ABSTRACT
Religion appears as a theme in the work of Jurgen Habermas in the heritage of the founding generation of the Frankfurt School, with the project of modernity conceived in different ways by Kant and Hegel, as well as in his responses to the theological reception and critique of his thinking. This chapter traces the ways in which his understanding of religion changes from a first phase in which it is superseded by communicative rationality, through a second phase of ongoing coexistence, to a third stage of mutual engagement in which modern, “postmetaphysical” reason and religion can learn from each other. The changing view of religion in relation to communicative reason in the different phases of Habermas’s developing approach, is connected to the range of disciplines drawn into his program, giving rise to the question of how their different methodologies are linked. Habermas is correct in pointing out the performative element of religious faith, which is more than cognitive remembrance.
