Schmitt-Political Theology I.pdf - Townsend Humanities Lab

xx Tracy B. Strong
“not of the ordinary kind” 33 (PT, 12). The point therefore of this
notion of sovereignty ultimately unconstrained by formal rules is
to “create a juridical order” (Recht zu schaffen) under conditions
that threaten anarchy. 34 The sovereign must decide both that a
situation is exceptional and what to do about the exception in order
to be able to create or recover a judicial order when the existing
one is threatened by chaos.
The necessarily extraordinary quality of sovereignty is made
clear in the analogy he uses to explain his point. He writes: “The
exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology”
(PT, 36). What does it mean to refer the “exception” to a
“miracle”? Clearly, this appertains to “political theology.” To
move towards an answer one should look first at the author who
remained Schmitt’s touchstone. In chapter 37 of Leviathan,
Hobbes first identifies a miracle as an occurrence when “the thing
is strange, and the natural cause difficult to imagine” and then
goes on to define it as “a work of God (besides His operation by
the way of nature, ordained in the creation) done for the making
manifest to His elect, the mission of an extraordinary minister for
their salvation.” 35 Hobbes’ definition is apposite to Schmitt, as
for him the “exception” is the occasion for and of the revelation of the
true nature of sovereignty. Thus the sovereign does not for Schmitt
only define the “exception”—he is also revealed by and in it,
which is why Schmitt must refer to a “genuine” decision.
What would be wrong with at least trying to rest human affairs
on the rule of law? Schmitt finds two major problems. The first
comes from the epistemological relationship between the exception
and the norm. Sovereignty is what Schmitt calls a Grenzbegriff,
33. Indeed, in such circumstances “the decision emanates from nothingness” (PT, 31–32).
See the discussion in R. Howse, “From Legitimacy to Dictatorship—and Back Again,” in
Dyzenhaus Law as Politics, 60–65.
34. PT, 13. I have modified Schwab’s translation, which is “to produce law.”
35. Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 37.