Between Transcendence and Violence. Gianni Vattimo and René Girard On Violence in A Secular Age

Between Transcendence and Violence: Gianni Vattimo and René Girard on Violence in a
Secular Age
Author(s): Hans Abdiel Harmakaputra
Source: Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture , Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring 2016),
pp. 117-136
Published by: Michigan State University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/contagion.23.1.0117
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Between Transcendence
and Violence
Gianni Vattimo and René Girard on
Violence in a Secular Age
Hans Abdiel Harmakaputra

Boston College
INTRODUCTION
V
iolence is one of the crucial issues that always dominates modern theo-
logical discourses. However, the discussion is not limited to theologi-
cal discourses because violence is one of the most prominent problems
for human beings today, religious and irreligious alike. Violence manifests itself
in various forms, including the use of religious outlook for support. Perhaps this
means that violence is pervasive in the nature of human being since it always
occurs again and again in human history without any possibility to fully eradi-
cate it. Perhaps the best way that humans can do is to minimalize or restrain it.
Among contemporary thinkers who have written on the problem of
violence, René Girard’s understanding of mimetic desire and the scapegoat
mechanism is the most plausible and convincing. Girard has been influential
across disciplines, and his ideas have been discussed for many years. Gianni Vat-
timo, another prominent scholar, also develops ideas about violence. Vattimo
insists that the root of violence is metaphysics; as such, the only way to stop it is
to move beyond metaphysics.
Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 23, 2016, pp. 117–136. ISSN 1075-7201.
© Michigan State University. All rights reserved.
117

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118 Hans Abdiel Harmakaputra
These two scholars met and exchanged their views.1 While the discussion
on violence is not exhaustive, the two thinkers agree on a theme closely related
to violence: transcendence. In this paper, I highlight some aspects of Vattimo’s
and Girard’s ideas of transcendence and violence. I assert that they have pro-
duced interesting frameworks and analytical tools for people who live in today’s
secular age. However, I have to express disapproval toward Vattimo’s suggestion
to abolish metaphysic as a way to diminish violence. I argue that Girard’s frame-
work is better in comprehending and dealing with violence. This does not mean
that I agree with all his thoughts, however.
The direction of this article is as follows: A description of Vattimo’s argu-
ments on transcendence and violence will be outlined in the next section. It
is then followed by Girard’s position of the same issues. The third section is a
comparison and analysis between the two thinkers. Finally, I shall show that
their views on the role of Christianity in the secular age are of importance to
understand their arguments.
“WEAK THOUGHT,” THE RETURN TO RELIGION, AND VIOLENCE
Gianni Vattimo’s whole project can be summarized as “weak thought.” This idea
is derived from his reading of Heidegger and Nietzsche. “Weak thought” is a
proclamation of the dissolution of every absolute thought in philosophy. This is
an interpretation of Nietzsche’s famous statement “God is dead.” For Vattimo,
this statement is a not a claim that God does not exist, but an announcement
“that our experience has been transformed such that we no longer conceive
ultimate objective truths, and now respond only to appeals, announcements.”2
In this reading, the dead “god” is synonymous to every idea that is perceived
as an absolute, objective truth. In other words, the announcement is about the
incapability of human beings to conceive God in the absolute sense as they
used to do. To replace this, there are only interpretations, or, in the words of
Vattimo, “What used to be considered facts are now taken as interpretations.”3
In The End of Modernity, Vattimo argues that Heidegger and Nietzsche were not
pointing out to civilizational decadence but, rather, the “‘positive’ moments for
philosophical reconstruction.”4 This can be seen as tension because, although
the solid ground of philosophical thinking has vanished, one still needs to
formulate critical thinking even on the shaky ground of today’s world. In this,
“weak thought” is the answer to create such a delicate balance. He writes, “Its
[weak thought’s] content is an ontology of weakness . . . because thinking is

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Between Transcendence and Violence 119
no longer demonstrative but rather edifying, it has become in that restricted

