The Stillborn God

1. Political theology is a fundamental mode of thought, linking governance to divine authority.

Political theology is a primordial form of human thought and for millennia has provided a deep well of ideas and symbols for organizing society and inspiring action, for good and ill.

Appealing to God. Political theology, a prevalent mode of thought throughout history, involves appealing to divine authority when addressing political questions. This approach provides a framework for organizing society, inspiring action, and establishing legitimacy.

Historical prevalence. In most civilizations, political thought has taken the form of political theology, offering a deep well of ideas and symbols for organizing society and inspiring action, for good and ill. This historical fact highlights the enduring human tendency to seek divine guidance in matters of governance.

Understanding reasons. Understanding the reasons behind appealing to God in political thought is crucial for comprehending political theology. It's a way of thinking, a choice, and a rational choice for individuals and societies.

2. Western modernity distinguishes itself by rejecting political theology, emphasizing human-centric governance.

The ambition of the new philosophy was to develop habits of thinking and talking about politics exclusively in human terms, without appeal to divine revelation or cosmological speculation.

A decisive break. Modern political philosophy marks a significant departure from traditional political theology by focusing on human-centric governance. This shift involves developing habits of thinking and talking about politics exclusively in human terms, without appealing to divine revelation or cosmological speculation.

Experiment in living. The rejection of political theology in the West represents an experiment in living, inherited from early modern philosophers. This experiment continues, though with less awareness of why it was begun and the nature of the challenge it was intended to meet.

Fundamental difference. The river separating us is narrow, yet deep. On one shore the basic political structures of society are imagined and criticized by referring to divine authority; on the other they are not. And this turns out to be a fundamental difference.

3. Christianity's unique theological tensions, stemming from the Incarnation, fueled the revolt against political theology.

What was it about the Christian tradition that provoked such a profound intellectual challenge to the way societies had always conceived of political life?

Unstable tradition. The revolt against political theology in the West was primarily directed against the Christian tradition, which proved uniquely unstable. This instability stemmed from the inherent tensions within Christian theology, particularly the doctrine of the Incarnation.

Messianic incarnation. The Christian doctrine of messianic incarnation, where God became man, is at the core of Christianity and the source of its characteristic political theologies. This concept introduces a dynamic tension between the divine and the human, leading to diverse interpretations and conflicts.

Three epochs. Jewish messianism fixes an eschatological terminus at the end of the human story that begins at creation, and while important events occur between those points, affecting the destiny of the Jewish people, the divine-human relation remains a stable one defined by covenant and law. It does not change in character. The Christian Messiah enters time, causing a rupture in history, implicitly dividing it into three epochs.

4. Modern political philosophy emerged by challenging the claims of revelation and re-evaluating human nature.

Contemporary political philosophy no longer feels it necessary to engage with political theology, which reflects great confidence in the durability of our experiment and its universality.

Revisiting the tension. The tension between political theology and modern political philosophy needs to be revisited. It is no longer obvious to us what political theology is about, why it has appealed to human beings for most of history, and why it still appeals to certain nations and civilizations today.

Humanistic analysis. Modern political philosophy originally conceived as a means of escaping this structure. It refused to enter into the logic of political theology and offered reasons for its refusal, which we will examine in the next chapter.

Universal terms. Those arguments were directed at political theology as such and were framed in universal terms regarding the nature of the mind, the rules of inference, the passions of the soul, the dynamics of human interaction, individual rights, and much else.

5. Rousseau and Kant shifted focus to religious man, emphasizing moral sentiment and rational faith.

Rousseau set me right. This blind prejudice vanishes; I learn to respect human nature, and I should consider myself far more useless than a common laborer if I did not believe that this view could give worth to all others to establish the rights of man.

New path. Rousseau and Kant marked a turning point by shifting the focus to religious man, emphasizing moral sentiment and rational faith. This shift involved exploring the psychological and moral dimensions of religious belief, rather than solely focusing on divine revelation.

Moral certainty. Rousseau's Vicar's faith has three main tenets: that there is a creating will in the universe; that this will is intelligent, good, and powerful; and that man is free. In all three cases, the Vicar’s reasoning begins with his own experience and stops whenever he finds it unnecessary to go further.

Rational moral religion. Kant's analysis of rational moral religion, so clinical compared to the Savoyard Vicar’s poetic evocations of the soul’s self-torture, was most thoroughly laid out in his Critique of Practical Reason (1788). The argument is long and technical but can be summarized in a few steps.

6. Hegel sought to reconcile spirit and state, viewing Protestantism as key to modern ethical life.

The Hegelian philosophy is the last magnificent attempt to restore Christianity by identifying it with the negation of Christianity.

