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The Faith of the Faithless: Experiments In Political Theology
Why do we still have religion? It seems to offer nothing but violence, suppression and conflict. Discussing the relationship between religion and politics, exploring questions of faith, love, human nature and original sin, Simon Critchley asks whether we can establish a faith for the faithless and how it can manifest itself in everyday life, from the identity of love to the role of violence.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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655 people want to read
About the author
Simon Critchley
112 books380 followersSimon Critchley (born 27 February 1960 in Hertfordshire) is an English philosopher currently teaching at The New School. He works in continental philosophy. Critchley argues that philosophy commences in disappointment, either religious or political. These two axes may be said largely to inform his published work: religious disappointment raises the question of meaning and has to, as he sees it, deal with the problem of nihilism; political disappointment provokes the question of justice and raises the need for a coherent ethics [...]
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 8, 2015
The infinite ethical demand allows us to become the subjects of which we are capable of being by dividing us from ourselves, by forcing us to lie in accordance with an asymmetrical and unfulfilable demand – say the demand to be Christ-like – whilst knowing that we are all too human.
Likely the best philosophical primer I’ve encountered in a while. Someone noted (here on GR?) that Žižek is more of an associative thinker, rather than a representative one. One likely won't this author guilty of said offense. Critchley certainly does the heavy lifting to convey the crux of his thought. His perusal of the term truth in a religious sense owes to a definition similar to fidelity, rather than one of certainty or objective verifability. This tome-length argument is a survey of the current geopolitical triangle of politics, religion and violence. Critchley begins the analysis with a splendid reading of Rousseau. The section details the fictional nature of politics, the collective submission to an “exterior” authority. This then moves to St. Paul, a framing of him as a Jewish mystic and by extension, Paul’s interlocutors Heidegger and Badiou. The Heidegger section appears abrupt and disparate from whatever momentum had been established. Critchley concludes his treatise with a personal examination of Benjamin’s divine violence and his own (Critchley’s) ongoing disagreement with Slavoj Žižek in general and his employment of the concept in his recent book on violence.
Likely the best philosophical primer I’ve encountered in a while. Someone noted (here on GR?) that Žižek is more of an associative thinker, rather than a representative one. One likely won't this author guilty of said offense. Critchley certainly does the heavy lifting to convey the crux of his thought. His perusal of the term truth in a religious sense owes to a definition similar to fidelity, rather than one of certainty or objective verifability. This tome-length argument is a survey of the current geopolitical triangle of politics, religion and violence. Critchley begins the analysis with a splendid reading of Rousseau. The section details the fictional nature of politics, the collective submission to an “exterior” authority. This then moves to St. Paul, a framing of him as a Jewish mystic and by extension, Paul’s interlocutors Heidegger and Badiou. The Heidegger section appears abrupt and disparate from whatever momentum had been established. Critchley concludes his treatise with a personal examination of Benjamin’s divine violence and his own (Critchley’s) ongoing disagreement with Slavoj Žižek in general and his employment of the concept in his recent book on violence.
February 4, 2015
I actually enjoyed this book; I usually cannot get the point of radical philosophical writings, but this book clarified many different points for me. Now I can easily say that I know how anarchism can make sense (It still doesn't, it has the potentiality of making sense though!). The first two chapters (on Rouseau and Schmitt) are fantastic but then it gets too messy to understand. Although it took a long time for me to finish this book, I still think it was worth reading.
December 13, 2016
A solid 3.5 stars that I'll round up because Critchley is more or less on the team.
I don't completely agree with the conclusion of a turning to love as a concept that can help us out of the mess, but I think there is lots of insight that can be gained from his hermeneutics and reflection on continental philosophers. There's a little bit of an over-reliance on "classic"/pre-1940s anarchist thinkers (Bakunin mostly), but they're still sort of represented faithfully. Actually, the most enjoyable part of this book is Critchley taking on losers like Badiou and Zizek.
