Horizons of Thought

Introdction

The relation of religion to rationality is the key to its relation to science. Jürgen Habermas is among the contemporary social philosophers who extensively deal with this issue. His treatment of religion is based on a perception of modernity as an ongoing process of substituting rationality for religion in all its dimensions and functions. This essay analyzes Habermas’ arguments and is geared to show that rationality, whether in natural domains or social areas, descriptive or normative, is incapable of replacing religion.

Jürgen Habermas was born in 1929 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He “studied philosophy, history, psychology and German literature at the University of Göttingen, and then in Zurich and Bonn, where he obtained his doctorate in 1954 with a rather traditional dissertation on Schelling” (Outhwaite, 1994, p. 2). The publication of two books introduced the young Habermas to a new generation of philosophers. From Hegel to Nietzsche by Karl Löwith opened a window to the world of “young Hegelians and the young Marx,” (Wiggershaus, 1994, p. 540) and Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1947) by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, and Marcuse’s closing lecture in a celebration of Freud’s centenary in 1956 on “The Idea of Progress in the Light of Psychoanalysis” introduced Habermas to the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory (cf. Wiggershaus, 1994, p. 544).

For Habermas, the problem with social theorists of the Frankfurt School such as Georg Lukács, Horkheimer, and Adorno is that their theories are based on the subject-object paradigm. Instead, Habermas suggests reconstructing critical theory on the basis of intersubjectivity, which is coherent with communicative rationality as a “normative standard” of criticism (Pusey, 1993, p. 34). In order to do so,

Habermas appropriates major currents of twentieth-century philosophy and social theory—speech-act theory and analytic philosophy, classical social theory, hermeneutics, phenomenology, developmental psychology, systems theory—in order to transform the basic paradigm of social theory and to formulate a critical theory adequate to the contemporary world. (Postone, 1990, p. 171)

Therefore, he leans “towards a sharper focus on language and communicative action” (Outhwaite, 1994, p. 38). In 1982, he returns to the University of Frankfurt—the original birthplace of Critical Theory—to the chair in sociology and philosophy. Now a visiting professor at Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.), his teaching focuses on philosophy and religion in German tradition as well as on multiculturalism and its critics.

1. The Rationalization of Worldviews

Habermas (1974) published in Telos the article “On Social Identity” which may be regarded as the first instance in which Habermas deals directly with religion as a social phenomenon. Here, he takes on an analysis of the evolution of social identity from primitive societies with mythical world images, through the world of the polytheistic religions with a worldview based on narratives, to major universal religions with general or universalistic claims to validity, up to the modern era with no apparent worldview and no unifying mechanism that could form identity. He suggests that “these trends characterize a development in which what is left of universal religions is but the core of universalistic moral systems” (p. 94) and concludes that “philosophy must step in its place” ( p. 95).

1.1. Salient Features of the Mythical World Image

According to this analysis, the so-called savage mind, incapable of explaining the phenomena and events of the world in a rational way, tries to seek their causes outside this world. The search for ‘whyness’ takes precedence over an inquiry into ‘whatness’, and the why and wherefore is sought in an imaginary world of myths, gods, and goddesses. Appealing to myths provides the archaic societies with “the unifying function of worldviews in an exemplary way—they permeate life-practice” (TCA I, 44) as well as the understanding of life. In Habermas’ diagnosis, lack of differentiation is the most basic symptom that distinguishes mythical worldview from modern understanding of the world. Alasdair MacIntyre (1984) supports the same idea when he writes, “Myths would then be seen as perhaps potentially science and as literature and theology; but to understand them as myths would be to understand them as actually yet none of these” (pp. 252-53; quoted in TCA I, 63). Habermas characterizes the mythical image of the world with the following negative features:

1.1.1. Lack of Differentiation between Culture and the Objective World

The mythical worldview precludes categorical uncoupling of nature and culture. For sociologists like Durkheim and anthropologists like Lévi-Strauss, the confusion between nature and culture is the idiosyncratic feature of mythical thinking and magical practice. Nature is the course of a meaningless process of events in the world while culture is “the stock of knowledge from which participants in communication supply themselves with interpretations as they come to an understanding about something in the world” (TCA II, 138). Such a definition falls in with Geertz’ (1973) presentation of culture as “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitude toward life” (p. 89).  Max Weber (1949) considers culture “a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance” (p. 81). Lack of differentiation between these two categories marks the mythical understanding of the world. The mythical interpretation of the world places at human disposal both a narrative explanation of the world and a magical control over the world events. (Cf. TCA I, 47-48)

