POSTMODERN RADICALISATION Secularisation

The potentiality of kenosis that transcends disciplines and cultures, and establishes its ultimate relevance, lies not in its religiosity but in something much deeper – its becoming- ness, or, more precisely, its capacity to effect humanity’s becoming what humanity will be. Reflecting on such becoming, Indian philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975) observes that “individuality is an unstable state of being which is ever growing … a perpetual process with nothing permanent.” Amplifying that view, he quotes T.W. Rhys Davids (1843-1922): 199 Ibid., 215. 200 Ibid., 216.

There can be no individuality without putting together, there can be no putting together, no confection, without a becoming; there can be no becoming without a becoming different; and there can be no becoming different without a dissolution, a passing away, which sooner or later will be inevitable.201

Nearly a century later, postmodern philosopher Gianni Vattimo (1936-) insightfully radicalises this view (with a debt to Hegel and a variety of theologians since the 1960s), specifically naming kenosis – including its instability, its plurality and differentiality, its perpetuality, its impermanence, its dissolutions, and its inevitability – as that which enables and animates humanity becoming human. In his philosophy of ‘weak thought’, Vattimo, a student of hermeneutician Hans-Georg Gadamer and significantly influenced by Heidegger and Nietzsche, sees kenosis manifested in secularisation: the becoming worldly of the world and, with that, the becoming human of humanity.202 Of particular interest, in light of this chapter’s preceding discussion, is that Vattimo’s view is not necessarily atheistic. In fact, it is quite Christian-centric, though his theism is so liberated from dogma and metaphysics as to be largely unrecognisable by the institutionalised church. For him – an avowed Catholic, who embraces the Nietzschean death-of-God and quotes an Italian expression, “Thank God, I’m an atheist,” in support of his advocacy to “take the Bible seriously”203 _{– secularisation as kenosis begins with the kenotic event of}

incarnation, the moment at which God is able to be seen and spoken of as human and therefore secular; the moment at which God can be seen as self-emptying and beginning to ‘die’. Vattimo thus returns this discussion, once again, to the locus classicus at which it began: the Kenosis Hymn.

The kenotic dissolution or weakening of God paradoxically sees not the overcoming of Christianity but the continuation of its essence, a kind of fulfilment. Indeed, the overcoming of a religion only invites its replacement with another religion or belief system manifested in new claims of metaphysical truths. Since it is from such truths that ‘violence’ can emerge – not primarily physical violence, but that arising in exclusivity, hubris, and mastery desires – the secularisation or desacralisation of God is actually a salvific process of conversion away from violence. This weakening is a gradual conversion, a constant emptying, an always ongoing kenosis:

For Christianity, history appears as the history of salvation; it then becomes the search for a worldly condition of perfection, before turning, little by little, into the

201

Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, I: 383.

202

A useful synthesis and elucidation of Vattimo's philosophy of secularisation is found in H.J. Prosman, "Secularization as Kenosis," in The Postmodern Condition and the Meaning of Secularity: A Study on the Religious Dynamics of Postmodernity, ed. M. Sarot, M. Scott, and M. Wisse, Ars Disputandi Supplement Series (Utrecht: Ars Disputandi [http://www.ArsDisputandi.org], 2011), 175-223.

203

Vattimo invokes the Bible, not as a tool of proselytisation or the sanctioning charter of a religious institution, but as “the principal book that has marked deeply the ‘paradigm’ of Western culture.” See G. Vattimo, After Christianity, trans. L. D'Isanto, Italian Academy Lectures (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 7.

history of progress. But the ideal of progress is finally revealed to be a hollow one, since its ultimate value is to create conditions in which further progress is possible in a guise that is always new. By depriving progress of a final destination, secularization dissolves the very notion of progress itself, as happens in nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture.204

Slowly, in its emptying-out and dissolution, progress becomes routine.205 Metaphysics is fulfilled in science and technology – and ends. The difference between art and reality blurs, as art is fulfilled in philosophy – and ends. The need for objective truth diminishes. Nihilism, then, is “heir to the Christian myth of the incarnation of God.”206 _{And God’s}

‘death’ is the revelation and realisation of God, all by virtue of God’s self-emptying. Christianity can therefore be seen to be fulfilled – or moving toward fulfilment – as its kenotic ontology and consequent tendencies toward hermeneutics and mission position it to sponsor secularisation. Arising therefrom is “a wide ranging pluralism of religious forms that are all legitimate interpretations of the original hermeneutic event: the incarnation.”207 _{Secularisation as kenosis enables “a positive nihilism … [the]}

aesthetization of culture … the pluralization of lifestyles.”208 _{Amidst this plurality of}

legitimate interpretations, Vattimo invokes only one interpretive limit or threshold; that being caritas (and, alternatively, charity or love), by which he means “the reduction of violence in all its forms.”209 _{He sees the “indefinite drift” of secularisation as “reading the}

signs of the times with no other provision than the commandment of love, which cannot be secularized, because … it is a ‘formal’ commandment … which does not command something specific once and for all.” Instead, it calls for “applications that must be ‘invented’ in dialogue with specific situations …”210 _{This, too, is the advancement of a}

204

G. Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture, trans. J.R. Snyder (Cambridge: Polity, 1988), 7-8 (my emphasis).