I don't completely agree with the conclusion of a turning to love as a concept that can help us out of the mess, but I think there is lots of insight that can be gained from his hermeneutics and reflection on continental philosophers. There's a little bit of an over-reliance on "classic"/pre-1940s anarchist thinkers (Bakunin mostly), but they're still sort of represented faithfully. Actually, the most enjoyable part of this book is Critchley taking on losers like Badiou and Zizek.
August 28, 2015
ZOMG, PUTS ŽIŽEK ON THE COUCH, OMGWTFBBQ?!?!?!
Seriously, a good load of excellent work has been placed into this one. I've almost turned out surprised, how many of my concerns with Infinitely demanding have been explored at detail in here: which exactly concerns the relationship of politics and religion with respect to the politics of the undeterminable. In any case, provides a lot of valuable discussions on Rousseau and the theological origins of the idea of social contract, a reading of contemporary leftist politics with a view on the theological elements, a highly enjoyable discussion of the reemerging appropriations of the Pauline tradition (Badiou, Agamben), and a polemic with Žižek on violence. On the first reading, I see a few gaps in the argument here and there (i.e., in the Žižek polemic, Critchley at times concerns himself more with the anarchist-marxist polemics and occasionally seems to imply that this would also hold for the differences between him and Žižek, but from time to time, my impression is that maybe Žižek is trying to get a tad bit elsewhere, and if that's the case, the exchange is far from over.) As well, it seems to me that Critchley at times tends to adopt some Badiouesque positions more strongly than in his previous works, though that does not necessarily need to be a bad thing. In any case, even if the argument is occasionally scattered, and a tad bit discontinuous, this is a worthy book trying to diagnose the religious roots and theological limits of contemporary politics. While a couple of the polemics will most likely resonate with me a bit differently after catching up with some of the references, I find it indisputable that a lot of work and thought has been put into this one and that can never really be a bad thing for philosophy.
Seriously, a good load of excellent work has been placed into this one. I've almost turned out surprised, how many of my concerns with Infinitely demanding have been explored at detail in here: which exactly concerns the relationship of politics and religion with respect to the politics of the undeterminable. In any case, provides a lot of valuable discussions on Rousseau and the theological origins of the idea of social contract, a reading of contemporary leftist politics with a view on the theological elements, a highly enjoyable discussion of the reemerging appropriations of the Pauline tradition (Badiou, Agamben), and a polemic with Žižek on violence. On the first reading, I see a few gaps in the argument here and there (i.e., in the Žižek polemic, Critchley at times concerns himself more with the anarchist-marxist polemics and occasionally seems to imply that this would also hold for the differences between him and Žižek, but from time to time, my impression is that maybe Žižek is trying to get a tad bit elsewhere, and if that's the case, the exchange is far from over.) As well, it seems to me that Critchley at times tends to adopt some Badiouesque positions more strongly than in his previous works, though that does not necessarily need to be a bad thing. In any case, even if the argument is occasionally scattered, and a tad bit discontinuous, this is a worthy book trying to diagnose the religious roots and theological limits of contemporary politics. While a couple of the polemics will most likely resonate with me a bit differently after catching up with some of the references, I find it indisputable that a lot of work and thought has been put into this one and that can never really be a bad thing for philosophy.
April 24, 2014
Highly readable given the complexity of ideas being covered -- chapters on "mystical anarchism" and Paul/Heidegger especially interesting
November 6, 2018
I don't read a lot of philosophy. So I jumped to the final chapter on the question of violence/nonviolence. Although much of it seemed to be a return to an ongoing argument with Zizek, he draws from others (Fanon, Benjamin, anarchists) to situate essential questions (where is it justified, where is it effective or necessary) in historical context - the place it matters most.
As he points out, in the colonized world (citing Fanon) violence equates with expropriation, "whose effects constitute the daily humiliation of the wretched of the earth. When violence is understood in this way, there is no doubt that principled assertion of nonviolence simply miss the point. Worse still, nonviolence can be an ideological tool introduced by those in power in order to ensure that their interests are not adversely affected by a violent overthrow of power."
