The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West
by
by
The Kingdom of Darkness Revived
Lilla’s thesis in this well-conceived and well-written book is that the separation of theology and politics which took place in the 17th century has left enormously important issues unaddressed and therefore unresolved. These issues have subsequently grown in theoretical significance and practical impact. Without intellectual effort to resolve them, he believes, they will continue to undermine the most important institutions of modern liberal, democratic government. I think he's got the wrong end of the stick. The solution isn't better thinking, it's more inclusive politics.
The turning point for European political thought occurs, according to Lilla, with the publication of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan in 1651. Leviathandestroyed utterly the theological theory of the state based on divine will and replaced it with an anthropological theory rooted in human fear and the need for security. One might argue with the specific facts of history or human character contained in the book, but not with the magnitude of its impact on the world of political thought.
The fact that Hobbes as well as so many other political theorists left more than a few loose ends is obvious. If realisation of the divine will is not the ultimate point of politics then what is? The will of some equally vague concept called The People? The, one hopes benign, will of an absolute dictator? Or is such authoritative will some implicit, hidden, even racial desire of a populace which only becomes articulate through the political process? Two thirds of the book traces the responses of political philosophers, mostly German, to these questions into the 20th century.
Lilla perceptively points out that Hobbes does not rubbish religion in his argument. In fact Hobbes takes as read a certain religious impulse in human beings which is universal. This impulse, Hobbes points out, is a natural and even rational response to the extreme vulnerability which all people experience to the obvious perils of a cosmos which is at best indifferent to their well-being. Religion, Hobbes knows, brings comfort and a feeling of security to many. As such it is neither irrational nor detrimental to human life.
However I don’t think Lilla fully grasps Hobbes’s point about the specific religion he is talking about, namely Christianity. An obvious central part of Hobbes’s argument is that the doctrinal conflicts within Christianity have been the principle cause of political violence in recent European history. The Christian religion, in other words, has failed in its basic human function by increasing the levels of danger people must endure. This is the most potent point he could make, and it rings true even today as a really good reason for the separation of church and state among other principles of government.
But Hobbes of course was a political theorist writing about an alternative source to the divine will with which to justify political activity. He was not a theologian, much less a scholar of comparative religion, nor was he writing a sociological critique of Christianity. He did not, therefore, probe the source of the Christian religion, only its political effects. His primary concern was European political life, its recent history, and a way to avoid the obvious traps laid by the ecclesiastical establishment that could undermine effective, that is to say, secure, reliable, peaceful government.
Until recently there was general optimism that the political issues of anthropologically-based politics could be incrementally addressed as we muddled through the not very attractive activities of politics without divine authority. This was the principal legacy of Enlightenment. What the world has experienced, however, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, is that the political demand for a return to theologically grounded politics is growing steadily - in America, in India, in Europe, in Africa, and even in China - as a component of the new politics of culture. Christianity and its political theology have become a new political force. And not only among Christians: the more general impact of the Christian religion is to encourage other religions to see themselves in Christian terms, as religions of faith.
Such a claim, I know, needs an explanation in far greater detail than can be provided here. Nevertheless Lilla hints at it constantly even though he doesn’t seem willing or able to articulate it clearly. He knows there occurred a political change in the world with the advent of the Christian religion. In simple terms: “Christianity was not law-based,... it preserved the Decalogue but abolished the highly developed system of Jewish law in favor of a law of the heart.” Christians have always claimed that something fundamental happened, something ontological, with the arrival of Jesus in the world. And they are right; but not quite in the way they mean. [See for further discussion: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...].
Christianity is a religion of belief, of faith, of commitment to specific ideas as true and necessary and worth more than life itself. The ‘law’, that is divine commands about how to act, is dumped from Christianity at its inception as a distraction to the authentic life of the spirit (with the unaccountable exception of the Ten Commandments). Christianity, devoted as it is to ideas, consequently invented the distinction between true and false religion. Law needs to be merely obeyed; ideas must be believed. Law is socially visible in its adherence or transgression; belief is utterly private. Prior to Christianity, religion could be more or less socially dictated, spiritually effective, tribal or imperial, primitive or elegantly ceremonial. But it was never true or false. The fact that we take for granted that religion in general is constituted by beliefs about what is the case about the world is probably the greatest triumph of Christianity. It could even plausibly constitute an ontological change.
