Pneumatic Materialism. A materialistic theory of the Holy Spirit

• Applicant: Dr. Sarah Rosenhauer
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 467817002

It is an achievement of modernity, that religion is confronted with the normative claim of freedom. The relevance of the topic extends to socio-political and systematic theological considerations, for a religion can only contribute to a social order built on freedom when that religion itself derives the essential value and validity of human freedom on the basis of its own normative principles. The goal of this research project is to develop such a foundational reflection within the framework of Christian conceptions of God.The systematic challenge is to respect both the unconditionality of human liberty, which is central for modern conceptions of freedom and the efficacy of God at the heart of human freedom, which is particularly reflected within pneumatology. At the same time, the pneumatological point of view expands the problem of freedom to its ontological and theological implications by claiming that God is immanent and transcendent at the same time and that God in him/herself is to be thought of as a person and as a relation.The project aims to meet this challenges by means of contributing an innovative position (spirit theory or dialectical) to the theoretical setting of theological debate, which is at present shaped greatly by the contrast between the differential and monistic models of the relationship between God and human freedom, God and world and God and God. Such a position can be adopted by the materialistic freedom theories of Christoph Menke and Eric L. Santner. Starting from a materialistic reading of Hegel’s philosophy of right in conjunction with psychoanalytical and biopolitical theories of subjectivisation, they develop an innovative concept of freedom: freedom is primarily derived not in autonomy, but rather in the excessiveness of its exuberance vis-à-vis biological nature and socially constructed spirituality. They link this materialistic determination of the basis for freedom with a processual-dialectical characterisation of freedom: it is the occurrence of an address that liberates the subject into its excessiveness in that it enables its retroactive self-establishment. They thus provide a concept of freedom in which it is conceivable that the act of self-establishment makes that freedom unconditional, and also that a non-autonomous efficacy internal to this freedom makes that freedom possible.The project aims to develop the freedom theories of Menke and Santner as a basis for a materialistic pneumatology by expanding them to a political ontology of negativity and a negativistic conception of God. Then baselines of a materialistic pneumatology shall be developed and made fertile for the challenges of pneumatology concerning freedom theory, ontology and trinity theology. The basic idea is, that the specific materiality of freedom is to be interpreted pneumatological as liberating force of the divine spirit, so that God may be identified not as the negation of unconditional freedom but rather as its liberating basis.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants