MEYER, William J. - Private Faith or Public Religion

Private Faith or Public Religion? An Assessment of Habermas's Changing View of Religion Author(s): William J.
Meyer Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), pp. 371-391 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1205378 . Accessed: 10/12/2013 01:10
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Private Faith or Public Religion? An Assessment of Habermas's Changing View of Religion*

William College J. Meyer / Concordia
Whatever themes and questions have helped to define the modern study of religion, few have been more central than the question concerning the public role of religion. Philosophers of religion, social theorists, and theologians, among others, have analyzed and debated, from various angles, whether religion in modernity ought to be viewed and understood principally as a private concern of faith or as a public voice making truth claims about the meaning and nature of ultimate reality.' One influential contemporary voice weighing in on this debate is the German philosopher and social theorist Jiurgen Habermas. Over the past decade or so, as Habermas has further developed and refined his critical and communicative theory, his view of religion has changed. This change has been recognized by some but, to the best of my knowledge, has never been systematically assessed.2 My aim in this essay is to provide that needed assessment. First, I will describe Habermas's earlier view of religion and compare it with his current view.3 Then I will analyze and assess
* An earlier draft of this essay was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, November 22, 1993, Washington, D.C. I am grateful to Franklin Gamwell and my Concordia (Moorhead, Minn.) colleagues, Larry Alderink, Steven Paulson, and Ernest Simmons, who read and commented on earlier drafts of this essay. I am also grateful to my wife, Cindy, who offered valuable editorial suggestions. 1 For example, see Judith Berling's 1991 presidential address to the American Academy of Religion: Judith Berling, "Is Conversation about Religion Possible?" Journal of theAmerican Academy of Religion 51, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 1-22. 2 Helmut Peukert, for example, draws attention to this change. See Helmut Peukert, "Enlightenment and Theology as Unfinished Projects," in Habermas,Modernity, and Public Theology, ed. Don S. Browning and Francis Schiissler Fiorenza (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 54. I briefly assess Habermas's changing view of religion in my doctoral dissertation. See William J. Meyer, "The Relation of Theism to Ethics: A Comparison of the Views of Reinhold Niebuhr and Jtirgen Habermas" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1992), pp. 59, 129-30. s In my exposition, I will assume that my readers have some familiarity with Habermas's work.
@ 1995by The University of Chicago.All rightsreserved.0022-4189/95/7503-0003$01.00
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The Journal of Religion the significance of this change. In brief, Habermas has gone from a complete dismissal of religion to an acceptance or even affirmation of religion as a source of consolation in the face of life's existential crises. I will argue, however, that this change, as it stands, is not of great significance because Habermas still denies the public character of religion, and this is due, I contend, to his continued denial of the cognitive claims of religion and metaphysics. Yet, I will also suggest that his current affirmation of the existential usefulness of religion points to the limits of his own postmetaphysical view, insofar as it points to the importance of the metaphysical question. Hence, I conclude that, if Habermas is to take his own current affirmation of religion with full seriousness, he will need, at some point, to reassess his denial of the metaphysical enterprise by specifically addressing process metaphysics.
HABERMAS'S EARLIER VIEW OF RELIGION
In his earlier view, Habermas thought that religion had simply become superfluous in modern life. After the collapse of religious and metaphysical worldviews, all that can be salvaged from religion, he concluded, is "nothing more and nothing other than the secular principles of a universalist ethic of responsibility."4 Habermas came to this conclusion on the basis of his developmental evolutionary interpretation of modernity and, specifically, modern rationality. At the heart of this interpretation, as Donald Jay Rothberg points out, is Habermas's contention that modern structures of rationality have evolved or developed to the point where they represent a genuine logical advance over the rational structures found in religious and metaphysical worldviews.5 Like the cognitive advances achieved in the development of individuals (ontogenesis), there are, Habermas reasons, homologous or corresponding developments in the logical structures and cognitive potential of collective worldviews (phylogenesis). That is to say, Habermas believes there is and has been an evolutionary development from myth to metaphysics to modern communicative rationality. "Mythology permits narrative explanations with the help of exemplary stories." Religious and metaphysical worldviews permit "deductive explanations from first principles ... beyond which one cannot go." Whereas modern communicative rationality, as exemplified by
4Jiirgen Habermas, "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World," in Browning and Schiissler Fiorenza, eds., p. 237. In this passage, Habermas quotes his own earlier statement found in Jiurgen Habermas, Die neue Uniibersichtlichkeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985), p. 52. For an even earlier formulation, see Juirgen Habermas, "On Social Identity," Telos19 (Spring 1974): 94. 5 See Donald Jay Rothberg, "Rationality and Religion in Habermas' Recent Work: Some Remarks on the Relation between Critical Theory and the Phenomenology of Religion," and Social Criticism11 (Summer 1986): 222-23. Philosophy
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Private Faith or Public Religion? modern science, permits explanations and justifications based on "revisable theories and constructions that are monitored against experience."6 As suggested by these brief descriptions, one of Habermas's key criteria for measuring development is "reflexivity" (i.e., the ability to revise, question, and criticize fundamental assumptions and claims). As Rothberg puts it, "reflexivity involves, for Habermas, the ability to thematize as problematic any explicit or implicit claim, and to investigate the validity of such a claim free of coercive, dogmatic, or unconscious constraints."'7 Put simply, Habermas believes that modern communicative rationality, unlike mythologies and metaphysical worldviews, enables one to examine validity claims free from dogmatic constraints. A second major criterion for Habermas, and perhaps the most central, is "differentiation."s The logical advance achieved by modernity stems primarily from the fact that modern reason or rationality has become differentiated into three distinct validity claims: claims of objective truth, claims of moral rightness, and claims of subjective truthfulness or authenticity. Correspondingly, modern culture has become differentiated into three distinct value spheres, each pursuing its own inner logic, thus leading to the emergence of expert cultures in science, morality and law, and art. Cast in sociological terms, this differentiation was made possible by the "linguistification of the sacred," which unleashed, in Habermas's words, "an unfettering of the rationality potential of action oriented to mutual understanding."9 This "unfettering" meant that social coordination, which formerly could only be based on a religiously ascribed consensus, could now be based on a rationally achieved consensus or, to say the same, a "linguistically established intersubjectivity." 