Sublime

Following Heidegger, for Vattimo Nietzsche’s proclamation of God’s death coincides with the end of metaphysics, the ability to reduce existence to its first principles.

Vattimo rules out any sort of public display of identity, particularly religious identity, because of the way in which such displays cut against the secular organization of life.

Religion, modernity said, is a private matter.

Indeed, for Vattimo, the lightening of existence or, as he often refers to it, its weakening allows for a post-metaphysical return of religion. Nevertheless, any such “return” must, if it is to be legitimate, pass through God’s death, meaning that it must be “weak” (i.e. lacking ultimate foundations) rather than “strong.” Religion—and any other for

Ervin Laszlo in The Chaos Point.

That is, the much-vaunted ‘autonomous individual’ of modernity makes its first appearance, as the author of true assertions, while truth ceases to be the sun, an all-encompassing horizon in which we live, something that inspires love and desire.