Abstract
The thesis of political theology holds that all justificatory theories of the state rely on metaphysical assumptions, rather than just empirical facts and accepted political conventions. For this reason, the thesis challenges liberal theories that justify the state on the basis of individual autonomy and popular will. The thesis is controversial because many theorists believe that metaphysical assumptions introduce decisionism – the view that a state depends on the unrestrained personal decision of a ruler – to the theory of the state. But, does political theology entail decisionism? This article argues that decisionism does not follow necessarily from political theology because an omnipotent deciding sovereign is only one of many possible metaphysical assumptions in theology. It illustrates this claim with examples from the philosophy of Nicholas Cusanus and process philosophy. This conclusion challenges two different entrenched views: first, that the modern state is a continuation of theistic beliefs; and second, that metaphysical discussions have no place in contemporary normative political theory.
Keywords
Can the modern state justify its authority without appeal to religion? This question has been a central concern for political theory and sociology since the 19th century, but in the last decades there has been a renewed interest in one influential answer: the thesis of political theology. 1 According to this thesis, the liberal democratic state cannot justify state coercion successfully in its own terms because it must rely on normative standards that cannot be explained scientifically, or democratically. So, any argument that tries to justify state coercion will eventually appeal to some controversial metaphysical assumption. This assumption need not be explicitly religious, but insofar as it is part of a general account of the nature of reality, 2 it will be functionally equivalent to theology in the context of a justification of the state. Thus, according to the thesis of political theology, these metaphysical assumptions perform the same legitimizing function that theology performed in the past, when religious beliefs justified authority. 3
Political theology deserves the attention of political theorists, because the thesis may explain key analogies between religious and political thought. 4 But this view should also interest them because it claims to uncover the Achilles heel in normative liberal-democratic theories. 5 These theories try to justify the state’s using democratic principles and procedures, and claim not to require controversial ethical or metaphysical assumptions to do so. However, closer examination reveals that they rely on principles which democratic procedure cannot provide.
Liberal democratic theories cannot justify democratic procedures democratically, or internally. For example, the principle of individual autonomy may justify the state democratically through consent or contract. But a contract may not itself justify contract as a democratic procedure of justification, because one would require a previous contract to justify the contract, and this would lead to an infinite regress. Also, a liberal justification of the state espouses the principles of freedom and equal respect for persons, but it cannot rely on democratic procedures to justify these principles without circularity, because any democratic procedure presupposes them. If one argued that legitimate democratic principles could emerge from public deliberation in the form of a popular will, one may encounter a similar difficulty. For a deliberative justification requires individuals with the capacity and disposition to deliberate, but deliberation itself cannot determine what precisely is this capacity and disposition because any legitimate deliberation presupposes these terms. In sum, there is a problem of self-reference in liberal-democratic theory. This opens liberal-democratic justifications of government to basic controversies that arise in the interpretation of ethical principles. The thesis of political theology exposes this problem, and shows that to legitimize the state compellingly at least some elements of the justification must come from outside liberal principles or democratic deliberation. 6 Thus, political theology raises questions of recognized importance, and deserves political theorists’ attention.
However, it is hard to begin a serious engagement with political theology because many theorists dread the view. Some theorists believe that introducing metaphysics into debates over justification may threaten liberal democracy. 7 For, they believe, if citizens appeal to metaphysical principles in a public discussion, they run a risk of substituting religious dogma for the autonomous acceptance of constitutional principles. 8 Other theorists dread the thesis because they fear that political theology conceals a conservative drive, and it presupposes the violent irruption of faith in the public realm. 9
It is not surprising that many of these theorists associate political theology with dogmatism and violence, because a political theological critique of liberalism has actually accompanied dogmatic and violent political thought in the past. Carl Schmitt’s book Political Theology is a good example of this relation. 10 Schmitt’s book has influenced the project of political theology because it succinctly states the politico-theological critique of liberalism, but in doing so, it puts forward the doctrine of decisionism. 11 Decisionism is the view that the unrestrained personal decision of a ruler is necessary to give coherence and stability to a state. Schmitt’s decisionism emphasizes the sovereign’s political importance, and implies that only a sacred justification of authority can legitimize the state. Without such legitimacy, political order in a state depends on decisions grounded only on a sovereign will unrestrained by any norm. 12
But, does political theology entail decisionism? This question is important because unless we answer it we cannot seriously engage with the thesis of political theology. The question, then, should concern those who reject political theology, as much as those who accept it. On the one hand, those who dismiss political theology must show that there is an actual logical or historical entailment between the two views before making guilt-by-association arguments. If there were no connection to decisionism, they would need other arguments to respond to the challenge of political theologians. On the other hand, for those who espouse political theology, the question is important because unless they answer it, they cannot detach theological or metaphysical justifications of the state from dogmatism and violence (or perhaps both). 13 That is, unless political theologians show that political theology does not relate directly to decisionism, critics of religious or metaphysical justifications of authority are likely to associate this thesis to an arbitrary form of state coercion that most political theorists have good reasons to reject.
