Introduction: Religion in the Secular Age

When Jürgen Habermas was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Bookdealers in 2001, he noted in his acceptance speech – “Glauben und Wissen (Faith and Knowledge)” – that the contemporary societies “need to expect the perseverance of religious communities in the context of an increasingly secularized environment”1. The notion “secular” refers here to a process that has characterized modernity: the irreversible severance of core segments of public life from religious ties. Today, public spheres such as constitution and law, the sciences, art and education are all based on specific criteria of argumentative legitimation.

The title of the present book alludes to Charles Taylor’s masterpiece A Secular Age, published in 2007, which focuses on the fact that, in our time, “faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others.”2 Elaborating a complex reflection, Taylor first notes that we all share “the immanent frame” that is constituted by the insight that the various structures we live in are part of a “natural, or this-worldly order which can be understood in its own terms, without reference to the ‘supernatural’ or ‘transcendent’”. He emphasizes that “this order of itself leaves the issue open, whether, for purposes of ultimate explanation, […] or final sense-making, we might have to invoke something transcendent”3. The central thesis of this book is that we need to face the fact that “the whole culture experiences cross pressures, between the draw of the narratives of closed immanence on one side, and the sense of their inadequacy on the other, strengthened by encounter with existing milieus of religious practice”4. Taylor’s own approach is revealed as he raises doubts whether the longing for human “fullness”5 that believers as well as non-believers share could be captured appropriately within the limits of “closed immanence”.

In the recent debate, one crucial question has been this: What does it mean for human beings whose living conditions are defined by the principles of modernity – who do, for instance, identify with the idea of the liberal constitutional state, and to whom it is a matter of course to consider results of research in their decision making – to be religious believers? Is it possible for people today to avoid the following dichotomy: to either adhere, like many conventional believers, to a premodern theological conception of “ordo” that clearly contradicts the secularized conditions, or to consider themselves “enlightened” in the sense of regarding religion toto genere as obsolete? The most contested concept in this debate has been “reason”: As the widely accepted scientistic understanding of that term implies the view that religious convictions represent the “other of reason,” employing an “extraterritorial”6 language, the question arises whether believers and, indeed, converts are required to perform a sacrificium intellectus, or whether the concept “reason” rather allows for a more comprehensive definition. Along this line of thought the question arises whether, or how, a mutual enrichment of faith and knowledge might be possible today. In which way could views based on religion contribute to enhancing the differentiation and sensitivity of public discourse?

It seems obvious that these issues, which concern the fundamental question whether the human existence ultimately might make sense, do not belong exclusively to the domain of theology. This volume assembles a variety of approaches to these issues representing the perspective of diverse fields of the humanities; the contributions cover reflections ranging from philosophy – including American pragmatism, critical theory, Jewish philosophy and deconstruction – through studies of US and Canadian literature and modern history as well as media studies, to contemporary theology, musicology, and Slavic poetry.

Part 1: Post-Kantian Approaches to Religion begins with an essay by Irene Kajon, “God as the Infinite: Martin Buber’s Interpretation of Kant’s Concept of Religion”, who examines whether there might be an understanding of religion that fits our secular age. She draws attention to the way in which Martin Buber employs Kant’s concept of “antinomy” as he explains “how we, finite beings with all our weaknesses and fragilities, nevertheless come into positive contact with the infinite or eternal”. Introducing Buber’s reflections on the “nearness-distance” between humans and the divine, Kajon highlights his view that the core of Kant’s thinking lies in the thesis that human beings encounter “a God whom they conceive as a Subject who acts with goodness and justice in the world”. As she explains, this reading of Kant provides the basis of Buber’s claim that there exists a dialogical relationship between the human being and God, as elaborated in his I and Thou. The very essence of this relationship is the sphere of ethics: eternity becomes a “Presence” when we encounter other “Thou”s: God is the medium (Mittlertum) of all our relations (Beziehungen) in the world. Underscoring Buber’s view that this concept of God “could perhaps be accepted by both believers and non-believers in our secular societies,” Kajon addresses a topic that is also discussed in some other essays in the present volume. Non-believers, she suggests, might acknowledge that Buber offers a new perspective on religion – most notably, by provoking the question which understanding of the term “religion” might be most appropriate for our time. She advocates reading this word, rather than with traditional references to “relegere” (Cicero) or religare (Lactantius), with the Hebrew term “da’al” in mind, which means “ligare”: a term that “means not only to connect, but – taking into consideration the term legati – also to entrust: human beings are charged to act in the world as if they were messengers of the Infinite”.

One most pressing moral issue is addressed in the essay – “(Secular) Theodicy, Antitheodicy, and the Critique of Meaning: Pragmatist Reflections” – by Sami Pihlström, who deals with the grave evil marking the history of humankind, as experienced, in particular, in the horrendous suffering caused by the totalitarian political systems of the twentieth century. His focus is on the concept of “theodicy” that philosophers of religion7 have introduced to signify theories seeking to morally excuse God’s allowing the world to contain such pointless pain. As he highlights the “theodicist tendency to view suffering as (necessarily) meaningful in some deeper […] sense”, he notes that such thoughts are expressed not exclusively in religious but also in metaphysical and secular terms. In contrast, the essay elaborates an “antitheodicist critique” that challenges “the pursuit of meaning(fulness) […] associated with theodicies”. This “project of defending antitheodicism”, Pihlström claims, “is crucially based on broadly Kantian premises”.8 He provides a specific argumentative edge, however, by emphasizing that “antitheodicism is a normative view according to which we should not approach the problem of evil and suffering by offering, or expecting others to offer, theodicies”. In other words, “antitheodicism urges us to ethically acknowledge the victim’s experiences of the meaninglessness of their suffering”. Discussing the search for meaningfulness, Pihlström pays particular attention to the diversity of reactions to the extreme suffering of the Holocaust. His survey culminates in the thesis that what is needed today is “a philosophical and ethical critique of the very project of meaning-making”, based on the insight that we rather need to carefully reflect on the way in which “we respond to the evil and suffering around us”. In this manner, Pihlström pleads for an antitheodicism that is defined “as a thoroughly humanistic project,” while emphasizing that this ethical critique of theodicist views “is not directed at God and does not even have to take any stand whatsoever regarding the question concerning God’s existence”. He suggests adopting a pragmatic critique of meaning, inspired by classical American pragmatism, especially William James. The essay concludes with a caveat, however, as Pihlström argues that pragmatist antitheodicism must be aware of the potential problem of a “return” of theodicism.

The relevance of American pragmatism and of Martin Buber for today’s discourse on religion in a secular age is addressed again, albeit from a different angle, in the essay “Beyond Dogmatic Scientism: Hilary Putnam on Religious Faith” by Ludwig Nagl. The introductory segment of this essay highlights, with reference to John Rawls and Charles Taylor, that modern states, unlike traditional ones, are decoupled from a (substantial) religious legitimation. In modern societies, Nagl notes, religious faith has thus attained, as William James argues, the status of an “option”. The main focus is then on the way in which Hilary Putnam’s thoughts on religion have...