Christianity has a self-image as an ethical religion. It is not. It is a doctrinal religion which considers ethics, that is appropriate behaviour, to be derived from such doctrine. Faith is not an ethical principle, it is a theological doctrine. In Christianity the divine will is not expressed in terms of correct actions but in terms of true ideas which are formulated as dogmas and which the ‘faithful’ are required to formally endorse - even if they have no understanding of the idea itself. From time to time this central doctrine of faith might be down-played for political reasons. It nevertheless remains the radically distinguishing and fundamental proposition of the Christian religion and is logically prior to any particular doctrines like the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the Parousia or Second Coming..
It is the resurgence of this radical (more traditional, dare one say) Christianity of faith that is the nub of the problem, not some intellectual disconnect between theology and political theory. Modern political theologians do not want, as Lilla suggests, to merely “revive the messianic impulse in Western life;”(although even that seems sufficient cause for concern) They want political power, very specifically the power necessary to restrict the political power of others who do not share their faith, thus reversing the political trajectory of the last four centuries. And they will use Hobbes's anthropological desire for security as a vehicle to garner that power through fear and division. This problem is intellectual only in the sense that political theologians will formulate the most absurd arguments for the re-Christianisation of government. [See for one such argument: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...].
Lilla knows that Christianity is a peculiar kind of religion, that its “inner ambiguities produced endless doctrinal differences over spiritual and political matters that rendered medieval European life increasingly intolerant, dogmatic, fearful, and violent.”* But what he doesn’t understand (and I can arrogantly say neither did Kant and Hegel) is that this is the essential nature of faith-based religion, which hasn't changed since the 16th century, or for that matter since the 1st (see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). Religion is not an equivalent word for faith, despite the fact that Christians have attempted to make it so for 2000 years. And faith-based religion does not tolerate politics, regardless of the fact that dictatorial politics are an essential component of how it decides what constitutes faith. [See for example: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...].
Faith has a peculiar fate when it escapes from the power of a central authority and runs loose in modern, liberal political systems. People believe different things, often ideas which are incomprehensible to them, and often different from what they profess to believe because of membership in religious groups. When life is constructed around such beliefs rather than customs, and rituals, and norms of behaviour, it is very fragile indeed. One can never presume on another man’s faith; one does not know the hidden status of another’s heart; the credal assertions of belief can’t be counted on as more than formulaic attestation of tribal membership. In other words, in a world dominated by faith no one can be trusted. Nor is negotiation possible. Customs might be altered but never doctrines. This is Hobbes’s enduring point.
Lilla also recognises that “Christian fanaticism and intolerance incited violence; violence set secular and religious leaders against one another; and the more violent and fearful political life became, the more fanatical and intolerant Christians became. Christendom had found itself in a vicious theological-political cycle unknown to any previous civilization.” He therefore correctly concludes that “the political and the religious problem are the same.” But what Lilla unaccountably seems reluctant to acknowledge is that these conditions are not incidental to Christianity; they are its inevitable consequences as soon as it touches politics. He frequently refers to Christianity as one among ‘other faiths’. Christianity is no such thing. It is THEreligion which makes faith its central mark. Faith is indeed a matter of the hidden heart and not the expressive head, nor even of the behaviour of the rest of the body connected with either of these organs. No other religion works this way.