In this article, I claim that political theology – the view that any justification of the state depends on metaphysical assumptions – does not entail decisionism, contrary to what Carl Schmitt and some of his contemporary followers and detractors hold. I argue that the argument that links political theology to decisionism (what I call ‘functional secularization’) is invalid because it rests on a bad analogy between a particular conception of God, and the source of authority in the modern secular state. Political theory may require a metaphysical assumption to justify the state, but this assumption is not necessarily an omnipotent, changeless and all-foreknowing God.
The article has three parts. The first part explicates functional secularization. The next part shows two problems in this argument. The first problem is logical: the connection between political theology and decisionism depends on a bad analogy. The second problem is historical. One could argue that even if functional secularization were wrong, the flawed argument remains important because it has been historically influential. However, the evidence for the historical influence of functional secularization is inconclusive, and one could argue that non-decisionistic political theologies may have also been influential in the development of the modern state. I illustrate these alternative possibilities with examples drawn from Nicholas Cusanus’ mystical and political theology. Cusanus’ views are a good example that decisionism and political theology need not be related, either structurally or historically. The last part responds to an objection that may come from contemporary authors who believe that political theology entails decisionism. This position is represented here by Carl Schmitt’s revised argument in Political Theology II.
1 What links political theology to decisionism? Functional secularization
The thesis of political theology was first formulated by Carl Schmitt in 1922 in Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (1985). 14 In the third chapter of that book Schmitt puts forward the argument I call ‘functional secularization’. Based on this argument he claims: ‘all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts’. 15 He then claims that the concept of sovereignty in the theory of the modern state corresponds to divine will in the theological doctrines dominant in 17th- and 18th-century Europe, 16 and concludes the chapter with cryptic remarks about decisionism in the work of Hobbes and Donoso Cortés. 17 The remarks remain mysterious because the chapter does not establish a direct connection between the claims of secularization and the decisionistic conclusion. How does Schmitt go from the claim that there are historical legacies in political thought to a doctrine claiming the primacy of a decisive will in any polity? What is the argument that links political theology to decisionism?
Functional secularization, the argument that links the two doctrines, is implicit in the first paragraph of the chapter. 18 There, Schmitt states that secularization is not only a historical process, but the product of the systematic structure of concepts. 19 Secularization due to a ‘systematic structure’ means that there are certain essential functions of the political system at any given time, and either secular or religious concepts may refer to those functions. He calls the process of substitution of religious concepts by secular concepts ‘secularization’.
The argument of functional secularization runs as follows: a concept is secularized when a society uses a secular term to name a political function that previously bore a religious name. Modern European society substituted secular popular sovereignty for sacred legitimacy, and secular popular sovereignty fulfills the same function that sacred legitimacy used to fulfill in earlier religious polities. In both cases the function is to justify the decisions of highest authority in the polity. Therefore, in European modernity sovereignty is a secularized concept. This argument is part of political theology because it assumes that the function of legitimization depends on metaphysical assumptions rather than empirical facts or established conventions.
This argument may not seem controversial at first. It is widely believed that the doctrine of the modern state arose from medieval law, and the latter was thoroughly embedded in theological doctrines. 20 However, the argument is contentious, if not disturbing. In Schmitt’s view secularization implies that the personal decisions of an unrestrained ruler are necessary to the state. Secularization implies such decisionism because, if you accept that legitimization requires the function of sovereignty (defined in Schmittian terms as a decision ‘on the exception’), then you must accept that in any polity legitimization requires exceptional political decisions. 21 Schmitt’s claims regarding political theology and secularization of sovereignty imply that the authoritative personal decision is a necessary function of the state. That is, the only way to get rid of decisionism – the legacy of political theology – is to get rid of the state itself.