sense weaker.”5 Then, what about the notion of transcendence? Is it still a viable
option?
Vattimo asserts that transcendence is not something beyond history but
an integral part of history. Here Vattimo interprets Heidegger’s realization of
Being as an historical event.6 Thus, he criticizes transcendence as something
apart from history. Beside Heidegger and Nietzsche, this idea is also deeply
influenced by Joachim of Fiore and Girard. With Girard, Vattimo condemns any
notion that links transcendence to something usually perceived as the sacred.
Every idea of the sacred is grounded in the metaphysical claim of God, either the
“violent” God of natural religions or God as the wholly other. Now all of these
claims are irrelevant because of the “weak thought.”7 This relates to his elabora-
tion on violence which I will discuss later. Not only that, in After Christianity,
Vattimo discusses the concept “history of salvation” as derived from Joachim
of Fiore’s theological scheme.8 Here, Vattimo consistently proclaims the death of
the sacred as the true transcendence. Hence, transcendence is an historical
event in which true transcendence lies not in the sacred but in the secular time,
the time in which we are living now.
Joachim of Fiore is a mediaeval theologian who formulated history of
salvation as a gradual and progressive movement in the history of humankind.
Joachim stated that there is a “trinitarian pattern” in history in which the pre-
Christian era is depicted as the age of Father. In it the relationship between
God and human beings was determined by the law. The next stage of history
is ascribed to the Son and is punctuated by the notion that human beings
lived under grace and faith. The last stage is the age of the Spirit, marked by
more perfected state of grace and manifest in the true freedom and charity.9
Joachim prophesized the coming of the age of Spirit as the culmination of the
salvation history. For Vattimo, today’s secular age is the manifestation of
the age of Spirit as such. Vattimo states, “So far, the meaning of Joachim’s
teachings for our discussion seems to lay in the ‘discovery’ that historicity is
constitutive of revelation. This historicity, in my view, corresponds to the ‘event’
character of Being discovered by postmetaphysical philosophy.”10 This corre-
lates to Vattimo’s announcement of the end of metaphysics, in which the signs
are definitely different from what Joachim had imagined, yet it “stresses not the
letter but the spirit of revelation; no longer servants but friends; no longer awe
or faith but charity; and perhaps also not action but contemplation.”11 Vattimo
firmly believes that secularity is the sign of this third age of salvation history in
which freedom has reached its fullness.

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When Vattimo speaks of secularity, it is not something like a subtraction

theory of secularity in which religion will be gradually ended. Rather, Vattimo
perceives secularity as an inherently Christian event and the consummation of
biblical prophecy of God’s incarnation in Christ (kenosis).12 Vattimo writes, “To
be sure, Christ legitimated, through the event of incarnation, the many natural
ciphers of the divine. However, for us these ciphers are valid only because they
are the modes in which God descends from the heavens of transcendence . . .
after which we shall be no longer called servants or (for Joachim) children, but
friends.”13 Secularity is, therefore, the channel through which the false percep-
tion of metaphysical God through the sacred has ended and opened up a way
to understand God in a more genuine manner. This relates to “weak thought”
as the main sign of this age of Spirit and the reason why subtraction theory
of secularity is wrong. Indeed, the return to religion is the key to understand
today’s secular age. As Frederick Deporteere has explained, Vattimo perceives
secularization not as a break from Christianity but a realization of the essence
of Christianity in which Western civilization is the main locus because the
moment has been flourishing through its achievements.14 From this scheme,
now I turn to another idea of Vattimo, namely the return to religion.15
Vattimo offers a mode of return to religion without any notion of meta
physics. “The recovery of religion,” proclaims Vattimo, “is not a return to
metaphysics but an outcome of metaphysics’ dissolution.”16 Hence, he rejects
atheism and affirms the possibility for religious experience. This thought is
based on Vattimo’s own life.17 Vattimo’s spiritual and intellectual journey
is explained in Credere di Credere (believing that one believes), or Belief, in En-
glish translation.18 In it, Vattimo believes that “weak thought” as the dissolution
of metaphysics is primarily the Christian precept of charity and its rejection of
violence, another theme we shall observe in this article.19 Secularity is also a
Christian event integral to the age of the Spirit in which Jesus’s teaching culmi-
nates in the unveiling of violence.20 For Vattimo, his reading of secularization as
a progressive development within history
is diametrically opposed to that of dialectical theology: secularization does not lead

to an increasingly full illumination of God’s transcendence, which purifies faith of
its too close relationship with time, the aspiration of human perfection, and the
illusion regarding the enlightenment of reason. Rather, secularization is the way in
which kenosis, having begun with the incarnation of Christ, but even before that
with the covenant between God and “his” people, continues to realize itself more
and more clearly by furthering the education of mankind concerning the overcom-
ing of originary violence essential to the sacred and to social life itself.21

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How does “weak thought” relate to the problem of violence? Vattimo believes
that violence is rooted in metaphysics. What he means by violence, however, is
not exactly the event but more about a condition that presupposes its occur-
rence. “Violence for me,” Vattimo asserts, “is rather an act of imposition on the
other and her liberty.”22 He also states, “There is violence at the origin of history
and it’s called authoritarianism, the failure to respect the other as myself, to love
him. All this is the origin of evil.”23 Therefore, we can see that Vattimo equates
metaphysics with any idea or thought considered to be absolute, including
“God” of religions. Indeed, not all violence is rooted in metaphysics, as he fur-
ther argues, but “it is the case that the moments of greatest violence in history
have always been justified by well-structured metaphysical pretenses.”24 Hitler’s
animosity is an example. Because of this, Vattimo debases any structures, such
as “the papacy, an empire, newspapers, the media [which] define objective
truths.”25 All these claim absolute grounds and, as such, they perpetuate vio-
lence. It is only through “weak thought” that discloses truth as conversational
and not static, and which manifests in ethics can bring about remedy for today’s
violence. “Weak thought” has shaken the metaphysical ground and opens up
the true essence of Christianity: love/charity and freedom. As such, violence
can be limited through these ethical values and not by dogmas.
Christianity plays an ambiguous role. It lives within the structure of vio-
lence because of its alliance with metaphysics, yet it is also the solution because
of its struggle to overcome violence through modernity and secularization.26
Like Girard, he believes that the sacred is violence and that secularization is part
of the “Christian revelation’s saving action.”27 It is precisely through the ethics
and the kenosis that the fullness of salvation in this age of Spirit can emerge.28
This is the age in which human beings are neither “servant” nor “son” but
“friend” because freedom has set humans free. This is the culmination of Chris-
tian’s love embodied in history—the highest stage of the history of salvation.
“Weak thought” also characterizes Vattimo’s ethics. In this, freedom and
the annihilation of metaphysics do not mean that humans can do whatever
they wish, but are rather bound to ethics.29 Truth is consensual in nature as a
consequence of the weakening of Being. Vattimo’s favorite phrase is “Thanks to
God, I’m an atheist,” which means, “thanks to God I’m not an idolater, thanks
to God I don’t believe that there are laws of nature, I don’t believe there are
markers beyond which we cannot go. I believe only that I ought to love God
above all else and my neighbor as myself.”30 When it comes to ethics, Vattimo
believes that ethics is merely charity plus the traffic regulations.31 Therefore,
he emphasizes individual liberty and freedom. The traffic regulations point
to the importance of laws, which prevent individuals from violating others’

