The Distinction Between Political Theology and Political Philosophy

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Sax
Author(s):  
Carl-Henric Grenholm

The purpose of this article is to examine the contributions that might be given by Lutheran political theology to the discourse on global justice. The article offers a critical examination of three different theories of global justice within political philosophy. Contractarian theories are criticized, and a thesis is that it is plausible to argue that justice can be understood as liberation from oppression. From this perspective the article gives an analysis of an influential theory of justice within Lutheran ethics. According to this theory justice is not an equal distribution but an arrangement where the subordinate respect the authority of those in power. This theory is related to a sharp distinction between law and gospel. The main thesis of the article is that Lutheran political theology should take a different approach if it aims to give a constructive contribution to theories of justice. This means that Lutheran ethics should not be based on Creation and reason alone – it should also be based on Christology and Eschatology.


Living Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 191-236
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter

This chapter is dedicated to Leo Strauss’s attempt to recover the medieval Islamic and Jewish conceptions of the prophet as a political founder of the perfect legal order. The chapter situates Strauss’s political theology within the Weimar debate between proponents of legality and defenders of an extra-legal conception of legitimacy. It argues that Strauss turns back to the ancient conception of law as nomos in order to give a philosophical foundation to legality beyond Christian conceptions of legitimacy. Christian political theology has always pivoted around the polemical claim that Mosaic law was “tyrannical” in some way. Strauss’s contribution to Jewish political theology consists in examining Jewish and Islamic prophetology by formulating it in terms of the so-called tyrannical teaching of Platonic political philosophy. The chapter shows that Strauss ultimately held to the view of a profound compatibility and mutual need between the traditions of Greek philosophy and biblical prophecy.


Il Politico ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-116
Author(s):  
Marco Menon

This paper offers a short overview of Heinrich Meier’s books on Carl Schmitt’s political theology, namely Carl Schmitt und Leo Strauss, and Die Lehre Carl Schmitts. These writings, published respectively in 1988 and 1994, and recently translated into Italian by Cantagalli (Siena), have raised both enthusiastical appraisal and fierce criticism. The gist of Meier’s interpretation is the following: the core of Schmitt’s thought is his Christian faith. Schmitt’s political doctrine must be unterstood as political theology, that is, as a political doctrine which claims to be grounded on divine revelation. The fundamental attitude of the political theologian, therefore, is pious obedience to God’s unfathomable will. The hypothesis of the paper is that Meier’s reading, which from a historical point of view might appear as highly controversial, is essentially the attempt to articulate the fundamental alternative between political theology and political philosophy. Meier’s alleged stylization of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss is a form of “platonism”, i.e., a theoretical purification aimed at a clear formulation of what he means by “the theologico-political problem”.


Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2(59)) ◽  
pp. 207-232
Author(s):  
Tomasz Tulejski ◽  
Arnold Zawadzki

Golem and Leviathan: Judaic Sources of Thomas Hobbes’s Political Theology In the article, the Authors point out that Hobbes’s political philosophy (and in fact theology) in the heterodox layer is inspired not only by Judeo-Christianity, but also by rabbinic Judaism. According to them, only adopting such a Judaic and in a sense syncretistic perspective enabled Hobbes to come to such radical conclusions, hostile towards the Catholic and Calvinist conceptions of the state and the Church. In their argument they focused on three elements that are most important for Hobbesian concept of sovereignty: the covenant between YHWH and the Chosen People, the concept of the Kingdom of God, salvation and the afterlife, and the concept of a messiah.


2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 41-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerzy Zajadło

JURISPRUDENCE — THE POLITICAL OF SCIENCE OR SCIENCE OF THE POLITICAL?Considering the main subject of XXII Congress of the Chairs of Theory and Philosophy of Law the author tries to answer the following question: “Jurisprudence — the political of science or science of the political?”. His answer is clear — we need the latter and not the former. In the article the concepts of „politics”, „political” and „politization” are treated synonymously.The problem is presented on the background of Carl Schmitt’s political philosophy. In the author’s opinion after 1933 Schmitt has balanced between these two attitudes the political of science or science of the political because of his methodology political theology on the one hand, and of his personal choice support for Nazi regime on the other.In the last part of the article are formulated some conclusions — learned from Schmitt’s lesson and concerning the constitutional crisis in Poland.


Author(s):  
CHARLES HIRSCHKIND

While until quite recently debates in political philosophy on questions of pluralism, tolerance, and liberal governance foregrounded notions of culture and cultural difference, today it is religion that increasingly provides the historical and conceptual resources for the contemporary reassessment of the pragmatic and philosophical conditions for pluralist democracy. Drawing on a few recent writings in the field of political theology, this paper explores some of the analytical directions that this repositioning of religion within contemporary narratives of modernity has opened up within political philosophy. As I seek to demonstrate, the domain of political theology has become the problem space, where the tensions and contradictions between a simultaneous insistence on Europe's secular identity and its Christian one are being elaborated. Through a ceratin double movement, secularism and Christianity have become productively fused within the writings I address, in a way that repeats the story of European exeptionality while inscribing the essential otherness of the Muslim populations within its borders. In the second part of the paper, I want to contrast these reflections from political philosophy with debates in postcolonial Egypt around issues of religion and the possibility of democratic pluralism.


Author(s):  
Anne Norton

This introduction examines how the figure of the Muslim has become the center where questions of political philosophy and political theology, politics and ethics converge. It explains how the Muslim question has depicted Islam as the preeminent danger to politics; to Christians, Jews, and secular humanists; to women, sex, and sexuality; to the values and institutions of the Enlightenment. It considers how liberty, equality, and fraternity become not imperatives but questions in relation to Muslims and Islam. It argues that European states—indeed all the states of the liberal and social democratic West—are faced with continuing questions about their commitment to democracy and about the status of women, sexuality, equality and difference, faith and secularism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-149
Author(s):  
Montserrat Herrero

AbstractApproaches to Nietzsche’s political philosophy abound. In this article, however, we explore the possibility of identifying not only a political philosophy, but also a political-theological reading in Nietzsche’s texts. In fact, such a political-theological reading already has something of a genealogy. In the 1960s, “radical theology” appropriated the Nietzschean topic of the death of God, which engendered a transferred radical political theology consisting in radical democracy. The first part of this article explores twentieth-century political theologies surrounding the death of God. We ask herein if this is the only possible political-theological reading of Nietzsche’s texts. The second part argues that, in fact, we can ascribe to Nietzsche a “theological” intention that is transferable to his political theory in a way that differs from the attempts of radical political theology and other political theologies surrounding the death of God. We conclude that, in any case, Nietzsche’s political theology aims to counterbalance St. Paul’s nihilism more than to constitute a determined political view.


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