In the argument of functional secularization, the structural function of sovereignty links political theology to decisionism. Sovereignty, in this argument, is not an irrelevant vestige of past times. It remains important in secularized modernity because it is a necessary function within any ordered state. The sovereign decides when there are conflicts in the interpretation of constitutional law, or the basic structures of the political order. Thus, he intervenes in politics without participating in the fray. The sovereign decision gives order within the state, from without the state. The basic assumption here is that there can only be legitimacy and juridical normality if there is an external ground (an exception) that defines normality. Schmitt asks: ‘From where does the law obtain [the force to suspend itself] and how is it logically possible that a norm is valid except for one concrete case that it cannot factually determine in any definitive manner?’ 22 This question presupposes that the state requires an external referent to justify its internal unity.
Functional secularization, then, holds that the modern state maintains the same structure as a state that draws its legitimacy from divine sanction, regardless of whether its constitution claims that it is secular. It also assumes that the function of sovereignty bestows an element of transcendence on the state. That is, the state requires transcendence even if it claims to derive its legitimacy from popular will. In other words, it requires transcendence even when it claims to be immanently legitimate. Functional secularization, then, holds that secular states must substitute sacred authority for something else in order to solve the problem of state’s legitimacy. Schmitt writes: There always exists the same inexplicable entity: lawgiver, executive power, police, pardoner, welfare institution. Thus to an observer who takes the trouble to look at the total picture of contemporary jurisprudence, there appears a huge cloak-and-dagger drama, in which the state takes many disguises but always as the same invisible person.
23
Functional secularization, we can see now, has implications that rightly worry theorists of many stripes. The thesis implies that the modern state is essentially illegitimate. One must reach this conclusion if one accepts that the state cannot function without a transcendent sovereign decision, and if one also holds that the modern state requires an immanent justification for such decisions. Without recourse to a religiously sanctioned sovereign, citizens in the modern state are left with a choice between two options. (1) If the sovereign state is illegitimate in secular modernity, and if they do not wish to tolerate illegitimacy, then they must demand the destruction of the state. (2) If the sovereign state is illegitimate in secular times, but you believe that the state is necessary to maintain order and stability, then you must uphold an illegitimate state for the sake of order. To maintain order, something must occupy the structural place of the religious sovereign, and without recourse to religious sanction, you are left with the will of a dictator. 24 In other words, a secular political theory faces a choice between two equally disagreeable options: anarchy or dictatorship.
In sum, functional secularization seems to succeed in linking political theology to decisionism; and the connection engenders a disturbing dilemma for citizens of the modern secular state. However, this is a false dilemma that follows from a false conclusion. Even though the premises of functional secularization may be true, the conclusion is false because the argument is flawed. I analyse the flaws in the following section.
2 Is the sovereign like God?
What is wrong with the argument of functional secularization? The argument is wrong for at least two reasons. First, the analogy upon which it depends is flawed. The argument holds that there is a link between decisionism and political theology, because there is an analogy between the modern sovereign and God. But, as I argue below, this analogy does not hold. The second reason is historical. Even if, for historical reasons, we were willing to grant that the modern state has institutionalized the function of a God-like sovereign, we need not accept that it corresponds to this idea of God: an omniscient, omnipotent, eternal and unfathomable, commanding personal deity. I will discuss these two reasons in turn.
Theological analogies
Functional secularization holds that a God-like sovereign is necessary to legitimize the state. According to this argument European societies substituted secular sovereignty for sacred legitimacy. In religious times, the highest authority in the polity justified its decisions appealing to God; now it appeals to popular sovereignty. The names have changed, but the function remains the same. But, why is the decision of a God-like sovereign a necessary function of the state?
