Abstract
The author argues that a theory of concupiscence (desire), the subject of much of Metz’s early work (during his “transcendental phase”) implicitly plays a decisive role in his Political Theology. The implied concept of concupiscence is explicated with the aid of the major categories of a theory of reification as developed by Lukács, Benjamin and Adorno. The main categories of Metz’s Political Theology (notably asceticism, theodicy, negative theology and praxis) are linked to the (implied) central concept of concupiscence, eventually described as the might of what is. As this might seems to be absolute, the problem of the praxis of the believer becomes acute. Metz calls for a theology that integrates into its concepts societal, historical and cultural contexts. His notion of praxis as privation is interpreted in terms of longing and resistance.
Highlights
In his contribution to Stichworte zur “Geistige Situation der Zeit”, edited by Jürgen Habermas in 1979, Metz complains about the subjectless concepts of the contemporary philosophical and theological dialogue, and the resultant high level of abstraction
The development of Metz’s thinking in the sixties received important impulses from European Marxists whom he met at the conferences of the “Paulus Gesellschaft”. His theory of concupiscence has from the beginning contained an element which enabled him to integrate an important insight of the Frankfurters, the insight namely that society, per definition the product of freedom, becomes nature again, ”second nature”, in a dialectical movement called the dialectic of Enlightenment
In what can be called his “constitution for the new century”, his Verfassungsschrift of 1799/ 1800, the young Hegel (1971:457:460) uses the term positively. He opposes a vision of culture as second nature to the “negative of the existing world”, his description of eighteenth century Germany, a state of affairs described by Fichte as an epoch of consummate sinfulness
Summary
In his contribution to Stichworte zur “Geistige Situation der Zeit”, edited by Jürgen Habermas in 1979, Metz complains about the subjectless concepts of the contemporary philosophical and theological dialogue, and the resultant high level of abstraction He takes issue, by implication, with Habermas’ project of communicative action: Metz’s idea of inter-subjectivity does not know much of the ideal communication situation. According to Metz his research in this regard has supplied him with one of the central axioms of his Political Theology: the inability to abolish something does not imply an inability to change it (Interview, Münster, 2.7.1987) This axiom is intended to open up a middle position between a conservative reading of Heidegger (thrownness), and classical historical materialism. Concupiscence is placed within the doctrine of original sin This doctrine has been used in conservative political theologies to defend a particular status quo. I will describe this as a praxis of longing and resistance
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