Those who have taken NVCD training (or studied it extensively, or approached their own tactical and strategic approaches to resistance with a serious consideration of how their intended actions have considered the context -- I wouldn't claim to be that disciplined, although it helps to occasionally read books like this) learn pretty early on that when most effective, nonviolence is not pacifism (most obvious examples being Gandhi, MLK). But there are too many instances where nonviolence is simply ineffective, to be crushed by the state, military, police. What then? Here it's easy to miss Critchley's answer. I had to digest parts of this carefully, go back and re-read certain passages. Because he's not simply suggestion it's a matter of historical context: "Violence is not reducible to an act in the here and now which might or might not be justifiable in accordance with some or other conception of justice." "It is never a question of a single act, but of one's insertion into a historical process saturated by a cycle of violence and counter-violence." The problem is not so much violence as it is the romantisation of revolutionary violence.
I think what he's driving at is a rejection of universal principles, ideological or religious. Whether philosophers would call that "existential" I don't know. But he see this in Paul as well as Kierkegaard, whose counsel was not (in his words) "to sit in the anxiety of death, day in and day out, listening for the repetition of the eternal," but rather (in Critchley's words) to commit to "a rigorous and activist conception of (inner) faith that proclaims itself into being at each instant without guarantee or security, and which abides with the infinite demand of love." Tall order.
The "faith of the faithless" is thus a "subjective strength that only finds its power to act through an admission of weakness: the powerless power of conscience. Conscience is the inward ear that listens for the repetition of the infinite demand. .. It has been my contention in this book that such an experience of faith is not only shared by those who are faithless from a creedal or denominational perspective, but can be experienced by them in an exemplary manner."
Which leads me back to a final quote from the introduction, which I decided to start reading after testing my interest on that chapter about violence and nonviolence:
"Faith is not, then, necessarily theistic. However, and this has also been a constant concern of my work, an atheistic conception of faith should not be triumphalist. I have little sympathy for the evangelical atheism of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens that sees God and religion as some sort of historical error that has happily been corrected and refuted by scientific progress. On the contrary, the religious tradition with which I am most familiar -- broadly Judeo-Christian - offers a powerful way of articulating questions of the ultimate meaning and value of human life in ways irreducible to naturalism. Thinkers whose company I have long valued, like Augustine and Pascal, raise exactly the right questions, even if I cannot accept their answers."
Well, okay, although at least in Hitchens' defense, I think "naturalism" is not the basis of his rejection of religion. It is the expression of religion in bigotry, hostility to free inquiry (which philosophers like Critchley should well appreciate) and the violence and coercive consequences that theocracies impose upon its subjects that bothers Hitchens most, in addition to witnessing close hand actions of political theocracies, such as the fatwa against his friend Rushdie. (If I have one basic criticism of Hitchens, OTOH, it would be his selective citation of religious texts to prove his point.) Hitchens was above all a scorching contrarian. Books like "The Missionary Position" (depicting Mother Theresa as a fraud) were to many who are more tolerant of religion as impolite jabs at the charitable works of religion. IMO that might have been overreaching, but reverence for charity seems rather questionable compared to the justifiable canonization of those, like Archbishop Romero, whose vision of justice have required them to confront profoundly challenging questions like violence/non-violence in the midst of civil war. But I digress, and these are points we could return to when reviewing that book.
Anyway, when it comes to philosophy, I'm still very much a mere lay person. So I expect I'll skip the chapters whose explorations draw heavily from Rousseau, Carl Shmitt, Badiou, Heidegger and others I haven't read. But what I've read so far has been engrossing and stimulating.
As he points out, in the colonized world (citing Fanon) violence equates with expropriation, "whose effects constitute the daily humiliation of the wretched of the earth. When violence is understood in this way, there is no doubt that principled assertion of nonviolence simply miss the point. Worse still, nonviolence can be an ideological tool introduced by those in power in order to ensure that their interests are not adversely affected by a violent overthrow of power."