What Lilla misses, therefore, is that Hobbes’s observations are about the anthropological nature of faith not the theological doctrine of God, Christian or otherwise. What was left as an unconsidered residue from Hobbes’s sweeping analysis was the politically debilitating concept of faith itself, which remained, festered, and has re-surfaced in 21st century life with the same divisive, irrational and often violent force that it did in the 16th century. Lilla considers the Great Separation between politics and theology to be a consequence of conflicting doctrines. Of course he is right in a sense. But conflict of beliefs can only arise when beliefs rather than norms of behaviour are the issue, that is when faith is counted as something of ultimate importance. Hobbes’s ‘Kingdom of Darkness’ is not the Christian religion per se but any religion of faith, that is any religion which promotes itself as superior to politics.
Lilla further knows that “although Christianity is inescapably political, it proved incapable of integrating this fact into Christian theology.” But what he can’t get himself to say is that this is because Christianity cannot do this and remain Christianity as a religion of faith. To the degree it takes itself seriously as a religion of faith, it will find any form of government other than its own absolute dictatorship inimical. It must do so in order to protect its prerogative for defining faith in doctrinal terms. Christianity as a religion of faith rather than of behaviour, in other words, is indeed a very definite political form, one which is incompatible in its roots to modern, constitutional, politics.
The proof of this incompatibility is historically evident. The Catholic Church ran an open political war against democracy on just this basis throughout the 19th century, rejecting the Enlightenment view of politics as a heresy. Protestants in America had a go in the early 20th century under the banner of The Fundamentals, reaching their triumphal apogee with the insertion of the term ‘one nation under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. Today, Evangelicals of various doctrinal stripes are conducting guerilla actions toward the same end: the inhibition of inclusive politics through the capture of key political institutions. They distort the political process without shame through racist voter restrictions, gerrymandering, and single-issue campaigns that destroy civilised debate. Lilla believes we can benefit by thinking harder about the situation. I don’t. I think it was the evangelical theologian, Mark Noll, who suggested that “The problem with the Evangelical mind is that there isn’t one.” The horse’s mouth is good enough for me.
* I can’t resist one of Lilla’s chapter epigraphs in this regard:
“The kingdom of God is among you.
LUKE 17:21
My kingdom is not of this world.
JOHN 18:36”
Lilla’s thesis in this well-conceived and well-written book is that the separation of theology and politics which took place in the 17th century has left enormously important issues unaddressed and therefore unresolved. These issues have subsequently grown in theoretical significance and practical impact. Without intellectual effort to resolve them, he believes, they will continue to undermine the most important institutions of modern liberal, democratic government. I think he's got the wrong end of the stick. The solution isn't better thinking, it's more inclusive politics.
The turning point for European political thought occurs, according to Lilla, with the publication of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan in 1651. Leviathandestroyed utterly the theological theory of the state based on divine will and replaced it with an anthropological theory rooted in human fear and the need for security. One might argue with the specific facts of history or human character contained in the book, but not with the magnitude of its impact on the world of political thought.
The fact that Hobbes as well as so many other political theorists left more than a few loose ends is obvious. If realisation of the divine will is not the ultimate point of politics then what is? The will of some equally vague concept called The People? The, one hopes benign, will of an absolute dictator? Or is such authoritative will some implicit, hidden, even racial desire of a populace which only becomes articulate through the political process? Two thirds of the book traces the responses of political philosophers, mostly German, to these questions into the 20th century.
Lilla perceptively points out that Hobbes does not rubbish religion in his argument. In fact Hobbes takes as read a certain religious impulse in human beings which is universal. This impulse, Hobbes points out, is a natural and even rational response to the extreme vulnerability which all people experience to the obvious perils of a cosmos which is at best indifferent to their well-being. Religion, Hobbes knows, brings comfort and a feeling of security to many. As such it is neither irrational nor detrimental to human life.
However I don’t think Lilla fully grasps Hobbes’s point about the specific religion he is talking about, namely Christianity. An obvious central part of Hobbes’s argument is that the doctrinal conflicts within Christianity have been the principle cause of political violence in recent European history. The Christian religion, in other words, has failed in its basic human function by increasing the levels of danger people must endure. This is the most potent point he could make, and it rings true even today as a really good reason for the separation of church and state among other principles of government.