This part of functional secularization is not clear. One may agree with political theologians that any state requires metaphysical assumptions to legitimize authority, but this assumption does not commit political theology to accept a God-like decision-maker. Yet, in his argument Schmitt holds that all political orders depend on the personal decision of an unchecked sovereign. For example, in Political Theology, Schmitt claims that ‘like every other order, the legal order rests on a decision and not on the norm’. 25 It may be true that a normal legal order must rest on an external reference justifying the norm, but why must this reference be a personal decision? He also argues: ‘There exists no norm that is applicable to chaos. For a legal order to make sense, a normal situation must exist, and he is sovereign who definitely decides whether this normal situation actually exists.’ 26 This may be true, but this argument would be just as valid if one held that ‘for a legal order to make sense, a normal situation must exist, and polities resort to an external conceptual reference that logically frames normality’ because the requirement of a decision does not follow from the distinction between chaos and normality. This was the view of other jurists influential in the Weimar period, such as Hans Kelsen. 27 Against Kelsen, Schmitt argued that a mere conceptual reference is too abstract, and it alone cannot give a concrete application to the normative principle that frames normality. But even if one accepts this reply, this still does not commit political theology to accepting an unrestrained decision-maker because there are other ways to apply normative principles concretely. For example, one could argue, as Hermann Heller did, that in certain social circumstances and within certain institutional structures there are concrete applications of principles without the need for a personal decision. 28 Then, why does Schmitt hold that this reference should be a personal decision in exceptional circumstances? This decisionistic view seems to follow from the functional secularization argument. According to the argument you need the unbound decision of a ruler because secular sovereignty is like sacred legitimacy. The sovereign must be, like God, unbound by any norm. So, at the core of functional secularization there is an analogical argument.
But why should we accept this analogical argument? I believe we should not, because functional secularization establishes a relation between different time periods and then, unwarrantedly, substitutes one analogue for the other. For example, in one period, justifications for rule came from the dynastic legitimacy of absolute princes. In this period there is a tight conceptual relation between the sovereign and the divine law-maker, because dynastic legitimacy is Christological in origin. 29 In a second period justifications came from the consent of a people. But, we cannot conclude from the analogy of the first and second periods that the people is like a divine law-maker. While the relation between God and sovereign makes sense in the first period, it is not justified in the second.
We can see the flaw in the argument with more detail if we use the notation for proportions: A: B:: C: D. In the first period, the religious sovereign (A) was held to be like God (B), in the other period the secular sovereign (C) is held to be like the people (D). So it would be correct to say that the religious sovereign is to God (A: B), as the secular sovereign is to the people (C: D). But the problem arises when functional secularization substitutes the second sovereign for the first (A = C), and ends up equating the people to God (B = D). The argument implies, correctly, that God is to the religious sovereign, as the people is to the secular sovereign, but from this it concludes, erroneously, that any secular ruler must be (like) God. Thus, relying on this argument Schmitt finds it ‘reasonable’ that in 19th-century America ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’; and underlines Tocqueville’s observations that in the United States ‘the people hover above the entire political life of the state, just as God does above the world’.
30
But this comes with the wrong corollary that the people must be like a sovereign omnipotent personal decision-maker. Schmitt writes: … whether God alone is sovereign, that is, the one who acts as his acknowledged representative on earth, or the emperor, or the prince, or the people, meaning those who identify themselves directly with the people, the question is always aimed at the subject of sovereignty, at the application of the concept in a concrete situation.
31
The flaw in functional secularization stands out because the substitution of analogues does not seem to be due to carelessness. This type of analogy introduces a theological argument through the back door. Every analogy depends on the established identity of the logical structure of two different realms, so that we could say that A: B:: C: D, what is classically known as an analogy of proportionality. A sociological analogy, for example, requires the identity of the structure of two epochs or two countries. Instead, functional secularization makes a theological analogy, an analogy of participation. It relies on the structural identity of the relation of God and World, and the relation of the sovereign and the realm. This theological analogy is similar to the ‘analogy of Being’, but reversed. 32 In the theological analogia entis the being of things allows us to comprehend the otherwise unfathomable Being of God. Schmitt reverses the analogy, such that a particular conception of God explains sovereignty by virtue of God’s similarity to the king or emperor. Just as God governs the world, so does the sovereign govern the realm. Substituting the theological analogy for the sociological analogy creates a problem in Schmitt’s argument. It narrows the range of the analogy without justification. That is, we may have good reasons to accept the claim that just as the world needs an external ground, so does the state need an external ground. However, we need not grant that the state requires an individual person who makes decisions without being subject to any prior norm, that is, we do not have to accept the omnipotent personal God that engenders decisionism.
