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The Remainders of Faith: On Karl Löwith’s Conception of Secularization

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The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 70))

Abstract

The essay explores Karl Löwith’s notion of secularization arguing that this notion presupposes a conception of faith found only in the religions of the Book. In addition, it is shown that his analyses of history whether eschatological or progressive are carried out against the background of the Greek experience of the physical cosmos characterized by cyclical time.

This essay was originally published in Divinatio. Studia Culturologica Series, Sofia: MSHS. Vol. 28 (2008): 27–50.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Henrich (1967), 459.

  2. 2.

    Löwith (1949). All citations in the text refer to this edition. Whereas the English original of Meaning in History refers to a “natural child” (112), the translation into German speaks more appropriately of an “illegitimate child.” Löwith (2004), 123.

  3. 3.

    Löwith (1956b), 53.

  4. 4.

    Blumenberg (1983).

  5. 5.

    Blumenberg (1964), 265.

  6. 6.

    Löwith (1960), 254.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., 237.

  8. 8.

    Blumenberg (1983), 28.

  9. 9.

    Kuhn (1949), 825.

  10. 10.

    Löwith (2004), 13.

  11. 11.

    Kuhn (1949), 823.

  12. 12.

    Kuhn (1949), 822–23.

  13. 13.

    Löwith (1956a), 80.

  14. 14.

    Löwith (1969), 47–48.

  15. 15.

    See also Löwith (2004), 13.

  16. 16.

    Löwith writes: “It is true that Prometheus frees the human being thanks to the gift stolen from the gods, but he does not redeem them; on the contrary, he is chained and punished by Zeus … The Greeks have atoned in the cult of Prometheus for the theft of the fire of the heavens by way of the myth of the chained Prometheus, because they profoundly sensed that this theft provided the human being with a power that needed the most powerful chains so as not to bring about the ruin of man.” Löwith (1964).

  17. 17.

    Löwith, Weltgeschichte und Heilsgeschehen, p. 14.

  18. 18.

    Löwith (2004), 14.

  19. 19.

    Since by juxtaposing the ancients’ exclusive concern with the immutable and rational order of the cosmos to the Christian and post-Christian concern with history which is a function of an article of faith, namely the singular advent of Jesus Christ, Löwith intends to dismiss history as an infatuation, it should be kept in mind that the singularity of the interrupting advent of the first coming of Christ, although unique in that it is also the only event worth its name known by Christianity, has set the stage for the thinking of the event and singularity.

  20. 20.

    In the 1949 English original, Löwith speaks somewhat indiscriminately of “Christian faith,” “revelation and faith,” “faith in providence,”but also of “the belief in providence,” “the belief in salvation,” “the belief in reason and progress,” and so forth (1–2). It is therefore not unimportant to recall that in German only one word—Glaube—covers the religious and epistemic meanings expressed by the English terms faith and belief respectively. It is not clear whether Löwith has been aware of the semantic difference between the two words—between an adherence to a religious dogma based on a credo, and an adherence to a judgment of existential import which although impeccable (because it does not contain any internal contradiction) does nevertheless not allow for proof. In any case as the examples given seem to suggest, Löwith did not rigorously distinguish between the two English terms. Furthermore, the German translation by Hermann Kesting, revised by Löwith himself, blurs whatever distinction there may have been in the English original between faith and belief, by translating both by Glaube, or Glauben. For the distinction in German between Glaube and Glauben, see the entry by Büttgen (2004).

  21. 21.

    Löwith (1956a), 26.

  22. 22.

    Löwith (2004), 122.

  23. 23.

    From the offences that God imposes on the faithful, one must distinguish “the offences [that, according to Mattheus 18, 6] will come.” These are offences to the faithful by the incredulous, admonitions that is to Christ’s followers to remain steadfast in the faith. Gnilka (1973), Vol. I, 111–115.

  24. 24.

    Löwith (1956a), 14.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 11. In a passing remark in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant observes that the Greeks thought that the principle of the good was sufficient to establish the principle of morals, and that it seemed to them that they did not need the postulate of the existence of God as a further condition of its possibility. It follows from this that faith, and even “pure rational belief [Vernuftglaube]” has no place in the world of the ancients (Kant 1996, 241). The question whether they believed in their gods, is a wrong question. Rather they knew of their existence.

  26. 26.

    Löwith (1956a), 13.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 14.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 18–21.

  29. 29.

    Löwith (1960), 170, 174

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 169.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 160.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 160.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 159, 155.

  34. 34.

    Löwith (1956a), 60.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 68.

  36. 36.

    See also Hosoya (1967), 163.

  37. 37.

    Hosoya (1967), 168.

  38. 38.

    See in particular, Löwith (1960), 228, 239.

  39. 39.

    Löwith (1956a), 76.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.; Löwith (1956b), 109; Löwith (1960), 240.

  41. 41.

    Barash (1998), 75.

  42. 42.

    Löwith (2004), 122.

  43. 43.

    Löwith (1956b), 125–26.

  44. 44.

    Aristotle, Physics, Book IV (218a-222a), in (1985), Vol. 1, 370–376.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SUNY Distinguished Professor & Eugenio Donato Professor of Comparative Literature Department of Comparative Literature, State University of New York (SUNY), 639 Clemens Hall, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    Rodolphe Gasché

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  1. Fordham University, New York, New York, USA

    Babette Babich

  2. St. Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Dimitri Ginev

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Gasché, R. (2014). The Remainders of Faith: On Karl Löwith’s Conception of Secularization. In: Babich, B., Ginev, D. (eds) The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 70. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01707-5_19

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