But Hobbes of course was a political theorist writing about an alternative source to the divine will with which to justify political activity. He was not a theologian, much less a scholar of comparative religion, nor was he writing a sociological critique of Christianity. He did not, therefore, probe the source of the Christian religion, only its political effects. His primary concern was European political life, its recent history, and a way to avoid the obvious traps laid by the ecclesiastical establishment that could undermine effective, that is to say, secure, reliable, peaceful government.
Until recently there was general optimism that the political issues of anthropologically-based politics could be incrementally addressed as we muddled through the not very attractive activities of politics without divine authority. This was the principal legacy of Enlightenment. What the world has experienced, however, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, is that the political demand for a return to theologically grounded politics is growing steadily - in America, in India, in Europe, in Africa, and even in China - as a component of the new politics of culture. Christianity and its political theology have become a new political force. And not only among Christians: the more general impact of the Christian religion is to encourage other religions to see themselves in Christian terms, as religions of faith.
Such a claim, I know, needs an explanation in far greater detail than can be provided here. Nevertheless Lilla hints at it constantly even though he doesn’t seem willing or able to articulate it clearly. He knows there occurred a political change in the world with the advent of the Christian religion. In simple terms: “Christianity was not law-based,... it preserved the Decalogue but abolished the highly developed system of Jewish law in favor of a law of the heart.” Christians have always claimed that something fundamental happened, something ontological, with the arrival of Jesus in the world. And they are right; but not quite in the way they mean. [See for further discussion: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...].
Christianity is a religion of belief, of faith, of commitment to specific ideas as true and necessary and worth more than life itself. The ‘law’, that is divine commands about how to act, is dumped from Christianity at its inception as a distraction to the authentic life of the spirit (with the unaccountable exception of the Ten Commandments). Christianity, devoted as it is to ideas, consequently invented the distinction between true and false religion. Law needs to be merely obeyed; ideas must be believed. Law is socially visible in its adherence or transgression; belief is utterly private. Prior to Christianity, religion could be more or less socially dictated, spiritually effective, tribal or imperial, primitive or elegantly ceremonial. But it was never true or false. The fact that we take for granted that religion in general is constituted by beliefs about what is the case about the world is probably the greatest triumph of Christianity. It could even plausibly constitute an ontological change.
Christianity has a self-image as an ethical religion. It is not. It is a doctrinal religion which considers ethics, that is appropriate behaviour, to be derived from such doctrine. Faith is not an ethical principle, it is a theological doctrine. In Christianity the divine will is not expressed in terms of correct actions but in terms of true ideas which are formulated as dogmas and which the ‘faithful’ are required to formally endorse - even if they have no understanding of the idea itself. From time to time this central doctrine of faith might be down-played for political reasons. It nevertheless remains the radically distinguishing and fundamental proposition of the Christian religion and is logically prior to any particular doctrines like the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the Parousia or Second Coming..
It is the resurgence of this radical (more traditional, dare one say) Christianity of faith that is the nub of the problem, not some intellectual disconnect between theology and political theory. Modern political theologians do not want, as Lilla suggests, to merely “revive the messianic impulse in Western life;”(although even that seems sufficient cause for concern) They want political power, very specifically the power necessary to restrict the political power of others who do not share their faith, thus reversing the political trajectory of the last four centuries. And they will use Hobbes's anthropological desire for security as a vehicle to garner that power through fear and division. This problem is intellectual only in the sense that political theologians will formulate the most absurd arguments for the re-Christianisation of government. [See for one such argument: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...].
Lilla knows that Christianity is a peculiar kind of religion, that its “inner ambiguities produced endless doctrinal differences over spiritual and political matters that rendered medieval European life increasingly intolerant, dogmatic, fearful, and violent.”* But what he doesn’t understand (and I can arrogantly say neither did Kant and Hegel) is that this is the essential nature of faith-based religion, which hasn't changed since the 16th century, or for that matter since the 1st (see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). Religion is not an equivalent word for faith, despite the fact that Christians have attempted to make it so for 2000 years. And faith-based religion does not tolerate politics, regardless of the fact that dictatorial politics are an essential component of how it decides what constitutes faith. [See for example: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...].