In sum, in functional secularization the recourse to theological analogies may have rhetorical force, but it is unjustified in logical terms. Could the argument be rescued using historical reasons?
Historical entailment
Functional secularization is logically flawed, and based on this argument we cannot conclude that the modern state requires a God-like sovereign. However, a defender of functional secularization may object that a personal God is crucial to the thesis of political theology, regardless of the logical flaws in the argument. This is because the analogy of personal God and sovereign has been central to the development of western political thought, and, rightly or wrongly, the analogy may have become embedded in social structures and institutions. This view seems plausible. However, I will argue here that we cannot jump to decisionistic conclusions based on the evidence in Schmitt’s argument. Even if we granted that the analogy is indeed the source of legitimacy in the modern state, and this has shaped institutions, we need not concede that sovereignty requires this idea of God. Other ideas of God and religious legitimacy have also been relevant in the development of western political thought. For this reason, the function of an unchecked decision-maker is not inevitable, as functional secularization assumes.
The flawed analogy in functional secularization depends on a particular conception of God. This conception resembles Hobbes’, and it is best described by its function: God is ‘He who commands’. 33 This conception follows from a theology of omnipotence that acquired relevance during the religious controversies of the 16th century, and which some polemical political thinkers adopted in the 17th. 34 Thus, appealing to the historical relevance of Hobbes’ views, the proponents of functional secularization could accept the thesis, while dismissing the logical flaw in the analogy. However, this argument would require more than a passing reference to Hobbes. Even though the relevance of Hobbes’ political philosophy is beyond dispute, the precise influence of his religious and theological views is an independent question open to debate. Hobbes’ views were polemical when they were written and they are still polemical today. 35 The emphasis on the study of a few early modern thinkers can make the development of the modern state seem straightforward with regards to political theology. However, once you take the vast history of western theology seriously into consideration, the analogy of God and sovereign cannot be as simple as it appears in functional secularization. There are many views of divinity, authority and command that have influenced the political organization of Church, kingdoms and empires since late Roman times. Thus, it is not unreasonable to doubt that functional secularization’s image of God and divine command has been the only influential image in the creation of the modern state. A brief consideration of other conceptions of God in western Christian theology can support this skepticism. Consider two examples.
The first historical example of a theological view that challenges functional secularization is pantheism. This view holds that God is identical to the totality of everything that exists, and it has been a force to reckon with at least since the time of Benedict de Spinoza. 36 An analogy of the sovereign and the God of pantheism would yield a political theology radically different from the one Schmitt proposes. 37 For example, if one were to make the analogical argument of functional secularization using Spinoza’s God as a reference, one could still say that God is to the world as the ruler is to the polity. Yet, substituting the conception of God as ‘He-who-commands’ for a God that is identical to the world yields surprising conclusions. Instead of saying that the people (the secular source of authority) is like God (a sovereign decision-maker), one would instead conclude that the people is like the totality of everything that exists. That is, instead of a choice between dictatorship and chaos, a correct politico-theological analogy with the God of pantheism would yield a harmonious anarchy.
A defender of functional secularization may object that my example is misleading. She would say that the political analogy with pantheism may be accurate, but it fails to accomplish what functional secularization accomplishes. For, she would argue, the theological analogy in functional secularization exists to explain the legitimizing function in the state, and, historically, pantheism could not have functioned to legitimize authority. Most established religions hold that pantheism is heresy, and for this reason the analogy would obscure the historical and sociological aspects of the argument of functional secularization. This point is well taken. However, one could reply that in the very Christianity that legitimized rule in the West there have also been many conceptions of God. In fact, Schmitt’s view could be questioned even from within Roman Catholic orthodoxy, which was undoubtedly influential in legitimizing the rise of the state in Europe. While it is true that pantheism has generally been considered heretical, pan
The second example, then, is pan
What would a political analogy with the God of panentheism produce? Instead of a sovereign decision-maker who is outside the state, the analogy would yield a source of political authority that is both identical to the polity, and beyond the polity. Just as in the previous example, the analogy with panentheism does not produce a decisionistic sovereign. This time, however, the analogy is not inconsequential. In this case we can find actual views of political authority that share a common structure with panentheism. In classical democratic theory, for example, citizens are held to be both citizens and subjects at the same time. 39 Citizens are decision-makers beyond the polity as part of the popular sovereign, but as subjects they are the polity. Like the panentheistic God the popular sovereign is both equal to the polity and beyond the polity. In sum, a functionalist analogy that uses a panentheistic God as reference yields democratic politics, rather than decisionistic sovereignty.
