Secularization as Kenosis

208 | postmodern condition and secularity
hermeneutic constitution of Dasein, is a way to truth and to Being and at the same time
a nihilistic experience, for being, so Vattimo’s line of thought goes, “tends to identify
itself with nothingness”. 162 An experience in this nihilist sense is typically “ahistoric
and discontinuous.” 163 It is clear that in the tension in Vattimo’s work with regard to the
worldly character of nihilistic hermeneutics, the scale tips to the nihilistic side and can
only be valued in its rejection of the stasis of metaphysics. It experiences itself “. . . as
mortal, as something that – in its capacity for death – experiences Being in a radically
different manner from that which is familiar to the metaphysical tradition.” 164
5.3.2 Theological World Denial.
Vattimo’s philosophy of secularization is an effort to speak theologically in a culture that
is increasingly governed by information technology. For Vattimo, this has a theological
background. Vattimo is very critical of the way theology relates to secularization. In the
first place he observes a denial of secularity in the postmodern shift towards apophatic
theology, as in the work of Derrida. In the second place he signals a sort of negligence
of the world in the tradition of dialectical theology. A dominant development in postmodern
philosophy of religion and theology, is to take recourse to negative theology.
The central thought in this approach is to acknowledge the rightful criticism of modernity
and postmodernity. The tradition of negative theology subsequently does not see
this as a falsification of religion, but holds that it belongs to the essence of true religion
that God always transcends human language and concepts. 165
Vattimo has resisted this tradition of negative theology as represented in theology
by Barth 166 and in contemporary philosophy by Derrida, for reasons that have very
much to do with his take on secularization. He speaks of dialectical theology’s assertion
of God’s absolute transcendence. 167 Vattimo instead, has a positive account of
religion that refuses to escape in the world-fleeing abstractions of apophatic theology.
To Vattimo’s mind, this return of religion in terms of radical alterity, is once again a
statement of God’s objectivity. This denies the value of the history of secularization.
In this response there is in the end no positive role for history. It, moreover, neglects
the critique of metaphysical theology. 168 Likewise, death-of-God theology negatively
affirms God’s radical difference with respect to this world. The wholly other God to
162 Vattimo, End of Modernity, 123.
163 Vattimo, End of Modernity, 127–8.
164 Vattimo, End of Modernity, 128.
165 Bauer and Hardt speak of a “. . . Traditionsstrang negativer Theologie im kulturellen Gedächtnis
des Christentums: in den ikonoklastischen Praktiken von Judentum und Christentum manifestiert sich als
das tiefste Geheimnis der Welt die radikale Andersheit Gottes.” Christan Bauer and Peter Hardt, ‘Vom Unsagbaren
sprechen. Postmoderne Sprachprobleme und theologische Erkenntniswege’, 〈url: �����������
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166 Vattimo, After Christianity, 36.
167 Vattimo, Belief, 46.
168 “The wholly other God about whom so much is spoken in contemporary religious philosophy, is
not only not the incarnated God of Christianity; it is still the ancient God of metaphysics, in that he is seen
as the last ground upon which reason cannot touch . . . but because of that in her invariability and stability is
affirmed.” Poorthuis remarks with regard to Levinas that the thought of Levinas as a radical disenchantment
of the world is constitutive of secularization, which implies a technical, profit-seeking relation to the world.
Marcel Poorthuis, ‘Recensie van God in Frankrijk’, Areopagus 8(1) (2004), 42