Secularization as Kenosis

184 | postmodern condition and secularity
seen as univocal with being, as in the tradition of ontotheology. French postmodernists
such as Derrida and phenomenologists like Henry and Marion tend to interpret Heidegger’s
critique of metaphysics as an opening to a more authentic understanding of
God in terms of difference: an understanding of the divine, not as a supreme Being, but
in the margins of – or even outside of – metaphysics. For them God is more a ‘radical
mystery’ or a ‘radical alterity’ that we loose sight of in rationalizing, metaphysical
thought. 51
Vattimo resists the general usage of the concept of difference, as enabling a return
of God. In many postmodern interpreters of Heidegger, the ontological difference becomes
once again an objective structure. One can think of the themes in Heidegger of
an ineffable reality beyond appearances as Lichtung and Sprache. 52 and of what Rorty
has called ‘Heidegger’s nostalgia.’ 53 It is fair to say that both Vattimo and Rorty try to
move away from the ‘theological’ Heidegger and Derrida and rephrase the ineffable in
historicist terms. By historicizing the ontological difference, Vattimo keeps the quasitranscendental
reading of Heidegger at bay, and enables a more dynamic understanding
of Being. More specific, Vattimo proposes reading Heidegger’s idea of difference in a
nihilistic, Nietzschean way. This latter point, the understanding of difference as a phase
in the history of Being, is renounced by Rorty. His effort is to think of this plurality as a
merely historical contingency. Rorty’s line of thought is that the whole idea of a ‘history
of being’ in Heidegger is mistaken. As Rorty sees it, we can materialize this history of
being as nothing but the contingent collection of books that make up the canon of Western
philosophy. Vattimo says that “if the history of the West is interpreted in terms of
nihilism, then Heidegger would not be merely the author of an autobiographical novel.
And the history of the Christian religion would not be a part of Western history, but a
guiding thread within it.” 54 So within postmodernism, both Rorty and Vattimo offer a
non-transcendental reading of Heidegger, but Vattimo retains a metaphysical program,
according to which Being is weakening. For Rorty, in a more materialist way, all talk of
Being is superfluous, as the history of philosophy is a contingent artifact, comparable
with the development of literature, architecture, natural science and so on. We can give
anthologies of them, but these anthologies do not reflect Being.
Vattimo’s reflections on Heidegger have far-reaching consequences for his theorizing
on religion and secularity. Vattimo denies that postmodernism and its discourse
of difference should lead to a renewed understanding of Being as transcendent. And
he rejects the conclusions of a return of religion in the wake of Heidegger. Vattimo
asserts: “It is out of the question to talk about the possibility of a ‘religious’ reading
of Heidegger.” 55 For Vattimo, the secularist consequences of modernity are irreversible.
In the wake of Heidegger many have believed that there is a renewed possibility for
religious language. But Vattimo sees in this a return to the idea of a transcendent realm
and thereby the possibility of a return of violence. 56 This runs counter to the idea of
51 Jonkers, ‘God in France’, 7.
52 Taylor phrases this reading of Heidegger as entailing ‘that something beyond the human makes
demands on us, or calls us” Taylor, Philosophical Arguments, 100–1.
53 Rorty, Contingency, 122. See also: John D. Caputo, ‘The Thought of Being and the Conversation of
Mankind: the Case of Heidegger and Rorty’, Review of Metaphysics 36 (1983), 661–686.
54 Vattimo, Belief, 40.
55 Vattimo, End of Modernity, 43.
56 Meganck, 11.