I would like to highlight the existence of an implicit discussion between the two authors, a dialogue that, in my view, points to one of the most important alternatives of our time when considering the relationship between politics and religion.

Let us take a look at Voegelin’s writings of the 1930s. One may be sensitive to the apparent points of consensus between the two writers, and in particular to their common criticism of the vulnerability of parliamentary democracy when confronted with the rise of radical anti-democratic parties, be it Communist or Nazi. In reality, this consensus is superficial, since the two philosophers disagree on the metaphysical, ethical, and theological foundations of politics. This disagreement becomes obvious when it comes to the question of decisionism (validity of government action depending on valid process, not truthful content). Voegelin is aware that Schmitt’s doctrine cannot be reduced to decisionism. Voegelin occasionally refers to the “Catholic” period of Schmitt’s thought in the 1920s, as he also refers to the institutionalist period of the mid-1930s.⁵ But, more importantly, decisionism appears to him not so much a particular doctrine as a general attitude in Schmitt’s thinking. Schmitt’s attitude is the reflection of a form of pneumopathology that explains his numerous changes of opinion, and, in particular, his opportunist adherence to Nazism. In short, although Schmitt was not always a decisionist in the doctrinal sense, he remained for Voegelin a decisionist in the sense of “an agnostic and unprincipled existentialist like Sartre”— that is to say, a sort of nihilist.

One of the clearest texts about Schmitt’s decisionism can be found in Voegelin’s study on “National Types of Mind and the Limits to Interstate Relations,” written in the early 1930s :

[ I ] cannot accept Schmitt’s decision. For who decides? Schmitt does not tell us; he says that the State bears the decision within itself, thus avoiding naming the subject. . . . The essence of the nation-state, as of any other type of political existence, is belief, [not decision].⁶

“Who decides?” This question brings to mind one of Hobbes’: “Quis judicavit? Quis interpretabitur?” This is also a recurring question for Schmitt: who decides, that is, who is the actual authorized person that embodies the legal norm? Only the ex nihilo decision, hence purely irrational, can give to the norm, which in itself has no more reality than an ideal abstraction, a “visibility” in the public space. For Voegelin, the question has quite a different meaning. For him, the norm is never an abstract idea, separate from concrete political reality. Each norm is an object of representation in the human mind. Therefore, the norm always acts as a motive of action. “Norms are components of reality like decisions,” ⁷ So the question is no longer about the effective subject of decision, but about the general nature of the will that makes decisions.