his preference for special (emergency) powers allocated to the president of the state to ensure public order. In what follows, I first present Hans Kelsen's political theology with a particular focus on a number of key comparisons he makes between particular theories of the state, which he strongly denounced, and theology. However, Kelsen's political theology remained very critical in its refusal to perceive any transcendental instance in the life of the state. His analogies aimed at rejecting all attempts to give definitions of the state other than juridical. In a second part I outline Carl Schmitt's political theology, which pursued two main goals: to rehabilitate political decision in the most noble sense and to reformulate a definition of representation not oriented towards the defense of private interests. Carl Schmitt saw public order as a transcendental political obligation. In a third section I show how the controversy about political theology between Schmitt and Kelsen is closely linked to the crucial question of the unity of the state. This discussion will also be an opportunity to reexamine the political debate between Kelsen and Freund on that very sensitive issue. In the conclusion I reassert how Kelsen's and Schmitt's disputatio on political theology is intimately associated with two distinct conceptions of the state and of political life in a republic. Among Kelsen's references to political theology, the comparison between theology and the theory of the state is highly significant if we consider the number of discussions dedicated to these considerations, above all during the interwar period. In a 1927 three-page long autobiographical letter addressed to Hungarian Professor of philosophy Julius Moor (1888-1950), Kelsen devoted a considerable space to these analogies, 3 which were until then largely neglected in the literature. His reflections about law and politics, thus eloquently intertwined, in a way defined the doctrinal circle of opponents he faced between the two World Wars. The Kelsenian analogy between a dualist theory of the state and theology tried to reveal and

This deceptively simple proposition opens a highly stimulating and insightful examination of the relationship between sovereignty, law and the state. But what does Political Theology have to do with "political theology" as we understand that term today? I will argue that it has very little to do with political theology. In fact, I will argue that Schmitt had little to do with the emergence of political theology as a "discipline," "subject," or "discourse" (call it what you will) in English-language scholarship.

While advocates and critics of liberal republics disagree on whether ''pure politics'' requires ultimate authorization both call upon theories that explain all revolutions as attempts to transcend political theology for the sake of a purely immanent political realm. Their secularist, " political " / programmatic views and hopes on revolution are here contrasted with a reading of Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy's Out of Revolution whereby ''revolution'' is read as the autobiography of western man written through a series of great European Revolutions. As products of changes in the vocabulary of occidental Christian political theology these revolutions were structurally unable to transcend authority; but they were able to project western power around the world. Lacking in awareness of its religious vocabulary the late-modern subject inherits this global western power but can no longer rebel as before. The article summarizes Rosenstock-Huessy's genealogy of revolution in Section II; in Sections I and 3 his insights are brought to bear on theories of revolution-qua-secularization be it in the form of the utopian overcoming of ''religion'' (Arendt) or in the form of overcoming Christianity's fabulous and real history – its political theology – while retaining its universality for the sake of emancipation of a ''universal'' – not western – victim.

Humanitas, 2007

In societies where religion plays a strong and important role, the institutions of the society reflect the religion. Yet in societies where religion plays a more secondary role to say that all political concepts are secularized theological concepts is an overstatement. While Carl Schmitt does make a persuasive argument on the role of religion in political thought, he is also mistaken. In this article, I shall attempt to show that political concepts in the medieval period were built upon theological ideas but in a way different from that described by Schmitt. Toward that end I'll describe the difference between "political theology" and a "theology of politics" and focus on the revelatory political theology of the medieval period as contrasted with the "re-paganized" theology of Schmitt. Finally, by reviewing the process of papal decline with particular emphasis on the writings of Martin Luther, I shall argue that the political theology Schmitt describes reflects a post-Reformation loss of competing "exception-bearers" in the West and that this loss has had profoundly negative consequences for Western civilization.

Modern Intellectual History, 2006

The fundamental importance of theology in the work of Carl Schmitt has been the subject of much recent literature on this controversial figure. However, there has been little consensus on the precise nature of Schmitt's own political theology-that is, on what links there are between his religious or metaphysical concepts and his ideas concerning the nature of political organization and action. This is especially the case with his works of the Nazi era, which are now being studied with the same kind of critical attention given to his more influential Weimar works. In this essay I focus on the important turn Schmitt made in the early years of the Third Reich, from "decisionism" to what he called "institutional thinking," in order to reveal the theological basis for his understanding of the new regime. I will then argue that Schmitt's institutional approach had in fact always been central to his earlier, better-known writings on law and the state. Schmitt's concept of the institution, which had roots in French legal theory, grounded a political theology that was in the end less a metaphysical approach to the state than one that drew on the concrete example of the legal institutional order of the Catholic Church.

