III - WHAT IS POLITICAL THEOLOGY?

Summary

The concept of political theology is most intimately connected with the name of Carl Schmitt. Not only was it “introduced in the literature” by Schmitt, as Erik Peterson wrote in 1935. Today, nearly seventy years later, one has to say that Schmitt has helped the concept “political theology” to gain prominence throughout the world, across disciplinary and national boundaries, as well as across political and theological fronts. Above all, however, Schmitt's own position is determined by the concept. Political theology names the core of Schmitt's theoretical enterprise. It characterizes the unifying center of an oeuvre rich in historical turns and political convolutions, in deliberate deceptions and involuntary obscurities. The intimate connection with this oeuvre, which has sowed enmity and reaped enmity as only few have, would alone be enough to make political theology a controversial concept.

Neither is the issue of political theology, of course, to be equated with the concept's gain in prominence nor did it enter into the world with the articulation of Schmitt's theory. Political theology is as old as faith in revelation, and it will continue to exist, as far as human beings can tell, as long as faith in a God who demands obedience continues to exist. The question “What is political theology?” thus leads and points far beyond the confrontation with, or reflection on, Schmitt's position. It is of far more fundamental significance. Yet whoever poses the question today asks it within the horizon of the debate that Schmitt inaugurated.