Now, could the analogy with the God of panentheism be historically relevant? Panentheism is an influential view in contemporary theology, 40 but it has also been a view to reckon with throughout the history of Christianity, particularly since early modernity. 41 A good example of an influential panentheistic view is the political philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa, also known by his Latin name, Nicholas Cusanus. 42 Cusanus developed in the 15th century a conception of God as Non Aliud. According to this conception, God is ‘not-other’, and it mediates between transcendence and immanence. 43 While a transcendent God may define all things by opposition, it cannot define itself. Instead, Non Aliud can define itself rather than being defined by another. Yet, this is not an immanent God: in Cusanus’ view God remains beyond all beings. 44 Nicholas’ mystical theology is important for our purposes because it shows that within the history of Christian thought there have been influential figures that define divinity without opposition, or transcendence. 45 This view has never defined the mainstream of Christian theology, but it remains an influential view, as well as part of Roman Catholic orthodoxy to this day. Moreover, the view had a direct influence in political thought, because Nicholas was also a political philosopher. Cusanus participated in the conciliarist movement in the 15th century and wrote a political treatise that was profoundly influential in the development of church politics. 46 Although the overall influence of conciliarism to the development of the modern state is debated, 47 as well as the role panentheism plays within the movement, 48 Cusanus’ thought became an important reference in the development of modern political thought and remains important today. 49
Functional secularists could object, in defense of their argument, that panentheism has hardly been a dominant view in Roman Catholicism, even if it has been accepted as orthodoxy. But this very objection could also be made against the decisionistic view of a personal God. The view of God as formulated by Hobbes and adopted by Schmitt is also a marginal conception within the history of theology, and perhaps even a heresy. 50 This can be seen in the fact that idea of God that figures prominently in functional secularization is but one extreme in the modern dispute between two ideas of God. The first is conceived as the Creator, and as ground of all Being. This conception implies discontinuity between God and world. Pascal called this image ‘the God of the Philosophers’. The second is an incomprehensible God who acts within history and intervenes in the world. This is Pascal’s ‘God of Abraham’. 51 According to the first view, God is Being (which means He is not becoming), God is Absolute (which means He is not relative), God is Necessary (which means He is not contingent). Ultimately this means that God is absolutely alien to us and to the world. If God were related to change, the relation would make Him change in at least one aspect, and to admit change in God denies His perfection. However, this view never became dominant because it is also theologically and philosophically problematic. ‘The God of the Philosophers’ puts at risk the very order of the world and human existence. In relation to an unfathomable God, life on earth can be conceived only as pure becoming, relativity and contingency. So, one would need God’s concursus to make the world stable. Thus, even for the philosophers, there arises the need for a God that relates to the world. The God who intervenes in the world is ‘the God of Abraham’. This second view of God is obscure to reason and only grasped through faith. It is this paradoxical view of God, the God of faith, which could ultimately fulfill the ideological function of legitimizing authority and state coercion. However, the God that features prominently in functional secularization is Hobbes’ God, a prime example of the God of the philosophers: a concept used as philosophical stopgap. 52 Thus, the decisionistic conception of God is not better than pantheism or panentheism when it comes to legitimizing the state. All these conceptions of God are part of philosophical theology, rather than of the living faith that could be relevant in the historical legitimization of political power. Thus, one can conclude that the decisionistic conception of God is just one among many views that may have played a role in the religious legitimization of authority before the rise of the secular state.
In conclusion, while the argument that links political theology to decisionism remains an important and influential view in the history of political thought, it does not have the role that functional secularization imputes to it. The argument of functional secularization does not stand, because an analogy of the relation of God and the world, and the sovereign and the state, cannot be sustained logically, and the evidence in support of its historical or sociological relevance is quite thin. Even though it may be true that any justification of the state requires metaphysical assumptions, as political theologians hold, there are innumerable views in metaphysics. Thus, political theology does not entail decisionism, either logically or historically.