1.1.2. Lack of Differentiation between Culture and the Subjective World

To the extent that the mythical worldview determines one’s understanding and decisions, one has no formal concept at one’s disposal for a clear differentiation between the culturally determined and thus imposed feelings and beliefs, and those arising from subjective and personal origins. The solution lies in acquiring the relevant skills or competence, to use Habermas’ term, for doing the demarcation in the real world. But the problem is not confined to the mythical worldview as such; it rather arises from negligence or lack of consciousness regarding such a differentiation, as the everyday experience of the modern individual enjoying the so-called scientific worldview shows. Habermas does acknowledge this for instance when he states, “nor can the modern understanding of the world be described solely in terms of formal properties of the scientific mentality” (TCA I, 63).

1.1.3. Lack of Differentiation between Validity Claims

There is a categorical separation between different relations to the world, and this is expressed in different types of statements and validity claims. Mythical thought, however, does not allow for such distinctions “between cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical, and expressive relations to the world […] this is a sign that the ‘closedness’ of their animistic worldview cannot be described solely in terms of attitudes toward the objective world” (TCA I, 63). On account of the confusion between one’s feelings, cultural meanings, and objective reality, one tends to equate one’s own worldview believed to be the outcome of the cultural stock of knowledge with the objective order of the world. In mythical thought, “diverse validity claims, such as propositional truth, normative rightness, and expressive sincerity are not yet differentiated” (TCA I, 50).

1.1.4. Lack of Differentiation between Language and World

Mythical thought is believed to lead to “a reification of worldview” (TCA I, 50). Accordingly, mythical understanding takes worldview to be identical with what really is “to such an extent that it cannot be perceived as an interpretation of the world that is subject to error and open to criticism” (TCA I, 50). The totalizing mode of thought in mythical worldviews is unable to draw “with sufficient precision the familiar (to us) semiotic distinctions between the sign-substratum of a linguistic expression, its semantic content, and the referent to which a speaker can refer with its help” (TCA I, 49). According to the evolutionary paradigm of Habermas’ interpretation of history, as humanity develops through stages of rationalization, different aspects of the world become more differentiated and the mythical worldview becomes demythologized. “The demythologization of worldviews means the desocialization of nature and the denaturalization of society. This process apparently leads to a basic conceptual differentiation between the object domains of nature and culture” (TCA I, 48). The demythologization of worldview for Habermas, is another way of expressing the basic idea of the rationalization of mythical worldview. Such a rationalization culminates in substituting myth with an alternative that has the capacity for more differentiation with regard to various dimensions of the world and that is open to criticism.

2. The Religious Worldview

Gabriel Moran (1988) considers religion in its current meaning an invention of Western Enlightenment, according to which philosophers in the eighteenth century equated religion with superstition, magic, and irrationality. “For the most part, the word religion referred to the external practices of Christianity” (p. 38), which was believed to be the only real religion. In protestant dialectical theology[1] of the 1920s, religion was viewed as absolutely opposite to faith. When religion means rituals and faith represents the inward beliefs, this runs counter to descriptions restricting religion to “the manifestation of the divinity already in man,” to “the subjective experience which transforms our life” (Tathagatananda, 1988, p. 276). Moran (1988) contends that only with the advent of social sciences, and consequently the interest in the scientific study of religion, the idea of religion as an external and inclusive phenomenon began to emerge; a usage for the term religion that he prefers to call ‘religiology’ (p. 51).  Thanks to this new usage of the term, various religions now “can be studied, compared, and understood” as religions of equal right and significance. (p. 40)

Habermas concentrates on the functions of religion and refers to three functions in this regard: (a) offering a worldview, and hence providing meaning for life by presenting an image of the world as a whole, (b) providing moral codes of conduct as well as motivation to follow moral commands, (c) regulating human relation with the extraordinary events of life such as grief, suffering and the like. As far as the first function is concerned, Habermas (1993) puts forward a modern alternative to this view of meaning and its relation to transcendence. Although the kind of reason that the philosophy of consciousness talks about is incapable of replacing religion for providing unconditioned meaning, as a result of social evolution and the process of rationalization, “a concept of communicative reason […] enables us to recover the meaning of the unconditioned without recourse to metaphysics” (p. 141). Unconditioned, here, refers to an image of the world that does not depend on an individual’s subjective understanding.