0o Furthermore, only at this modern stage of development could the rational will-formation envisioned in the "ideal communication community" be properly conceived and, thus, pursued or approximated. As Steven Lukes lucidly describes, Habermas postulatesthe possibilityof societyreachinga stage of transparentself-reflection, among partieswho are "freeand equal"and whose discoursehas reacheda stage where "the level of justificationhas become reflective,"in the sense that mythoand the Evolution of Society,trans. and introduction by 6Jiirgen Habermas, Communication Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), pp. 103-4. 7 Rothberg, pp. 222-23. also discusses two additional criteria that I will not take up, namely, "decentra8 Rothberg tion" and "autonomy"; ibid., p. 223. 9Jirgen Habermas, The Theoryof Communicative A CriAction, vol. 2, Lifeworldand System: tique of FunctionalistReason, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), p. 288; see also pp. 82, 107. For a detailed discussion, see Gary M. Simpson, "The Linguistification (and Liquefaction?) of the Sacred: A Theological Consideration of firgen Habermas' Theory of Religion," Explorations: Journal for AdventurousThought7 (Summer 1989): 21-35. 10 and theEvolutionof Society,p. 116. Habermas, Communication
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logical, cosmological, and religious modes of thought have been superseded can be achieved, free of dogmas and "ultimate and "rationalwill-formation" grounds,"through ideal mutual self-understanding." In sum, for Habermas, the value or significance of rational and cultural differentiation is that it opens up the possibility for rational public criticism; it opens up the possibility for genuine public discourse and consensus concerning the rational validity of truth and moral claims. In contrast, premodern religious and metaphysical worldviews, Habermas alleges, inhibited the potential for rational public criticism in at least two related ways. First, their underlying ultimate principles, such as the notion of God, were never exposed to rational criticism and argumentative doubt (i.e., they lacked reflexivity). And second, in their quest for totality-in their quest to symbolize and describe the whole of realitythey always fused or blended together the different validity claims and the different value spheres of culture (i.e., they lacked differentiation).'2 This fusing together in the name of the sacred or totality formed a barrier to learning and inhibited the potential for rational public criticism and, thus, limited the degree to which the profane realm could be rationalized. For instance, Habermas might point to the silencing of Galileo by the church as an illustration of how religion and metaphysics inhibited the pursuit of objective truth or science and, hence, inhibited the rationalization of everyday life. Because religious and metaphysical worldviews limited the claims that were subject to rational criticism, they served an ideological function. In short, Habermas would say that pre-Enlightenment religion stood at the center of society because its totalizing worldview bound or hindered the differentiation of reason and culture, whereas modern religion finds itself at the periphery of society precisely because reason and culture have now become highly differentiated. Religion, therefore, has become more superfluous than ideological because it no longer exerts limitations upon the claims subject to rational criticism and discourse. Differently stated, premodern religious and metaphysical worldviews were ideological, Habermas contends, because they offered a sharp otherworldly dualism that was often used to explain and justify, for instance, an unequal distribution of earthly goods. As he described it, "religious and metaphysical worldviews ... have the form of doctrines that can be worked up intellectually and that explain and justify an existing political
11 Steven Lukes, "Of Gods and Demons: Habermas and Practical Reason," in Habermas: Critical Debates, ed. John B. Thompson and David Held (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982), p. 134. 12 See Jiirgen Habermas, The Theory Action, vol. 1, Reasonand the Rationalof Communicative ization of Society,trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981), p. 203.
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Private Faith or Public Religion? order in terms of the world-order they explicate."' But, in contrast to these dualistic worldviews, modern religion and theology have become so "this-worldly," Habermas insists, that "God has come to signify little more than a structure of communication which compels the participants to rise above the contingency of a merely external existence on the basis of mutual recognition of each other's identity." 14 This statement, like the one I quoted from Habermas at the beginning of the section, suggests that modern religion has simply become superfluous. All that remains after the collapse of religious and metaphysical worldviews are the ideals of universal mutuality and reciprocity and these ideals are sufficiently incorporated into the structure of communication and discourse ethics. In sum, religion adds nothing that is not already found in a secular ethic of responsibility.
HABERMAS'S CURRENT VIEW OF RELIGION
Yet, over the past decade or so, Habermas has come to admit that his earlier dismissal of religion was too hasty. For instance, he now acknowledges that his functionalist description of religion in The Theory of Communicative Action was too one sided and that even in traditional societies, religion did not and does "notfunction exclusivelyas a legitimation of governmental authority." Moreover, he now states that he was too quick to follow Max Weber in describing the development of modern religion in terms of the privatization of faith and too quick to conclude that only secular ethical principles could be salvaged from the truths of religion. From the outside perspective of a social scientist, Habermas now concludes, one must leave open the question as to whether anything more can be retrieved from the fragments of modern religion. The social scientist can only decide this question reconstructively-looking backwardnot closing off discussion in advance. Perhaps even more interestingly, Habermas now claims that the question must also remain open from the "performative stance" or perspective of the philosopher. As one who borrows from traditions and who can sense that the intuitions long expressed in religious language can neither be simply rejected nor rationally retrieved, the philosopher must wait and see what essential content can be critically appropriated from the religious traditions.'5 After declaring the need for a more open-minded neutrality on the part of both the social scientist and the philosopher, Habermas gets to the crux of his current view by suggesting that religion is indispensable and
13Habermas, Theory Action, 2:188. of Communicative
14
15
Habermas, "On Social Identity," p. 94. Habermas, "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World," pp. 236-37.