3 Response to an objection: sovereignty and indeterminacy
An objection to my conclusion could come from a group of political theorists and political theologians who espouse functional secularization, the functional version of the thesis of political theology. 53 In their view, the analogy with the sovereign is valid (regardless of whether the analogy with God can be sustained logically or historically) because decisionistic sovereignty does not depend on contingent historical relations of politics and religion. Rather, decisionistic sovereignty is an intrinsic feature of politics due to politics’ dualistic metaphysical structure. In this section I argue against this objection, but to understand why this objection fails, I must first go back briefly to the main thesis of political theology.
Political theology claims that the arguments that seek to justify the state depend on metaphysical assumptions, rather than just empirical facts, or accepted political conventions. They depend on these assumptions because all polities require an external metaphysical referent that justifies their internal unity. According to this thesis a polity cannot lay down its own foundation; for, if the legitimacy of a state, or the authority to found it, comes from within the very state, the justificatory argument falls into a vicious circle. Hence the state cannot be the ground of legitimacy, and it requires an external referent. Many political theorists accept this argument. 54 Böckenförde summarized the main concern of political theology in a question: Is the liberal state ‘nourished by normative preconditions that it cannot itself guarantee’? 55 This question remains pertinent, and, thus, the claim of political theology is relevant (and perhaps true, although this is not the place to argue for it).
The political theorists who could present an objection to my argument accept the main views of political theology, but they also accept Schmitt’s argument of functional secularization. For example, for Derrida, sovereignty and the juridical decision seek to put a stop to the indeterminacy of law, which follows from the indeterminacy of human language and thought. Sovereignty implies decisionism, and decisionism implies violence, because a sovereign always tries by all means to attain the desired determinacy (closure, unity, or identity in the state), but it can never succeed. 56 For Giorgio Agamben, the juridico-institutional logic of the sovereign exception that Schmitt puts forward relates politics to language, and life, in such a way that ‘politics appears as the truly fundamental structure of Western metaphysics’. 57 In the same vein, Ernesto Laclau argues that politics and the state cannot exist without antagonism. For antagonism seeks to fill up the structural incompleteness in any claim to political identity (but never succeeds). 58 According to these theorists, decisionism is inevitable in any theory that seeks to justify the state because justifications require closure or determinacy, yet social life is essentially indeterminate. So, to justify the state (that is, to complete and give closure to the state’s identity), we need a decisionistic sovereign. According to these thinkers, any social or political unit needs an external reference to give it internal coherence, but this requirement is not only a political demand, it is a demand implicit in the dualistic nature of identity, which coexists problematically with the indeterminacy of human language and thought.
Schmitt himself formulated an argument that shares a common ground with these contemporary objections. He wrote it as a response to his critics in 1970. 59 In Political Theology II, Schmitt claims that what really is at issue in political theology is not ‘secularization’ of theological thought, but the substantive ontological problem that theology claimed to solve. The problem is that any unit, and every concept of identity, contains dualism or indeterminacy within itself. The dualism that bedevils Schmitt, then, is not a result of the political opposition of friend and enemy, or the mythical opposition of good and evil, or of light and darkness, not even the ontological opposition of identity and difference. Schmitt’s concern for metaphysical dualism results from his sense that any unity has its negation lodged within it. Thus indeterminacy is inevitable and in politics, it can only be reined in by a decisive will.
He argues that this concern for the indeterminacy of identity, or unity, is expressed historically in Christian thought. Specifically, it arises in the Gnostic controversies over the paradoxical opposition of a God of creation to a God of salvation. The unity of God comes into question when the problem of evil arises. Specifically, unity becomes problematic when the existence of evil in the world makes clear that the power of salvation and the power of creation cannot belong to the same God without contradiction. The unity of God breaks down, and, through theological analogy, so does every other identity. Traditionally, the dogma of the trinity veils this problem. This and other dogmas of faith give a sense of unity and stability to the world. However, Schmitt objects that even when dogma keeps the unity of the Father and the Son, it cannot dissolve the dualism that Christian doctrine retains in the double nature of the second person of God. The second person always remains a God-man. 60 This controversy shows how, for Schmitt, the presence of theology in politics is not only due to the historical secularization of theological concepts. He believes that the problem that theology cannot solve is intrinsic to any realm of thought and action. In sum, there is a tendency of all identity towards dissolution. 61 In politics, a decisive will (which is often violent), must contain this tendency if the aim of politics is unity and order. Schmitt believes that just as theology did in religious times, in modernity, jurisprudence and political thought must give politics tools to deal decisively with this problem. Only a decisive will may establish the unity of the individual that grounds morality, and the political unity that establishes the state.