As to the second function attributed to religion, namely, setting moral standards, Habermas is of the opinion that although rationally established ethical standards of action can, and inevitably will, substitute for religion, they are inadequate for providing motivation and answering the question, ‘why be moral’ in the first place. “In this respect,” he cautiously writes, “it may perhaps be said that to seek to salvage an unconditional meaning without God is a futile undertaking, for it belongs to the peculiar dignity of philosophy to maintain adamantly that no validity claim can have cognitive import unless it is vindicated before the tribunal of justificatory discourse.” (p. 146, italics in original) With regard to the third function, Habermas (1996) thinks that

Viewed from without, religion, which has largely been deprived of its worldview functions, is still indispensable in ordinary life for normalizing intercourse with the extraordinary. For this reason, even postmetaphysical thinking continues to coexist with religious practice. […] 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 semantic content that is inspiring and even indispensable, for this content eludes (for the time being?) the explanatory force of philosophical language and continues to resist translation into reasoning discourses. (p. 51)

Each of these three tasks is an intermediary for the social task of securing ego identity and group identity (1992, p. 229) religions have to accomplish in pre-rational societies. Ego and social identities are in turn necessary for the preservation of social solidarity. As soon as there arises an alternative which presumably accomplishes this task, there should be no hesitation to turn the task over to the new rival. Functions of religion such as forming identity and establishing social solidarity can be seen as proper aspects of religion to be studied in sociology. However, it would be a grave mistake to reduce religion to its social functions simply because sociology, or more precisely, certain sociological presuppositions and methodologies, are not able to account for other dimensions.

The most recent developments in Habermas’ view of the issue makes one wondering whether his acceptance of some role for religious language in modern societies should be regarded as part of a secularization agenda. In his speech of October 2001 on Faith and Knowledge he rejects the two current models for interpreting secularization. He describes himself as a post-secularist and thinks that both the “replacement model” and the “expropriation model” are mistaken: “They both consider secularization as a kind of zero-sum game. […] This image no longer fits a post-secular society.” At the same time he renounces “disruptive secularization.” For him, Kant “provided the first great example of a completely secularizing, yet at the same time redeeming, deconstruction of the truths of faith.” This makes one think that Habermas might view religious language as benefiting “the West, as the great secularizing force in the world today.”

2.1. Salient Features of the Religious Worldview

Habermas (1975) puts the role of the religious worldview this way: “Religious systems originally connected the moral-practical task of constituting ego—and group—identities […] with the cognitive interpretation of the world.” (p. 119) He follows Weber’s lead in considering a search for a rational answer to the problem of theodicy as central to a religious worldview (Tenbruck, 1975, p. 683; quoted in TCA I, 195). Habermas, however, injects a Marxist overtone to Weber’s analysis by reducing the problem of theodicy to social inequality, and restricting the task of the religious worldview to “justifying the unequal distribution of life’s goods” (TCA I, 201). The theodicy problem in Weber pertains to a host of paradoxical situations in which human suffering is involved, whether it is the result of a natural disaster, social inequality, or any other source of anguish. Putting agonizing situations in the context of a belief in an Omnipotent and Just God poses the question of how to reconcile the two. Habermas’ reinterpretation, or as he calls it, reconstruction of Weber involves a multiple reductionism. First, he reduces the functions of religion in modern society to its conciliatory side effect and neglects its original function as guidance for human conduct. Secondly, he reduces suffering to social inequality, that is, the lack of distributive justice. This narrow and one-sided vision of religion also entails the identification of equality with justice and inequality with injustice. In this respect, Habermas should speak rather, as Georges de Schrijver (1984) suggests, of ‘humano-dicy’ instead of theodicy (p. 377).

According to Habermas, in order to accomplish this task of justification of social injustice, religion not only utilizes ethical arguments but also mobilizes a whole range of theological, cosmological, and metaphysical views “concerning the constitution of the world as a whole” (TCA I, 202). This process gives way to “an intellectual rationalization of the possession of sacred values,” called theology. Every theology “adds a few specific presuppositions for its work and thus for the justification of its existence” (Weber, 1958, p. 153). Religious worldview thus suffers from the same shortcomings as mythical world images did; limitations such as the lack of differentiation between nature and society and the lack of differentiation between value spheres. For him, the idea of “a God of Creation or a Ground of Being that unites in itself the universal aspects of ‘is’ and ‘ought’, essence and appearance” (TCA I, 206) unifies nature and society. Habermas puts different types of metaphysical—including the naturalist—worldviews in the same category with religious worldviews. He justifies this by referring to their general appeal to uncriticizable “ultimate principles or beginnings” such as ‘God’, ‘being’, or ‘nature’. “While all arguments can be traced back to such beginnings, the latter are not themselves exposed to argumentative doubt” (TCA I, 214). Although subjective, objective, and social world relations are, to some extent, differentiated and dealt with in the multitude of appearances in the religious-metaphysical worldview, they are still fused when it comes to their basic concepts. “Precisely in these ‘beginnings’ there lives on something of mythical thought” (TCA I, 214). Rothberg (1986) rightly accuses Habermas of not taking “adequate stock of the level of reflexivity reached in many contemplative traditions, and of the extent to which there is experiential validation of the most basic claims” (p. 236).