Those who have taken NVCD training (or studied it extensively, or approached their own tactical and strategic approaches to resistance with a serious consideration of how their intended actions have considered the context -- I wouldn't claim to be that disciplined, although it helps to occasionally read books like this) learn pretty early on that when most effective, nonviolence is not pacifism (most obvious examples being Gandhi, MLK). But there are too many instances where nonviolence is simply ineffective, to be crushed by the state, military, police. What then? Here it's easy to miss Critchley's answer. I had to digest parts of this carefully, go back and re-read certain passages. Because he's not simply suggestion it's a matter of historical context: "Violence is not reducible to an act in the here and now which might or might not be justifiable in accordance with some or other conception of justice." "It is never a question of a single act, but of one's insertion into a historical process saturated by a cycle of violence and counter-violence." The problem is not so much violence as it is the romantisation of revolutionary violence.
I think what he's driving at is a rejection of universal principles, ideological or religious. Whether philosophers would call that "existential" I don't know. But he see this in Paul as well as Kierkegaard, whose counsel was not (in his words) "to sit in the anxiety of death, day in and day out, listening for the repetition of the eternal," but rather (in Critchley's words) to commit to "a rigorous and activist conception of (inner) faith that proclaims itself into being at each instant without guarantee or security, and which abides with the infinite demand of love." Tall order.
The "faith of the faithless" is thus a "subjective strength that only finds its power to act through an admission of weakness: the powerless power of conscience. Conscience is the inward ear that listens for the repetition of the infinite demand. .. It has been my contention in this book that such an experience of faith is not only shared by those who are faithless from a creedal or denominational perspective, but can be experienced by them in an exemplary manner."
Which leads me back to a final quote from the introduction, which I decided to start reading after testing my interest on that chapter about violence and nonviolence:
"Faith is not, then, necessarily theistic. However, and this has also been a constant concern of my work, an atheistic conception of faith should not be triumphalist. I have little sympathy for the evangelical atheism of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens that sees God and religion as some sort of historical error that has happily been corrected and refuted by scientific progress. On the contrary, the religious tradition with which I am most familiar -- broadly Judeo-Christian - offers a powerful way of articulating questions of the ultimate meaning and value of human life in ways irreducible to naturalism. Thinkers whose company I have long valued, like Augustine and Pascal, raise exactly the right questions, even if I cannot accept their answers."
Well, okay, although at least in Hitchens' defense, I think "naturalism" is not the basis of his rejection of religion. It is the expression of religion in bigotry, hostility to free inquiry (which philosophers like Critchley should well appreciate) and the violence and coercive consequences that theocracies impose upon its subjects that bothers Hitchens most, in addition to witnessing close hand actions of political theocracies, such as the fatwa against his friend Rushdie. (If I have one basic criticism of Hitchens, OTOH, it would be his selective citation of religious texts to prove his point.) Hitchens was above all a scorching contrarian. Books like "The Missionary Position" (depicting Mother Theresa as a fraud) were to many who are more tolerant of religion as impolite jabs at the charitable works of religion. IMO that might have been overreaching, but reverence for charity seems rather questionable compared to the justifiable canonization of those, like Archbishop Romero, whose vision of justice have required them to confront profoundly challenging questions like violence/non-violence in the midst of civil war. But I digress, and these are points we could return to when reviewing that book.
Anyway, when it comes to philosophy, I'm still very much a mere lay person. So I expect I'll skip the chapters whose explorations draw heavily from Rousseau, Carl Shmitt, Badiou, Heidegger and others I haven't read. But what I've read so far has been engrossing and stimulating.
October 18, 2025
The faithless liberals wish for an exposed life, one without mystery. They yearn for a society governed by rational discourses and mutual confraternities. Yet, in reality, once the order becomes stripped of its shadow, it loses its vitality and appears as nothing more than a lifeless skeleton. Their blind faith in reason blurs their eyes so that they deny the power of the unfathomable; that puissant force of the unseen ground that both terrifies and binds. Can man healthily breathe in full light? Can he preserve his sanity when everything is fully exposed? De Maistre realized that man will never revere something he can fully comprehend. The hidden, the cruel, the sacrificial are the true ligaments of society. Critchley seeks to ground political existence in love, mutuality, fragility, “existence,” and nearly every postmodern immanentized category that always bursts due to its inability to bear the weight of the descending forces from the transcendent. De Maistre answers that what truly holds men is the awe, terror, and fear before something that cannot be looked in the eye. To expose is nothing but to desacralize. The more visible the political becomes, the less it commands. Even Rousseau realized this; therefore, he invented a civil religion to ensoul his new order.
