After Christianity

Rating:
Summary: After Blumenberg
Review: Vattimo's "After Christianity" could be titled "After Blumenberg". Of course I am referring to Hans Blumenberg's "The Legitimacy of the Modern Age". Blumenberg's thesis, as I found it relevant for the philosophy of relgion, is that the secularization that occurs in Modern philosophy is a direct result of William of Ockhams'emphasis upon radical divine omnipotence combined with a form of realist skepticism. Hence, secularization is the result of Christianity's internal incoherence. The modern age is hence a legitimate construct independent of Christian theology.

Vattimo argues almost the exact opposite. The secularization of European culture, YES! European Culture, is the result of the kenotic emptying of the Christian God in Christ. The increased generalization, abstraction, and emptying the concept of God that characterizes Modernity is not the result of Christianity's internal incoherence. Just the opposite, not only is Modernity's secularization and its emptying all the content from the concept of God coherent with Christianity, but also the "postmodern" (here Vattimo means nihilism) condition is a coherent development of the workings of Christianity's kenotic God.

I'll leave you to "After Christianity" to figure out how Vattimo pulls this off and what he thinks its implications are. The signficance of Vattimo for contemporary philosophy of religion cannot be overrated. Certainly his works raises major questions about theological movements like "Radical Orthodoxy" and the theology of John Milbank.