Cristianismo e Kénosis: René Girard e Gianni Vattimo em diálogo

Abstract

The theme of this dissertation is the notion of Christianity in the intersection of ideas between René Girard and Gianni Vattimo, focusing on the central idea connecting both authors, which is Christianity as kénosis (weakening). This notion is approached considering Girard's theory about the natural sacred. The idea of sacred is keypoint, because it is the way by which the religious experience is founded on the human violence. Men are guided by a desire for mimetic appropriation, which leads to rivalries. When violence became intense among the primitive societies, it triggered so much disturbance that sacrifice was required to keep the crisis under control in order to avoid the extinction of the whole group. The sacred was born from the expiatory sacrifice, expressing the rites, the interdicts and the remembrance of the sacrifice. Christianity, according to Girard's and Vattimo's perspective, reveals and condemns this process that breeds victims, pointing out that the victim is innocent. Therefore, in order to discuss kénosis and secularization, Vattimo uses this idea of a dicrease in the elements of sacred. With the sacred in dissolution, Christianity assumes its weakened form (kénosis), and caritas becomes a way of rejecting the human violence.