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The Journal of Religion irreplaceable, as long as it continues to offer an inspiring and consoling message that helps people cope with the existential crises of life. Habermas clearly points to this inspiring and consoling message in the following two passages. Viewed from without, religion, which has largelybeen deprived of its worldview functions, is still indispensablein ordinarylife for normalizingintercoursewith the extraordinary.For this reason, .... philosophy,even in its postmetaphysical form, will be able neither to replace nor to repress religion as long as religious language is the bearer of a semanticcontent that is inspiringand even indispensable, for this content eludes (for the time being?)the explanatoryforce of philosophicallanguage and continues to resisttranslationinto reasoningdiscourses.'6 On the premises of postmetaphysical thought, philosophycannot provide a substitutefor the consolationwherebyreligion investsunavoidablesufferingand unrecompensedinjustice,the contingenciesof need, loneliness,sickness,and death, with new significanceand teachesus to bear them."7 From these passages, it is evident that Habermas now views religion more tolerably, if not favorably, insofar as it is able to provide resources to help human beings come to grips with the shattering experiences that crash in on the profane character of everyday life. Religion, he suggests, in spite of its nonrational content, still offers something that eludes the differentiated character of modern communicative reason and culture. As he says elsewhere, "as long as no better words for what religion can say are found in the medium of rational discourse, [communicative reason] will even coexist abstemiously with [religion], neither supporting it nor combatting it."18 Helmut Peukert sums up this view by noting that recently, "Habermas has stressed that communicative reason cannot simply take over the role of religion. Above all, it cannot console." 19 In formulating and articulating his current view, Habermas distinguishes between "religious," "theological," and "philosophical" discourses. Religious discourse, he asserts, is conducted within the communitiesof the faithful[and] takesplace in the context of a specific tradition with substantivenorms and an elaborateddogmatics. It refersto a common ritualpraxisand basesitselfon the specifically religiousexperiences of the individual.20
'6Jiirgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking: PhilosophicalEssays, trans. William Mark Hohengarten (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), p. 51. Remarks on Discourse Ethics, trans. 17See also Juirgen Habermas, Justification and Application: Kieran P. Cronin (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993), p. 146. 18 Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking,p. 145. 9 Peukert (n. 2 above), p. 54. 20 Habermas, "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World," p. 231.
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Private Faith or Public Religion? Furthermore, religious discourse is joined to "a ritual praxis that, in comparison with profane everyday praxis, is limited in the degree of its freedom of communication."21 Two observations are in order here. First, when Habermas suggests that the freedom of communication is limited, I take him to mean that religious discourse lacks reflexivity-that is, its underlying convictions and presuppositions are not open to debate. And second, since the claims made in religious discourse are based on specific religious experiences and presuppose a specific religious tradition and dogmatics, they are valid or applicable only for the "communities of the faithful." In other words, unlike the profane practice of everyday life, which raises universal validity claims (claims of objective truth and moral rightness), religious discourse raises validity claims that are community or culturally specific. "Theological discourse," Habermas continues, "distinguishes itself from religious [discourse] by separating itself from ritual praxis in the act of explaining it." Along with explaining and interpreting religious praxis, theology "also aspires to a truth claim that is differentiated from the spectrum of the other validity claims." That is to say, theology aspires to raise a truth claim that is distinct from the three validity claims that have become differentiated in modernity. As I will argue in the next section, theology or religion raises or seeks to raise a fourth validity claim that is metaphysical in character (i.e., pertaining to the whole of reality). Yet, for his part, Habermas insists that theology did not present a danger to the faith of the community as long as it used the basic concepts of metaphysics.Indeed, the metaphysical concepts were immune to a differentiationof the aspects of validityin a fashion similarto the basic religious concepts. This situation only changed with the collapse of metaphysics.Under the conditionsof postmetaphysical thinking,whoeverputs forth a truth claimtoday must ... translateexperiences that have their home in religious discourseinto the languageof a scientificexpert culture-and from this language retranslatethem back into praxis.22 Here Habermas reasserts that metaphysical worldviews lacked differentiation and reflexivity, and, hence, theology never called the underlying truth claims of faith or religion into question. With the collapse of metaphysics, however, all claims to truth, including those stemming from religious and theological discourses, must be translated into the language of one of the three expert cultures and their corresponding validity claims (science, morality and law, or art). Thus, even though Habermas acknowledges that theology "aspires to a truth claim" distinct from the
21 22
Ibid., p. 233. Ibid., p. 234.
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The Journal of Religion other three validity claims, he insists that this aspiration cannot be fulfilled after the collapse of metaphysics. What distinguishes philosophical discourse from theological discourse, Habermas contends, is philosophy's "methodical atheism." Both philosophy and theology can seek to retrieve and appropriate the essential content from religious experience and discourse but the crucial difference, he insists, is that philosophycannot appropriatewhat is talkedabout in religiousdiscourseas religious experiences.These experiencescould only be added to the fund of philosophy's resources... if philosophyidentifiesthese experiences using a description that is no longer borrowedfrom the languageof a specificreligioustradition,but from the universe of argumentativediscourse that is uncoupled from the event of revelation.At those fracturepoints where a neutralizingtranslationof this type can no longer succeed, .... argumentativespeech passes over beyond religion and science into literature,into a mode of presentationthat is no longer directly measuredby truth claims.23 Unlike philosophy, which must translate the content of religious experience into the rational discourse of one of the three validity claims, theology "loses its identity," Habermas alleges, "if it only cites religious experiences, and ... no longer acknowledges them as its own basis." Moreover, "religious discourses would lose their identity if they were to open themselves up to a type of interpretation which no longer allows the religious experiences to be valid as religious."24 In sum, Habermas concludes that philosophy must translate the content of religious experience into publicly accessible and rationally justifiable claims, and, if this fails, it must then move into the expressive realm of literature. In contrast, he thinks theology should remain true to the distinctiveness of religious experience (i.e., remain tied to the particularities of a specific religious tradition). Otherwise, theology "loses its identity." Because metaphysics is dead, Habermas reasons, theology cannot publicly or rationally justify its truth claims and, therefore, should stick to the dogmatic task of interpreting and explaining the religious experiences and practices distinctive to its own culturally specific form of life. For, in his words, "that syndrome of revelation faith, held together in ritualized praxis, still forms a specific barrier [to rational learning and Thus, it seems that, from Habermas's vantage point, public discourse]."''25 should theology only be addressed to the religious community and not to the wider public, because its claims cannot be rationally justified. Simply put, he seems to envision dogmatic but not philosophical theology.
23 24 25
Ibid., p. 233. Ibid., pp. 233, 234. Ibid., p. 234.
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PrivateFaithor Public Religion?