Faith has a peculiar fate when it escapes from the power of a central authority and runs loose in modern, liberal political systems. People believe different things, often ideas which are incomprehensible to them, and often different from what they profess to believe because of membership in religious groups. When life is constructed around such beliefs rather than customs, and rituals, and norms of behaviour, it is very fragile indeed. One can never presume on another man’s faith; one does not know the hidden status of another’s heart; the credal assertions of belief can’t be counted on as more than formulaic attestation of tribal membership. In other words, in a world dominated by faith no one can be trusted. Nor is negotiation possible. Customs might be altered but never doctrines. This is Hobbes’s enduring point.
Lilla also recognises that “Christian fanaticism and intolerance incited violence; violence set secular and religious leaders against one another; and the more violent and fearful political life became, the more fanatical and intolerant Christians became. Christendom had found itself in a vicious theological-political cycle unknown to any previous civilization.” He therefore correctly concludes that “the political and the religious problem are the same.” But what Lilla unaccountably seems reluctant to acknowledge is that these conditions are not incidental to Christianity; they are its inevitable consequences as soon as it touches politics. He frequently refers to Christianity as one among ‘other faiths’. Christianity is no such thing. It is THEreligion which makes faith its central mark. Faith is indeed a matter of the hidden heart and not the expressive head, nor even of the behaviour of the rest of the body connected with either of these organs. No other religion works this way.
What Lilla misses, therefore, is that Hobbes’s observations are about the anthropological nature of faith not the theological doctrine of God, Christian or otherwise. What was left as an unconsidered residue from Hobbes’s sweeping analysis was the politically debilitating concept of faith itself, which remained, festered, and has re-surfaced in 21st century life with the same divisive, irrational and often violent force that it did in the 16th century. Lilla considers the Great Separation between politics and theology to be a consequence of conflicting doctrines. Of course he is right in a sense. But conflict of beliefs can only arise when beliefs rather than norms of behaviour are the issue, that is when faith is counted as something of ultimate importance. Hobbes’s ‘Kingdom of Darkness’ is not the Christian religion per se but any religion of faith, that is any religion which promotes itself as superior to politics.
Lilla further knows that “although Christianity is inescapably political, it proved incapable of integrating this fact into Christian theology.” But what he can’t get himself to say is that this is because Christianity cannot do this and remain Christianity as a religion of faith. To the degree it takes itself seriously as a religion of faith, it will find any form of government other than its own absolute dictatorship inimical. It must do so in order to protect its prerogative for defining faith in doctrinal terms. Christianity as a religion of faith rather than of behaviour, in other words, is indeed a very definite political form, one which is incompatible in its roots to modern, constitutional, politics.
The proof of this incompatibility is historically evident. The Catholic Church ran an open political war against democracy on just this basis throughout the 19th century, rejecting the Enlightenment view of politics as a heresy. Protestants in America had a go in the early 20th century under the banner of The Fundamentals, reaching their triumphal apogee with the insertion of the term ‘one nation under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. Today, Evangelicals of various doctrinal stripes are conducting guerilla actions toward the same end: the inhibition of inclusive politics through the capture of key political institutions. They distort the political process without shame through racist voter restrictions, gerrymandering, and single-issue campaigns that destroy civilised debate. Lilla believes we can benefit by thinking harder about the situation. I don’t. I think it was the evangelical theologian, Mark Noll, who suggested that “The problem with the Evangelical mind is that there isn’t one.” The horse’s mouth is good enough for me.
* I can’t resist one of Lilla’s chapter epigraphs in this regard:
“The kingdom of God is among you.
LUKE 17:21
My kingdom is not of this world.
JOHN 18:36”
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ August 02, 2018
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