Habermas and Theology

How can the world´s religious traditions debate within the public sphere? In this book Nicholas Adams shows the importance of Habermas´ approaches to this question. The full range of Habermas´ work is considered, with detailed commentary on the more difficult texts. Adams energetically rebuts some of Habermas´ arguments, particularly those which postulate the irrationality or stability of religious thought. Members of different religious traditions need to understand their own ethical positions as part of a process of development involving ongoing disagreements, rather than a stable unchanging morality. Public debate additionally requires learning each other´s patterns of disagreement. Adams argues that rather than suspending their deep reasoning to facilitate debate, as Habermas suggests, religious traditions must make their reasoning public, and that ´scriptural reasoning´ is a possible model for this. Habermas overestimates the stability of religious traditions. This book offers a more realistic assessment of the difficulties and opportunities they face.
Contents
1. Religion in public; 2. The ideal speech situation; 3. Authority and distance in tradition; 4. Sacred and profane; 5. Universalism; 6. Theology and political theory; 7. Theology, social theory and rationalisation; 8. Modernity´s triumph over theology; 9. Habermas in dialogue with theologians; 10. Narrative and argument; 11. Scriptural difference and scriptural reasoning.