ONLINE FIRST
published on September 18, 2020
Philip J. P. Gonzales
https://doi.org/10.5840/mpp202091612
Violence and the Exception of Christian Revelation
Ren¨¦ Girard and Giorgio Agamben in Conversation with Benedict XVI
If violence is not the exception but the nomos under which we live, how can one gain a view of violence from outside the regime of violence and the history of its effects? This essay argues that the only way to confront the regime of violence¡¯s history is to have recourse to a Judeo-Christian understanding of revelation and its exceptional non-violent message. A Christocentric philosophy of history, of broadly Augustinian contours, is presented which seeks to confront the nomos of violence with the Logos of peace. The enactment of this Christocentric perspective will be accomplished via a confrontation between Ren¨¦ Girard and Giorgio Agamben read in view of their respective engagements with the thought of Benedict XVI.