Salvation in the Post-Christian Age

The eighteenth-century revolt, enacted in the name of science and reason against the incubus of doctrinaire theology and metaphysics, was certainly an “epoch,” and the unfolding of its momentum up to the present definitely marks an “age” in history. As far as the formula “post-Christian age” expresses a revolutionary consciousness of epoch, we can make sense of it. Moreover, the consummation of the revolt through social predominance of its doctrine may well infuse latter-day conformists with a warm glow that theirs is the epoch which in fact was that of the eighteenth century. Inasmuch as the revolt against doctrinaire Christianity has been remarkably successful in our society, there are solid reasons to speak of the age as “post-Christian.” As soon, however, as the realistic meaning of the formula is brought out, the limits to its sense as well as to the age it denotes becomes visible.

Regarding the sense, we must not forget that the revolt occurred in the subfield of deficient existence; its wrath was directed against a Christian doctrine that had become opaque, not against Christian faith. Hence, to distinguish the age of ideological revolt as a “post-Christian age” would attribute to the revolt a depth which it does not have–it would be too much of an honor. Regarding the limits to the age, they are set by this very lack of depth. For the revolt against theology and metaphysics did not recover the tension of existence that had seeped from the older symbols but abandoned truth experienced altogether, with the inevitable result of flattening out into a new doctrine of world-immanent consciousness.

The loss of reality was not repaired but only further aggravated by the development of ideological doctrines which now in their turn have become opaque and lost their credibility. Still the revolt had to be lived through, it seems, in order to bring the issue of truth v. doctrine to acute consciousness: in the twentieth century, at least the beginnings of a truly radical revolt against all varieties of doctrine, including the ideological ones, can be discerned–as I have pointed out in an earlier part of this lecture. What the ideologues style the “post-Christian age” appears to be receding into the past, and those among us who prefer to live in the present will characterize their age rather as postdoctrinal.

Derailed into a New Dogmatism

In the realistic sense the “post-Christian age” is an antidoctrinal revolt which, having failed to recapture the reality of existential tension, has derailed into a new dogmatism. The adherent of an ideological sect, however, would not accept our interpretation as the meaning which he attaches to his symbol. He would be aroused to indignation by the idea that his particular “post-” should ever become a past, with a new “post-” moving into the present; for he, on his part, intends the symbol “post-” to denote the establishment of a final state of society on earth.

Moreover, he would ridicule our charge that he failed to recapture truth experienced; he would rightly plead he had never tried such nonsense, as “the experience is an illusion.” And finally, he would insist that he objects to theology and metaphysics, not because doctrine is a secondary mode of truth, but because they are wrong conceptions of the world and have long enough obscured the reality in which alone he is interested. This energetic protest cannot be brushed aside. The ideologue’s position seems to have a basis in reality; we must ascertain what this reality is, and how it is transformed into the dream constructions of history.

The ideologue appeals to the reality, not of truth experienced, but of the world, and for good reason. For the ideological revolt against the older type of doctrine derives indeed the better part of its strength from the contemporaneous experience of power to be gained over nature through the use of science and reason. Ideology is a commensal of modern science, drawing for both its pathos and aggressiveness on the conflicts of scientists with church and state.

In the sixteenth century, and in some regions of Western civilization well into the twentieth, the Christian contemptus mundi still cast its shadow over nature; and the exploration of nature was specifically handicapped by the literalists’ belief in Christian doctrine as the infallible source of information about the structure of the world. Inevitably, the explorers of the reality hitherto neglected had to suffer from the persecutions of literalist doctrinaires.

There is nothing dreamlike about these facts: science, technology, industry, and the memories of the struggle are the solid ground on which the ideologue can take his stand. Nevertheless, the terrorism of ideological groups and regimes is also real; and the claim of the ideologies to be “sciences,” as well as the development of the doxic methodologies, leaves no doubt that somehow the nightmare is connected with science in the rational sense.

The Libido Dominandi and Self-Salvation

There must be a factor whose addition will change the reality of power over nature, with its rational uses in the economy of human existence, into a terrorist’s dream of power over man, society, and history; and there can hardly be a doubt what this factor is: it is the libido dominandi that has been set free by the draining of reality from the symbols of truth experienced. At the time when the reality of science and power was gained, the reality of existential tension was lost, so that from the combination of gain and loss, with the libido dominandi as the catalyst, the new dream could arise.

The technique by which the symbols of the dream are produced is well known. The shell of doctrine, empty of its engendering reality, is transformed by the libido dominandi into its ideological equivalent. The contemptus mundi is metamorphosed into the exaltatio mundi; the City of God into the City of Man; the apocalyptic into the ideological millennium; the eschatological metastasis through divine action into the world-immanent metastasis through human action; and so forth.

The center from which the particular symbols receive their meaning is the transformation of human power over nature into a human power of salvation. Nietzsche has developed the symbol of self-salvation in order to express the alchemic opus of man creating himself in his own image. In this dream of self-salvation, man assumes the role of God and redeems himself by his own grace. Self-salvation, however, is self-immortalization. Since the dream of participation in a “post-Christian age” secures to the ideological believer the immortality which in terms of the broken image has become incredible, he can accept neither the realistic meaning of his own phrase, nor rational argument in general.

His problem will become clear, as soon as we state the alternatives to persistence in his dream. In order to accept reason, he would have to accept truth experienced–but the reality of existential tension is difficult to revive, once it has atrophied. If the prison of his dream, however, were broken in any other manner than by a return to reality, the only vista opening to him would be the bleakness of existence in a world-immanent time where everything is post-everything-that-has-gone-before ad infinitum. The second alternative would release a flood of anxiety, and the dread of this flood keeps the doors of the prison closed.

We should be aware of this horror, when sometimes we wonder about an ideologue’s resistance to rational argument. The alternative to life in the paradise of his dream is death in the hell of his banality. His self-made immortality is at stake; and in order to protect it, he must cling to his conception of time. For the time in which the ideologue places his construction is not the time of existence in tension toward eternity, but a symbol by which he tries to pull the timeless into identity with the time of his existence. Though the reality of tension between the timeless and time is lost, thus, the form of the tension is preserved by the dream act of forcing the two poles into oneness. We can characterize the ideologue’s “post-Christian age,” therefore, as a symbol engendered by his libidinous dream of self-salvation.

This excerpt is from Published Essays: 1966-1985 (Collected Works of Eric Voegelin 12) (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1990)

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