AN ASSESSMENT
In order to assess the significance of Habermas's changing view of religion, let me briefly sum up his two positions. In his earlier views, Habermas thought that religion had become superfluous because its cognitive claims and content could no longer pretend to be rationally justified, given the evolutionary development of modernity and its differentiation of reason into three (and only three) distinct validity claims. That is to say, religious and metaphysical worldviews had purported to provide a valid understanding of the meaning and nature of the whole of existence, but their purported truth was accepted only because the three rational validity claims (truth, rightness and truthfulness, or authenticity) were still undifferentiated. As Habermas says, "the basic concepts of religion and metaphysics had relied upon a syndrome of validity that dissolved with the emergence of expert cultures in science, morality, and law on the one hand, and with the autonomization of art on the other."'26 Once the differentiation of reason took place, the collapse of religious and metaphysical views was an irreversible fait accompli. And because only those claims that can be rationally justified can be publicly valid, religion has no public role to play in modernity. In his current view, Habermas now thinks that religion is existentially helpful, insofar as it offers a consoling and inspiring message that enables humans to cope with the crises and tribulations that challenge the order of everyday existence. But note that, in affirming the existential usefulness of religion, Habermas still denies its cognitive claims and, hence, still denies its public role. This denial is evident, for example, in his description of theology, which he confines to interpreting the experiences and practices distinctive to the religious community rather than making public truth claims. For as he says inJustificationand Application,"no validity claim can have cognitive import unless it is vindicated before the tribunal ofjustificatory discourse."27 But given Habermas's contention that there are only three validity claims, religion can never be vindicated before the tribunal of rational public discourse. Thus, by suggesting that religion is existentially helpful but not rationally justifiable, Habermas simply reinforces the view that religion is merely a matter of private utility and not one of public truth or validity. Hence, it is my contention that Habermas's understanding of religion has not changed significantly, because he still relegates religion to the private realm and confines it to the sidelines of public life. An interesting example of this is found in a recent interview that Ha26 27
Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking,p. 19. Habermas,J ustificationand Application,p. 146.
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The Journal of Religion bermas did with the Polish intellectual Adam Michnik. Michnik mentioned that he had read an article in Poland that said that Habermas "had a distanced and slightly derogatory view of Poland and Solidarity." In response, Habermas says: I regarded Solidarityas a movement on par with the opposition in Yugoslavia before 1968 or the PragueSpring.Where I had a certainemotionaldifficultywas with the priest who alwaysstood behind Walesa.... When I visited Poland in 1979 I obviouslyhad contactonly with a smallsegment of the intellectualreality. Despite this I gained the impression that these Poles had produced a strongly positivistand secular intelligentsia,of the kind that can only exist in a Catholic country.I was delighted about that. I have learned that positivismis one of the most stableelements of the Enlightenmenttradition.2s In this passage, Habermas expresses his negative reaction to what he takes to be the heteronomous imposition of Catholic teaching and authority on Polish politics. Yet, he goes beyond that when he asserts that he was "delighted by" the presence of a "strongly positivist and secular intelligentsia" in Poland and "that positivism is one of the most stable elements of the Enlightenment tradition." What these statements reveal, I think, is that Habermas distrusts all forms of religious participation in public life, and this is due, again, to his denial that religious and metaphysical claims can be publicly or rationally vindicated. Positivism is stable, Habermas reasons, precisely because it denies the cognitive import of religious claims and, thus, denies the public character and role of religion. In order to draw out the implications of Habermas's denial more fully, let us focus our attention on the cognitive dimension of religion. In his famous definition of religion, Clifford Geertz argues that religion not only establishes "long lasting moods and motivations" but that it does so precisely by "formulating conceptions of a general order of existence." Every religion, Geertz insists, must affirm something "about the fundaSchubert Ogden makes this same point when mental nature of reality.'"29 he says that "whatever else a religion is or involves, it crucially is or involves conceptualizing and symbolizing a comprehensive understanding of human existence that claims to be true."'30 What both Geertz and Ogden point to is the metaphysical aspect of religion. As they both suggest, religion, by definition, makes claims about the nature of ultimate reality,
28 "'More Humility, Fewer Illusions':A Talk between Adam Michnikand Jiirgen HaNewYork Review bermas," (March24, 1994), p. 29. This interviewfirst appearedin of Books and was later publishedin DieZeiton December12, 1993. It was the PolishweeklyPolityka translatedfrom Germaninto Englishby Rodney Livingstone. 29 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York:Basic Books, 1973), pp. 90, 98-99. 30 SchubertM. Ogden, On Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 110.
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Private Faith or Public Religion? that is, it attempts to speak validly about the whole of existence. Thus, religion inevitably raises or seeks to raise a fourth validity claim that is metaphysical-one that deals with the whole or totality of existence. And because religion claims, as David Tracy suggests, "to construe the nature of ultimate reality (and not any one part of it), ... it [is] logically impossible to fit religion as simply another autonomous sphere alongside science, ethics, and aesthetics."3' In other words, religion and metaphysics purport to raise a fourth validity claim that underlies the other three claims outlined by Habermas. Of course, it is precisely the possibility of this fourth validity claim that Habermas denies. His denial stems from two related assumptions. First, he assumes that metaphysical claims about totality necessarily "blend or fuse together" the other three validity claims, thus leading to a loss of differentiation. And, second, he assumes that metaphysical claims cannot be rationally justified. I will take up these assumptions in order and will argue that Habermas is mistaken in both cases.
THE POSSIBILITY OF METAPHYSICS AFFIRMED
First, metaphysical claims or claims about totality need not, it seems to me, lead to a heteronomous blending or fusing together of the different validity claims. What is needed to avoid this pitfall, as Rothberg points out, is a form of "integration which goes beyond but includes differentiation." What is sought is some cognitive language or framework that is able coherently to conceptualize "unity-in-difference." To be sure, as Rothberg notes, "Habermas seems unwilling to admit the possibility of an integration which would preserve differentiation."32 But it is precisely this possibility that is, I think, cogently formulated in Tracy's concept of "limit" and "limit language." The cognitive claims of religion and metaphysics can speak coherently of totality inclusive of diversity (i.e., without collapsing differentiation) because the religious dimension or horizon emerges at the limits of our common human experience-as found in everyday life and in the various cultural spheres (science, morality and law, and art). As Tracy says, "I hope to show how, at the limit of both the scientific and moral enterprises, there inevitably emerge questions to which a response properly described as religious is appropriate." That is, as we reflect on the "limits-to" everyday life and these different cognitive or cultural enterprises (science, morality, art, politics, etc.), we explicitly disclose the "fundamental structures of our existence," which function as
31 David Tracy, "Theology, Critical Social Theory, and the Public Realm," in Browning and Schtissler Fiorenza, eds. (n. 2 above), p. 36. 32 Rothberg (n. 5 above), p. 235.
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The Journal of Religion an underlying "limit-of" or "ground to" our everyday experience. For instance, a limit question encountered in morality is "why be moral?" This question inevitably arises at some point in the moral enterprise but cannot be answered by it. As Tracy succinctly states, "we cannot really produce a moral argument for being moral." Rather, an answer to this type of limit question must come from some underlying evaluation of the whole of reality-some fundamental affirmation of the worthwhileness of existence or some basic affirmation of order and value.33 "It is true," Habermas admits, "that a philosophy that thinks postmetaphysically cannot answer the question that Tracy ... calls attention to: why be moral at all?" Yet, Habermas insists that such a question does not arise meaningfullyfor communicativelysocializedindividuals.We acquire our moralintuitionsin our parents'home not in school.And moralinsights tell us that we do not have any good reasons for behavingotherwise:for this, no of moralityis necessary.34 self-surpassing By asserting that limit questions, such as this, do "not arise meaningfully for communicatively socialized individuals," Habermas seems to imply that these questions are always already answered affirmatively by socialized individuals. In short, he appears to identify "socialization" with, among other things, an affirmation of the worthwhileness of existence. But, if so, he merely begs Tracy's question. For why should one assume that this question is always moot or that persons always know why they should be moral? For instance, in their study of American culture, the fundamental question that Robert Bellah and his colleagues focused on is "how to preserve or create a morally coherent life."35 As Bellah and company rightly understood, a morally coherent life is ultimately grounded in one's answer to the question "why be moral?" and this question sometimes needs to be explicitly addressed and reflected upon. For, ultimately, one has no compelling reason to be moral if one does not
33 David Tracy, Blessed Ragefor Order:TheNew Pluralismin Theology(Minneapolis: Winston/ Seabury Press, 1975), pp. 94, 93, 102. See pp. 92-109 for a thorough discussion of Tracy's concept of limit and limit language. I recognize that Tracy's recent work has sought to refine and perhaps even rethink some of his earlier views. For instance, he now thinks that the relationship between form and content must be taken much more seriously than it has been in the past. But whatever his current reformulations involve, he still asserts that he holds to the basic tenets of the panentheistic view that he defended in BlessedRagefor Order. In short, Tracy's view, as he once said to me, is that "metaphysics is necessary but not sufficient." See David Tracy, "Literary Theory and Return of the Forms for Naming and Thinking God in Theology," Journal of Religion 74 (July 1994): 307-8. 34 Habermas, "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in This World," p. 239. For a discussion of Tracy and Habermas, see Anne Fortin-Melkevik, "Le statut de la religion dans la modernite selon David Tracy and Jtirgen Habermas," Studiesin Religion/Sciences religieuses 22, no. 4 (1993): 417-36. 35 Robert N. Bellah et in AmericanLife al., Habits of the Heart: Individualismand Commitment (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), p. vii.
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Private Faith or Public Religion? affirm that life is worthwhile or meaningful. This fact is poignantly borne out, for example, in Cornel West's analysis of nihilism in contemporary African American culture. This nihilism results, West observes, in "numbing detachment from others and [a] self-destructive disposition toward the world. Life without meaning, hope, and love breeds a coldhearted, mean-spirited outlook that destroys both the individual and others." What is required, West concludes, is, among other things, a public and cultural conversation about meaning and value.36 Yet, it is this type of public conversation that Habermas denies is either needed or possible. Moreover, by claiming that we acquire our moral intuitions in our parents' home rather than in school, Habermas suggests that our fundamental evaluations of totality are intuitive, prereflexive, and private, as opposed to cognitive, reflexive, and public. He says this in another context when describing the communicative tasks of human subjects. He asserts that, beyond engaging in the cognitive, regulative, and expressive uses of language-that is, raising and justifying the three validity claimscommunicativelyacting subjectsare freed from the work of world-constituting syntheses.... This background[i.e., the lifeworld],which is presupposedin communicativeaction, constitutesa totalitythat is implicitand that comes along prethe movement it is thematized;it remainsa totality reflexively-onethat crumbles only in the form of implicit, intuitively presupposedbackgroundknowledge.Takand projecting ing the unity of the lifeworld,which is only known subconsciously, it in an objectifyingmanner onto the level of explicit knowledgeis the operation that has been responsiblefor mythological,religious, and also of course metaphysicalworldviews[my emphasis].37 It is interesting to note that Habermas, who places so much value and importance on reflexivity as one of the gains of modernity, strongly denies the need for it when it comes to evaluations of totality. We all operate with some evaluation of the whole, he suggests, but this evaluation must remain implicit and prereflexive, for "it crumbles the moment it is thematized." Of course, the reason why he thinks it crumbles and the reason why he downplays the importance of reflexivity is because he denies the possibility of metaphysics, which is to say, he believes that all evaluations of totality are culturally specific. This leads us to a discussion of his second assumption, but, before getting to that, I want to pursue yet another angle. As suggested above, Tracy identifies two categories of limit questions and situations: limit-situations in everyday life and limit-situations that arise in the cognitive and cultural enterprises, such as science and moral36 Cornel West, "Nihilism in Black America," in Race Matters (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), pp. 23, 20.
