meyer, william j. - private faith or public religion

8/13/2019 MEYER, William J. - Private Faith or Public Religion

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Private Faith or Public Religion? An Assessment of Habermas's Changing View of ReligionAuthor(s): William J. MeyerSource: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), pp. 371-391Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1205378.

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Private Faith or Public Religion?AnAssessment of Habermas'sChangingView of Religion*William . Meyer / Concordiaollege

Whatever themes and questions have helped to define the modern studyof religion, few have been more central than the question concerningthe public role of religion. Philosophers of religion, social theorists, andtheologians, among others, have analyzed and debated, from variousangles, whether religion in modernity ought to be viewed and under-stood principally as a private concern of faith or as a public voice makingtruth claims about the meaning and nature of ultimate reality.' One in-fluential contemporary voice weighing in on this debate is the Germanphilosopher and social theorist Jiurgen Habermas. Over the past decadeor so, as Habermas has further developed and refined his critical andcommunicative theory, his view of religion has changed. This change hasbeen recognized by some but, to the best of my knowledge, has neverbeen systematically assessed.2 My aim in this essay is to provide thatneeded assessment. First, I will describe Habermas's earlier view of reli-gion 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 AmericanAcademy of Religion, November 22, 1993, Washington, D.C. I am grateful to FranklinGamwell and my Concordia (Moorhead, Minn.) colleagues, Larry Alderink, Steven Paul-son, and Ernest Simmons, who read and commented on earlier drafts of this essay. I amalso grateful to my wife, Cindy, who offered valuable editorial suggestions.1For example, see Judith Berling's 1991 presidential address to the American Academyof Religion: Judith Berling, Is Conversation about Religion Possible? Journal of theAmeri-can Academy f Religion51, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 1-22.2 Helmut Peukert, for example, draws attention to this change. See Helmut Peukert, En-lightenment and Theology as Unfinished Projects, in Habermas,Modernity, ndPublic Theol-

ogy, 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. SeeWilliam J. Meyer, The Relation of Theism to Ethics: A Comparison of the Views of Rein-hold 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 Ha-bermas's work.@1995byThe University f Chicago.Allrightsreserved.0022-4189/95/7503-0003$01.00

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The Journal of Religionthe significance of this change. In brief, Habermas has gone from a com-plete dismissal of religion to an acceptance or even affirmation of religionas 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 becauseHabermas still denies the public character of religion, and this is due, Icontend, to his continued denial of the cognitive claims of religion andmetaphysics. Yet, I will also suggest that his current affirmation of theexistential usefulness of religion points to the limits of his own postmeta-physical view, insofar as it points to the importance of the metaphysicalquestion. Hence, I conclude that, if Habermas is to take his own currentaffirmation of religion with full seriousness, he will need, at some point,to reassess his denial of the metaphysical enterprise by specifically ad-dressing process metaphysics.HABERMAS'S EARLIER VIEW OF RELIGIONIn his earlier view, Habermas thought that religion had simply becomesuperfluous in modern life. After the collapse of religious and metaphysi-cal worldviews, all that can be salvaged from religion, he concluded, isnothing more and nothing other than the secular principles of a univer-salist ethic of responsibility. 4 Habermas came to this conclusion on thebasis of his developmental evolutionary interpretation of modernity and,specifically, modern rationality.At the heart of this interpretation, as Don-ald Jay Rothberg points out, is Habermas's contention that modern struc-tures of rationality have evolved or developed to the point where theyrepresent a genuine logical advance over the rational structures foundin religious and metaphysical worldviews.5 Like the cognitive advancesachieved in the development of individuals (ontogenesis), there are,Habermas reasons, homologous or corresponding developments in thelogical structures and cognitive potential of collective worldviews (phylo-genesis). That is to say, Habermas believes there is and has been an evolu-tionary development from myth to metaphysics to modern communica-tive rationality. Mythology permits narrative explanations with the helpof exemplary stories. Religious and metaphysical worldviews permitdeductive explanations from first principles ... beyond which one can-not go. Whereas modern communicative rationality, as exemplified by

4Jiirgen Habermas, Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World, inBrowning and Schiissler Fiorenza, eds., p. 237. In this passage, Habermas quotes his ownearlier statement found in Jiurgen Habermas, Die neue UniibersichtlichkeitFrankfurt: Suhr-kamp, 1985), p. 52. For an even earlier formulation, see Juirgen Habermas, On SocialIdentity, Telos 19 (Spring 1974): 94.5 See Donald Jay Rothberg, Rationality and Religion in Habermas' Recent Work: SomeRemarks on the Relation between Critical Theory and the Phenomenology of Religion,Philosophy nd SocialCriticism11 (Summer 1986): 222-23.

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Private Faith or Public Religion?modern science, permits explanations and justifications based on revis-able theories and constructions that are monitored against experience. 6As suggested by these brief descriptions, one of Habermas's key criteriafor measuring development is reflexivity (i.e., the ability to revise, ques-tion, and criticize fundamental assumptions and claims). As Rothbergputs it, reflexivity involves, for Habermas, the ability to thematize asproblematic any explicit or implicit claim, and to investigate the validityof such a claim free of coercive, dogmatic, or unconscious constraints. '7Put simply, Habermas believes that modern communicative rationality,unlike mythologies and metaphysical worldviews, enables one to examinevalidity 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 stemsprimarily from the fact that modern reason or rationality has becomedifferentiated into three distinct validity claims: claims of objective truth,claims of moral rightness, and claims of subjective truthfulness or authen-ticity. Correspondingly, modern culture has become differentiated intothree distinct value spheres, each pursuing its own inner logic, thus lead-ing to the emergence of expert cultures in science, morality and law,and art. Cast in sociological terms, this differentiation was made possibleby the linguistification of the sacred, which unleashed, in Habermas'swords, an unfettering of the rationality potential of action oriented tomutual understanding. 9 This unfettering meant that social coordina-tion, which formerly could only be based on a religiously ascribed consen-sus, could now be based on a rationally achieved consensus or, to say thesame, a linguistically established intersubjectivity. 0oFurthermore, onlyat this modern stage of development could the rational will-formationenvisioned in the ideal communication community be properly con-ceived and, thus, pursued or approximated. As Steven Lukes lucidly de-scribes, Habermaspostulatesthe possibilityof societyreachinga stageof transparent elf-reflection,among partieswho are freeand equal andwhosediscoursehasreached a stagewhere thelevel ofjustificationhas becomereflective, n the sense that mytho-

