Populism and the Late Schelling on Mythology, Ideology, and Revelation

Sean McGrath

Revelation according to Schelling is not the possession of any institutionalform of Christianity; it is not even bound to faith or confession. Rather,revelation disseminates itself freely and universally throughout history. Itnow inextricably permeates modernity. Schelling’s Philosophy ofRevelation does not look backwards to an event in the first century of thecommon era, it looks forward to the genuine singularity, the moment whenhumanity will become adequate to the divine subjectivity which lives in it,that is, the penultimate eschaton proclaimed by Paul and the author or theBook of Revelation, the age of righteousness prior to the generalresurrection.1 By bringing mythological consciousness to an end anddrawing real limits to rationalism (idealism), revelation first establishes afree relation of the human being to the divine. At the same time, revelationliberates philosophy and culture from religion and inaugurates secularconsciousness. History, according to the late Schelling, which heundeniably reads Eurocentrically, is moving toward this third age ofrevelation (after Catholicism and Protestantism), in which all of humanitywill pass over into absolute or true monotheism (Trinitarianism). With theuniversalization of the revelation, the free and philosophical appropriationof its content (what Schelling somewhat misleadingly calls “philosophicalreligion”), all historical forms of religion will be overcome, including, itshould be added, all historical forms of institutional Christianity. Thecomplete secularization of the world will be achieved, and the sundered human community unified, without expense of historical or cultural diversity.