Carl Schmitt vs. The Biblical Tradition

Separation of Powers is a Religious Idea

Carl Schmitt—the Nazi jurist whose work has influenced both the contemporary left and right—presents himself as a religious, Catholic, anti-liberal, yet his critique of liberalism is neither consistent with the Biblical tradition nor with religious history.

Schmitt’s use of theology is itself modern and innovative. My critique of Schmitt is analogous to the one offered by Leo Strauss. Strauss criticizes Schmitt not for being anti-liberal but for being a fake anti-liberal. Schmitt esteems conflict and “decisionism” but offers no criteria by which one should reach a decision or take a side. Schmitt has the form of a zealot, but not the content. To borrow a phrase from Robert Musil, he’s a “man without qualities.”

Schmitt teaches that all modern political concepts are secularized theological concepts.

We can expand Schmitt’s insight to include not just the expressly political but the sociological as well. All forms of power, including soft power, have their antecedent in religion and its conception of divine power. Power belongs not just to the sovereign head of state, but to all kinds of influential types—from entertainers like Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian to business leaders like Elon Musk and Bob Iger, from social activists like Greta Thunberg and Julian Assange to pundits like Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow.

Schmitt, for his part, rejects the liberal notion that the political is one mere domain that exists alongside others. For him, politics is all consuming. Everything is political, and the problem with liberals is their desire to create zones of neutrality that are apolitical. Schmitt praised bellicosity and conflict as virtues, and blasts liberalism for lowering the temperature.

Although a man of the right, his views have found favor on the “anti-normalization” radical left. Both the anti-liberal right and the anti-liberal left see the friend-enemy distinction as paramount and believe that the enemy is a kind of “anti-Christ” whom we have a duty to vanquish. Politics is holy war and the goal is winning at all costs. The task of politics is to bring redemption and anything that attempts to divert energy from the political delays the redemption. Thus, Schmitt would disagree with my claim that sociology—not just politics—comes with an implicit theological inheritance.

Yet according to the Bible, power does not inhere in one leader or one type of leader. We find that Kings are responsible for execution and national defense, but not moral instruction and inspiration. Sure, David and Solomon are prophets in the sense that they talk to God, and Moses is a moral leader (prophet) who also serves as an executive (king), but often these roles are split. Kings are responsible for political rule, but moral instruction and moral authority accrue to prophets. Elijah is persecuted by the throne. Alongside the figures of kings and prophets, the priestly function maintains a semi-autonomous form of power. The Temple is not directly controlled by the king or the prophet. Prophets rail against the corruptions of the Temple and kings like Josiah can institute Temple reforms, but priests are an expert-class of their own.

The American founders instituted a separation of powers into an executive, a legislative, and a judicial branch. They were influenced by the Roman historian Polybius who describes this arrangement as a classical form of governance. But the notion of a separation of powers is not unique to the Graeco-Roman tradition. The Torah also divides the law-giving function of the prophet (legislature) from the execution function (king). Priests, meanwhile serve as cultural authorities and technocrats (they have expert knowledge of sacrifices and atonement) who exercise real power and influence even as they do not make the laws nor enforce them.

Schmitt’s worship of the political goes hand in hand with a narrow conception of power as dictatorial sovereignty. But ironically this view is not a religious view at all. The Catholic Church itself—in which he was raised—long grappled with a separation of powers between King and Pope, culminating in the medieval “Investiture Conflict.” Modern liberalism, which placed secular authority above religious authority, is continuous with the dialectics of Church history, not a radical departure from it. Similarly, the Bible is full of examples of Kings whose moral examples are grotesque.

The Biblical tradition itself has an ambivalent attitude to kings. Kings are at once divine appointments and representatives, but they are also necessary evils. This ambivalence plays out in the history of religion, in which sovereign power is presented as both a sacred ideal and as a moral compromise.

In the next essay I will dig deeper into the legacy of the priestly and prophetic models of leadership. For now, let’s conclude with the appreciation that Schmitt’s views are a departure from the Biblical view of sovereign authority. His all-encompassing view of politics and his rejection of the social chafes against the Bible’s own model.

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P.P.S—Bonus material on theology and politics below:

Did you know that God says he will praise (i.e., submit to) anyone who manages to capture the Leviathan?

“Then even I would praise you For the triumph your right hand won you” (Job 40:27)

This is the radical intertext for Hobbes’s Leviathan. Hobbes is saying that if you manage to create the perfect government (i.e. the Leviathan), then even God will have to submit to you. And in fact, that is the case in Hobbes's framework, since the sovereign, not the religious authorities, decides on the meaning of Scripture. Church is made secondary to State, just as God is made secondary to the Leviathan whisperer. A counter-text to Hobbes is Psalm 104:26: “There go the ships, and Leviathan that You formed to sport with.” Here, God plays with the Leviathan. Thus, the giga-creature is cut down to size and becomes a mere pet, a mere plaything of God. Hobbes can reply in response that God is entertained by our efforts to play at sovereignty, thus reconciling the Scriptural tradition with a deistic or atheistic framework. God is “tickled” by the trifle that is human political governance.