DIALECTICS OF POLITICAL THEOLOGY Carl Schmitt, Erik Peterson and Giorgio Agamben

Abstract

The present paper approaches the debate between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson on political theology in the form of a dialectical structure. Carl Schmitt’s defense of sovereignty is presented of political theology, when it characterizes sovereign’s decision as the secularization of a miracle. Instead, Erik Peterson’s denial of the possibility of Christian political theology appears as its dialectical counterpoint. By opposing its possibility, by refusing the imperial political theology proposed by Eusebius of Cesarea, Peterson opposes Schmitt’s conception of a Church based on Papal infallible authority. Erik Peterson, however, establishes an abyss between theology and politics, making all theology non political. Agamben seems, in his turn, trying to think not a non-political theology, but a theology that makes possible a policy against theological-political politics. This is the meaning of an economic theology – affirmation of denial – which, however, seems to remain insufficient.