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freedom. Ethics is not constructed on the basis of natural law but on personal
discernment of loving oneself and loving others.32 Obviously, this kind of ethics
needs democracy and secularity. Hence, Vattimo distances himself from insti-
tutional religions, including the Roman Catholic Church, and remains skeptical
about any ethics which are based on claims of the objective truth. He believes
that this faith is still part of the problem.
THE SACRED, VIOLENCE, AND CHRISTIANITY
René Girard is an accomplished scholar whose work has been influential for
several decades. He started his academic work in the field of literature and then
became famous as a theorist of religion and as an anthropologist, especially
for developing theories about mimetic desire and scapegoating.33 Due to space
limit, here I shall focus only on Girard’s idea of transcendence and violence.
Girard believes that mimetic desire is a universal trait of human beings.
When one desires any object, it is not that object that attracts her or him but,
rather, because others also desire the same object.34 It is a desire toward the
same object that connects one to another and eventually will leads people to
conflictual relations.35 This mimetic desire is always contagious. It spreads
to others so that they will desire the same object.36 When mimetic desire
expands, the society faces turmoil because people start to fight among them-
selves while the original object of desire has been forgotten. However, people
find a way to stop the violence by putting all the violence upon one person
who is deemed to be the scapegoat. Though it looks paradoxical, the violence
suddenly ceases after the victim dies and the society becomes calm. The victim
becomes a sacrifice yet is treated afterward as something of a divine being.37 “‘To
sacrifice’ in fact means ‘to make sacred,’” says Girard.38
Here, human society learns a new thing. Every time human society faces
violent social turmoil, the scapegoating mechanism brings about tranquility
and peace.39 This is how mimetic desire and the scapegoating mechanism link
one another. Girard says, “Mimetic desire is simply a term more comprehensive
than violence for religious pollution. As the catalyst for the sacrificial crisis, it
would eventually destroy the entire community if the surrogate victim were
not at hand to halt the process and the ritualized mimesis were not at hand to
keep the conflictual mimesis from beginning afresh.”40 This reconciling result
of scapegoating makes people repeat the process without feeling guilty or even
being conscious of it. Girard explains this way:

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The people participating in rituals did not understand these phenomena as we

do, but they observed their reconciling results and appreciated them so much, as
we have seen, that they attempted to reproduce them without feeling shame. This
was the case because the operation of transferring sins from community to victim
seemed to occur from beyond, without their own real participation.41
From this, Girard believes that the human society attempts to deal with the pri-
mordial problem of human beings—the mimetic desire. This attempt triggers
the cycle of violence and scapegoating to perpetuate in history. This mechanism
manifests in the society, in the sacrificial ritual of all religions and in myths.42
He claims that “[a]ll religious rituals spring from the surrogate victim, and all
the great institutions of mankind, [sic] both secular and religious, spring from
ritual.”43 This can be seen as the theme of his Violence and the Sacred. Pierpaolo
Antonello summarizes Girard as such,
All human culture has a systemic origin based on the sacrifice, spontaneous at first
but later institutionalized. . . . The nexus between religion and violence, which
appears so striking to us today, comes about not because religions are intrinsically
violent but rather because religion is above all a mode of knowledge about man-
kind’s violence [sic] and the ways of keeping it in check, about the “homeopathic”
use of violence in order to control violence.44
Thus far, Girard explains the cause of violence in the history of humanity and
how it is concealed by the construction of human civilization, both religious
and secular. Underneath human societies and religious traditions lies the
hidden and primordial origin of violence that could be disastrous were it not
released through sacrificial ritual. Be that as it may, this religious rite cannot
overcome violence completely because it needs a scapegoat as its victim. Vio-
lence is minimalized only to certain victims, yet its power is persistently there
through the killing of the victims periodically in order to stabilize the society.
Girard firmly believes that what has been perceived as “the sacred” in reli-
gions is not the real transcendence because it merely covers up the violent sys-
tem. Sacrificial religions perpetuate the scapegoating mechanism through myths
where the guilt of violence is projected to the victim but not to the mob. The
only exception among religious traditions is Christianity. For Girard, Christian-
ity is the only religion that discloses the primordial pattern of scapegoating and
overcomes violence by revealing the true nature of human religiosity. He says,
“Wherever Christianity spreads, the mythical systems decay and sacrificial rites

