René Girard (full name: René Noël Théophile Girard; 25 December 1923 – 4 November 2015) was a French-American historian, literary critic, philosopher, and anthropologist of religion, best known for developing mimetic theory.
Key Biographical Facts
Born in Avignon, France.
Studied medieval history at the École Nationale des Chartes in Paris.
Earned a PhD in history from Indiana University (United States).
Spent most of his academic career in the US, teaching at institutions including Duke University, Bryn Mawr College, Johns Hopkins University, SUNY Buffalo, and Stanford University (where he was Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization until retiring in the mid-1990s).
Elected to the Académie Française in 2005.
Converted to Roman Catholicism later in life (after an earlier agnostic period) and integrated Christian insights deeply into his later work.
Died in Stanford, California, at age 91.
Core Ideas: Mimetic Theory
Girard’s thought centers on three interconnected concepts:
Mimetic Desire
Human desire is not primarily autonomous or based on the inherent value of objects. Instead, we desire things because others desire them (imitation/mimesis). Desire is triangular: subject → model/mediator → object. This can foster learning and culture but often produces rivalry, envy, and conflict when people compete for the same objects or status.
The Scapegoat Mechanism
Escalating mimetic rivalries can threaten to destroy a community in a “war of all against all.” Societies resolve this crisis by uniting against a single (often arbitrary) victim—the scapegoat—whose expulsion or death restores peace. The victim is later sacralized, giving rise to myths, rituals, prohibitions, and the foundations of religion and culture.
The Judeo-Christian Revelation
Archaic religions and myths conceal the innocence of the scapegoat. The Hebrew Bible and especially the Gospels (particularly the Passion of Christ) uniquely expose the scapegoat mechanism by revealing the victim’s innocence. This undermines sacrificial violence and opens a path toward non-violent resolution of conflict. Girard saw Christianity as a powerful antidote to the cycle of mimetic violence.
Major Works
Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque (1961; English: Deceit, Desire, and the Novel) — Introduces mimetic desire through analysis of novelists such as Cervantes, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, and Dostoevsky.
La Violence et le sacré (1972; Violence and the Sacred) — Extends the theory to anthropology, myth, and sacrifice.
Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde (1978; Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World) — His magnum opus, synthesizing the theory and applying it to Scripture.
Le Bouc émissaire (1982; The Scapegoat).
Je vois Satan tomber comme l’éclair (1999; I See Satan Fall Like Lightning).
Later works include analyses of Shakespeare and reflections on modern violence (e.g., Achever Clausewitz / Battling to the End).
Girard’s interdisciplinary ideas have influenced theology, philosophy, anthropology, literary studies, psychology, economics, and political thought. He has been described by some (including Michel Serres) as a “Darwin of the human sciences” for offering a grand explanatory framework for desire, violence, culture, and religion.
His work remains influential and sometimes controversial, particularly regarding its claims about the uniqueness of the Judeo-Christian tradition and its applications to contemporary social and political phenomena.
18 sources
rene girard second coming
Thought for 9s
René Girard viewed the Second Coming (Parousia) and apocalyptic themes through the lens of his mimetic theory, emphasizing human rather than divine violence. He argued that the Christian revelation has already initiated an apocalyptic process by exposing and disabling the ancient scapegoat mechanism that once contained societal violence.Unherd
Key Elements of Girard’s Apocalyptic Perspective
Girard’s later works—especially Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978), I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (1999), and Battling to the End (Achever Clausewitz, 2007/2009)—develop an increasingly explicit eschatological outlook. He interpreted biblical apocalyptic texts (e.g., Matthew 24, Revelation) not as predictions of God’s wrathful punishment, but as warnings about the consequences of unchecked human mimetic rivalry once sacrificial solutions no longer work.Girardianlectionary
Christianity dismantles the scapegoat mechanism: Archaic religions and cultures stabilized themselves through collective violence against a scapegoat (victim). The Gospels uniquely reveal the victim’s innocence (especially in the Passion of Christ), making effective scapegoating impossible once this truth spreads. Without the old “safety valve,” mimetic crises escalate more dangerously.Iep.utm
The apocalypse has already begun: Girard stated that “the apocalypse has already begun.” Secularization and the decline of traditional religious restraints accelerate this process. Societies lose the residual sacrificial and institutional restraints (what Girard, drawing on 2 Thessalonians, calls the katechon—the force that “holds back” the end). What remains is pure mimetic rivalry escalating “to extremes.” This clearing of old structures, in his view, prepares the ground for Christ’s return.Unherd
Apocalyptic violence is human, not divine: In the Gospels, predicted violence (wars, nation rising against nation, etc.) is attributed to human beings, not to God. Old Testament imagery of divine judgment is reinterpreted as describing the mimetic crisis itself. God does not inflict the violence; humanity does, through its refusal of the non-violent alternative offered by Christ.Girardianlectionary
The Second Coming and the alternative: The absolute novelty of the Second Coming represents the definitive triumph of Christ beyond the current order of time and place. Girard saw two possibilities facing humanity: either radical conversion (imitating Christ’s renunciation of rivalry and violence, learning to love one another) or self-destruction through escalating mimetic conflict, potentially aided by modern technology (nuclear weapons, etc.). Politics and traditional institutions can no longer fully contain the crisis; only conversion offers a way forward.Thinkingfaith
Girard rejected popular fundamentalist readings of apocalypse as a divine score-settling. His version is anthropological and theological: Christianity reveals the truth that can save humanity from its own violence, yet by doing so it also removes the mechanisms that previously limited that violence. The result is an unprecedented historical situation—simultaneously the greatest opportunity for peace and the greatest risk of catastrophe.
This “apocalyptic turn” in Girard’s thought became more pronounced in his final decades and has been discussed by scholars as a form of biblical eschatology that engages (and critiques) figures such as Hegel and Heidegger while aligning in certain respects with Augustinian perspectives.Onlinelibrary.wiley
In short, for Girard the Second Coming is tied to the unveiling of the scapegoat mechanism and the consequent choice between conversion and escalating violence. The end times are not primarily about God’s destruction of the world, but about humanity confronting the consequences of its own mimetic desires once the old sacred solutions have been exposed as false
Print This Article