Habermas,Postmetaphysical Thinking, pp. 142-43.
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The Journal of Religion ity. Habermas, it was said, denies that these limit questions arise meaningfully for socialized individuals; or at least those of the second type-those pertaining to morality and the other cognitive enterprises. Yet, insofar as he now asserts that religion is "indispensable" for helping us cope with the existential crises of life, Habermas must, I judge, inevitably affirm the importance of the first category of limit questions-those existential questions that arise in life's "boundary situations." Boundary situations (such as illness, guilt, anxiety, or the recognition of one's own mortality) not only permit but seem to demand, as Tracy notes, "reflection upon the existential boundaries" of our everyday existence; and such reflection "disclose[s] to us our basic existential faith or unfaith in life's very meaningfulness."'38 In other words, Habermas's current affirmation of the existential usefulness or necessity of religion, suggestively points, it seems to me, to the limits and weaknesses of his own postmetaphysical view. For, as Schubert Ogden cogently argues, the existential question,which asks about the meanof ultimate is for us, always tied to and presupposes an answer ing reality to the metaphysical question,which asks about the nature or structure of ultimate reality in itself. These two questions are always closely related because it is "only insofar as ultimate reality in itself has one structure rather than another that it can have the meaning for us it is asserted to have.""39What Ogden points out is that, insofar as one gives existential meaning to human experience, one implicitly affirms or claims that this meaning is adequate because it is true or authentic (i.e., because it is in conformity with the way things really are). Hence, Habermas's affirmation of the existential usefulness of religion implicitly points to the importance of metaphysics and the metaphysical question. In response, Habermas might object that his use of the term "existential" is different from Ogden's. He might contend that, whereas Ogden speaks of "existential" in terms of the meaning of ultimate reality for human beings as such, his own use of the term is meant simply to suggest that religion is helpful because it offers individuals and religious communities an inspiring and consoling message in the face of life's crises and extraordinary events. Hence, he might insist that, unlike Ogden, his use of the term "existential" does not imply a public truth claim. But in what sense, I ask, could religion offer genuine inspiration or meaningful con-
38 Tracy, BlessedRagefor Orderp. 105. Tracy attributes the notion of "boundary-situations" to Karl Jaspers. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 39 Schubert M. Ogden, The Point of Christology 34. See pp. 29-38 for a discussion of the relation between the existential and metaphysical questions.
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Private Faith or Public Religion? solation if it did not, at least implicitly, make claims about the meaning of ultimate reality for human beings as such? Is not religion's inspiration and consolation found specifically in the hope that is generated by or based on religion's assertions about the meaning and nature of ultimate reality? As Geertz argues, religion establishes moods and motivations, such as inspiration and consolation, precisely by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence (i.e., by formulating and asserting conceptions that claim to be true or universally valid). Or, as Paul Griffiths puts it, it is just because religious truth-claims are comprehensive or "absolute" claims that "gives them such power; to ignore this [comprehensive character] is to eviscerate them, to do them the disservice of making them other than what they take themselves to be."40Thus, it is because religion claims to offer a valid understanding of the meaning and nature of ultimate reality that it can offer genuine inspiration and consolation in the face of life's existential crises. Hence, Habermas's use of the term "existential" necessarily implies, I judge, an existential question of the kind Ogden formulates-one that is tied to the question of metaphysics. Furthermore, by drawing on Habermas's earlier work, one might also take this argument in a slightly different direction by suggesting that human beings have a fundamental "cognitive interest" in addressing the existential and metaphysical question(s). By "cognitive interests," Habermas means that the cognitive directions of human inquiry have at least some roots in the basic demands or imperatives of human existence.41 Though Habermas has indeed revised his thought since Knowledgeand Human Interests,his recent work on communicative action should not be viewed as a complete abandonment of these earlier ideas but, rather, as "a necessary development of his original project."42 Thus, my point is simply to suggest that, if Habermas is at all right about affirming some connection between knowledge and human interests, and I think he is, then one can argue that humans have a "metaphysical" or "religious" interest underlying their other interests, namely, what Habermas calls the "technical," "practical," and "emancipatory" interests. For instance, Carl
40 Paul J. Griffiths, An Apology A Studyin the Logic of InterreligiousDialogue for Apologetics: (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), p. 3. and Human Interests,trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: 41 See Jiirgen Habermas, Knowledge Beacon Press, 1971). An earlier conception of this idea of cognitive interests was offered by Bergson at the beginning of the century. Bergson says, "We do not aim generally at knowledge for'the sake of knowledge, but in order to take sides, to draw profit-in short, to to Metaphysics satisfy an interest" (Henri Bergson, An Introduction [New York: G.P Putnam's Sons, 1912], pp. 40-41). 42 Thomas McCarthy, TheCriticalTheory ofJiirgen Habermas(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978), p. 56.
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The Journal of Religion Jung concludes that