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disappear.”45 For Girard, this conclusion is drawn from the biblical narratives
that can only be found in Christianity and not in other scriptures and myths.46
He believes that the Bible is like other scriptures in narrating the sacrificial
killing of the victim but speaks from a different vantage point that reveals the
hidden and repressed truth of the mechanism of violence.47 While myths and
other scriptures are always affirmative to the scapegoating process, the Judaeo-
Christian Bible persistently shows the innocence of the victim and the guilt
of the crowd.48 “Christianity reverses this situation,” as Girard writes, “demon-
strating that the victim is not guilty and that the unanimous crowd knows not
what it does when it unjustly accuses this victim.”49 For instance, unlike myth
that takes the viewpoint of the crowd and imposing guilt into the victim, the
story of Christ’s passion reveals the fact that the victim is innocent.50 Girard
also gives examples from the Old Testament and New Testament that use a
similar mode of revealing the violent scapegoating mechanism by announc-
ing the innocence of the victims and the guilt of the crowd.51 The examples
are Joseph and his brothers, Job and his community, the Suffering Servant
in Isaiah 52–53, and Jesus Christ.52 Hence, the depiction of God in the Bible
is the God of the oppressed and not of the crowds. Through the disclosure of
the mimetic-violence, Christianity intends to save both victims and crowds
from this eternal cycle of mimetic-violence.53 Moreover, Girard embraces the
Christian idea of the divinity of Christ and the incarnation because Christ is
the only one who is not caught in the power of transcended violence. Rather,
Christ stands above the structure and is able to liberate humanity from the
domination of violence.
For this reason the Gospels and the whole New Testament, together with the
theologians of the first councils, proclaim that Christ is God not because he was
crucified, but because he is God born of God from all eternity. . . . To recognize
Christ as God is to recognize him as the only being capable of rising above the
violence that had, up to that point, absolutely transcended mankind [sic]. Violence
is the controlling agent in every form of mythic or cultural structure, and Christ is
the only agent who is capable of escaping from these structures and freeing us
from their dominance.54
Transcendence, thus, is not built on the sacredness of human religions, which is

rooted in violence, but on the good news of God in Christianity. In disclosing
the true nature of religions and overturning “the sacred,” Christianity invigo-
rates secularization in which “the sacred” is gradually diminished. Girard writes,

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“From one country to the other the sudden turns of fortune are different, but
they cannot conceal the true origin of our modern concern for victims; it is
quite obviously Christian. Humanism and humanitarianism develop first on
Christian soil.”55 It can be said that Girard agrees with one version of the sub-
traction theory,56 as it subtracts false transcendence and violent sacred; yet he is
also close to Vattimo’s view that Christianity is important and continues to be a
way to the genuine understanding of God, not as a divine being who demands
sacrifice of victims but who wills for a totally nonviolent society.
Christianity, through secularization, indeed inherently posits violence,
but the modern age witnesses various forms of violence, even the worst ones.
Hitler’s systematic destruction of European Jews is one of them.57 Girard argues
that Christianity has a great role in revealing the cause of violence and in offer-
ing the remedy to overcome violence, yet it does not mean that violence has
been removed completely.58 Moreover, the fact that the sacrificial ritual has been
abolished means that the mechanism used to leash the violence is no more.
Secularization has diminished “the sacred” in the form of sacrificial rituals. As
a result human’s mimetic desire that used to be suppressed is now unleashed.
Violence is no longer being checked on a regular basis and minimalized through
the scapegoating mechanism.59
On the other hand, modernity has been witnessing the progress of soci-
eties to be more humane, grounded in a nonvictimized system. Girard gives
examples of some humane developments unprecedented before in any human
societies. Girard writes this way,
They say repeatedly—and this is not false—that no world has made more victims
than it has. But the opposite proposition is equally true: our world is also and by
far the best of all worlds, the one that saves more victims than any other. . . . The
concern for victims leads us to the sound opinion that our progress in “humani-
tarianism” is very slow and we should certainly not glorify it, in order not to slow it
down even more. The modern concern for victims obligates us to blame ourselves
perpetually.60
He mentions hospitals, treatment for elderly people, better status of women,

a less ethnocentric society, and the invention of social justice among other
examples.61 “No historical period, no society we know, has ever spoken of
victims as we do,” says Girard.62 The modern age does not invent compassion
but universalizes it.63 However, sacrificial violence still exists in different forms
available in the modern age.