6Jiirgen Habermas, Communication nd theEvolutionof Society, rans. and introduction byThomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), pp. 103-4.7 Rothberg, pp. 222-23.8 Rothberg also discusses two additional criteria that I will not take up, namely, decentra-tion and autonomy ; ibid., p. 223.9Jirgen Habermas, The Theoryof Communicative ction,vol. 2, Lifeworldand System:A Cri-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' The-ory of Religion, Explorations:ournalfor AdventurousThought7 (Summer 1989): 21-35.10Habermas, Communication nd theEvolutionof Society,p. 116.

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The Journal of Religionlogical, cosmological,and religious modes of thought have been supersededand rationalwill-formation an be achieved, free of dogmas and ultimategrounds, hroughideal mutualself-understanding.In sum, for Habermas, the value or significance of rational and culturaldifferentiation is that it opens up the possibility for rational public criti-cism; it opens up the possibility for genuine public discourse and consen-sus concerning the rational validity of truth and moral claims.In contrast, premodern religious and metaphysical worldviews, Ha-bermas alleges, inhibited the potential for rational public criticism in atleast two related ways. First, their underlying ultimate principles, such asthe notion of God, were never exposed to rational criticism and argumen-tative doubt (i.e., they lacked reflexivity). And second, in their quest fortotality-in their quest to symbolize and describe the whole of reality-they always fused or blended together the different validity claims andthe different value spheres of culture (i.e., they lacked differentiation).'2This fusing together in the name of the sacred or totality formed a barrierto 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 thechurch as an illustration of how religion and metaphysics inhibited thepursuit of objective truth or science and, hence, inhibited the rationaliza-tion of everyday life. Because religious and metaphysical worldviews lim-ited the claims that were subject to rational criticism, they served an ideo-logical function. In short, Habermas would say that pre-Enlightenmentreligion stood at the center of society because its totalizing worldviewbound or hindered the differentiation of reason and culture, whereasmodern religion finds itself at the periphery of society precisely becausereason and culture have now become highly differentiated. Religion,therefore, has become more superfluous than ideological because it nolonger exerts limitations upon the claims subject to rational criticismand discourse.

Differently stated, premodern religious and metaphysical worldviewswere ideological, Habermas contends, because they offered a sharp oth-erworldly dualism that was often used to explain and justify, for instance,an unequal distribution of earthly goods. As he described it, religiousand metaphysical worldviews ... have the form of doctrines that can beworked up intellectually and that explain and justify an existing political11 Steven Lukes, Of Gods and Demons: Habermas and Practical Reason, in Habermas:CriticalDebates,ed. John B. Thompson and David Held (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,1982), p. 134.12 See Jiirgen Habermas, TheTheory f Communicative ction,vol. 1, Reasonand theRational-izationof Society, rans. 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 tothese dualistic worldviews, modern religion and theology have becomeso this-worldly, Habermas insists, that God has come to signify littlemore than a structure of communication which compels the participantsto rise above the contingency of a merely external existence on the basisof mutual recognition of each other's identity. 14 This statement, like theone I quoted from Habermas at the beginning of the section, suggeststhat modern religion has simply become superfluous. All that remainsafter the collapse of religious and metaphysical worldviews are the idealsof universal mutuality and reciprocity and these ideals are sufficientlyincorporated into the structure of communication and discourse ethics.In sum, religion adds nothing that is not already found in a secular ethicof responsibility.HABERMAS'S CURRENT VIEW OF RELIGIONYet, over the past decade or so, Habermas has come to admit that hisearlier dismissal of religion was too hasty. For instance, he now acknowl-edges that his functionalist description of religion in TheTheory f Commu-nicativeAction was too one sided and that even in traditional societies,religion did not and does notfunction exclusivelyas a legitimation of gov-ernmental authority. Moreover, he now states that he was too quick tofollow Max Weber in describing the development of modern religion interms of the privatization of faith and too quick to conclude that onlysecular ethical principles could be salvaged from the truths of religion.From the outside perspective of a social scientist, Habermas now con-cludes, one must leave open the question as to whether anything morecan be retrieved from the fragments of modern religion. The social scien-tist can only decide this question reconstructively-looking backward-not closing off discussion in advance. Perhaps even more interestingly,Habermas now claims that the question must also remain open from theperformative stance or perspective of the philosopher. As one who bor-rows from traditions and who can sense that the intuitions long expressedin religious language can neither be simply rejected nor rationally re-trieved, the philosopher must wait and see what essential content can becritically appropriated from the religious traditions.'5After declaring the need for a more open-minded neutrality on thepart of both the social scientist and the philosopher, Habermas gets to thecrux of his current view by suggesting that religion is indispensable and

13Habermas, Theory f Communicative ction,2:188.14 Habermas, On Social Identity, p. 94.15 Habermas, Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World, pp. 236-37.