Reconciling spirit and state. Hegel sought to reconcile spirit and state, viewing Protestantism as key to modern ethical life. This involved integrating religious and secular spheres, with the state embodying the collective will and Protestantism providing the ethical foundation.

Dynamic process. Hegel combines elements of both pictures but renders it dynamic, calling “negativity” a mental force that resists the world as alien, and by resisting comes genuinely to know the world. This hard-won knowledge is what eventually then reconciles us to the world.

Ethical life. Hegel attributes to religion an almost vitalistic power, speaking of it as the very groundwork of a people’s shared spirit (Volksgeist). “Religion is the place wherein a people gives itself the definition of what it holds to be true,” he writes; “thus the representation of God constitutes the general foundation of a people.”

7. Liberal theology, aiming to harmonize faith and modernity, inadvertently paved the way for new forms of political theology.

The conviction that there is some deity continues to exist, like a plant that can never be completely eradicated, though so corrupt that it is only capable of producing the worst of fruit.

Modern political theology. Liberal theology, aiming to harmonize faith and modernity, inadvertently paved the way for new forms of political theology. By emphasizing human experience and reason, it opened the door for reinterpreting religious concepts in political terms.

Cultural Protestantism. The most representative figures of this movement—Albrecht Ritschl, Wilhelm Herrmann, Adolf von Harnack—were immensely learned scholars whose greater theological-political ambitions were usually clearer than the reasoning they used to achieve them.

New way to speak. Kant taught them a new way to speak, translating Christian concepts of sin and eschatology into modern terms of moral inclination and historical progress. Whether that translation augered the philosophical purification of Christianity or the Christianization of modern philosophy remained to be seen.

8. The First World War shattered liberal complacency, prompting a re-evaluation of political theology's role.

The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me.

Shattered complacency. The First World War shattered liberal complacency, prompting a re-evaluation of political theology's role. The war exposed the limitations of liberal theology's optimistic view of human progress and its failure to address the problem of evil.

New generation. The generation that Karl Barth’s Romans helped to form had no taste for compromise with the culture that their liberal teachers celebrated and that committed suicide in the Great War. They wanted to confront the unknown God, the “wholly other,” the deus absconditus.

Theological-political decision. In 1933, shortly after Hitler’s rise to power, Tillich published a book titled The Socialist Decision in which he not only rejected Nazism as anti-Christian but made the theological case for religious socialism as the only defensible political program from a Christian standpoint.

9. Barth and Rosenzweig, reacting against liberal theology, emphasized the "wholly otherness" of God and the limits of human reason.

We need a new mythology. However, this mythology must be in the service of the ideas, it must become a mythology of reason…. Thus the enlightened and the unenlightened must finally shake hands.

New direction. Barth and Rosenzweig, reacting against liberal theology, emphasized the "wholly otherness" of God and the limits of human reason. This involved rejecting the anthropocentric focus of liberal theology and reasserting the transcendence and mystery of the divine.

Theological principles. The Barmen Declaration, denounced the dressing of a hateful ideology in theological garb, warned against bowing the knee before any earthly ruler, and denied that the state could legitimately absorb the churches.

Theological language. The prose of Romans is pregnant with eschatological possibilities. Some of those were spiritual possibilities, which the young Barth himself explored with a daring that was all the more appealing because it contrasted utterly with the high-flown impersonal style of the academic mandarins who dominated the liberal theological establishment.

10. The revival of political theology in Weimar Germany led to dangerous justifications of tyranny and violence.

A well-ordered house is a dangerous thing.

Dangerous justifications. The revival of political theology in Weimar Germany led to dangerous justifications of tyranny and violence. By reinterpreting religious concepts in political terms, it provided a theological basis for extremist ideologies.

Theological-political rebellion. Rejecting that theological tradition meant having to revisit the age-old problem of politics and rethink it in light of a new conception of God’s relation to man and world.

Theological language. The new society being built there would be atheistic, free from the false consciousness that Judaism and Christianity cultivated and that served the interests of only the ruling classes. Yet it would also fulfill the biblical prophecies of a better world to come.

11. The enduring challenge lies in navigating the tension between political order and the perennial human quest for meaning.

We must be clear about those alternatives, choose between them, and live with the consequences of our choice. That is the human condition.

The human condition. The actual choice contemporary societies face is not between past and present, or between the West and “the rest.” It is between two grand traditions of thought, two ways of envisaging the human condition.

Theological self-consciousness. All politics involves conflict, but what set Christian politics apart was the theological self-consciousness and intensity of the conflicts it generated—conflicts rooted in the deepest ambiguities of Christian revelation.

The perennial challenge. The story reconstructed here should remind us that the actual choice contemporary societies face is not between past and present, or between the West and “the rest.” It is between two grand traditions of thought, two ways of envisaging the human condition.

Last updated: February 28, 2025