Stasis in Molmann and Scmitt

Abstract

The essay introduces an original interpretation of Moltmann’s thought on Christian kenosis, according to the fundamental critical method known as ‘close reading’. On this ground, the Author brings to the surface the complex bulk of literary quotations which give substance to a specific passage in Moltmann’s work “The Crucified God”. Quotations become an intellectual device apt to produce meaning through its proper deferral and suspension. Within this framework, the Author’s main purpose is to put at the centre of the scene the explicit reference made by Moltmann to C. Schmitt’s concept of stasis, in order to explain the self-emptying of God even in a political perspective, as a kind of internal battle within divinity. The theological canon (Christian kenosis as moulded by Moltmann) is conceptually linked to the political anti-canon (stasis and exception as defined by C. Schmitt). In this perspective the structural relationship between Theology and Politics, usually epitomized by the synthetic expression of ‘political theology’, comes to be re-substantiated.