MARC DE WILDEWhoever ignores the political—or polemical—origin of the decision is, according to
Taubes, ‘‘immoral, for he does not understand the human condition, which is finite and,
because of this finiteness, has to separate, that is, to decide.’’^29
According to Schmitt, legal rules need sovereign decisions because they fail to pre-
scribe their application to specific cases unequivocally: ‘‘Every concrete juristic decision
contains a moment of indifference from the perspective of content, because the juristic
deduction is not traceable in the last detail to its premises.’’^30 For at least three reasons, the
decision becomes independent of the rule’s normative content. First, a legal rule cannot
anticipate the specific characteristics of the concrete case, that is, its possible exceptional
character, so that all cases that are not merely ideal textbook cases but originate in ‘‘real
life’’ itself (wirkliches Leben) need a decision to bring them under the scope of the rule.
Second, assuming that the rule is indeed applicable, it does not prescribehowit should
be applied: for example, what aspects of the case should be taken into consideration in
the light of the rule’sratio. Third, the rule does not contain any provisions concerning
which institutions would be authorized to decide the case, since, as Schmitt remarks, ‘‘a
distinctive determination of which individual person or which concrete body can assume
such an authority cannot be derived from the mere legal quality of the maxim.’’^31 There-
fore, according to Schmitt, even in the normal juridical situation a real decision is
inevitable.
By refusing to accept the reality of the decision, that is, its reality as a violent separa-
tion, the sovereign ruler can seek to escape responsibility. Schmitt mentions the concept
of responsibility only twice, in the concluding passages of the text. There he claims—
together with the Catholic theorist of the state Donoso Corte ́s—that attempts to repress
the notion of a radical exception are to be understood merely as a ‘‘method of circum-
venting responsibility [eine Methode die Verantwortung zu umgehen].’’^32 Schmitt seems to
be aiming primarily at liberals, who, as he remarks ironically, would even consider an-
swering the question ‘‘Christ or Barabas?’’ with a request for postponement or the estab-
lishment of a commission of inquiry.^33 Postponing such an extremely urgent
decision—one that doesn’t allow for any delay, and thus presents itself only in an ‘‘in-
stance of danger’’—will inevitably result in a furtively festering violence, and only a deci-
sion taken with inner conviction will provide a chance, albeit an exceptionally small one,
to bring that violence to an end. Hence, Schmitt reproaches the liberals not only for
denying the presence of state violence but also for gambling away the chances of
redemption.
The question seems to be, then, how the state of exception and the sovereign decision
should responsibly be seen in the light of political theology. Schmitt conceives of secular-
ization as a complex historical process, in which theology is banned from the political
sphere without completely disappearing. After secularization, theological expressions,
which have decisively marked the form of juridico-political discourse, can reappear at any
moment, though their original meanings and functions have become obsolete. Schmitt,
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