2.2. Religious Rationalization

Apart from endeavors by religious scholars and theologians to seek a rational basis for religious beliefs and teachings, and answering non-believers’ doubts and opposition, there exists two lines of inquiry into the rationality of religion, especially that of Christianity as the dominant religion and religion par excellence in the West. These attempts took place after the Enlightenment and did study religion from a rational point of view. They mainly revolved around the deists’ pursuit of a natural religion and around Ludwig Feuerbach’s critique of religion as “nothing but human projection. Common to all, however, was the conviction that religion as known and practiced was in conflict with human reason” (Jensen, 1997, pp. 9-10). They shared with Durkheim (1965) the idea that behind what appears in religion as madness, there must be some rational motivation to be discovered by science (cf. pp. 14-15). Other efforts include Friedrich Max Müller’s ‘science of religion’ and Edward B. Tylor’s illustration of “anthropology as ‘a reformer’s science’ ” (Jensen, 1997, p. 9). Various religions are answers, “though in different ways, to the given conditions of human existence” (Durkheim, 1965, p.15).

Weber (1958) considers religion and the radical rationalization of purposive action as opposites: the further the purposive rationalization progresses, the more religion is pushed aside “into the realm of irrationality” (281). This antagonistic polarization has its roots in the Enlightenment thought and philosophy in which the rationalization of religious worldview is based on the separation of religious teachings and commands from the course of events in the world and human life, that is,. on secularization.

Habermas builds his argument on the basis of Weber’s theory. On Habermas’ argument, “there is […] a fundamental kind of zero-sum game in which, as rationality develops, the “sacred” is “linguistified” and eliminated” (Rothberg, 1986, p. 233). As de Schrijver (1984) observes,

It is this Hegelian concept of the self-surpassing advance of reason which accounts for Habermas’ rejection of religion. In his eyes religious faith curbs the novelty of interpretation required for the emergence of new stages of rationality; hence, his disagreement with those authors (Weber, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, and Parsons) who show a reluctance to abandon religion. Habermas dismisses their attempts to safeguard the meaning of the Sacred. […] Such attempts are unjustified. They manifest their authors’ disbelief in the victory of reason. […] Habermas does not seem to believe in the future of religion. (p. 387)

The assumption behind these analyses is the idea that the rationality of a belief or an action depends on the fact that it should be regarded as a human answer to a human need, or a solution to a problematic situation. Rationality is equated with human problem solving. The difference between the diverse attempts in this venue goes back to the kind of specific need religion is supposed to satisfy. Religion from this perspective is seen as a human and social construct, and rationality is perceived as “an integral aspect of religion, including religious values” (Jensen, 1997, p. 15).

Habermas relies on Weber for the general structure of his analysis and arguments with regard to the question of rationalization and religion. He also acknowledges the necessity of religion only for the emergence of moral consciousness. Nevertheless, he is critical of Weber for his remarks on the self-destructiveness of the process of societal rationalization, and the necessity of religion, especially salvation religion, for the survival of rationally based morality. For Habermas, religion is a product of the human intellect developed as a response to certain needs that had been aroused in the course of human encounter with the objective, subjective, and social worlds. Religion is not considered a permanent solution to human problems; rather, it is interpreted as a temporary answer invented by people in accordance to certain needs of certain societies in a specific period of time. In this understanding of religion, which is common to social scientists, there is no reference to the divine element in religion, or to revelation. Such interpretation may seem enough to describe some aspects of those thought-systems that contain no reference to divinity or have no claim to be revealed. However, these two elements are essential in the self-understanding of certain religions, especially of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