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The elimination of sacrificial violence is not simply “good” or “bad”; it is an ambigu-

ous and ambivalent progress in the struggle against violence, which may include
regressive aspects if the human beings whom this violence restrained in the past
become more violent as a result of this development. The peace that has been
available to us until recently often rests on a sacrificial violence, which is no longer
present in the form of blood sacrifice . . . but in institutions such as the police, the
American army, the superior American power.64
To escape violence, human beings must not rely on sacrificial violence. Rather,
humans should prevent violence through nonviolent means.65
For Girard, the modern-secular age is an age of contestation between
the power of violence and the power of love, of which Christianity teaches the
latter. Girard believes that today, the inclination toward violence is a natural
consequence of the unleashing of mimetic desire.66 Yet, to return to premodern
age with its sacred sacrificial system means there is no way out from the cycle
of violence. Today’s world gradually moves forward to the ideal after success-
fully dismantling the scapegoating mechanism.67 Thus, the best way for human
beings is to imitate the Father’s desire to diminish violence and, as such, humans
maintain the progress of modern-secular toward a more humane society.68
CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT POINTS

BETWEEN VATTIMO AND GIRARD
This section compares Vattimo’s and Girard’s thoughts, especially on the issue
of violence and transcendence. Since a dialogue between them has been pub-
lished, here I make use of some of it to help sketch convergent and divergent
points.
Firstly, Vattimo and Girard perceive violence in relation to the claim of
transcendence. Vattimo echoes Nietzsche’s proclamation that “God is dead” to
point out the inability of the modern-secular human to perceive the absolute
idea of “God.” The absolute idea in its various forms, including the transcen-
dence, is the main cause of violence. As Vattimo has insisted, the “weakening of
thought” is the key to abolish violence, an idea that Vattimo draws from Girard.
The disclosure of the close connection between “the sacred” and violence is one
of the main theses of Girard. “The sacred” is actually a way to leash the mimetic
desire and scapegoating mechanism that are inherent in all human societies.
While it has effectively minimalized the power of violence, it has failed to

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abolish violence completely. Therefore, Girard discloses the true nature of “the
sacred” as false transcendence.
Secondly, since the ideas of transcendence, such as “God” and “the sacred,”
were deemed to be the root of violence, both Vattimo and Girard apprehend
secularization in a more positive fashion. Secularization is an indispensable way
for human beings to escape the problem of violence. However, the seculariza-
tion promoted by Vattimo and Girard is not compatible with the subtraction
theory that predicts how religions will gradually become irrelevant in this secu-
lar age. Rather, both thinkers ascribe the achievement of secularity to Christian-
ity, which they believe is the main engine of secularization as well as the sole
answer for the problem of violence.
Thirdly, Vattimo and Girard believe that Christianity is the heart of secular-
ization and modernity. Vattimo admits that his idea of the historical-progressive
essence of Christianity is derived from Girard.69 What he learns from Girard is
this: “Secularization, which I take to mean the effective realization of Christian-
ity as a nonsacrificial religion. And I carry this line of thought further because
I see many of the apparently scandalous and ‘dissolute’ phenomena of moder-
nity as positive.”70 Like Vattimo, Girard asserts, “Christianity deprives us of
the mechanism that formed the basis of the archaic social and religious order,
ushering in a new phase in the history of mankind [sic] that we may legitimately
call ‘modern.’ All the conquests of modernity begin there . . . [and] from that
acquisition of awareness within Christianity.”71 Obviously they have different
ways of formulating their ideas, which will become one of the divergence points
between the two.
Lastly, Vattimo and Girard agree on the importance of ethics in today’s
secular world in order to diminish violence. Indeed, the ethics is closely related
from what both regard as Christian values. They argue that love is the core
Christian value, yet each takes a different trajectory in elaborating the meaning.
After describing four points of convergence, now I will elaborate diver-
gences between the two. The first diverging issue is on transcendence. Although
both have their own form of rejecting transcendence, Vattimo is more radical
in his approach than Girard. As Frederick Depoortere has observed, Vattimo
does not leave room for transcendence at all while Girard still holds “a tran-
scendence of love” that replaces the false transcendence of violence.72 Vattimo
believes that violence begins with any idea that is deemed to be absolute,
including the transcendence of God. Violence basically occurs when an idea
works in hegemonic style and is used to undermine other thoughts. To negate
this violence tendency, Vattimo firmly emphasizes the necessity of the weak
thought. Transcendence, in any form, will only lead humans toward violence.

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This is the risk Vattimo wants to avoid by all means. On the other hand, Girard
reveals the false transcendence and points to the real transcendence in Chris-
tianity and the Bible. The false transcendence has suppressed the inherent and
hidden primordial pattern of violence, where mimetic desire and the scapegoat-
ing mechanism are its core teachings, but Christianity brings the news of the
real transcendence; the news of God who wants to abolish human violence
completely throughout history, and the event of kenosis is the culmination of
God’s work. Unlike Vattimo, who believes in human capability in managing
their affairs and relegates the importance of transcendence, Girard is more cau-
tious of human’s frailty and relies on the transcendence of God to transform
the society. There is also a difference in the way each thinker defines violence:
Vattimo perceives violence as domination, but for Girard violence is the fruit of
mimetic desire and rivalry.73
The second point of divergence is secularization. Although both thinkers
see secularization as developed from and inherently contains the core of Chris-
tianity, they interpret the idea in very different ways. For Vattimo, secularization
is a realization of the salvation history as prophesized by Joachim of Fiore, in
which the Spirit would be the main feature of the era that brings freedom and
love in fullness through the weakening of any absolute thoughts. Secularity
is therefore an unavoidable logical and theological outcome of Christianity.
Christianity is being weakened and can no longer dictate what the truth is.
Rather, truth is always consensual because each person has ultimate freedom to
interpreting it in accordance with love.74 Depoortere concludes Vattimo’s vision
of Christianity as such, “the uniqueness of Christianity consists in the fact that
it has ultimately a non-religious destiny: it is the religion in which humankind
breaks free from religion and leaves the domain of the sacral to enter the domain
of the secular.”75 Through kenosis God has emptied the transcendence realm
and became fully immersed in the world; secularity is the pinnacle of God’s
kenosis.
Girard is very different from Vattimo on this point. He sees secularity as
the dissipation of the false transcendence and the beginning of the real tran-
scendence of God introduced by Christianity. This is a God who prefers the
victims and discloses the scapegoat mechanism. Girard disagrees with Vattimo’s
theological understanding of the age of Spirit and the weakening of thought
that makes everything merely interpretation. Instead, Girard insists that there
is a fact, namely human’s mimetic desire that leads to violence, and the story of
Jesus is another fact of God who chooses to disclose the pattern of violence.76
Here, God’s kenosis in Jesus Christ is not an emptying of God-self to create the
age of Spirit as Vattimo has asserted, but God’s willingness to dissipate violence.

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For Girard, this is the truth. “Personally, I agree with Vattimo when he says that
Christianity is a revelation of love, but I don’t exclude that it is also a revelation
of truth,” Girard asserts.77
This difference in comprehending the relation between Christianity and
secularity is, in my opinion, rooted in their dissenting opinions on human
beings. Vattimo perceives humans in a very positive way as subjects of their own
life because through Christianity human beings possess the ultimate freedom.
Metaphysics must be rejected because it brings about totality into the picture
and limits human freedom. This, for Vattimo, is the consequence of the age of
Spirit. He argues that his ethics can be summed up as “love and traffic regula-
tions.” Love cannot be defined by anyone else as it is closely related to individual
freedom. Yet, one’s freedom must not trespass the freedom of another person,
so there is a need for regulations to respect each person’s freedom. If this kind
of ethics derived from the “weak thought” works, there will be no more vio-
lence. Secularity is the bulwark against any totalitarian view to dominate other
views.
Contrary to Vattimo, Girard’s view of human beings is more pessimistic.
Girard questions Vattimo’s confident trust that human beings can love one
another:
In the end my objection to Vattimo would be this: he talks about a history of inter-
pretation that develops within a community, among groups of people who love
one another and have no need for forms of “authority” to regulate their internal
relations. But what I ask myself is: How do we control the ever-present tendency of
the crowd to veer off into some excess? How can we tell whether this love arising
in its midst is true love and not just the reciprocal indifference of the “politically
correct”?78
Girard perceives the mimetic desire of human beings as embedded in oneself

and functions like the concept of sin in Christianity in which the reality of sin
is inescapable. Even though Christianity has paved a way to dissipate violence,
the process itself is still ongoing in today’s world. The Bible has disclosed
how the victim mechanism through scapegoating is not true transcendence.
It also reveals that the crowd is guilty, not the victim. However, every human
being can potentially become part of the crowd that conducts violent action
toward others, even in today’s secular age. Therefore, agape must relate to truth
of the Kingdom that will stop the spiral of violence through nonviolent ethics.79
The last divergent theme is about the reality of violence in today’s secular
age. If secularity is a key to diminish violence, then why does violence still exist,

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even get worse, in our time? Vattimo would argue that this is because meta-
physics is still prevalent in today’s world, and his weakening project still needs
more pervasive acceptance. Only through the dissipation of transcendence
and the construction of an ethic based on love can human beings find a way
out from this violent reality. Girard, however, argues that Christianity through
secularization has abolished the sacrificial rituals. Because of this, the power of
violence is unleashed and sometimes can erupt in the worst form. The dissipa-
tion of violence needs time because Christianity has unveiled the truth about
violence but not abolished it. Even in its history, Girard asserts that Christianity
“has maintained elements of archaic religion.”80 To stop violence, human beings
cannot rely on their own power but must constantly be aware of the truth about
violence and follow the ethics of the Kingdom of God.
SECULARITY, VIOLENCE, AND CHRISTIANITY:

SOME EVALUATIVE POINTS
To further the discussion, here I argue that Charles Taylor is important in

pointing out what secularity really is. According to Taylor, there are at least
three modes of secularity: 1) separation between religious institution and poli-
tics, 2) the decline of religious belief and practice compared to premodern era,
and 3) conditions of belief, in which various positions regarding beliefs could
be found in today’s secular age.81 The “subtraction theory” covers the first and
second mode in which it predicts the future gradual irrelevance of religions.
Taylor, on the other hand, argues the viability of the third mode. Vattimo and
Girard can be said as examples of Taylor’s definition of secularity. Both promote
secularity as subtraction of “the sacred,” yet, at the same time, endorse a sort of
“return to religion.” Vattimo’s nihilism can be seen as an example of fragilization
that leads to what Taylor calls the “immanent frame.”82 It is a condition triggered
by a cross pressure between the old model of religion and the new venture of
secular age. It brings about new option as a solution, which Vattimo calls the
“weak thought.”
Secondly, Vattimo and Girard perceive that secularity is rooted in and
developed from Christianity. This view is similar to that of Taylor who explores
more deeply the idea that secularization is a product of Christianity. Taylor
explains that the development of Christianity after the sixteenth century has
gradually brought about secularity as we now know it. Taylor asserts that the
Reformation movement is the beginning of secularity.83

