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The Management of Distinctions: Jacob Taubes on Paul’s Political Theology

  • Marin Terpstra
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Saint Paul and Philosophy
This chapter is in the book Saint Paul and Philosophy

Abstract

Is it justified to depict Paul’s letters as an example of political theology, as Taubes did in his Heidelberg lectures on Romans in 1987? The justification lies in the fact that as a founder of non-Jewish “Christian” communities Paul has to act as a politician. But he was a politician of a special kind, one who pretended to be called by God (or Christ) to be a spiritual leader with the task to establish a new people. To clarify this point, the author focuses on the way Paul manages distinctions (between Jews and non-Jews, between followers of Christ and those who stick to the world as it is, and so on) and on the impact of his theology on these distinctions. This impact relates to the intensification of distinctions. The extreme consequence of this is the distinction between friend and enemy. This possible consequence connects Taubes’s reflections with Carl Schmitt’s use of the term “political theology.” It turns out that Paul’s political theology cannot be taken in the sense Roman intellectuals already used the term (state cult), but points in another direction, a “Messianic” subversion of “the state.” The author ends his paper with a comment on what Taubes called the “Gnostic temptation” hidden in this reversed political theology.

Abstract

Is it justified to depict Paul’s letters as an example of political theology, as Taubes did in his Heidelberg lectures on Romans in 1987? The justification lies in the fact that as a founder of non-Jewish “Christian” communities Paul has to act as a politician. But he was a politician of a special kind, one who pretended to be called by God (or Christ) to be a spiritual leader with the task to establish a new people. To clarify this point, the author focuses on the way Paul manages distinctions (between Jews and non-Jews, between followers of Christ and those who stick to the world as it is, and so on) and on the impact of his theology on these distinctions. This impact relates to the intensification of distinctions. The extreme consequence of this is the distinction between friend and enemy. This possible consequence connects Taubes’s reflections with Carl Schmitt’s use of the term “political theology.” It turns out that Paul’s political theology cannot be taken in the sense Roman intellectuals already used the term (state cult), but points in another direction, a “Messianic” subversion of “the state.” The author ends his paper with a comment on what Taubes called the “Gnostic temptation” hidden in this reversed political theology.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments V
  3. Table of Contents VII
  4. List of Abbreviations 1
  5. Introduction: On the Philosophical Affiliations of Paul and Πίστις 3
  6. Part I. Philosophical Portraits of Paul and Πίστις
  7. Reading, Seeing and the Logic of Abandonment: Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as the Apostle Paul 21
  8. The Invention of Christianity: Preambles to a Philosophical Reading of Paul 47
  9. Heidegger’s Hermeneutics of Paul 67
  10. The Philosophers’ Paul: A Radically Subversive Thinker 81
  11. Disillusioning Reason—Rethinking Faith: Paul, Performative Speech Acts and the Political History of the Occident in Agamben and Foucault 95
  12. On What Remains: Paul’s Proclamation of Contingency 115
  13. Part II. Paul and Πίστις in the Greco-Roman World
  14. Paul’s Stoic Onto-Theology and Ethics of Good, Evil and “Indifferents”: A Response to Anti-Metaphysical and Nihilistic Readings of Paul in Modern Philosophy 133
  15. Narratives of Πίστις in Paul and Deutero-Paul 165
  16. Returning to “Religious” Πίστις: Platonism and Piety in Plutarch and Neoplatonism 189
  17. The Metahistory of Δίκη and Πίστις: A Greco-Roman Reading of Paul’s “Justification by Faith” Axiom 209
  18. Paul’s Use of Πίστις/Πιστεύειν as Epitome of Axial Age Religion 231
  19. Part III. The Political Theologies of Paul
  20. The Management of Distinctions: Jacob Taubes on Paul’s Political Theology 251
  21. Paul as Political Theologian: How the “New Perspective” Is Reshaping Philosophical and Theological Discourse 269
  22. Church, Commonwealth, and Toleration: John Locke as a Reader of Paul 283
  23. Europe and Paul of Tarsus: Giorgio Agamben on the Overcoming of Europe’s Crisis 297
  24. The Invisible Committee as a Pauline Gesture: Anarchic Politics from Tiqqun to Tarnac 309
  25. Epilogue: Saint Paul and Philosophy—The Consonance of Ancient and Modern Thought 325
  26. Index of Ancient Sources 351
  27. Index of Names and Subjects 361
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547467-014

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments V
  3. Table of Contents VII
  4. List of Abbreviations 1
  5. Introduction: On the Philosophical Affiliations of Paul and Πίστις 3
  6. Part I. Philosophical Portraits of Paul and Πίστις
  7. Reading, Seeing and the Logic of Abandonment: Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as the Apostle Paul 21
  8. The Invention of Christianity: Preambles to a Philosophical Reading of Paul 47
  9. Heidegger’s Hermeneutics of Paul 67
  10. The Philosophers’ Paul: A Radically Subversive Thinker 81
  11. Disillusioning Reason—Rethinking Faith: Paul, Performative Speech Acts and the Political History of the Occident in Agamben and Foucault 95
  12. On What Remains: Paul’s Proclamation of Contingency 115
  13. Part II. Paul and Πίστις in the Greco-Roman World
  14. Paul’s Stoic Onto-Theology and Ethics of Good, Evil and “Indifferents”: A Response to Anti-Metaphysical and Nihilistic Readings of Paul in Modern Philosophy 133
  15. Narratives of Πίστις in Paul and Deutero-Paul 165
  16. Returning to “Religious” Πίστις: Platonism and Piety in Plutarch and Neoplatonism 189
  17. The Metahistory of Δίκη and Πίστις: A Greco-Roman Reading of Paul’s “Justification by Faith” Axiom 209
  18. Paul’s Use of Πίστις/Πιστεύειν as Epitome of Axial Age Religion 231
  19. Part III. The Political Theologies of Paul
  20. The Management of Distinctions: Jacob Taubes on Paul’s Political Theology 251
  21. Paul as Political Theologian: How the “New Perspective” Is Reshaping Philosophical and Theological Discourse 269
  22. Church, Commonwealth, and Toleration: John Locke as a Reader of Paul 283
  23. Europe and Paul of Tarsus: Giorgio Agamben on the Overcoming of Europe’s Crisis 297
  24. The Invisible Committee as a Pauline Gesture: Anarchic Politics from Tiqqun to Tarnac 309
  25. Epilogue: Saint Paul and Philosophy—The Consonance of Ancient and Modern Thought 325
  26. Index of Ancient Sources 351
  27. Index of Names and Subjects 361
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