3. The Rational Understanding of the World

Habermas regards modernity as a philosophical movement with distinctive characteristics separating it from pre-modern metaphysical philosophy and religious worldview. Yet, this is not all modernity can offer, as the still unfinished project of modernity can potentially replace the religious integrative power and meaning with communicative rationality. However, one cannot ignore the philosophical foundations of modernity and the fact that the modern understanding of, and attitude toward, the world, the society and the individual, as well as their reciprocal relationships differ in some fundamental respects from those of the primitive and pre-modern societies. It is a simplification of the issue to limit our view of modernity to the apparent structural changes in society, which we may call ‘modernization of society.’ In any case, neither rationalization nor a higher level of development does automatically mean progress. Admitting such a distinction, Habermas (1979) tries to explain it with reference to “the fact that new levels of learning mean not only expanded ranges of options but also new problem situations. […] But the problems that arise at the new stage of development can—insofar as they are at all comparable with the old ones—increase in intensity.” (pp. 163-64) The interpretation of modernity in terms of a process of rationalization has also its roots in the Enlightenment, which considers reason an equivalent alternative to the isolated religion in its unifying, consensus-creating power in the social life. Habermas considers rationalization an inevitable process through which human understanding of the world develops proportionately as to the level of human development. He characterizes rationalization with certain qualities. The more these elements are found in a stage of world-interpretation, the higher that level is ranked in the continuum of rationality.

3.1. Rationalization as Decentration

Habermas adopts from Jean Piaget (1977) the idea of ‘decentration’ as a criterion of development. Decentration in Piaget’s theory of child development refers to a level of cognitive as well as social development in which ego-centrism is overcome. Ego-centrism is correlative to the child’s non-differentiation from the group on the one hand, and from the external world of objects on the other (p. 175). Piaget (1965) suggests a process of decentration as “a gradual reduction of ego-centricity in favour of the progressive socialisation of thought, in favour, that is to say, of objectivations and reciprocity of view-points.” (p. 301) Habermas also attributes the idea of rationalization of worldview as decentration to Weber, which culminates in different attitudes toward the natural, subjective, and social worlds. It is very likely that Habermas has taken over the idea from Piaget, applying it to the history of human understanding in general. He uses the generalized theory of development to reconstruct Weber’s notion of social rationalization.

Ego-centrism in Piaget revolves around the subjective world of an individual and one’s disability to differentiate oneself from the objective and social world. To overcome such a limitation requires decentration. Habermas compares the religious idea of God who is the center of the objective as well as normative world to ego-centrism and thus considers the eradication of this notion in a progressive process of rationalization to be an instance of decentration. There is, however, a categorical difference between the two. The religious idea of a God-centered universe moves on the opposite direction of ego-centrism and points to a center beyond all three worlds. Religions specifically challenge ego-centrism to the point that some of them suggest absolute forgetfulness of the self as the ultimate goal of religious perfection. Emancipation from God is as harmful to the process of decentration as a regress to the stage of ego-centrism.

3.2. Rationalization as Differentiation

Habermas considers differentiation as a must for a modern understanding of the world “in order that the reflexivity of traditions, the individuation of the social subject, and the universalistic foundations of justice and morality do not all go to hell” (Honneth et al., 1981, p. 15). His interpretation of modernity pertains to a philosophical discourse comprising rationalization as differentiation that shapes the backbone of a modern understanding of the world. According to Habermas (1985), this is exactly “the motivation behind German Idealism; this type of idealism has found equally influential proponents in the tradition of Peirce, Royce, Mead, and Dewey” (p. 197). Rothberg (1986) traces back the idea of differentiation to “Durkheim, as well as later writers on religion and “modernization” such as Parsons, Bellah, and Döbert.” He sees differentiation as

the separation of what Weber calls the three cultural “value spheres” of science, morality, and art from their relatively undifferentiated unity in religious worldviews; each of these spheres is thus freed to follow its own inner logic. This process is simultaneously a differentiation of three “worlds” (“objective,” “social,” and “subjective”), three “attitudes” (Einstellungen) by which to approach these worlds (“objectivating,” “norm-conforming,” and “expressive”), and very crucially, three types of “validity claims” (truth, rightness, and truthfulness). (p. 222)

