The nihilistic reinterpretation of the Christian heritage in the light of Gianni Vattimo's thought

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the nihilistic reinterpretation of the Christian heritage in light of Gianni Vattimo's thoughts. We seek to identify the link between secularization in postmodernity, religion, and nihilism, as well as to situate the “Weak Thought” (pensiero debole)  of the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo as a nihilistic posture of hermeneutic ontology, which seeks to establish a relationship between philosophy (pensiero debole) and the Christian message. The question we want to answer is how can the reinterpretation of the Christian heritage through nihilism contribute to the formation of the constitutive traits of Western culture according to the thought of Gianni Vattimo? The methodology used in the article is a hermeneutic analysis of the works of Gianni Vattimo, having as a primary source the work: belief - Is it possible to be a Christian despite the Church? As a result, we hope to highlight the role of secularization, which for the Italian philosopher is a process within Christianity. We want to analyze the importance that the Italian philosopher highlights in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. From the Kenosis of Jesus, Vattimo proposes that secularization be seen as a violent mechanism of the sacred natural that Jesus Christ came to unveil and deny. The result obtained is that Vattimo seeks to establish a relationship between secularization and the weakening of the being, proposing to analyze and reinterpret strong, authoritarian, and intrinsically violent thoughts, trying to think of the being outside of metaphysical objectivity. Secularization is the practical realization of Christianity as a non-sacrificial religion, and this would lead us to an ethic of non-violence.