205

As Vattimo notes, this is a notion already argued by Arnold Gehren, as a condition of what he calls 'post- histoire'. See ibid., 7. Testimony to progress becoming routine is widespread but well summarised in the words of Huston Smith, from 1958, directed particularly to ‘progress’ in the “Anglo-American world.” In his view, it “is not voluptuous; visitors from other cultures are almost unanimous in their impression that, despite superficial appearances to the contrary, English-speaking peoples do not enjoy life a great deal and are not really intent upon doing so – they are in too much of a hurry. The impress of Calvinism and Puritanism is still deep. What has conquered the West is the gospel not of sensualism, but of success.” See Smith, The Religions of Man: 17-18. In a sense, Smith appears to invoke Heidegger, asking of the West’s capacity to ‘dwell poetically’.

206

Vattimo, from Beyond Interpretation and quoted in Prosman, "Secularization as Kenosis," 196; this is a point also made in F. de Lange, "Kenotic Ethics: Gianni Vattimo, Reading the 'Signs of Time'," in Letting Go: Rethinking Kenosis, ed. O. Zijlstra (Bern: Peter Lang, 2002), 57. For Vattimo, however, nihilism is not any kind of finality. Instead, being a product of kenosis, it is “an infinite never-ending process.” See G. Vattimo,

Belief, trans. L. D'Isanto and D. Webb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 65; but also G. Vattimo, "Nihilism as Postmodern Christianity," in Transcendence and Beyond: A Postmodern Inquiry, ed. J.D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon, The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007), 44-48.

207

Prosman, "Secularization as Kenosis," 195.

208 Ibid., 187. 209 Vattimo, Belief: 88. 210 Ibid., 66.

(the) central Christian precept.211 But, somewhat startlingly, Vattimo adds to his proposition, arguing that such invention be undertaken “in light of what the holy Scriptures have revealed.”212 _{It must be acknowledged that Vattimo is writing from a specifically}

Christian perspective, but I would suggest that in order to embrace pluralism and avoid the exclusivity and peremptoriness that he argues against, the concluding phrase can and should be omitted, insofar as its addition imposes a very specific command indeed. His language might be broadened to include so-called books of wisdom from all faith traditions, but even that is unnecessary, since invoking the application of the non- peremptory principle of love or caritas – to each situation – already encompasses all that each situation comprises, including any extant ‘wisdom’ that may influence it or those who are part of it, and, in some situations, which may itself be the subject of necessary emptying. The initial proposition is sufficient and a more integral continuation of Christianity – true to its kenotic propensities – than it is when consideration of the Christian scriptures is imposed. It already includes everything needed to maintain the unfolding kenosis. Anything more risks the erection of barriers to emptying.

Though not without risk, secularisation offers opportunity. Vattimo sees the opportunity for an aesthetic way of being, one that is real, not superstitious or supernatural. Even his invocation of the Christian scriptures is a call to their “continuing reinterpretation” in response to a given situation, not the commendation of a “God who … does not ‘exist’ as an objective reality.”213

He sees human creativity escaping the limitations of science and technology so as to freely shape life – beginning at the threshold of caritas, or love, and without need for self-assertion or other forms of violence. In the absence of a transcendental and judgemental God, however, the kenosis that makes room for caritas and love is volitional, raising the matter of why it would be chosen over what may appear more expedient. Though a less specific aspect of his project, Vattimo addresses this issue by once again pointing to Christian tradition – its inherently kenotic nature, and its consequent natural tendency toward caritas (notwithstanding historic and current episodes of violence) – as the impetus that guides choice, at least in the long-term. Like others before him, Vattimo points to the cognition of violence as a condition of its rejection. The very exposure of violence as violence begins a process of change or conversion. Secularisation, as kenosis, is the matrix of such a process, producing heightened awareness and a willingness to name and reject

211

Vattimo argues that "the essence of [God's] revelation is reduced to charity," or love. See ibid., 77; Eckhart, however, praises "detachment above all love," because love "compels me to love God," while "detachment compels God to love me." He thereby maintains, as I have, that kenosis enables and animates reciprocal love. See Eckhart, Meister Eckhart: Selections from His Essential Writings: 104.