The question, however, arises as to whether differentiated validity claims of the so-called rational languages account for the reality of the world and reflect the complexity of the relations between its phenomena and events. Habermas’ answer is a firm ‘no,’ and he criticizes the Enlightenment thinkers because for him the differentiation of validity claims only represents the necessary, and not the sufficient, condition for rationality. Various aspects of validity—truth, rightness, truthfulness—once differentiated in accordance with the imperatives of rationality tend to communicate and interact in a certain way. “It seems as if the radically differentiated moments of reason want in such countermovements to point toward a unity—not a unity that could be had at the level of worldviews, but one that might be established this side of expert cultures, in a nonreified communicative everyday practice” (TCA II, 398). The task of communicative rationality is to establish a relationship between rational agents in order to arrive at a more comprehensive, reliable, and defendable understanding of the world. It is meant to substitute for the unifying power of religion and the meaningfully unified view religion provides of different dimensions and levels of the objective, subjective, and social worlds in the modern era. The problem is that, although communicative action may provide an interconnection between the participants in communication, it does not account for the interrelationship between different spheres of validity. It might have the potential for relating different arguments regarding a specific claim, but it cannot link various value spheres together. This is because communicative rationality takes the principle of differentiated value spheres for granted.

3.3. Rationalization as Disenchantment

Weber (1958) explains disenchantment in the context of an essential tension between religion and scientific knowledge. Disenchantment is thus understood as evisceration of meaning. He writes: “In principle, the empirical as well as the mathematically oriented view of the world develops refutations of every intellectual approach which in any way asks for a ‘meaning’ of inner-worldly occurrences” (pp. 350-51) Weber’s notion of disenchantment is a necessary consequence of his reductionist approach to rationality on the one hand, and of his functionalistic approach to religion on the other. In Weber’s view, disenchantment “is a process in which the original ethical and religious-cultural motivations are dissolved into a ‘pure utilitarianism’ ” (Pusey, 1993, p. 53). In the tradition of critical theory, Adorno and Horkheimer explain enlightenment in terms of “demythologizing, secularizing or disenchanting some mythical, religious or magical representations of the world,” (Jarvis, 1998, p. 24) and William Rehg (1998) describes disenchantment of the world in terms of “the loss of the ‘sacred canopy’,” (p. xxvi) thus referring to Peter Berger’s (1967) The Sacred Canopy.

Habermas, however, criticizes Weber for his narrow perception of rationality and suggests instead its broadening to include communicative rationality so that it may lead us to see the positive aspects of disenchantment as well. McCarthy (1984) refers to the more general concept of disenchantment by explaining it in terms of “communicative liquifaction of the basic religious consensus” in which “the authority of tradition is increasingly open to discursive questioning; the range of applicability of norms expands while the latitude for interpretation and the need for reasoned justification increases; the differentiation of individual identities grows, as does the sphere of personal autonomy” (p. xxiv).

‘Disenchantment’ as a progressive step toward rationality in a process of rationalization belongs in a paradigm of a fundamental contradiction between religion and reason and connotes the overcoming of the former by the latter in modernity. In fact, disenchantment is seen as a remedy to the injuries reason has caused Christianity after the Enlightenment in Western Europe. To regard this experience as a paradigm case in order to apply all its qualities and consequences to all religions has no rational foundation. Furthermore, it flies in the face of evidences and neglects religions that emphasize reason as the basis for their acceptance in the first place.

3.4. Linguistification of the Sacred

By synthesizing and reconstructing Durkheim’s and George Herbert Mead’s theories, Habermas “develops a theory of the inner logic of sociocultural development as a process of the ‘linguistification of the sacred’ ” (Postone, 1990, p. 173). For Durkheim (1974), sacredness refers to desirability. “The sacred being is in a sense forbidden; it is a being which may not be violated; it is also good, loved and sought after” (p. 36). Linguistification of the sacred (die Versprachlichung des Sakralen) is a process in which, according to Habermas, “the implicit and ‘ungrounded’ authority of the ‘sacred’ is gradually replaced by the explicit rational authority of a ‘grounded consensus’ ” (Rothberg, 1986, p. 224). By this, he means “the transfer of cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization from sacred foundations over to linguistic communication and action oriented to mutual understanding” (TCA II, 107).

The linguistification of the sacred is an overcoming of the sacred by human reason. It is tantamount to the disempowerment of the sacred realm, which is constitutive to religion. As Rothberg (1986) has it, “The aura of attraction and terror, beaming from the sacred, the spell-binding (bannende) power of the Holy, is at once sublimated and brought to an everyday level by the binding (bindenden) power of criticizable validity claims” (p. 224). Linguistification of the sacred is for sure a step in the direction of secularization but not necessarily in the direction of a more rational understanding of the world or more humane way of life. Habermas’ theory of communicative action may develop a solid ground for mutual understanding, consensus, and social solidarity, yet it falls short of substituting for religion and constituting a sound basis for grasping the complex relations that exist between different elements in the real world.