Beyond sovereignty: overcoming modern nominalistic cryptotheology

Abstract

Although my essay is devoted mostly to Schmitt’s theology of sovereignty as the ultimate theory of power, reflecting the hidden ‘metaphysical image’ of modernity, it also wants to explore a possibility of venturing beyond the theology of power into an alternative theology of promise. By sketching this possible exodus out of the modern power fixation, I first analyse Schmitt’s claim about the persistence of political theology, which provides a rationale for modern political practice, and confront it with the critique formulated by Hans Blumenberg in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Abbr: LM). But then I try to paint a broader picture of modern cryptotheologies; by expanding Blumenberg’s critique, I show how it paves the way for an alternative pursuit of political theology which seeks to get ‘beyond sovereignty.’ For Blumenberg, this quest means mostly the attempt to ‘overcome Gnosticism,’ which in my paraphrasing indicates ‘overcoming of the nominalistic cryptotheology.’ In order to secure a proper exorcism of the Gnostic-nominalistic spectre, I want to go back to the sources of a truly alternative, messianic vision which actively opposes the logic of sovereign power with the logic of a yet unrevealed promise. This different theology of the ‘hidden God,’ developed mostly by Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, replaces the ‘mystery of power’ with the ‘mystery of promise’ which gets us ‘beyond sovereignty’ for good – which also coincides with the promise of the true historical novum lying at the origin of modernity.