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The Journal of Religionirreplaceable, as long as it continues to offer an inspiring and consolingmessage that helps people cope with the existential crises of life. Ha-bermas clearly points to this inspiring and consoling message in the fol-lowing two passages.Viewedfromwithout,religion,which has largelybeen deprivedof its worldviewfunctions,is still indispensable n ordinary ife for normalizing ntercoursewiththe extraordinary.For this reason, .... philosophy,even in its postmetaphysicalform, will be able neither to replacenor to repress religion as long as religiouslanguageis the bearer of a semanticcontentthat is inspiringand even indispens-able,for thiscontenteludes (forthe timebeing?)the explanatory orce of philo-sophical anguageand continues to resist translation nto reasoningdiscourses.'6On the premisesof postmetaphysicalhought,philosophycannotprovidea sub-stitute for the consolationwherebyreligioninvestsunavoidable ufferingandun-recompensed njustice, he contingenciesof need, loneliness,sickness,and death,with new significanceand teachesus to bear them. 7From these passages, it is evident that Habermas now views religion moretolerably, if not favorably, insofar as it is able to provide resources to helphuman beings come to grips with the shattering experiences that crashin on the profane character of everyday life. Religion, he suggests, inspite of its nonrational content, still offers something that eludes the dif-ferentiated character of modern communicative reason and culture. Ashe says elsewhere, as long as no better words for what religion can sayare found in the medium of rational discourse, [communicative reason]will even coexist abstemiously with [religion], neither supporting it norcombatting it. 18 Helmut Peukert sums up this view by noting that re-cently, Habermas has stressed that communicative reason cannot simplytake over the role of religion. Above all, it cannot console. 19

In formulating and articulating his current view, Habermas distin-guishes between religious, theological, and philosophical dis-courses. Religious discourse, he asserts, isconducted within the communitiesof the faithful[and]takesplacein the contextof a specific tradition with substantivenorms and an elaborateddogmatics.Itrefersto a common ritualpraxisandbases tself on the specifically eligiousexpe-riences of the individual.20

'6Jiirgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical hinking:PhilosophicalEssays, trans. William MarkHohengarten (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), p. 51.17See also Juirgen Habermas, ustification andApplication:Remarks n DiscourseEthics,trans.Kieran P.Cronin (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993), p. 146.18 Habermas, Postmetaphysical hinking,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 isjoined to aritual praxis that, in com-parison with profane everyday praxis, is limited in the degree of its free-dom 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, itsunderlying convictions and presuppositions are not open to debate. Andsecond, since the claims made in religious discourse are based on specificreligious experiences and presuppose a specific religious tradition anddogmatics, they are valid or applicable only for the communities of thefaithful. In other words, unlike the profane practice of everyday life,which raises universal validity claims (claims of objective truth and moralrightness), religious discourse raises validity claims that are communityor culturally specific.Theological discourse, Habermas continues, distinguishes itselffrom religious [discourse] by separating itself from ritual praxis in the actof explaining it. Along with explaining and interpreting religious praxis,theology also aspires to a truth claim that is differentiated from the spec-trum of the other validity claims. That is to say,theology aspires to raise atruth claim that is distinct from the three validity claims that have becomedifferentiated in modernity. As I will argue in the next section, theologyor religion raises or seeks to raise a fourth validity claim that is metaphysi-cal in character (i.e., pertaining to the whole of reality). Yet, for his part,Habermas insists thattheology did not present a danger to the faith of the communityas long as itused the basicconceptsof metaphysics. ndeed, the metaphysical onceptswereimmune to a differentiationof the aspectsof validity n a fashionsimilar to thebasicreligiousconcepts.This situationonly changed with the collapseof meta-physics.Under the conditionsof postmetaphysicalhinking,whoeverputs forthatruth claimtodaymust... translate xperiencesthat havetheirhome in religiousdiscourse ntothe languageof a scientific xpertculture-and from thislanguageretranslate hemback into praxis.22Here Habermas reasserts that metaphysical worldviews lacked differenti-ation and reflexivity, and, hence, theology never called the underlyingtruth claims of faith or religion into question. With the collapse of meta-physics, however, all claims to truth, including those stemming from reli-gious and theological discourses, must be translated into the language ofone of the three expert cultures and their corresponding validity claims(science, morality and law, or art). Thus, even though Habermas ac-knowledges that theology aspires to a truth claim distinct from the

21 Ibid., p. 233.22 Ibid., p. 234.377



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The Journal of Religionother three validity claims, he insists that this aspiration cannot be ful-filled after the collapse of metaphysics.What distinguishes philosophical discourse from theological discourse,Habermas contends, is philosophy's methodical atheism. Both philoso-phy and theology can seek to retrieve and appropriate the essential con-tent from religious experience and discourse but the crucial difference,he insists, is thatphilosophycannotappropriatewhatis talkedaboutin religiousdiscourseas reli-gious experiences.These experiencescouldonlybe addedto the fundof philoso-phy'sresources .. if philosophy dentifiesthese experiencesusing a descriptionthatis no longerborrowedfromthe languageof a specificreligioustradition,butfrom the universeof argumentativediscourse that is uncoupledfrom the eventof revelation.Atthosefracturepointswherea neutralizing ranslationof thistypecan no longer succeed, .... argumentativespeech passes over beyond religionand science into literature, nto a mode of presentation hat is no longer directlymeasuredby truthclaims.23Unlike philosophy, which must translate the content of religious experi-ence into the rational discourse of one of the three validity claims, theol-ogy loses its identity, Habermas alleges, if it only cites religious experi-ences, and ... no longer acknowledges them as its own basis. Moreover,religious discourses would lose their identity if they were to open them-selves up to a type of interpretation which no longer allows the religiousexperiences to be valid as religious. 24In sum, Habermas concludes that philosophy must translate the con-tent of religious experience into publicly accessible and rationally justifi-able claims, and, if this fails, it must then move into the expressive realmof literature. In contrast, he thinks theology should remain true to thedistinctiveness of religious experience (i.e., remain tied to the particulari-ties of a specific religious tradition). Otherwise, theology loses its iden-tity. Because metaphysics is dead, Habermas reasons, theology cannotpublicly or rationally justify its truth claims and, therefore, should stickto the dogmatic task of interpreting and explaining the religious experi-ences and practices distinctive to its own culturally specific form of life.For, in his words, that syndrome of revelation faith, held together inritualized praxis, still forms a specific barrier [to rational learning andpublic discourse]. ''25hus, it seems that, from Habermas's vantage point,theology should only be addressed to the religious community and notto the wider public, because its claims cannot be rationally justified. Sim-ply put, he seems to envision dogmatic but not philosophical theology.

