Abstract
This chapter explores the dimension of constitutional law composed of constitutive concepts, such as national sovereignty, the people and the concept of Constitution itself. That dimension can be considered as a political-theological dimension in the sense that constitutive concepts are analogous to theological concepts. Both have a negative and anticipatory significance, bearing in mind their understanding in the light of negative theology. In this light, political theology is not to be understood in the terms proposed by Carl Schmitt.
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Notes
- 1.
The notion of “constitutive concepts” was developed by Troper (2018, p. 78). Constitutive concepts shape a given political system: in the case of the modern state, the concept of “sovereignty” and the concept of the “state” itself are constitutive concepts, i.e., in the absence of such concepts, there would be no “state” (in Troper’s terms, there would be no “game” that could be considered as the “game of the state”).
- 2.
The last quote is from Schmitz (2016, pp. 719–720) who develops Blumenberg’s thesis on Schmitt.
- 3.
On this see Pannenberg (1992, p. 372 ff).
- 4.
S.T. I, 12,7.
- 5.
See Atria (2016, pp. 437–438).
- 6.
John 14:6.
- 7.
Idem.
- 8.
1 Cor. 12, 3.
- 9.
On the modern, instrumental nature of Hobbes’s political rationality, see Loughlin (2012, pp. 5, 21).
- 10.
Carré de Malberg’s negative theory of the constituent power is a central element of his theory of the state (1922, p. 490 ff). On Kelsen’s theory as conditioned by the structure and arguments characteristic of the modern state, see Troper (2017). On Hans Kelsen’s theory of the fundamental norm as a negative theory of sovereignty, see Bobbio (1998, p. 435 ff).
- 11.
The expression “exclusion of the originary” is due to Maulin (2003, p. 124).
- 12.
In Hobbes’s words “The Obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to protect them”, Leviathan (1651), XXI, § 14.
- 13.
This is clarified by Blumenberg (1985, p. 17) when saying that, for those endorsing the secularization thesis, “the genuine substance of that which was secularized is “wrapped up in” what thus became worldly, and remains “wrapped up in” it as what is essential to it, as when, in the model instance developed by Heidegger for the hermeneutics of his school, “Dasein’s understanding of Being” is essential to it and yet “in the first instance and for the most part” hidden and withdrawn from it. I am almost inclined to say that that was what I was afraid of” (Italics added).
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Coutinho, L.P. (2020). An Alternative Political Theology: The Negative and Anticipatory Significance of the Constitutive Concepts of Constitutional Law. In: Nogueira de Brito, M., Pereira Coutinho, L. (eds) The Political Dimension of Constitutional Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38459-3_5
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