Political-theological source of the “State of exception”: Re-reading sovereignty within the divine oikonomia

Abstract

The state of exception is mostly considered within the context of the modern sovereignty. Although the state of exception is thought within the modern paradigm of state governance, it carries a Christian context. the Christian context represents an eschatological way of power that comes in a miracle which cannot be interiorized by present. This divine way of governance therefore refers to a power which occurs as a threshold. the theological-political form of governance, which is also called the divine oikonomia, shows the power of governance in creating an exception which cannot be foreseen by any current contexts. That is why the power of modern sovereignty resembles its archaic model in which the divine power of God is designated as a pure potentiality which cannot be limited within any contextuality. This article aims to explore the theological source of modern sovereignty in order to understand the very meaning of governance.