23 Ibid., p. 233.24 Ibid., pp. 233, 234.25 Ibid., p. 234.

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PrivateFaithor PublicReligion?AN ASSESSMENTIn order to assess the significance of Habermas's changing view of reli-gion, let me briefly sum up his two positions. In his earlier views, Ha-bermas thought that religion had become superfluous because its cogni-tive claims and content could no longer pretend to be rationallyjustified,given the evolutionary development of modernity and its differentiationof reason into three (and only three) distinct validity claims. That is tosay, religious and metaphysical worldviews had purported to provide avalid understanding of the meaning and nature of the whole of existence,but their purported truth was accepted only because the three rationalvalidity claims (truth, rightness and truthfulness, or authenticity) werestill undifferentiated. As Habermas says, the basic concepts of religionand metaphysics had relied upon a syndrome of validity that dissolvedwith the emergence of expert cultures in science, morality, and law onthe one hand, and with the autonomization of art on the other. '26Oncethe differentiation of reason took place, the collapse of religious andmetaphysical views was an irreversible fait accompli. And because onlythose claims that can be rationally justified can be publicly valid, religionhas no public role to play in modernity.In his current view, Habermas now thinks that religion is existentiallyhelpful, insofar as it offers a consoling and inspiring message that enableshumans to cope with the crises and tribulations that challenge the orderof everyday existence. But note that, in affirming the existential use-fulness of religion, Habermas still denies its cognitive claims and, hence,still denies its public role. This denial is evident, for example, in his de-scription of theology, which he confines to interpreting the experiencesand practices distinctive to the religious community rather than makingpublic truth claims. For as he says inJustificationandApplication, no valid-ity claim can have cognitive import unless it is vindicated before the tri-bunal ofjustificatory discourse. 27But given Habermas's contention thatthere are only three validity claims, religion can never be vindicated be-fore the tribunal of rational public discourse. Thus, by suggesting thatreligion is existentially helpful but not rationally justifiable, Habermassimply reinforces the view that religion is merely a matter of private util-ity and not one of public truth or validity. Hence, it is my contentionthat Habermas's understanding of religion has not changed significantly,because he still relegates religion to the private realm and confines it tothe sidelines of public life.An interesting example of this is found in a recent interview that Ha-

26 Habermas, Postmetaphysicalhinking, p. 19.27 Habermas,J ustificationandApplication,p. 146.379



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The Journal of Religionbermas did with the Polish intellectual Adam Michnik. Michnik men-tioned that he had read an article in Poland that said that Habermas hada distanced and slightly derogatory view of Poland and Solidarity. Inresponse, Habermas says:I regarded Solidarityas a movementon par with the oppositionin Yugoslaviabefore 1968or the PragueSpring.WhereI had a certainemotionaldifficultywaswith the priest who alwaysstood behind Walesa.... When I visited Polandin1979 I obviouslyhad contactonly witha smallsegmentof the intellectualreality.Despite this I gained the impressionthat these Poleshad produced a stronglypositivistand secularintelligentsia,of the kind that can only exist in a Catholiccountry.I wasdelighted aboutthat. I have learnedthat positivism s one of themost stableelementsof the Enlightenment radition.2sIn this passage, Habermas expresses his negative reaction to what hetakes to be the heteronomous imposition of Catholic teaching and au-thority on Polish politics. Yet, he goes beyond that when he asserts thathe was delighted by the presence of a strongly positivist and secularintelligentsia in Poland and that positivism is one of the most stableelements of the Enlightenment tradition. What these statements reveal,I think, is that Habermas distrusts all forms of religious participation inpublic life, and this is due, again, to his denial that religious and meta-physical claims can be publicly or rationally vindicated. Positivism isstable, Habermas reasons, precisely because it denies the cognitive importof religious claims and, thus, denies the public character and role of re-ligion.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 hisfamous definition of religion, Clifford Geertz argues that religion notonly establishes long lasting moods and motivations but that it does soprecisely by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence.Every religion, Geertz insists, must affirm something about the funda-mental nature of reality.' 29 chubert Ogden makes this same point whenhe says that whatever else a religion is or involves, it crucially is or in-volves conceptualizing and symbolizing a comprehensive understandingof human existence that claims to be true. '30 What both Geertz and Og-den point to is the metaphysical aspect of religion. As they both suggest,religion, by definition, makes claims about the nature of ultimate reality,

28 'MoreHumility,FewerIllusions':A Talk betweenAdam Michnikand Jiirgen Ha-bermas, NewYork eview fBooksMarch24, 1994),p. 29. This interview irstappeared nthe PolishweeklyPolitykand was laterpublished n Die Zeiton December12, 1993. It wastranslated romGerman nto Englishby RodneyLivingstone.29 CliffordGeertz, The Interpretation f Culture (New York:Basic Books, 1973), pp. 90,98-99.30 SchubertM.Ogden,OnTheologySanFrancisco: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 ismetaphysical-one that deals with the whole or totality of existence. Andbecause religion claims, as David Tracy suggests, to construe the natureof ultimate reality (and not any one part of it), ... it [is] logically impossi-ble to fit religion as simply another autonomous sphere alongside science,ethics, and aesthetics. 3' In other words, religion and metaphysics pur-port to raise a fourth validity claim that underlies the other three claimsoutlined by Habermas.Of course, it is precisely the possibility of this fourth validity claim thatHabermas denies. His denial stems from two related assumptions. First,he assumes that metaphysical claims about totality necessarily blend orfuse together the other three validity claims, thus leading to a loss ofdifferentiation. And, second, he assumes that metaphysical claims cannotbe rationally justified. I will take up these assumptions in order and willargue that Habermas is mistaken in both cases.THE POSSIBILITY OF METAPHYSICS AFFIRMED

