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Gottes Eifer / Heilig vuur
Recensie, Bijdragen, 17-06-09
Peter Sloterdijk is one of the most famous German philosophers alive today. The author of the Sphären-triology (1998, 1999, 2004) triggers mixed but always extreme reactions. The general public and press applaud his narrative and convincing style of writing as much as his fellow academics criticize this style as rather anecdotic and incoherent.
 In his Sphären-triology Sloterdijk embarked on a mission to rewrite the history of ideas of the Western world. Gottes Eifer (awkwardly to be translated in English as "God’s zealousness") is a part of this mission. Sloterdijk describes the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as a continuing succession and perfection of the same religious concept: monotheism. Without explicitly stating so, Sloterdijk positions himself in a larger tradition of critical scholars who equal monotheism with intolerance, superiority, colonialism, racism and antifeminism. See for example Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain. The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (1997). The faith in one God excludes all 'others' as heretics or pagans both to be converted at all possible costs. While Sloterdijk’s ' observations are often witted - 'War is the conversation between the religions' (p. 25) - he interprets the monotheistic tradition exclusively in terms of 'separatism', 'submission' and 'conquest'.
Going from one major religious character to the next (Abraham, Moses, Paul, Augustine and Muhammed) Sloterdijk concludes that the 'supremacy of the personal God led inevitably to the subordination of the faithful'. (p. 83) While totally neglecting important religious figures as for example Jesus or Luther, Sloterdijk lashes out at Abraham ‘whose success was based on the satisfaction of the faithful that they would gain a part of God's sovereignty by subordinate to Him' (p. 28) and Saint Augustine 'whose theological absolutism enlarged the diabolical aspect of God to a sacred terrorism' (63).
I was shocked by Sloterdijk's theorizing about monotheistic religion. The author hides his oversimplifications beneath a highly hermetic-philosophical language, undoubtfully tantalizing most of his readers.
Peter Sloterdijk, Gottes Eifer. Vom Kampf der drei Monotheismen, Verlag der Weltreligionen: Frankfurt am Main (2007), ISBN 978-34-5871-004-2, 18x11, 218 p., € 17,80.
Translated in Dutch by Frans van Zetten, Heilig vuur. Over de strijd tussen jodendom, christendom en islam, Boom: Amsterdam (2008), ISBN 978-90-8506-588-3, 14x23, 160 p., € 22,95.
Bron: Deze recensie is gepubliceerd in het wetenschappelijk tijdschrijft Bijdragen 70 (2009, nr. 3), p. 491-492.
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