Humanitas, 2007

In societies where religion plays a strong and important role, the institutions of the society reflect the religion. Yet in societies where religion plays a more secondary role to say that all political concepts are secularized theological concepts is an overstatement. While Carl Schmitt does make a persuasive argument on the role of religion in political thought, he is also mistaken. In this article, I shall attempt to show that political concepts in the medieval period were built upon theological ideas but in a way different from that described by Schmitt. Toward that end I'll describe the difference between “political theology” and a “theology of politics” and focus on the revelatory political theology of the medieval period as contrasted with the “re-paganized” theology of Schmitt. Finally, by reviewing the process of papal decline with particular emphasis on the writings of Martin Luther, I shall argue that the political theology Schmitt describes reflects a post-Reformation loss of competing “exception-bearers” in the West and that this loss has had profoundly negative consequences for Western civilization.

Final paper for the independent study Political Theology and the Secularization of Power, instructed by Bernard Flynn (Spring 2019)

Carl Schmitt is one of the most dedicated opponents of liberal universalism, with its notion of pluralist, rational and non-exclusivist consensus politics as a progressive democratic project and its understanding of the political arena – " purified " , being free from struggles and conflict – as the progressive move of democratic logic. In this paper I will first try to show Schmitt's pessimistic and negative stance based on ontological and theological grounds on the deliberative model of politics with its claim about the possibility of making particular wills reach the conception of common public interest or the common good through discussion and dialogue. Secondly, I'll try to show that, within Schmitt's project, the concept of the sovereign dictatorship exists as the necessary counterpoint to the concept of the political. Schmitt refuses to understand political life as a medium of dialogue leading to a rational consensus. In this context, the sovereign in Schmitt's theory should be precisely understood as a force constructed to reproduce homogeneity in a hegemonic manner. Hegemonia, in a Gramscian sense, is not a bare oppressive force. Rather, it refers to a ruling force which is able to inject its own ideology and world view into the public through persuasion. In this framework, leftist thinkers like mouffe, who recommended that we should think " with Schmitt against Schmitt " in order to develop a new democratic political understanding, draw attention to Schmitt's thesis that every political identity functions as " we-they " antinomy, yet they miss the fact that it is impossible to deduce a conception of a truly democratic public sphere from Schmitt's theory. As it will be emphasized in this paper, democracy in the Schmittian sense can be the perfect form of sovereignty, one which in contrast to liberal democracy results in homogenization and the exclusion of the heterogeneous and thus must be conceived as a fundamentally hegemonic system. The Schmittian ideal of democracy requires that political identities, public opinion, public sphere and will formation are the products of a sovereign will and not of open and free discussion.

Humanitas

In societies where religion plays a strong and important role, the institutions of the society reflect the religion. Yet in societies where religion plays a more secondary role to say that all political concepts are secularized theological concepts is an overstatement. While Carl Schmitt does make a persuasive argument on the role of religion in political thought, he is also mistaken. In this article, I shall attempt to show that political concepts in the medieval period were built upon theological ideas but in a way different from that described by Schmitt. Toward that end I'll describe the difference between "political theology" and a "theology of politics" and focus on the revelatory political theology of the medieval period as contrasted with the "re-paganized" theology of Schmitt. Finally, by reviewing the process of papal decline with particular emphasis on the writings of Martin Luther, I shall argue that the political theology Schmitt describes reflects a post-Reformation loss of competing "exception-bearers" in the West and that this loss has had profoundly negative consequences for Western civilization.

Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2019

Abstract Carl Schmitt’s concept of political was first published in 1932 in Germany. This book was translated in Farsi and published in 1392 by Sohail Saffari. It is almost clear that Schmitt’s article plainly shows the boarders of the political in the ontological antagonism which is made to determine a group of people as friends against the enemy out of which we are identified as political subjects. Subjects which are called to fight to save the unity which is made by the name of the political to gather friends against enemies. In this paper, I would like to discuss Schmitt’s theories by providing the readers with the basic concepts to challenge Schmitt’s postulations.