First, metaphysical claims or claims about totality need not, it seems tome, lead to a heteronomous blending or fusing together of the differentvalidity claims. What is needed to avoid this pitfall, as Rothberg pointsout, is a form of integration which goes beyond but includes differentia-tion. What is sought is some cognitive language or framework that is ablecoherently to conceptualize unity-in-difference. To be sure, as Rothbergnotes, Habermas seems unwilling to admit the possibility of an integra-tion which would preserve differentiation. 32But it is precisely this possi-bility that is, I think, cogently formulated in Tracy's concept of limitand limit language. The cognitive claims of religion and metaphysicscan speak coherently of totality inclusive of diversity (i.e., without collaps-ing differentiation) because the religious dimension or horizon emergesat the limits of our common human experience-as found in everydaylife and in the various cultural spheres (science, morality and law, andart). As Tracy says, I hope to show how, at the limit of both the scientificand moral enterprises, there inevitably emerge questions to which a re-sponse properly described as religious is appropriate. That is, as wereflect on the limits-to everyday life and these different cognitive orcultural enterprises (science, morality, art, politics, etc.), we explicitly dis-close the fundamental structures of our existence, which function as

31 David Tracy, Theology, Critical Social Theory, and the Public Realm, in Browningand Schtissler Fiorenza, eds. (n. 2 above), p. 36.32 Rothberg (n. 5 above), p. 235.381



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The Journal of Religionan underlying limit-of or ground to our everyday experience. Forinstance, a limit question encountered in morality is why be moral?This question inevitably arises at some point in the moral enterprise butcannot be answered by it. As Tracy succinctly states, we cannot reallyproduce a moral argument for being moral. Rather, an answer to thistype of limit question must come from some underlying evaluation of thewhole of reality-some fundamental affirmation of the worthwhilenessof existence or some basic affirmation of order and value.33It is true, Habermas admits, that a philosophy that thinks post-metaphysically cannot answer the question that Tracy ... calls attentionto: why be moral at all? Yet, Habermas insists that such a questiondoes not arise meaningfullyfor communicatively ocialized ndividuals.We ac-quireour moral ntuitions n our parents'home not in school.And moral nsightstell us that we do not have any good reasonsfor behavingotherwise: or this,noself-surpassing f morality s necessary.34By asserting that limit questions, such as this, do not arise meaningfullyfor communicatively socialized individuals, Habermas seems to implythat these questions are always already answered affirmatively by social-ized 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 assumethat this question is always moot or that persons always know why theyshould be moral? For instance, in their study of American culture, thefundamental question that Robert Bellah and his colleagues focusedon is how to preserve or create a morally coherent life. 35As Bellahand company rightly understood, a morally coherent life is ultimatelygrounded in one's answer to the question why be moral? and this ques-tion 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,BlessedRagefor Order:TheNew Pluralism n TheologyMinneapolis: Winston/Seabury Press, 1975), pp. 94, 93, 102. See pp. 92-109 for a thorough discussion of Tracy'sconcept of limit and limit language. I recognize that Tracy's recent work has sought torefine and perhaps even rethink some of his earlier views. For instance, he now thinks thatthe relationship between form and content must be taken much more seriously than it hasbeen in the past. But whatever his current reformulations involve, he still asserts that heholds 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 suffi-cient. See David Tracy, Literary Theory and Return of the Forms for Naming and Think-ing God in Theology, Journal of Religion 74 (July 1994): 307-8.

34 Habermas, Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in This World, p. 239. For adiscussion of Tracy and Habermas, see Anne Fortin-Melkevik, Le statut de la religion dansla modernite selon David Tracy and Jtirgen Habermas, Studies n Religion/Scienceseligieuses22, no. 4 (1993): 417-36.35 Robert N. Bellah et al., Habitsof theHeart:Individualismand Commitmentn AmericanLife(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), p. vii.382



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Private Faith or Public Religion?affirm that life is worthwhile or meaningful. This fact is poignantly borneout, for example, in Cornel West's analysis of nihilism in contemporaryAfrican American culture. This nihilism results, West observes, in numb-ing detachment from others and [a] self-destructive disposition towardthe 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 andcultural conversation about meaning and value.36 Yet, it is this type ofpublic conversation that Habermas denies is either needed or possible.Moreover, by claiming that we acquire our moral intuitions in our par-ents' home rather than in school, Habermas suggests that our fundamen-tal evaluations of totality are intuitive, prereflexive, and private, as op-posed to cognitive, reflexive, and public. He says this in another contextwhen describing the communicative tasks of human subjects. He assertsthat, beyond engaging in the cognitive, regulative, and expressive usesof language-that is, raising and justifying the three validity claims-communicativelyacting subjectsare freed from the work of world-constitutingsyntheses. .. Thisbackground i.e., the lifeworld],which is presupposed n com-municativeaction,constitutesa totalitythat is implicitand that comes alongpre-reflexively-onethatcrumbleshe movementit is thematized; t remains a totalityonly in the form of implicit,ntuitivelyresupposedbackgroundknowledge.Tak-ing the unityof the lifeworld,whichis onlyknownsubconsciously,nd projectingit in an objectifyingmanner onto the level of explicitknowledge s the operationthat has been responsiblefor mythological,religious,and also of course meta-physicalworldviews myemphasis].37It is interesting to note that Habermas, who places so much value andimportance on reflexivity as one of the gains of modernity, strongly de-nies the need for it when it comes to evaluations of totality. We all operatewith some evaluation of the whole, he suggests, but this evaluation mustremain implicit and prereflexive, for it crumbles the moment it is the-matized. Of course, the reason why he thinks it crumbles and the reasonwhy he downplays the importance of reflexivity is because he denies thepossibility of metaphysics, which is to say, he believes that all evaluationsof totality are culturally specific. This leads us to a discussion of his secondassumption, but, before getting to that, I want to pursue yet anotherangle.As suggested above, Tracy identifies two categories of limit questionsand situations: limit-situations in everyday life and limit-situations thatarise in the cognitive and cultural enterprises, such as science and moral-

36 Cornel West, Nihilism in Black America, in Race Matters(New York: Vintage Books,1994), pp. 23, 20.3 Habermas,Postmetaphysicalhinking, p. 142-43.

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The Journal of Religionity. Habermas, it was said, denies that these limit questions arise meaning-fully for socialized individuals; or at least those of the second type-thosepertaining to morality and the other cognitive enterprises. Yet, insofar ashe now asserts that religion is indispensable for helping us cope withthe existential crises of life, Habermas must, I judge, inevitably affirmthe importance of the first category of limit questions-those existentialquestions 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 uponthe existential boundaries of our everyday existence; and such reflectiondisclose[s] to us our basic existential faith or unfaith in life's very mean-ingfulness. '38In other words, Habermas's current affirmation of the existential use-fulness or necessity of religion, suggestively points, it seems to me, to thelimits and weaknesses of his own postmetaphysical view. For, as SchubertOgden cogently argues, the existentialquestion,which asks about the mean-ing of ultimate reality for us, is always tied to and presupposes an answerto the metaphysical uestion,which asks about the nature or structure ofultimate reality in itself. These two questions are always closely relatedbecause it is only insofar as ultimate reality in itself has one structurerather than another that it can have the meaning for us it is asserted tohave. 39What Ogden points out is that, insofar as one gives existentialmeaning to human experience, one implicitly affirms or claims that thismeaning is adequate because it is true or authentic (i.e., because it is inconformity with the way things really are). Hence, Habermas's affirma-tion of the existential usefulness of religion implicitly points to the impor-tance of metaphysics and the metaphysical question.In response, Habermas might object that his use of the term existen-tial is different from Ogden's. He might contend that, whereas Ogdenspeaks of existential in terms of the meaning of ultimate reality for hu-man beings as such, his own use of the term is meant simply to suggestthat religion is helpful because it offers individuals and religious commu-nities an inspiring and consoling message in the face of life's crises andextraordinary events. Hence, he might insist that, unlike Ogden, his useof the term existential does not imply a public truth claim. But in whatsense, I ask, could religion offer genuine inspiration or meaningful con-

38 Tracy,BlessedRage or Orderp. 105. Tracy attributes the notion of boundary-situationsto KarlJaspers.39Schubert M. Ogden, The Point of ChristologySan Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), p.34. See pp. 29-38 for a discussion of the relation between the existential and metaphysicalquestions.

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Private Faith or Public Religion?solation if it did not, at least implicitly, make claims about the meaning ofultimate reality for human beings as such? Is not religion's inspirationand consolation found specifically in the hope that is generated by orbased on religion's assertions about the meaning and nature of ultimatereality? As Geertz argues, religion establishes moods and motivations,such as inspiration and consolation, precisely by formulating conceptionsof a general order of existence (i.e., by formulating and asserting concep-tions that claim to be true or universally valid). Or, as Paul Griffiths putsit, it isjust because religious truth-claims are comprehensive or absoluteclaims that gives them such power; to ignore this [comprehensive char-acter] is to eviscerate them, to do them the disservice of making themother than what they take themselves to be. 40Thus, it is because religionclaims to offer a valid understanding of the meaning and nature of ulti-mate reality that it can offer genuine inspiration and consolation in theface of life's existential crises. Hence, Habermas's use of the term exis-tential necessarily implies, I judge, an existential question of the kindOgden formulates-one that is tied to the question of metaphysics.Furthermore, by drawing on Habermas's earlier work, one might alsotake this argument in a slightly different direction by suggesting that hu-man beings have a fundamental cognitive interest in addressing theexistential and metaphysical question(s). By cognitive interests, Ha-bermas means that the cognitive directions of human inquiry have at leastsome roots in the basic demands or imperatives of human existence.41Though Habermas has indeed revised his thought since KnowledgeandHuman Interests,his recent work on communicative action should not beviewed as a complete abandonment of these earlier ideas but, rather, asa necessary development of his original project. 42Thus, my point issimply to suggest that, if Habermas is at all right about affirming someconnection between knowledge and human interests, and I think he is,then one can argue that humans have a metaphysical or religiousinterest underlying their other interests, namely, what Habermas calls thetechnical, practical, and emancipatory interests. For instance, Carl

40 Paul J. Griffiths, An Apology or Apologetics:A Study n theLogic of InterreligiousDialogue(Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), p. 3.41 See Jiirgen Habermas, Knowledge ndHumanInterests,rans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston:

Beacon Press, 1971). An earlier conception of this idea of cognitive interests was offered byBergson at the beginning of the century. Bergson says, We do not aim generally at knowl-edge for'the sake of knowledge, but in order to take sides, to draw profit-in short, tosatisfy an interest (Henri Bergson, An IntroductionoMetaphysicsNew York:G.P Putnam'sSons, 1912], pp. 40-41).42 Thomas McCarthy, TheCriticalTheory fJiirgenHabermas(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,1978), p. 56.

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The Journal of ReligionJung concludesthatwhen you study the mental historyof the world, ... you see that people sincetimes immemorialhad a generalteachingor doctrine about the wholeness of theworld.... [This]teachinghad alwaysa 'philosophical' nd 'ethical'aspect.In our civilization his spiritualbackgroundhas gone astray.... Thus one ofthe mostimportant nstinctualactivitiesof our mind has lost its object.As these views deal with the worldas a whole, they createalso a wholeness ofthe individual,so muchso, that [if lost,people] ... lose their orientation.43Notice that Jung describes this question about the whole as one of themost important instinctual activities of our mind. By this, I take him tomean that we have a basic or, in his words, instinctual need to engageour mind and rational faculties on this most central human question.44Humans, in other words, have a fundamental, constitutive interest inproperly conceiving and relating to the whole and this interest underliestheir other interests.In brief, this constitutive interest (in properly conceiving and relatingto the whole) stems from the inescapable constitutive choice that hu-man agents must make in choosing a fundamental understanding thatinforms and orients their relation to possible purposes as such. That is tosay, given the conditions of human freedom, one must choose, at leastimplicitly, some fundamental stance toward all possible purposes and thisstance or choice ought to be true or authentic (i.e., properly related to thewhole). In articulating what he takes to be Kant's basic insight, FranklinGamwell makes this point as follows.Kant'spoint, then, is this:Reasonrequiresthat humanschoose understandingsthat are true or, in a more contemporary erm, authentic,and practicalreasonlegislatesfor itself the followinglaw: Choose the authenticconstitutive under-standing.... I believethat Kant'scategorical mperative .. may[therefore]be-reformulated:Act only with that understandingof yourself that is the a priori

43 C. G. Jung, Crazy Times, New YorkTimes (November 19, 1993), op-ed. This was apreviously unpublished letter ofJung's dated November 12, 1959, addressed to Ruth Top-ping, a prominent Chicago social worker.44 It should be noted that Jung goes on to describe this fundamental interest in totality asthe irrational wholeness of human life. This phrase might suggest that Jung, like Ha-

bermas, thinks that the question of totality is an irrational or nonrational one. Yet, as Imentioned above, it is important to notice that he also describes this question as one of themost important instinctual activities of our mind. By this, I again take him to mean that wehave a basic or instinctual need to engage our mind rationally on this most central humanquestion. But even if Jung does agree with Habermas-that the question about totalitycannot be rationally adjudicated-my sole purpose here in quoting Jung is to suggest thatthere might be a fundamental human interest in totality. That Habermas (and Jung) iswrong on the irrational character of totality, I will try to argue in the next section.386



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Private Faith or PublicReligion?truthaboutyourchoiceamongpossible purposes.That this a prioritruthis pre-scriptive s what I call Kant's nsight.45Of course, it is the very possibility of identifying a true or authentic consti-tutive understanding that Habermas denies when he denies metaphysics.Thus, I turn now to his second assumption, namely, that metaphysicalclaims cannot be rationally justified.A CRITIQUE OF HABERMAS'S DENIAL OF METAPHYSICSThis second assumption is best summed up when Habermas says, Thereis no point in defending [the relationship to the whole], without somedefinable claim to knowledge. 46 By this, I take him to mean that meta-physical claims (or claims about the whole) cannot be rationally justifiedin the context of public discourse like claims of science and morality.Rather, the validity of metaphysical assertions is always restricted to theviewpoint of an individual or specific group. Unlike truth and moralclaims, which, in theory, can be universally valid, metaphysical claims arealways culturally specific. Plainly put, Habermas believes that metaphys-ics can no longer convince the daughters and sons of modernity withgood reasons. 47 He is convinced that the question of metaphysics hasbeen put to rest and that a postmetaphysical understanding of existenceis sufficient. Yet, I am persuaded that his denial of metaphysics runs intoits own problem, namely, the problem of self-contradiction. In order toshow this, I will first describe the mode of validation that I take to beproper to metaphysical claims, and then I will briefly critique Ha-bermas's view.

Metaphysical claims, narrowly defined, are claims about the nature ofultimate reality as such. That is, they are claims about the underlyingcharacter or conditions of existence as such and, hence, pertain to thewhole or totality of existence. As Gamwell has it, because metaphysicaltraits necessarily characterize all existence, they must be present in anyand all experienced realities. 48 ifferently stated, then, valid metaphysi-cal assertions refer to those characteristics or aspects of existence that arelogically necessary, as opposed to those aspects that are merely logicallycontingent. Therefore, since valid metaphysical claims refer to thosetraits that are logically necessary, they are validated by showing that their4' Franklin I. Gamwell, The Divine Good:ModernMoral Theoryand theNecessity f God (SanFrancisco: HarperCollins, 1990), p. 37.46 Habermas, Postmetaphysicalhinking,p. 38.47 Ibid., p. 14.48 Franklin I. Gamwell, BeyondPreference:LiberalTheoriesof IndependentAssociations Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 124. See also Gamwell, The Divine Good,pp.158-63.

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The Journal of Religiondenials are self-contradictory (i.e., by showing that their absence is logi-cally inconceivable). Hence, metaphysical claims are self-validating be-cause they cannot be denied without contradiction. Thus, even the denialof all metaphysical claims turns out to warrant the metaphysical enter-prise because that denial is self-contradictory. To be sure, metaphysicalclaims and their proper form of validation are distinct from other kindsof claims, but, again, this is because they refer to those underlying ornecessary traits that are present in any and all experienced reality.As noted above, Habermas insists that all metaphysical claims (all claimsabout the totality of existence) are only culturally specific rather thanuniversally valid. On the surface, this assertion is a claim about claimsdealing with totality. But, implicitly, it is itself, I judge, a claim about total-ity. Habermas's implied claim is that totality does not have a structure orcharacter that is knowable. This implied claim is evident in the passagequoted above where Habermas insists that there is no point in defendingthe [relationship to the whole], without some definable claim to knowl-edge. Claims about the whole do not have a definable claim to knowl-edge, he contends, because totality (or the whole) does not have a struc-ture or character that is knowable. But what kind of claim is this? It is nota scientific truth claim or a moral rightness claim or even a subjectiveclaim of truthfulness or authenticity. On the contrary, it appears to be thevery kind of claim the possibility of which he denies. For to claim thattotality does not have a structure that is knowable is, indeed, to make aclaim about totality.49And, in order to vindicate this claim, one wouldhave to be able to validate claims about totality,which, of course, is exactlywhat he explicitly denies is possible.Differently stated, in order to validate the assertion that all claims abouttotality are merely culturally specific, one would, in effect, have to assessall those claims in relation to a universally valid understanding of totality.One would have to have a true or valid understanding of the whole inorder to know that all claims about the whole are merely culturally spe-cific. But it is precisely the possibility of a universally valid understandingof totality that Habermas explicitly denies. Hence, his denial of meta-physics cannot itself be rationally valid, because, in order to justify it,

49 Another example of Habermas making an implicit claim about totality is illustratedwhen he says, If we do not want altogether to relinquish standards by which a form oflife might be judged ... perhaps we should talk instead of a balance among the non-self-sufficient moments, an equilibrated interplay of the cognitive with the moral and theaesthetic-practical (Habermas, Theoryof CommunicativeAction, 1:73). By suggesting thatthere should be a balance between the three worlds or spheres (cognitive, moral, and aes-thetic), Habermas is implicitly making a claim about the whole, for this claim is clearly nota 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 isprecisely what his assertion denies is possible.

In sum, negative claims about totality are, nonetheless, claims abouttotality that require their own distinct kind of validation. Hence, Ha-bermas's denial of metaphysics is self-contradictory because it requires ametaphysical form of validation. In short, his denial presupposes what itexplicitly denies.By calling for renewed attention to the metaphysical enterprise, I amnot calling for a return to classical metaphysics or the premodernworldview that Habermas rightly dismisses. The classical metaphysicalconcept of a completely necessary being-one that is immutable and nec-essary in all respects-has indeed been shown by Kant and others to beincoherent. Rather, I am suggesting that there is a coherent alternative,namely, neoclassical or process metaphysics. On its dipolar account, thedivine reality must be, in differing respects, both contingent and neces-sary, changing and unchanging, temporal and eternal, relative and abso-lute, etc. It is this neoclassical or process alternative that Habermas has,thus far, failed to address adequately. Because he wrongly assumes thatthe metaphysical enterprise is exhausted by the classical formulation, hewrongly concludes that metaphysics has irretrievably collapsed. Hence,he concludes that modern thought must be postmetaphysical and thatreligion must remain as a private source of consolation rather than asa public voice making truth claims. In contrast, I contend that processmetaphysics offers a live option that coherently carries out the meta-physical enterprise and, thus, is able rationally and publicly to redeemthe cognitive claims of religion.50

50 As suggested above, Habermas rejects the metaphysical enterprise because he believesthat 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 essayMetaphysics after Kant, there can be no metaphysical thinking in the strict sense [undermodern conditions, i.e., after Kant's critique] (Habermas, Postmetaphysical hinking, p. 13).This conclusion ultimately stems, I judge, from his implicit agreement with Kant that onecannot make valid claims about existence or reality as such precisely because there are nocharacteristics or aspects of existence that are logically necessary. That is to say, he agreeswith Kant that all positive existential statements are logically contingent and, thus, can bedenied without contradiction. Kant formulates this point also by saying that existence isnever a predicate (i.e., is never already contained in the concept of the subject). Existentialstatements, 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 thattheir denials are self-contradictory, valid metaphysical claims are possible only if Kant's (andHabermas's) position is itself, at some key point, self-contradictory. It is precisely this, Ithink, that some process metaphysicians have persuasively shown. Briefly stated, if no posi-tive existential statements are logically necessary, as Kant maintains, then it must follow thatcompletely negative existential statements are logically possible; for example, the statement

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The Journal of ReligionCONCLUSIONI have argued that the change in Habermas's view of religion is not, as itstands, significant, because he still denies the publicness of religion andthis is due, I reasoned, to his continued denial of the cognitive claims ofreligion and metaphysics. Yet, I also suggested that his current affirma-tion of the existential usefulness of religion points to the limits of hisown postmetaphysical view, since the existential question is, I argued,ultimately tied to the metaphysical question. Hence, if Habermas is totake his own current affirmation of religion with full seriousness, at somepoint he will need to reassess his denial of the metaphysical enterprise byspecifically addressing process metaphysics.In spite of his persisting denial, however, Habermas rightly recognizesthat the cognitive content and public prospects of religion are cruciallytied to the question of metaphysics. That is to say, even though he an-swers the crucial question negatively, he still knows what the crucial ques-tion is. Thus, even with his denial of metaphysics, Habermas still helps tofocus the proper agenda for students and scholars of religion. For, if thebasic character of religious claims is indeed to speak validly of the 'whole'of reality, then religion necessarily raises or attempts to raise a fourthvalidity claim, which is metaphysical.5' Though religious thinkers shouldnot and need not deny the other three validity claims that have emergedin the differentiation of modernity, they must recognize that religion itselfraises a public claim to truth concerning the whole of reality, if they areto take the cognitive claims and public character of religion seriously. Onthis point, it is interesting to note how few theologians have challengedHabermas 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 todeny the existence of anything is always implicitly to affirm the existence of somethingelse; the complete absence of existence is impossible. Alternatively stated, the existentialstatement nothing exists is ultimately indistinguishable from a self-contradictory existen-tial statement because neither one identifies a positive existential possibility (Gamwell, TheDivineGood,pp. 159, 112-13). Thus, contrary to Kant and Habermas, metaphysics can offera definable claim to knowledge because one can rationally identify and redeem logicallynecessary existential claims-and it is these claims that constitute the class of valid meta-physical 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 ap-pears to dismiss any need to pursue it. Peukert says, I realize that here all the classicalquestions of a philosophical doctrine of God and of the relationship between metaphysicalthought and theology reappear. Yet, to refuse to give up at this point the task of reflectiondoes not necessarily mean a relapse into an objectifying metaphysics. A... 'postmetaphysi-cal' [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 pro-foundly skeptical of metaphysics.53 But this skepticism implies, it seemsto me, an inevitable skepticism about the cognitive content and publiccharacter of religion. In short, if religious thinkers do not take their ownclaims seriously, who will?but some form of neoclassical or process metaphysics. Besides Tracy, the only other thinkerwho has thus far, to my knowledge, directly or explicitly challenged Habermas on the ques-tion of metaphysics is Dieter Henrich. See Dieter Henrich, Was st Metaphysik-was Mod-erne? Zw6lf Thesen gegen Jiurgen Habermas, in Konzepte:Essayszur Philosophie n der Zeit(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987).

53 Schubert M. Ogden, TheRealityof Godand OtherEssays(1963; reprint, Dallas: SouthernMethodist University Press, 1992), p. 93.

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