Abstract

The author problematizes the current socio-religious landscape in critical dialogue with the philosopher Gianni Vattimo — who praises the joyful harmony between a God devoid of his all-powerfulness and a secularization that is both the essence of modernity and the outgrowth of Christianity. The author agrees with the philosopher’s positions to (a) refute the thought that totality cannot be fashioned as a sole transcendent heteronomy and (b) validate a decisive relation to the world, the human body and human agency. However, in strong demarcation with Vattimo, the author calls upon Žižek in order to refute a totality constructed as powerfulness. There are in the secularization process some disengaged matters that need to be validated as such. There is no humanity without excess — excess produced by life and reality, not softened. To exist implies infraction, interruption and thus subversion, internally, from the world and through bodies. The article stands as a reflection on the current socio-cultural scene as well as on Christianity — involving the avatars, temptations and challenges that are nowadays his own — and cross-examines simultaneously the internal sublimation within.