Teologia politica come teoria del diritto: la pista hobbesiana

Abstract

The essay proposes a reading of Hobbes as a “political theologian of modernity”. Sovereignty is external to the pact. On the one hand, union and subjugation are the same thing. On the other, the transcendence of power with respect to the contracting parties is irreducible. The result of the pact is superior to the pact itself. The dynamics of authorization clearly shows how Hobbes is not interested in the “best” order, but in the general conditions that allow the order as such to be qualified as legitimate and the law produced by it as valid. A typical question of a general theorist of law. The theological-political excess is a logical necessity, not the reflection of an autonomous theological system: sovereign power is a piece of immanence that, in order to be effective, must present itself as “transcendent”.