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Thirdly, Taylor’s scheme elaborates the relationship between violence and

religion, especially in a secular age. Unlike Vattimo, who blames all metaphysics
as the source for violence, Taylor does not deny the close relationship between
religion and violence, but he is more careful in ascribing violent events only
to religion.84 In the past, human’s religiosity after the axial age had gradually
posited a challenge toward violence, and now the relationship between religion
and violence has become more ambivalent. There were violent actions done by
militant secularists as well, together with new phenomena that Taylor identi-
fies as “confessionally defined nationalism.”85 This ambivalent relation can be
indicated as the feature of our secular age in which neither religious nor secular
perspective can escape the responsibility of violence. As such, this reality can be
a common ground for all camps to oppose violence.
In my opinion, Vattimo’s position in rejecting transcendence on the pretext
of his fear toward totality is not convincing. Although deconstruction through
the “weak thought” is important to prevent humans from reifying an idea as
absolute, Vattimo’s framework cannot escape the risk of becoming an absolute
idea because it “essentializes” the role of individual in the name of freedom. This
move makes his ethics very similar to that of the liberalist-humanist approach.
I believe that deconstruction is not suitable as a ground for constructive think-
ing, though it is useful to pose critical thinking and to trigger a reformulation of
thoughts. As a result, Vattimo’s ethics are still grounded in the liberal-humanist
approach. Here I argue that ethics cannot stand on a bottomless ground.
Girard, on the other hand, does not relegate the importance of the tran-
scendent God because his view on humans is less optimistic than that of Vat-
timo. It is inherent in every human being that he or she can partake in violence.
As such, a human must not rely on himself or herself. The history of humanity
is proof of how “the sacred” has been used to conceal the power of violence
and only in Christianity is it unmasked. Christianity has also offered a solution
to dissipate violence. Girard and Taylor agree that in today’s secular age, vio-
lence manifests in many forms, not only under the disguise of “the sacred” but
through secular performances or even using the mask of Christianity. Girard is
right in emphasizing that Christianity shows the truth about violence.
Although here I lean toward Girard, it does not mean his thought is unques-
tionable. Girard’s exclusive view of Christianity is in need of deeper explana-
tions. I assert that he is essentializing Christianity because he sees Christianity
as a monolithic entity, while in reality Christianity is not only pluriform but also
hybrid. There are important aspects in Christianity that are influenced by or
derived from other religious traditions. As such, Girard’s claim on the fact that

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only the Bible contains the scapegoating mechanism is not absolute. We need
more efforts in reading thoroughly other faiths’ myths and scriptures to validate
Girard’s thesis. Moreover, Girard posits Christianity as the main engine of secu-
larization and neglects the Christian presence outside the Western civilization.
As such, his view on Christianity is very Westernized. This tendency can justify
the superiority of the Western culture over the rest of the human race.
Next, Girard’s perception toward myths is questionable too. What does
myth really mean? Jonathan Z. Smith, a scholar in comparative religions, argues
that myths of religions can be dynamic because they always connect to the web
of reality, such as political, social, even economic. Myths can be a subversive
tool to criticize the oppressive power in society. Smith writes, “Myth is best
conceived not as primordium, but rather as a limited collection of elements
with a fixed range of cultural meanings which are applied, thought with, worked
with, experimented with in particular situations.”86 Here Girard’s way of reading
myths is in need of reconsideration.
CONCLUSION
Despite some critical assessment of the thoughts of Vattimo and Girard, both
have contributed a lot in their fields, especially in connecting the perennial
problem of violence with religion and secularization. I have highlighted some
main arguments of Vattimo and Girard throughout the paper, and emphasized
several convergent and divergent points. Vattimo’s debasement of the transcen-
dence is unfavorable for me because it is grounded in a too-optimistic view of
the human being. This does not mean, however, that Vattimo is completely
wrong. There is truth in his allegation against metaphysics because violence
has been done in the name of metaphysical claims. Here I contend that Girard
provides a more delicate balance on the transcendence and humanity. Being
human means having limitations, which Girard would identify as preference
toward the mimetic desire. Yet, Christianity brings good news about the tran-
scendence and the loving God whose will is for the dissipation of violence. This
God partakes in history through kenosis and shows the example of the ethics
of God’s Kingdom.

