»Religious« Postmodernism: Gianni Vattimo

Abstract

Gianni Vattimo (retired professor of the University of Turin) is one of the best known contemporary »post–modern« philosophers. Unlike other post–moderns, he sees Christianity as one of his sources: returning to part of his Catholic roots, he sees the Christian idea of kenosis as the origin of the weakening of any strong idea of truth, especially in the field of morality. A secular society would then be a »natural« consequence of the Christian event. In the post–modern context, precisely because strong claims about truth are being widely rejected, the rationalistic basis of atheism has disappeared, the social power of the Church is increasingly limited, while Christianity itself and its values are being rediscovered. Vattimo’s is a reinterpreted Christianity, which does not concern itself much with who God might actually be (nor with any »metaphysical« idea), with our relation to God and above all with the moral consequences of faith that might disturb the individual.