Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:06:02.253Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theopolitics Contra Political Theology: Martin Buber’s Biblical Critique of Carl Schmitt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2018

CHARLES H. T. LESCH
CHARLES H. T. LESCH*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
*
*Charles H. T. Lesch, Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Political Theory, Vanderbilt University, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article recovers Martin Buber’s important but neglected critique of Carl Schmitt’s political theology. Because Buber is known primarily as an ethicist and scholar of Judaism, his attack on Schmitt has been largely overlooked. Yet as I reveal through a close reading of his Biblical commentaries, a concern about the dangers of political theology threads through decades of his work. Divine sovereignty, Buber argues, is absolute and inimitable; no human ruler can claim the legitimate power reserved to God. Buber’s response is to uncover what he sees as Judaism’s earliest political theory: a “theopolitics,” where human beings, mutually subject to divine kingship, practice non-domination. But Buber, I show, did not seek to directly revive this religious vision. Instead, he sought to incorporate the spirit of theopolitics, as embodied by Israel’s prophets, into modern society. The result is a new and significant perspective on liberal democracy and political theology.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 113 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 195 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Versions of this article were presented at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the Association for Jewish Studies, and the Association for Israel Studies. I am grateful to the participants in these events for their questions and critiques, and would like to extend special thanks to Nancy Rosenblum, Peter Gordon, Michael Rosen, Michael Sandel, Aspen Elizabeth Brinton, Alexander Lewis Kaye, Steven Klein, and Shaul Magid for their comments. Finally, I owe a significant debt of gratitude to Leigh Jenco and three anonymous APSR reviewers for their invaluable insights and guidance.

References

REFERENCES

Agamben, Giorgio. (2003) 2005. State of Exception. Trans Kevin Attell. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Agamben, Giorgio. (2011) 2013. The Highest Poverty. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akiba, Ernst Simon. 1985. Ye’adim, Tzematim, Netivim [Aims–Junctures–Paths]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Amir, Yehoshua. 1988. “‘Emunah ve’hitgalut etzel Mordekhai Martin Buber’ [‘Faith and Revelation in the Work of Martin Buber’].” Bar–Ilan 22–23 [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Audi, Robert. 2011. Religious Commitment and Secular Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Avnon, Dan. 1993. “The ‘Living Center’ of Martin Buber’s Political Theory.” Political Theory 21 (1): 55–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Avnon, Dan. 1998. Martin Buber: The Hidden Dialogue. New York: Rowman&Littlefield.Google Scholar
Badiou, Alain. 2003. Saint Paul. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Balakrishnan, Gopal. 2000. The Enemy. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Batnitsky, Leora. 2011. How Judaism Became a Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Joshua. 2008. Created Equal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang. 1976. State, Society, and Liberty. New York: Berg.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1921) 1983. “Nationalism.” In A Land of Two Peoples, ed. Mendes-Flohr, Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 47–57.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1923) 1958. I and Thou, trans. Smith, Ronald Gregor. New York: Scribners.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1929) 1957. “Dialogue.” In Between Man and Man. trans. Smith, Ronald Gregor. Boston: Beacon, 1–21.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1936) 1957. “The Question to the Single One.” In Between Man and Man, trans. Smith, Ronald Gregor. Boston: Beacon, 46–97.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1936) 1967. Kingship of God. trans. Scheimann, Richard. New York: Harper&Row.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1938) 1994. “The How and Why of Our Bible Translation.” In Scripture and Translation, ed. Fox, Everett and Rosenwald, Lawrence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 205–19.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1944) 1960. The Prophetic Faith, trans. Witton-Davies, Carlyle. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 1946. Mamre, trans. Hort, Greta. Melbourne: Melbourne.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1946) 1965. Moses. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. (1949) 1958. Paths in Utopia, trans. Hull, R. F. C.. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 1957. Pointing the Way, ed. Friedman, Maurice S.. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 1964a. Darko shel Mikra [The Way of Scripture]. Jerusalem: Bialik [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 1964b. Werke. München: Kösel-Verlag.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 1967. On Judaism, ed. Glatzer, Nahum. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 1997. Israel and the World. Syracuse: Syracuse.Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 2000. On the Bible, ed. Glatzer, Nahum. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Peter, and Scheuerman, William, eds. 2000. From Liberal Democracy to Fascism. Boston: Humanities.Google Scholar
Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Julie E. 2015. “A Diasporic Critique of Diasporism.” Political Theory 43 (1): 88–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Julie E. 2016. “The Turn to Tradition in the Study of Jewish Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 19: 67–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Critchley, Simon. 2012. The Faith of the Faithless. London: Verso.Google Scholar
de Tocqueville, Alexis. (1835) 2000. Democracy in America. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vries, Hent. 2002. Religion and Violence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.Google Scholar
de Vries, Hent, and Sullivan, Lawrence E.. 2006. In Political Theologies. New York: Fordham University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyzenhaus, David. 1997. Legality and Legitimacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eberle, Christopher. 2002. Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elazar, Daniel, ed. 1997. Kinship and Consent. New Brunswick: Transaction.Google Scholar
Esposito, Roberto. (2013) 2015. Two. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Feller, Yaniv. 2013. “From Aher to Marcion.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 20: 374–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. (1939) 1967. Moses and Monotheism. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Galston, William. 2018. Anti-Pluralism. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gans, Chaim. (2013) 2016. A Political Theory for the Jewish People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Adi, ed. 2008. “Brit Shalom” ve’hatziyonut Hadu-Leumit [“Brith Shalom” and Bi-National Zionism]. Jerusalem: Carmel [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Gordon, Peter, and McCormick, John, eds. 2013. Weimar Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, Peter. 2003. Rosenzweig and Heidegger. Berkeley: UC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Peter. 2007. “The Concept of the Apolitical. Social Research 74 (4): 855–78.Google Scholar
Gordon, Peter. 2013. “Weimar Theology.” In Weimar Thought, eds Gordon, Peter and McCormick, John. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 150–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Udi. 2014. The Weimar Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gudopp, Wolf-Dieter. 1975. Martin Bubers Dialogischer Anarchismus. Bern: Lang.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. (2005) 2008. Between Naturalism and Religion. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Halbertal, Moshe, and Holmes, Stephen. 2017. The Beginning of Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hammill, Graham. 2012. The Mosaic Constitution. Chicago: Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, Warren Zev. 2009. “Kingdom of God.” In 20th Century Jewish Religious Thought, eds. Cohen, Arther and Mendes-Flohr, Paul. Philadelphia: JPS, 521–26.Google Scholar
Hazony, Yoram. 2000. The Jewish State. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Eric. 2003. Metaphysics of the Profane. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Josephus. 1999. The New and Complete Works of Josephus. Grand Rapids: Kregel.Google Scholar
Kahn, Paul. 2012. Political Theology. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Andreas. 2008. Democracy and the Politics of the Extraordinary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Gregory. 2013. “Power and Israel in Martin Buber’s Critique of Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology.” In Judaism, Liberalism, and Political Theology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 155–77.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Leonard, and Koshar, Rudy, eds. 2012. The Weimar Moment. Lanham: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Ellen. 2004. Constitutional Failure. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, Jon Michael, ed. 2013. Political Theology for a Plural Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohanski, Alexander. 1972. “Martin Buber’s Restructuring of Society into a State of Anocracy.” Jewish Social Studies. 34 (1): 42–57.Google Scholar
Lefort, Claude. 2006. “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political?” In Political Theologies. New York: Fordham University Press, 148–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lesch, Charles H. T. 2014. “Against Politics: Walter Benjamin on Justice, Judaism, and the Possibility of Ethics.” American Political Science Review 108 (1): 218–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lesch, Charles H. T. 2018. “What Undermines Solidarity? Four Approaches and Their Implications for Contemporary Political Theory.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 21 (5): 601–15. doi: 10.1080/13698230.2017.1398865.Google Scholar
Lesch, Charles H. T. forthcoming. “Democratic Solidarity in a Secular Age? Habermas and the ‘Linguistification of the Sacred’.” The Journal of Politics.Google Scholar
Lebovic, Nitzan. 2008. “The Jerusalem School.” New German Critique 105: 97–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorberbaum, Menachem. 2002. Politics and the Limits of Law. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Löwy, Michael. (1988) 1992. Redemption and Utopia. Stanford: Stanford.Google Scholar
Luz, Ehud. (1998) 2003. Wrestling with an Angel. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maor, Zohar. 2016. Martin Buber. Jerusalem: Shazar [Hebrew].Google Scholar
March, Andrew. 2009. Islam and Liberal Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, David. 1978. A General Theory of Secularization. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
