Searching for the Arc of History: The Secularization of American Politics

ABSTRACTMichael Rosen’s The Shadow of God includes an account of historical theodicy, which is the idea that the arc of history justifies the ways of God. Formulated by the German Idealists, its American expositors influenced the ideas of the nineteenth-century American theologian and activist Theodore Parker. As the orginator of the phrases “arc of history” and “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” Parker’s influence extends to presidents and Supreme Court justices, demonstrating the long and influential afterlife of the German philosophical discourses that Rosen explores. But examining this afterlife also challenges the assumption that we can discern the arc of history without the monotheistic presuppositions present in Parker.Keywords: KantHegelSchleiermacherParkerKingObamaBushLincolntheodicyrace Notes1 Rosen (Citation2022, 45) argues not simply that religions can be rational or Socratic, but that Socratism is, itself, “religious.”2 “Oval Office Redesigned,” https://www.nbcwashington.com/local/oval-office-redesigned/1877556/3 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf4 Rosen (Citation2022, 4-5) distinguishes his own Nietzschean image of “the shadow of God” from Schmittian secularization on the grounds that the latter indicates discontinuity as well as continuity. This difference does not seem very great to me. As with Nietzsche’s critique of modern science, the overall argument of Political Theology is precisely that modern adaptations of religious concepts make no sense because they are stripped of their original meaning and removed from their original context. True, Schmitt hints that we might be able to return to the original meaning by embracing religious faith, whereas Nietzsche sees this as impossible for any honest person. Despite his professions of Catholic piety, however, it is doubtful that Schmitt took this step himself and it is simply unclear whether he regarded it as a serious option for others.