when you study the mental history of the world, ... you see that people since times immemorialhad a general teaching or doctrine about the wholenessof the and 'ethical'aspect. world.... [This] teaching had alwaysa 'philosophical' In our civilizationthis spiritualbackgroundhas gone astray.... Thus one of the most importantinstinctualactivitiesof our mind has lost its object. As these views deal with the world as a whole, they create also a wholeness of the individual,so much so, that [if lost, people] ... lose their orientation.43 Notice that Jung describes this question about the whole as "one of the most important instinctual activities of our mind." By this, I take him to mean that we have a basic or, in his words, "instinctual" need to engage our mind and rational faculties on this most central human question.44 Humans, in other words, have a fundamental, constitutive interest in properly conceiving and relating to the whole and this interest underlies their other interests. In brief, this constitutive interest (in properly conceiving and relating to the whole) stems from the inescapable "constitutive choice" that human agents must make in choosing a fundamental understanding that informs and orients their relation to possible purposes as such. That is to say, given the conditions of human freedom, one must choose, at least implicitly, some fundamental stance toward all possible purposes and this stance or choice ought to be true or authentic (i.e., properly related to the whole). In articulating what he takes to be Kant's basic insight, Franklin Gamwell makes this point as follows. Kant'spoint, then, is this: Reason requires that humans choose understandings that are true or, in a more contemporaryterm, authentic, and practicalreason legislates for itself the following law: Choose the authentic constitutiveunderstanding.... I believe that Kant'scategoricalimperative... may [therefore]bereformulated:Act only with that understandingof yourself that is the a priori
Times (November 19, 1993), op-ed. This was a 43 C. G. Jung, "Crazy Times," New York previously unpublished letter ofJung's dated November 12, 1959, addressed to Ruth Topping, a prominent Chicago social worker. It should be noted that Jung goes on to describe this fundamental interest in totality as 44 "the irrational wholeness of human life." This phrase might suggest that Jung, like Habermas, thinks that the question of totality is an "irrational" or nonrational one. Yet, as I mentioned above, it is important to notice that he also describes this question as "one of the most important instinctual activities of our mind." By this, I again take him to mean that we have a basic or "instinctual" need to engage our mind rationally on this most central human question. But even if Jung does agree with Habermas-that the question about totality cannot be rationally adjudicated-my sole purpose here in quoting Jung is to suggest that there might be a fundamental human interest in totality. That Habermas (and Jung) is wrong on the "irrational" character of totality, I will try to argue in the next section.
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truth about your choice among possiblepurposes. That this a priori truth is prescriptiveis what I call Kant'sinsight.45 Of course, it is the very possibility of identifying a true or authentic constitutive understanding that Habermas denies when he denies metaphysics. Thus, I turn now to his second assumption, namely, that metaphysical claims cannot be rationally justified.
A CRITIQUE OF HABERMAS'S DENIAL OF METAPHYSICS
This second assumption is best summed up when Habermas says, "There is no point in defending [the relationship to the whole], without some definable claim to knowledge."46 By this, I take him to mean that metaphysical claims (or claims about the whole) cannot be rationally justified in the context of public discourse like claims of science and morality. Rather, the validity of metaphysical assertions is always restricted to the viewpoint of an individual or specific group. Unlike truth and moral claims, which, in theory, can be universally valid, metaphysical claims are always culturally specific. Plainly put, Habermas believes that metaphysics can no longer "convince the daughters and sons of modernity with good reasons."47 He is convinced that the question of metaphysics has been put to rest and that a postmetaphysical understanding of existence is sufficient. Yet, I am persuaded that his denial of metaphysics runs into its own problem, namely, the problem of self-contradiction. In order to show this, I will first describe the mode of validation that I take to be proper to metaphysical claims, and then I will briefly critique Habermas's view. Metaphysical claims, narrowly defined, are claims about the nature of ultimate reality as such. That is, they are claims about the underlying character or conditions of existence as such and, hence, pertain to the whole or totality of existence. As Gamwell has it, "because metaphysical traits necessarily characterize all existence, they must be present in any and all experienced realities.""48 Differently stated, then, valid metaphysical assertions refer to those characteristics or aspects of existence that are logically necessary, as opposed to those aspects that are merely logically contingent. Therefore, since valid metaphysical claims refer to those traits that are logically necessary, they are validated by showing that their
and the Necessityof God (San 4' Franklin I. Gamwell, The Divine Good:ModernMoral Theory Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990), p. 37. 46 Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking,p. 38. 47 Ibid., p. 14. Liberal Theoriesof IndependentAssociations(Chi48 Franklin I. Gamwell, BeyondPreference: cago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 124. See also Gamwell, The Divine Good, pp. 158-63.
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The Journal of Religion denials are self-contradictory (i.e., by showing that their absence is logically inconceivable). Hence, metaphysical claims are self-validating because they cannot be denied without contradiction. Thus, even the denial of all metaphysical claims turns out to warrant the metaphysical enterprise because that denial is self-contradictory. To be sure, metaphysical claims and their proper form of validation are distinct from other kinds of claims, but, again, this is because they refer to those underlying or necessary traits that are "present in any and all experienced reality." As noted above, Habermas insists that all metaphysical claims (all claims about the totality of existence) are only culturally specific rather than universally valid. On the surface, this assertion is a claim about claims dealing with totality. But, implicitly, it is itself, I judge, a claim about totality. Habermas's implied claim is that totality does not have a structure or character that is knowable. This implied claim is evident in the passage quoted above where Habermas insists that "there is no point in defending the [relationship to the whole], without some definable claim to knowledge." Claims about the whole do not have a definable claim to knowledge, he contends, because totality (or the whole) does not have a structure or character that is knowable. But what kind of claim is this? It is not a scientific truth claim or a moral rightness claim or even a subjective claim of truthfulness or authenticity. On the contrary, it appears to be the very kind of claim the possibility of which he denies. For to claim that totality does not have a structure that is knowable is, indeed, to make a claim about totality.49And, in order to vindicate this claim, one would have to be able to validate claims about totality, which, of course, is exactly what he explicitly denies is possible. Differently stated, in order to validate the assertion that all claims about totality are merely culturally specific, one would, in effect, have to assess all those claims in relation to a universally valid understanding of totality. One would have to have a true or valid understanding of the whole in order to know that all claims about the whole are merely culturally specific. But it is precisely the possibility of a universally valid understanding of totality that Habermas explicitly denies. Hence, his denial of metaphysics cannot itself be rationally valid, because, in order to justify it,
49 Another example of Habermas making an implicit claim about totality is illustrated when he says, "If we do not want altogether to relinquish standards by which a form of life might be judged ... perhaps we should talk instead of a balance among the nonself-sufficient moments, an equilibrated interplay of the cognitive with the moral and the Action, 1:73). By suggesting that aesthetic-practical" (Habermas, Theoryof Communicative there should be a balance between the three worlds or spheres (cognitive, moral, and aesthetic), Habermas is implicitly making a claim about the whole, for this claim is clearly not a claim about scientific truth, moral rightness, or subjective truthfulness.