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NOTES
1. Gianni Vattimo and René Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith: A Dialogue,
ed. Pierpaolo Antonello, trans. William McCuaig (New York: Columbia University Press,
2006).
2. Gianni Vattimo, Santiago Zabala, and Yaakov Mascetti, “‘Weak Thought’ and the
Reduction of Violence: A Dialogue with Gianni Vattimo,” Common Knowledge 8, no. 3
(2002): 452–63; 453–54.
3. Vattimo, “‘Weak Thought’ and the Reduction of Violence,” 453.
4. Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 1.
5. Vattimo, “‘Weak Thought’ and the Reduction of Violence,” 452; italics are Vattimo’s.
6. Vattimo, The End of Modernity, 3.
7. Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity, trans. Luca D’Isanto (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2002), 38–39.
8. Vattimo writes, “I am convinced that the history of salvation announced in the Bible
realizes itself in world historical event.” Vattimo, After Christianity, 41.
9. Vattimo, After Christianity, 29–30.
10. Vattimo, After Christianity, 31.
13. Vattimo, After Christianity, 39, my emphasis.
14. Frederick Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy: Gianni Vattimo, René Girard, and
Slavoj Žižek (London: T & T Clark, 2008), 13.
15. Vattimo and Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 39.
17. Brief description on Vattimo’s life and work is described by Frederick Depoortere in the
introduction to chapter 1: Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy, 3–9.
18. Gianni Vattimo, Belief, trans. by Luca D’Isanto and David Webb (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1999).
19. Vattimo, Belief, 42–44.
20. Vattimo, Belief, 41; Vattimo and Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 28.
21. Vattimo, Belief, 48.

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26. Vattimo, After Christianity, 82, 117.

30. Vattimo and Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 33–34.
32. Vattimo and Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 45–46, 51.
33. To get a glimpse of Girard’s works, see Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy,
34–43.
34. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977),
145.
35. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 146. Girard discusses the mimetic rivalry at length as
written in some literatures in his book Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1965).
36. René Girard, “Violence and Religion: Cause or Effect?,” The Hedgehog Review 6, no. 1
(2004): 8–20; 10.
37. Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 10.
40. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 148; italics are Girard’s.
41. René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 155.
42. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 102–03; Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 13; Depoortere,
Christ in Postmodern Philosophy, 40–42.
43. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 306.
44. Pierpaolo Antonello, Introduction to Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 7.
45. Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, 154.
46. In 1978, Girard, with Jean-Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort, published his idea on
the relations of Christianity and “the sacred” in Things Hidden since the Foundation of the
World, trans. Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer (London: The Athlone, 1978).
48. Vattimo and Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 25; Girard, “Violence and
Religion,” 14.
50. Vattimo and Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 43. See a brief summary on
Girard’s view on Christ by Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy, 43–49.
51. For instance, Girard wrote a book on the story of Job from the viewpoint of the scapegoat
mechanism: René Girard, Job, the Victim of His People (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1987).

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52. Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 14–15.

53. Girard avoided the use of the word “sacrifice” for Jesus’s crucifixion; now he supports
the use of the word. René Girard, “Not Just Interpretations, There Are Facts, Too,” in
Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 92–93.
54. Girard, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, 219.
56. Unlike other forms of subtraction theories that diminish religions from human history,
Girard is a proponent of a version that claims how Christianity is “realized” in history to
the extent that the false sacred decreases.
57. Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, 159; Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 18.
59. Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 18–19.
61. Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, 162, 167, 169; Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 17.
72. Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy, 144.
73. Vattimo and Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith, 46, 59–60.
75. Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy, 144.
81. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2007), 2–3.

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82. See Taylor, A Secular Age, chapters 15 and 16.

83. See Taylor, A Secular Age, chapters 1 and 2.
84. Charles Taylor, “Notes on the Sources of Violence: Perennial and Modern,” in Dilemmas
and Connections: Selected Essays (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2011), 211.
85. Taylor, “Notes on the Sources of Violence,” 212.
86. Jonathan Z. Smith, Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2004), 308.

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Between Transcendence and Violence. Gianni Vattimo and René Girard On Violence in A Secular Age

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Between Transcendence and Violence: Gianni Vattimo and René Girard on Violence in a

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Hans Abdiel Harmakaputra

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“WEAK THOUGHT,” THE RETURN TO RELIGION, AND VIOLENCE

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no longer demonstrative but rather edifying, it has become in that restricted

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When Vattimo speaks of secularity, it is not something like a subtraction

is diametrically opposed to that of dialectical theology: secularization does not lead

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THE SACRED, VIOLENCE, AND CHRISTIANITY

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The people participating in rituals did not understand these phenomena as we

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Transcendence, thus, is not built on the sacredness of human religions, which is

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He mentions hospitals, treatment for elderly people, better status of women,

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The elimination of sacrificial violence is not simply “good” or “bad”; it is an ambigu-

CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT POINTS

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Girard perceives the mimetic desire of human beings as embedded in oneself

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SECULARITY, VIOLENCE, AND CHRISTIANITY:

To further the discussion, here I argue that Charles Taylor is important in

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Thirdly, Taylor’s scheme elaborates the relationship between violence and

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26. Vattimo, After Christianity, 82, 117.

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52. Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 14–­15.

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82. See Taylor, A Secular Age, chapters 15 and 16.

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52. Girard, “Violence and Religion,” 14–15.