Usurpatory theology

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Usurpatory theology (also usurpatory monotheism) is an analogy. Usurpation describes illegitimate rule in political contexts. Theological usurpation means the abusive appropriation of divine power of interpretation and is considered a malform of monotheism . She pretends to know exactly the will of God. The term was introduced by Eckhard Nordhofen in the debate about monotheism in 1999.

Theological concept

Biblical monotheism arose from the criticism of the polytheistic image cults in ancient Canaan , Mesopotamia and Egypt . While in polytheism all deities are functional; H. stand for specific purposes and responsibilities, monotheism, as it breaks through in Israel's Babylonian exile , is transfunctional. This shows the installation of the Sabbath as a day without work or purposes. As the creator of the cosmos, God is not part of the world, but rather its counterpart. He is invisible ( prohibition of images ) and reveals himself by withdrawing at the same time. This principle of withholding (privatio) is what is really new about biblical monotheism. Privative theology or the theology of withholding is the counter-model to the usurpatory. The primal scene of usurpatory theology is the promise of the serpent in the paradise story Gen 3.5: "You will be like God and know good and bad". In Isa 55: 8 the impossibility of taking possession of God's knowledge is affirmed: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways, says the Lord.” Nevertheless, there are innumerable examples of this in the history of monotheism known that it is precisely the pious who are convinced that they know exactly the will of God. Usurpation is obvious where both warring parties appeal to God as a collaborator in their cause. A special usurpartory temptation is given with the strong concept of a sacred scripture , in which God himself is the author of the text: When the invisible God has set his will in writing, one seems to know it exactly and only needs to decipher and implement it. This understanding can be found in Orthodox Judaism and Islam , the actual book religions. One can also count Christian fundamentalism among them. Immanuel Kant considers it presumptuous to pass off church laws as divine and calls it a "usuration of higher esteem in order to yoke the crowd with church statutes by pretending to be divine authority (...)". Even though Christianity continues to speak of Holy Scripture, Jesus' dispute with the scribes makes it clear that the written text must be outbid. The concept of "Inlibration" (Annemarie Schimmel, Harry Austryn Wolfson), according to which the text of the Holy Scriptures is a form of direct divine presence as " Word of God ", is replaced by the model of the incarnation ("And the Word became flesh" , Latin "caro factum est"). In non-fundamentalist Christianity, the canonical biblical texts are also considered “Holy Scripture”, but they do not have God as the author, but human authors. They are reference texts that can be examined according to the criteria of the hermeneutic sciences.

See also

literature

  • Jan Assmann : The Mosaic distinction or: The price of monotheism. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-446-20367-2 .
  • Thomas Assheuer: Dispute about Moses: How dangerous is monotheism? In: Die Zeit, No. 51/2002 (book review).
  • Eckhard Nordhofen: The future of monotheism. In: Mercury. Journal for European Thinking, 1999, Issue 9/10, No. 605/606, pp. 828-846.
  • Martin W. Ramb, Joachim Valentin (ed.): Of course culture. Post-secular positioning. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76915-2 .
  • Annemarie Schimmel: Islam. An introduction. Reclam, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-15-008639-6 .
  • Harry Austryn Wolfson : The Philosophy of the Kalam. Cambridge MA 1976.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eckhard Nordhofen: The future of monotheism. In: Mercury. Journal for European Thinking, 1999, Issue 9/10, No. 605/606, pp. 828-846.
  2. ↑ Immanuel Kant: The religion within the limits of sheer reason , Third Piece, B151, A 143, edition Weischedel, p. 766.
  3. ↑ Annemarie Schimmel: Islam. An introduction . Reclam, Stuttgart 1990, p. 66.
  4. ↑ Harry Austryn Wolfson: The Philosophy of the Kalam. Cambridge MA 1976, pp. 244-263.