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Private Faith or Public Religion? one would have to presuppose a valid understanding of totality, which is precisely what his assertion denies is possible. In sum, negative claims about totality are, nonetheless, claims about totality that require their own distinct kind of validation. Hence, Habermas's denial of metaphysics is self-contradictory because it requires a metaphysical form of validation. In short, his denial presupposes what it explicitly denies. By calling for renewed attention to the metaphysical enterprise, I am not calling for a return to classical metaphysics or the premodern worldview that Habermas rightly dismisses. The classical metaphysical concept of a completely necessary being-one that is immutable and necessary in all respects-has indeed been shown by Kant and others to be incoherent. Rather, I am suggesting that there is a coherent alternative, namely, neoclassical or process metaphysics. On its dipolar account, the divine reality must be, in differing respects, both contingent and necessary, changing and unchanging, temporal and eternal, relative and absolute, etc. It is this neoclassical or process alternative that Habermas has, thus far, failed to address adequately. Because he wrongly assumes that the metaphysical enterprise is exhausted by the classical formulation, he wrongly concludes that metaphysics has irretrievably collapsed. Hence, he concludes that modern thought must be postmetaphysical and that religion must remain as a private source of consolation rather than as a public voice making truth claims. In contrast, I contend that process metaphysics offers a "live option" that coherently carries out the metaphysical enterprise and, thus, is able rationally and publicly to redeem the cognitive claims of religion.50
50 As suggested above, Habermas rejects the metaphysical enterprise because he believes that it can no longer offer, in the light of modernity, convincing or persuasive reasons and, thus, cannot offer "some definable claim to knowledge." Indeed, as he says in his essay "Metaphysics after Kant," "there can be no metaphysical thinking in the strict sense [under modern conditions, i.e., after Kant's critique]" (Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking,p. 13). This conclusion ultimately stems, I judge, from his implicit agreement with Kant that one cannot make valid claims about existence or reality as such precisely because there are no characteristics or aspects of existence that are logically necessary. That is to say, he agrees with Kant that all positive existential statements are logically contingent and, thus, can be denied without contradiction. Kant formulates this point also by saying that existence is never a predicate (i.e., is never already contained in the concept of the subject). Existential statements, rather, are always synthetic (always rest on the principles of possible experience) and synthetic statements are never analytic (never rest on the principle of logical necessity). Since metaphysical claims, by their very nature, can only be redeemed by showing that their denials are self-contradictory, valid metaphysical claims are possible only if Kant's (and Habermas's) position is itself, at some key point, self-contradictory. It is precisely this, I think, that some process metaphysicians have persuasively shown. Briefly stated, if no positive existential statements are logically necessary, as Kant maintains, then it must follow that completely negative existential statements are logically possible; for example, the statement
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CONCLUSION
I have argued that the change in Habermas's view of religion is not, as it stands, significant, because he still denies the "publicness" of religion and this is due, I reasoned, to his continued denial of the cognitive claims of religion and metaphysics. Yet, I also suggested that his current affirmation of the existential usefulness of religion points to the limits of his own postmetaphysical view, since the existential question is, I argued, ultimately tied to the metaphysical question. Hence, if Habermas is to take his own current affirmation of religion with full seriousness, at some point he will need to reassess his denial of the metaphysical enterprise by specifically addressing process metaphysics. In spite of his persisting denial, however, Habermas rightly recognizes that the cognitive content and public prospects of religion are crucially tied to the question of metaphysics. That is to say, even though he answers the crucial question negatively, he still knows what the crucial question is. Thus, even with his denial of metaphysics, Habermas still helps to focus the proper agenda for students and scholars of religion. For, if the basic character of religious claims is indeed "to speak validly of the 'whole' of reality," then religion necessarily raises or attempts to raise a fourth validity claim, which is metaphysical.5' Though religious thinkers should not and need not deny the other three validity claims that have emerged in the differentiation of modernity, they must recognize that religion itself raises a public claim to truth concerning the whole of reality, if they are to take the cognitive claims and public character of religion seriously. On this point, it is interesting to note how few theologians have challenged Habermas specifically on the question of metaphysics.52Thus, it appears,
"nothing exists" must be logically possible. But it is exactly this claim that process thinkers, such as Gamwell and Charles Hartshorne, convincingly argue is self-contradictory since "to deny the existence of anything is always implicitly to affirm the existence of something else; the complete absence of existence is impossible." Alternatively stated, the existential statement "nothing exists" is ultimately indistinguishable from a self-contradictory existential statement because neither one identifies a positive existential possibility (Gamwell, The Divine Good,pp. 159, 112-13). Thus, contrary to Kant and Habermas, metaphysics can offer a "definable claim to knowledge" because one can rationally identify and redeem logically necessary existential claims-and it is these claims that constitute the class of valid metaphysical assertions. 51 Tracy, "Theology, Critical Social Theory, and the Public Realm," p. 36. 52 For example, Peukert recognizes that the question of metaphysics arises, but he appears to dismiss any need to pursue it. Peukert says, "I realize that here all the classical questions of a philosophical doctrine of God and of the relationship between metaphysical thought and theology reappear. Yet, to refuse to give up at this point the task of reflection does not necessarily mean a relapse into an objectifying metaphysics. A... 'postmetaphysical' [way of] thinking ... does not also have to be a 'posttheological' thinking" (Peukert [n. 2 above], p. 60). What is needed, I have argued, is not a relapse into classical metaphysics
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Private Faith or Public Religion? as Ogden observed many years ago, that modern theology is itself profoundly skeptical of metaphysics.53 But this skepticism implies, it seems to me, an inevitable skepticism about the cognitive content and public character of religion. In short, if religious thinkers do not take their own claims seriously, who will?
but some form of neoclassical or process metaphysics. Besides Tracy, the only other thinker who has thus far, to my knowledge, directly or explicitly challenged Habermas on the question of metaphysics is Dieter Henrich. See Dieter Henrich, "Wasist Metaphysik-was Moderne? Zw6lf Thesen gegen Jiurgen Habermas," in Konzepte: Essayszur Philosophiein der Zeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987). Dallas: Southern 53 Schubert M. Ogden, The Realityof Godand OtherEssays (1963; reprint, Methodist University Press, 1992), p. 93.
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Private Faith or Public Religion? An Assessment of Habermas's Changing View of Religion Author(s): William J.

Private Faith or Public Religion? An Assessment of Habermas's Changing View of Religion*

@ 1995by The University of Chicago.All rightsreserved.0022-4189/95/7503-0003$01.00

The Journal of Religion

Ibid., p. 233. Ibid., p. 234.

Ibid., p. 233. Ibid., pp. 233, 234. Ibid., p. 234.

PrivateFaithor Public Religion?

Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking,p. 19. Habermas,J ustificationand Application,p. 146.

Habermas,Postmetaphysical Thinking, pp. 142-43.

The Journal of Religion Jung concludes that

The Journal of Religion

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