McCormick, John. 1997. Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McQueen, Alison. 2018. Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meier, Heinrich. (1998) 2011. The Lesson of Carl Schmitt. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melamed, Abraham. 2011. Wisdom’s Little Sister. Brighton: Academic.Google Scholar
Mendes-Flohr, Paul. 1989. From Mysticism to Dialogue. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
Mendes-Flohr, Paul. 2006. “The Desert within and Social Renewal—Martin Buber’s Vision of Utopia.” In New Perspectives on Martin Buber, ed. Zank, Michael. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 219–30.Google Scholar
Mendes-Flohr, Paul. 2008. “The Kingdom of God.” Behemoth. 2: 26–38.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Müller, Jan-Werner. 2003. A Dangerous Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Müller, Jan-Werner. 2016. What is Populism? Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Eric. 2010. The Hebrew Republic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Novak, David. 1985. “Buber’s Critique of Heidegger.” Modern Judaism 5 (2): 125–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Novak, David. 2005. The Jewish Social Contract. Princeton: Princeton.Google Scholar
Pianko, Noam. 2010. Zionism and the Roads Not Taken . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Eric, and Vermeule, Adrian. 2010. The Executive Unbound. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rabinbach, Anson. 1997. In the Shadow of Catastrophe. Berkeley: UC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ram, Uri. 2015. Shuvu shel Martin Buber [The Return of Martin Buber]. Tel Aviv: Resling [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Raschke, Carl. 2015. Force of God. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratzabi, Shalom. 2011. Anarkhizem be’Tziyon [Anarchism in “Zion”]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (1999) 2002. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge: Harvard.Google Scholar
Reinhard, Kenneth, Santner, Eric, and Žižek, Slavoj. 2005. The Neighbor. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Robbins, Jeffrey. 2011. Radical Democracy and Political Theology. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (1762) 2010. “Of the Social Contract.” In The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. and trans. Gourevitch, Victor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenhagen, Ulrich. 2012. “Together a Step towards the Messianic Goal.” In The Weimar Moment, eds. Kaplan, Leonard and Koshar, Rudy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 47–72.Google Scholar
Santner, Eric. 2011. The Royal Remains. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaefer, Yoav. 2017. “Between Political Theology and Theopolitics.” Modern Judaism 37 (2): 231–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheuerman, William. 1999. Carl Schmitt. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Christoph, and Schonfeld, Eli, eds. 2009. Ha’Elohim lo Ye’alem Dom [God Will Not Stand Still]. Jerusalem: Van Leer [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Schmidt, Christoph. 2009. Die Theopolitische Stunde. München: Fink.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Carl, and Feuchtwanger, Ludwig. 2007. Briefwechsel. Berlin: Duncker&Humblot.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. (1922) 2005. Political Theology. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. (1932) 2007. The Concept of the Political. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. (1938) 2008. The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Yossef. 2006. “The Politicization of the Mystical in Buber and His Contemporaries.” In New Perspectives on Martin Buber, ed. Zank, Michael. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 205–18.Google Scholar
Schwarzschild, Steven. 1990. “A Critique of Martin Buber’s Political Philosophy.” In The Pursuit of the Ideal, ed. Kellner, Menachem. Albany: SUNY, 185–208.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Smith, Steven B. 1997. Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity . New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Steven D. 2010. The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stout, Jeffrey. 2004. Democracy and Tradition. Princeton: Princeton.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo. (1932) 2007. “Notes on Carl Schmitt, the Concept of the Political.” In The Concept of The Political, ed. Schwab, George, Lomax, trans. J. Harvey. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 97–122.Google Scholar
Susser, Bernard. 1977. “Ideological Multivalence.” Political Theory 5 (1): 75–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Susser, Bernard. 1979. “The Anarcho-Federalism of Martin Buber.” Publius 9 (4): 103–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Susser, Bernard. 1981. Existence and Utopia. London: Associated.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael, Lorberbaum, Menachem, and Zohar, Noam. 2000,–2018. The Jewish Political Tradition 3 vols New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1984. “Liberalism and the Art of Separation.” Political Theory. 12 (3): 315–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 2012. In God’s Shadow. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Weithman, Paul. 2006. Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weltsch, Robert. 1967. “Buber’s Political Philosophy.” In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Schilpp, Paul Arthur and Friedman, Maurice. La Salle: Open Court, 435–49.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.