January 3, 2018
Explores interesting concepts that provoke a lot of thought, but ultimately does not have much of a prescription of how to avoid authoritarianism. Makes a lot of references to his ethical system laid out in Infinitely Demanding, reading it shortly to see if these hurdles can be overcome by that work.
July 24, 2017
Very interesting discussion of Rousseau and the role of the civic religion, but mostly this reminds me of what is worst about modern academic writing. I'm just not prepared to invest the time to understand the jargon anymore.
June 23, 2020
A fascinating exploration of how faith mysticism and love can contribute to the growth of an anarchism that works through economies of violence to promote the emergence of new political identities from the interstitial spaces around state power and politics.
January 22, 2018
Politikasına katılmakla birlikte düşünsen içeriği çok derin olmayan bir kitap.
July 10, 2025
I will need to reread this book when I'm more intelligent. If you like books that make you go, "hmmm" this is one.
September 15, 2014
First third of book addresses the theme of "faith" directly. This faith is not attached to a metaphysical God but to a civil religion.. to politics. Critchley recasts "modernization" from a process resulting in an increasingly secular society to one in which the sacred remains central but is redefined. Oscar Wilde, Rousseau, and St. Paul feature in this argument. I was completely lost in much of it. I expected an easier go of it , and perhaps the false start through me off. Critchley writes very accessible philosophy in a book called "Continental Philosophy" part of the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. And even more clearly in his NYTimes blog called "The Stone." There is also a very popular discussion with Critchley and Philip Seymour Hoffman that was taped sometime in the months leading to PSH death. They talk art, theater, creativity. Really underlines what a loss his death is.
January 2, 2015
Great resource for thinking about the intersections between politics, faith and violence. See myself returning to it soon for a second reading after the first impression of Critchley's argument sinks in.
Finally, Critchley really is one of the best close readers of text around. Particularly liked his treatment of Rousseau - fresh thoughts on a subject like social contract theory are always good!
In all, It's really a deeply hopeful and inspiring book and the are moments where his argument fully develops and blossoms in your mind with breathtaking clarity - while this only becomes apparent sporadically throughout, it happens often enough to merit a full recommendation.
Finally, Critchley really is one of the best close readers of text around. Particularly liked his treatment of Rousseau - fresh thoughts on a subject like social contract theory are always good!
In all, It's really a deeply hopeful and inspiring book and the are moments where his argument fully develops and blossoms in your mind with breathtaking clarity - while this only becomes apparent sporadically throughout, it happens often enough to merit a full recommendation.
January 29, 2014
Начало, про гражданский катехизис Руссо, довольно увлекательное, но с какого-то момента книга начинает напоминать шизофазию / сцены из фильма Вуди Аллена "Любовь и смерть" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5cQc...
Главное, невозможно понять, как именно автор понимает свою задачу: анализ, проповедь, публицистика, наставление, просто неймдроппинг.
Главное, невозможно понять, как именно автор понимает свою задачу: анализ, проповедь, публицистика, наставление, просто неймдроппинг.
July 28, 2014
Critchley's engagement with Rousseau is the highlight of the book, and his penetrating and perhaps exhaustive look at faith is worth the price of admission. As usual, the sparring between him and Zizek is quite spirited. The final 20 or so pages really gives a clear look at Critchley's conception of resistance, and it ties the book to a close nicely.
May 24, 2012
Excellent exploration of the meaning of faith, and of the difficulty of acting responsibly (among other things).
July 15, 2016
A great read. Lucid, compelling and well-written analysis of the intersection between religion, politics, and violence.
February 22, 2014
mystical anarchism, indeed.
November 14, 2012
Excellent.
July 24, 2017
I read the chapters, as the author suggests one could, out of order, and didn't feel like I missed anything. I'll be coming back to it for a while, I think. It stirred some intriguing sermon thoughts.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews