A Study Of Habermas's Philosophical Thought On Religion

Habermas,as one of the most important social philosophers in modern times,is noted for his broad researches interests covering many theories and social realities.His investigation contains abundant philosophical thoughts of religion,among which the problems of religion and theology are his long-term concerns.The thought of religion and theology is an organic part of his philosophical thoughts.Hence,without a thorough understanding of his philosophical thought of religion,it would be difficult to grasp his whole philosophical thought,his core thoughts of public sphere,his communicative reason and his modernity.As an important member of Western Marxist Schools,Habermas has inherited and reconstructed the theoretical tenets from Marx to early Frankfurt School,and has esteemed his theory as an emancipatory theory with a practical intent.In the Marx's emancipatory theory,religion has been unmercifully criticized as a factor that suppresses emancipation.In early Frankfurt School's theory,religion is not only a suppressed factor,which should be criticized;but also a psychological consolation, which becomes a substitution for practical emancipation.Then,under the influences of Marx and the early Frankfurt School,Habermas's theory regards religion as the contradictory to reason,at the same time gives the status in the emancipatory theory.For Habermas,emancipation,justice,morality and freedom are basic concepts and major contents of emancipatory theory and that are also major factors of religion,especially Christianity-Judaism.For Habermas,the gradual realization of individual freedom,social security and political principles,the completion and implementation of law and the perfection of democracy,etc.all belong to the emancipatory process.Religion is always a present factor in Habermas's emancipatory theory with a practical intent.For the early critical social thinkers,the sacred dimension is of vital importance.Horkheimer and Adorno link social critique and religious faith.However,they deny actually the enlightenment in the name of the dialectic of enlightenment,identify modern reason with the instrumental reason that suppresses humanity;they also deny completely bourgeois law and democracy,and push justice and human emancipation to the other side.Habermas agrees on the early critical social thinkers' dialectical analysis of enlightenment and the critiques of the instrumental reason and the capitalist society,but does not agree on their conclusion.According to Habermas,the Enlightenment is not yet completed,and the bourgeois democracy and law still have potentials.Therefore,justice and human emancipation can only be pursued in the actual society.In the Habermas's theory,the sacred dimension in the early critical social theory is lost.In order to expose the potential of bourgeois democracy and reconstructing modern democracy,Habermas investigates the problem of the public sphere.According to him, the public sphere is a public space in which public arrives at consensus on public issues through rational dialogue.He excludes religion out of the public sphere,for in Haberms's opinion,the fundamental spirit of religion is to inhibit thinking,which is contrary to the rational consensus of the public sphere.Just in this meaning,religion and mythology are what Habermas called "the other of reason"."The other of reason" presents the early position of Habermas's religious view,which makes religion and mythology contradict to reason,and denies mostly the role that religion plays in modern society.Influenced by the tradition of Marx and the early Frankfurt School,Habermas aims initially to reconstruct the historical materialism.For Habermas,historical materialism as a social theory should explain entirely social evolution.He argues for his theory of social evolution from identity and legitimacy.Be it identity or legitimacy,his argument involves issues of religion and theology.In the early society,religion assumed a function of uniformity,because it provided an ideology that was admitted by all members.However,with the rise and development of industrial society,modern science has taken up the region held by God in the past.In the modern society,the power that unifies society is not religion,but reason.This new rational identity is achieved and secured by participants through rational and equal dialogue aiming at consensus. According to Habermas,legitimacy suggests a sound and right political system that awaits argumentation.In the early highly civilized society,the authority of dominion defended itself by primordial mythology;in the antiquity and Middle Ages,religious thought had risen to be ideology,and served as the source of legitimacy of political systems and power;in modern times,the classical theory of natural law has been replaced by the new theory of natural law;ideology has shaken off the bondage of religion and theology;and the divine principle for political system has been replaced by the rational principle.In a word,the order of historical development he devised runs as follows:religion and mythology come first,then the reason,reason being a substitute for religion and mythology.Habermas's religious position has been argued for systematically in his theory of communicative reason.According to Weber's social theory,Habermas suggests that socialization is rationalization and rationalization modernization.Social rationalization and modernization is linked tightly with social secularization.The process of social rationalization and modernization is that of social secularization.Secularization is disenchantment,which means the mystical worldview of religion and theology is replaced by rational worldview.For Habermas,secularized worldview of rationalization and modernization has gone through a radical change,i.e.the religious-metaphysical worldview has given way to the rational worldview.The disenchantment of worldview is the intrinsic necessary condition for the rise of Western rationalism.Then,the birth of modern structure of consciousness is at the sacrifice of religious thought,and the birth of modern society is at the cost of excluding religion.So,the sacred dimension in rationalization and modernization is lost completely.However,Judaism-Christianism tradition is powerful in the Western world.It not only functioned as unifying force in the ancient times,but also accelerated the rise and development of modernization.Considering this,it will keep up its function in the future post-secularized society.Communicative reason that lacks sacred dimension must get into contradiction.In addition,Habermas's early religious position has been also fall under the challenge of theologians.On the one hand,theologians criticize that Habermas negates the function of religion in modernization and modern society;on the other hand,they point out that his primary doctrine does not oppose religion and theology,and that it can be used to argue for religion and theology.By reflecting theory and practice and by dialoguing with theologians,Habermas revises his early religious position.On the one hand,in order to make certain his own religious position and viewpoint and clarify the other's misconception of his religious thought,he puts forward the methodological atheism to generalize his own religious thought;on the other hand,he re-explains the religious and divine significance of his own theory, acknowledges the function of religion in rationality and modernization,seeing religion as a partner in discourse ethics,and giving religion an equal status in discourse politics.Habermas declares that he is methodologically an atheist.The methodological atheism means the appropriation of essential religious contents from the point of view of philosophy or reason.When he wrote The Theory of Communicative Action(Vol.â…¡), he adopted a dialectical attitude to religion,and dialectically developed or discarded religion by this'linguistification of the sacred'.On the one hand,Habermas insists that religion as worldview is outdated;on the other hand,he points out that religion has gestated the development of universality and normal structure.By reconstructing Durkheim's religious sociology,Habermas suggests that the development of normal social structure is a process of symbolical conformity.Symbol constructs social solidarity and conforms individuals to a group.In the early society,religious worldview was a linkage among nature,society and human;but in the modern society,it transforms as a linkage between social solidarity and social system.Therefore,Habermas's methodological atheism has its own theoretically development.In so far as dialectical appropriation and transformation of religious semantic contents,the methodological atheism comes down to one continuous line with the linguistification of the sacred.The methodological atheism has made up for the demerits in Habermas's religious view,and enriched the contents of his religious thought.The road along which the methodological atheism walks is not a demthological road of religion,namely,it is not to see religion as the dominant worldview and ideology.It should be pointed out that the methodological atheism is not to abandon religion completely,rather,it aims at absorbing the essential contents of the religious tradition,viz.the contents such as emancipation,justice that the religious tradition includes.Habermas insists that if we cannot understand Judaism and Christianity,we cannot understand our concepts of such as morality,individual,freedom,emancipation.Although the role that religion has played in constructing worldview has been weakened,its irreplaceable normative role involving uncommon thing that plays in the ordinary life remains.Therefore,in the post-metaphysical times,religious language still has inspiring function and absolutely necessary semantic contents,and the post-metaphysical thinking and the religious practice can co-exist.The sacred dimension is introduced to Habermas's theoretic system through methodological atheism.Then,Habermas does not sees simply religion as the outdated worldview,rather,he emphasizes the significance that religious thought has in rationalization and modernity.As he put it,modernity is an unfinished project,which means that many potentials of modernity is not yet fulfilled,and that for the normative self-understanding of social rationalization and modernity,religion is not only the precondition and catalyst,but also the source of equality,freedom,solidarity,morality, self-determination,democracy,human rights,etc.In the face of new challenges,there are not substitutes for them,and then we still need this legacy.Since religious language still has necessary semantic contents and irreplaceaple role,the attitude to religion cannot be negation and exclusion,but rather should be inclusion,that is to say,including the other.For Habermas,inclusion means does not means to include the other in itself and exclude the other out itself;including the other means actually that the community is open for everyone.According to him,the communicative rationality is not to exclude religion and co-exist with it,but rather to constitute a communicative community together,in which the subjects of language and action can dialogue and communicate with each other in order to acquire consensus and advance the realization of modernization.Therefore,in his later years,Habermas attaches importance to the social role of religion,and sees religion as a partner in his discourse ethics and a participator in his political community.Though Habermas does not acknowledge religion unconditionally,he insists that we should use the position of understanding,tolerance and reconciliation to treat different value and moral traditions,especially the difference and conflict of different cultural traditions,and considers that in the post-nation or post-secularized society,the religious community still has its place,philosophy and religion or enlightenment and religion should be co-exist equally and learn each other,each of which should not monopolize power and knowledge and make surpass all the others in this respect.In conclusion,the development of Habermas's viewpoint on religion is that the sacred dimension is from 'come out' to 'come in' in his thought.In his early years, Habermas regarded religion and theology and reason as the opposite to each other,there being a clear borderline between them.The religious worldview has been replaced by the rational one in the modern society,and the disenchantment or secularization being an important mark.Therefore,the sacred dimension is lost or come out in his early thought.In his later years,Habermas introduces the sacred dimension into his theoretical system,in the belief that the communicative reason is not contradict or exclude to religion actually,and that the emancipative interest of the communicative reason is inseparable from the semantic contents.Furthermore,the rich and irreplaceable semantic contents of religion also become the sources to be used by modern society.Therefore,the modern society includes religion;take the road to religion and the communicative reason can co-exist and dialogue with each other equally in order to rational emancipation.After the sacred dimension has 'come in' in his thought,it still need resolve a lot of problems in Habermas's philosophical thought on religion,but the inclusion and comprenhesion of his commnunicative action theory obtains a new kind of meaning,and promotes the communication and dialogue between the secularized and the sacred.