 |
| The Triumph of Divine Providence, 1633, Palace Barberini, Ceiling Fresco by Pietro da Cortona |
Just as a good father can entrust to his son the execution of certain functions and duties without in so doing losing his power and his unity, so God entrusts to Christ the ‘economy,’ the administration and government of human history.” Oikonomia therefore became a specialized term signifying in particular the incarnation of the Son, together with the economy of redemption and salvation (this is the reason why in Gnostic sects, Christ is called “the man of economy,” ho anthropos tes oikonomias). The theologians slowly got accustomed to distinguishing between a “discourse—or logos—of theology” and a “logos of economy.” Oikonomia became thereafter an apparatus through which the Trinitarian dogma and the idea of a divine providential governance of the world were introduced into the Christian faith. But, as often happens, the fracture that the theologians had sought to avoid by removing it from the plane of God’s being, reappeared in the form of a caesura that separated in Him being and action, ontology and praxis. Action (economy, but also politics) has no foundation in being: this is the schizophrenia that the theological doctrine of oikonomia left as its legacy to Western culture.
[...]
…oikonomia merges with the notion of Providence
and begins to indicate the redemptive governance of the world and human
history. Now, what is the translation of this fundamental Greek term in the
writings of the Latin Fathers? Dispositio. The Latin term dispositio,
from which the French term dispositif, or apparatus, derives, comes
therefore to take on the complex semantic sphere of the theological oikonomia.
The “dispositifs” about which Foucault speaks are somehow linked to this
theological legacy. They can be in some way traced back to the fracture that
divides and, at the same time, articulates in God being and praxis, the nature
or essence, on the one hand, and the operation through which He administers and
governs the created world, on the other. The term “apparatus” designates that
in which, and through which, one realizes a pure activity of governance devoid
of any foundation in being. This is the reason why apparatuses must always
imply a process of subjectification, that is to say, they must produce their subject.
- Giorgio Agamben, What is an Apparatus
The redemptive governance of subjects is what has been secularised and remains fully in force. In order for one to require redemption and salvation though, they must 'fall' into sin. The apparatuses are those that guarantee that we remain in sin but simultaneously provide the means via which we might achieve redemption and salvation. The reality that they want to conceal is the fact that we are always already saved.
