‘God’ in Public Reason
The recent suicide bombings in London by young Islamists should remind Christian theologians that they are committed to a liberal polity of some kind. But is a genuinely theological liberalism possible? Many still think that public reason in a liberal polity must be universally accessible and theref...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
2006
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| In: |
Studies in Christian ethics
Year: 2006, Volume: 19, Issue: 1, Pages: 9-19 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The recent suicide bombings in London by young Islamists should remind Christian theologians that they are committed to a liberal polity of some kind. But is a genuinely theological liberalism possible? Many still think that public reason in a liberal polity must be universally accessible and therefore ‘secular’; and that it requires those with religious convictions to strip their public speech of theology. Such is the position taken by Jürgen Habermas in a recent newspaper interview. But is Habermas correct to suppose that a theological argument must be inaccessible to ‘non-theologians’? This essay returns a negative answer by seeking to demonstrate that a genuinely theological argument — for example, about the legalisation of euthanasia — can be grasped by non-theologians, can engage them, and might even persuade them. It concludes that on this point the late John Rawls has certain advantages over that of Habermas. |
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| ISSN: | 0953-9468 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Studies in Christian ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/0953946806062266 |