As we have seen, this metaphysical argument is attractive for some contemporary thinkers; however, it is also flawed. Metaphysical dualism, as I call it, presupposes a choice between will and indeterminacy. In political terms, it presupposes a dilemma between sovereign violence and political chaos. But this ‘either/or’ does not follow from the considerations that Schmitt lays down in Political Theology II. Neither does it follow from the arguments of the other authors that I consider in this part. Violence and chaos are not the only available options even within metaphysical dualism. One can avoid the Scylla of indeterminacy and the Charybdis of sovereign violence.
There are many possible ways out of this apparent dilemma. Although this is not the place to make a complete argument for this claim, I can offer an example. A third option, standing between indeterminacy and decisionistic sovereignty, is process. Process philosophy is a philosophical alternative to metaphysical dualism and poststructuralism. 62 Process philosophy harmonizes with Nicholas of Cusa’s view, the example I gave in the previous section, because panentheism and process philosophy have many elective affinities. Process philosophy is not dualistic, and it could solve the functional problem that Schmitt feared, because it takes seriously the role of metaphysics in ethics and the philosophy of the state. However, instead of metaphysical dualism (the opposition of ‘one’ and ‘other’), it proposes the concepts of ‘change’ and ‘relation’ as the ground of philosophical thought. Process philosophy is a doctrine committed to time and process as the principal categories of metaphysics. On this philosophical doctrine, process – rather than things or substance – is metaphysically ultimate.63 This doctrine incorporates the perceived indeterminacy of nature and the skepticism about the abstractness of reason into a comprehensive metaphysical view. From such a view, there could emerge a political philosophy that takes into account the metaphysical problems that Schmitt and his followers perceive, but does not generate the same political structures that they believe inevitable. Moreover, a processualist political philosophy provides a metaphysical ground to account for processes of self-creation and self-legitimization, and thus it may solve the problem for a dogmatic source of political authority external to the democratic process.
Process philosophy is but one example among many other philosophical and religious doctrines that could provide a ground to legitimize the state without decisionism. These doctrines do not require a sovereign will as Schmitt’s dualistic metaphysics does. There are many other religious views that do not get trapped in the dilemma between indeterminacy and sovereignty. For example, we could talk about polytheism, animism, or panpsychism. Besides these views, there are many other kinds of non-religious metaphysical doctrines that do not require a sovereign decision-maker or its functional equivalent, such as Spinozist and Nietzschean metaphysics or stoicism. In sum, those who espouse dualism as their preferred metaphysical assumption are also wrong in assuming that political theology entails decisionism.
Conclusion
Decisionism does not follow necessarily from political theology. Holding that legitimizing state authority requires some metaphysical assumptions does not commit you to dogmatism or to the personal decision of a ruler unrestrained by any norm. For metaphysical assumptions come in many shapes and sizes, and there is no reason why the assumptions that produce secular decisionism should prevail in the process of historical secularization.
This conclusion challenges some opinions of those who already espouse political theology, and also the claims of those who reject the thesis. On the one hand, the conclusion challenges the view that the modern state is at its core a continuation of Christian theistic beliefs. It is true that the modern state cannot be completely detached from its theological history, but this does not mean that theological views prevalent in the European Middle Ages became the theory of the liberal democratic state without much change. This conclusion may also help us argue against the view that every justification of the state contains a remnant of sovereign violence. For, as this article argued, the analogical argument that supports functional secularization is invalid. On the other hand, knowing that political theology does not entail decisionism should challenge (and also put at ease) those who fear metaphysics in the context of normative political theory. This argument should clear the path for a productive debate on the role of metaphysics in political theory. This conclusion, then, is only an invitation. The task ahead is to renew discussions in political metaphysics. In the article I suggested two possible avenues for research: the first is to engage in a dialogue among views of political organization based on different metaphysical doctrines; the second is to find or develop metaphysical doctrines appropriate to sustain a legitimate state.