212

Vattimo, Belief: 66.

213

violence in metaphysics, theology, and ideology.214 Manifested in this matrix is an increasingly pluralistic and aesthetic society, which increasingly comes to value and deploy caritas – over self-willing – not as the result of coercion but because of its potentiality to unconceal the inherent ‘beauty’ in what situations call for. To humanity and its creativity, kenosis grants a crucial role.

Transformation

Vattimo, of course, is not alone in the postmodern advancement or ‘radicalisation’ of kenotic thought. John Caputo, for example – introduced earlier in connection with Aquinas and Eckhart (and their connections to Heidegger) – also pursues the ‘weakness of God’. He sees religion and theology as “all too human,” tending to “associate themselves with a discourse of power,” and, therefore, “not to be confused with God.” In that view, he supposes that God “belongs not to the fixed order of presence, but to the (dis)order of the deconstruction of presence”; that God “withdraws from the world” so as to be stationed “with everything that the world despises”; that God is not a “kingly power, but … prowls the streets (a voyou) and disturbs the peace”; that God “can do without religion if religion means cultic sacrifice and ritual, but not without the event of justice, which is not always what religion means”; that God is not intent on establishing “an oppressive patriarchal model of sovereign power, but the revitalization of worldly power”; and, finally, “that God moves not by force but by attraction, like a call,” harbouring “an event of solicitation.”215

In each of his suppositions, Caputo ultimately describes God in kenotic terms and reprises many aspects of kenosis, already discussed: the self-emptying that deconstructs what is present, effects withdrawal, causes disruption, promotes justice (caritas and love), eschews power in order to power, and that calls humanity to action – to the passive activity of reciprocal kenosis.

Caputo rejects the classical view of kenosis that culminates in majestic exaltation, because “the power of the cross is a power without power, particularly without sovereign power.”216 _{For him, kenosis is best evidenced in the transformation of sovereignty, in the}

shift from “my sovereignty, or our sovereignty, to the sovereignty of the other,” including “each and every person, each and every thing.” The “autonomy of sovereignty” thus becomes the “heteronomy of hospitality”:

214 _{I return to this aspect of ‘violence’ in Chapter 7.} 215

J.D. Caputo, "The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event," in The Mourning After: Attending the Wake of Postmodernism, ed. Neil Brooks and Josh Toth (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), 287-289.

216

J.D. Caputo, "Beyond Sovereignty: Many Nations Under the Weakness of God," Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 89, no. 1-2 (Spring-Summer) (2006): 29 (my emphasis). Caputo’s ‘rejection’ is not

dissimilar to mine, as explained earlier in this chapter. See discussion under sub-heading, “Succeeding the Kenosis”.

Hospitality represents a very interesting combination of power and powerlessness. I cannot invite the other to your house. Hospitality means that the host is the master of the house, that he or she owns the premises, and that means the host has to have some kind of power, but this is a power that makes itself vulnerable to the other. It is power interrupted by the call of the other.217

In this scenario – as with all kenotic scenarios – nothing is ‘lost’ or ‘sacrificed’. Self- identity is retained, possessions are not compelled to be relinquished, and ‘power’ is fully preserved. It is only power’s attributes and exercise that change, as sovereign-ness is transformed into hospitality, and hospitality is put into practice as responsibility. Left only at that, however, the situation can appear one-sided, with transformation seeming to involve only the host-as-self. But, just as the host is also other, the guest-as-other is also self, with some measure of sovereignty and power, even if only pertaining to self. Kenosis is a call to mutual transformation and is only fully instantiated when reciprocal, when the guest-as-self is also willing to become open and vulnerable to its other, and thereby host the host. Such is the tension that effects creativity, and, as widely demonstrated in theology and philosophy, the ontology of such tension is kenosis.

* * *

In what can only be a broad survey, this chapter has located the origins and development of concepts – both explicit and implicit – that relate to kenosis. It has demonstrated the relevance of kenosis, not only across the disciplines of theology and philosophy, but also across cultures, East and West. It has introduced many of the major thinkers and thinking that arise from those disciplines and cultures. Subsequent discourse builds on the foundations laid here. It next looks to architecture – an endeavour of human creativity at theoretical, aesthetic, and applied levels – for evidence of kenosis, seen not only in concretised instantiations but also in missed opportunities. In so doing, it asks what architecture says of kenosis. With that, the discourse can later turn to ask kenosis what it says of architecture; which, stated in other terms, is to ask of architecture how it – and human creativity, more generally – might be informed and transformed by its own kenosis.

217