Habermas, Jürgen: Faith and Reason

Introduction

While Jürgen Habermas (1929–) is perhaps best known for his theories of communicative action and discourse ethics, the relationship between religious faith and secular reason has occupied an increasingly central role in his mature work. Habermas’s engagement with questions of faith and reason is notable for its interdisciplinary scope and developing perspective on the potential of religious faith and practice to inform responsible public discourse. Setting aside the presumption of progressive secularization as unable to account for the complex trajectories and conflicts of modernity, his writings call for new frameworks for critical reflection on religious belief and a significant reevaluation of the place of religion in the public sphere.

In the five decades of his writing, Habermas’s position on the relationship of faith and reason has undergone significant development. While his early work described a need to subordinate religious truth claims to reasoned public...