CLAUDIO BONVECCHIO 

Augusto Del Noce e le contraddizioni della secolarizzazione

N. 164

Summary — In emphasing the central role of secularization in modern times, Del Noce points out nihilism and the "uprooting " effect this induces. But nihilism and such " uprooting " are the tragic sign of man’s failure towards himself: it is the victory of homo faber over homo sapiens. Against this tragic reality, Del Noce puts himself as katechon, as one who curbs the deception, but also as one who makes the effort to reveal it, even at the price of appearing difficult and unpopular. But katechon is also one who suggests. And Del Noce proposes a path: that of refusing action which secularizes, being the path of contemplation and wisdom. But this divides itself into two opposite routs. One is the moral-ascetic path which finds, in its journey, the limit of institution, the other is the extra institutional mysticism path. The latter is the gnostic route of Simon Weil, an author with whom Del Noce shares a profound harmony, but also radical differences. At the incompatibility of the two routes — the institutional and the mystic — one can contrast a solution which wouldn’t have displeased Del Noce, had his basic rationalism consented him to develop it. This is the path of coincidentia oppositorum, which overcoming the opposition of the mystic and institutional paths, searches complete union with divinity, whichever this may be, and at any cost. But this is the choice of risk and of the extreme decision, where the seduction of the abyss can corrupt from within the human soul.