신권 정치와 무정부주의 사이에서 －마르틴 부버의 성서적 휴머니즘에 관한 시론－

초록

Although it is mainly by virtue of I and Thou, a book Martin Buber published in 1923, that he won a world-wide reputation as a religious thinker, his own multi-faceted thought far exceeds the rather mystical framework the book seems to offer. As an intelletual of the Weimar republic who has been nurtured by the German-Jewish complex of culture and politics, Buber evolved from a Hasidic mystic via a representative of the philosophy of dialogue into a leading exponent of biblical humanism. Setting in motion this idea, which should be distinguished from every strand of political Zionism, Buber strove to merge the Hebrew ideal of theocracy with uniquely anarchic ideas that acknowledge neither the powers that be, nor all kinds of violent revolutions. This essay aims both at highlighting which inspiration Buber gained from German philosophy and at specifying on the questions he felt obliged to address as a Jew. As for the former, one may well start with Friedrich Nietzsche whose writings Buber in his youth regarded as a kind of revelation. But it is from Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, inter alia, that Buber took his cue when he set forth on his own philosophical journey from Berlin to Jerusalem. Armed with Dilthey’s concept of experience and Simmel’s idea of interaction, Buber could keep wrestling with the problem Nietzsche had posed in a new way: What is human being? The full significance of this question can be grasped if we modify it as follows: Who is Jesus? To this question Buber answered that he is the greatest prophet in history. As for the latter, it is imperative to bear in mind that for Buber one of the contributory factors to the rise of Nazi regime was the craze for Paulinism among many Weimar intellectuals, German and Jewish alike. The Paulinism of the Weimar era was basically initiated by the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. His radical distinction between this world and the hereafter was, in Buber’s view, nothing but a germ of the catastrophe to come. Against Barth and his ilk, to which Buber believed his Jewish fellow Franz Kafka also belonged, Buber never ceased to raise objection. And it is on the basis of his solid faith in theopolitics, i.e., messianism of continuity, that Buber could keep distance both from political Zionism and religious quietism.

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