Secularization as Kenosis

secularization as kenosis | 203
the emancipatory meaning of history is bound up with the end of the sacred violence
of the natural religions. 137
For Girard, the stakes with regard to relativism are quite different. The truth of
Christianity cannot be to equate all cultures and religions. The anthropological truth of
Christianity, namely the innocence of the victim, may not be clouded by a too uncritical
appeal to love as the central message of Christianity. 138 For Girard the innocence
of the victim is a truth that cannot be dissolved in weak thinking. There are anthropological
facts and not only interpretations. Girard shares with Vattimo a discontent
with the Enlightenment tradition of representational knowledge, but sees nihilism as
the regrettable consequence of that. The failure of representationalism creates the need
for another mode of describing and explaining human behavior. The modern novel was
to Girard’s mind, a response to the incapacity of philosophy to describe and explain
human behavior. As he asserts:
I see the current form of nihilism as the failure of what we call the Enlightenment, the
rational vision of the universe elaborated by the eighteenth century. In this rational
vision, human relations become too complex to analyze (and so in compensation we
have the unsurpassed perspicacity of the modern novel) In my view, instead of giving
up and drifting into some form of nihilism, asserting like some philosophers that there
exists no certain truth, we must return to anthropology and psychology and study
human relations better than they have been studied to date. 139
For Girard the problem of violence is not solved simply by jettisoning and weakening
metaphysical truth. In a way, Girard would say, the discarding of ontological
difference unleashes violence. Once everything and everyone is on the same ontological
plane, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish oneself and this makes mimetic
violence explode. 140 The weakening of truth in postmodernity, Girard seems to imply,
did not only give us a more open and tolerant society, but also a society that is violent
on a scale that has never been seen before. In a sense this is to say that there is not
only a postmodern ethics of love, but it is accompanied by a postmodern production of
terror. For Girard therefore, secularization as a progressive dissolution of religion and
a surpassing of the law is not desirable. Since human beings desire mimetically and are
vulnerable to collective violence. Secularization as the abolition of authority and (ecclesial)
institutions, is increasingly vulnerable to mimetic violence. The Christian rites
are, as Girard sees it, intended to channel human, collective desire in a peaceful way.
Without these rites there is a considerable chance of a return of violence.
5.3 the dissolution of the world
In Vattimo’s highly original philosophy of secularization, he weaves together two programmatic
terms, namely nihilism and secularization. At a surface level these two concepts
cohere, but at a deeper level, there is considerable tension between them. Whereas
137 Vattimo, ‘Girard en Heidegger’, 86.
138 Girard and Vattimo, ‘Christianity’, 46–7.
139 Girard and Vattimo, ‘Christianity’, 61.
140 Meganck writes: “Dat deze wereldsheid garant staat voor vredelievendheid is zeker niet wat Girard
bedoelt. Integendeel, het geweld heeft zich ‘gehorizontaliseerd’ en de markt is niet zozeer onze chance op een
vriendelijker wereld, als het terrein bij uitstek voor het seculiere geweld.” Meganck, 224.