Summary: | The discussion of religion has been one of the central topics of the work of Jürgen Habermas for quite some time. Democratic procedures, Habermas argues, were not only empty techniques but procedures with a normative substance which even contained moral motives. That is why there was no conceptual gap through which pre-political substance might enter. However, he concedes, religion harbored content for which philosophy would not have any language. This gave reason for hope for a complementary learning process between secular reason and religious faith. For Ratzinger, however, this raises the cardinal question of the reach of reason: How should secular reason be able to fi nd creditable momentums of rationality in religion if it appoints itself the exclusive standard of what may be considered rational? For him, this leads to the fundamental question: What is reason?
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