A POST-SECULAR MODERNITY? JURGENHABERMAS, JOSEPH RATZINGER, ANDJOHANN BAPTIST METZ ON RELIGION,

REASON, AND POLITICS

MATTHEW T. EGGEMEIER

College of the Holy Cross, USA

A fundamental concern of Jurgen Habermas’s philosophical project has been the attemptto defend the emancipatory project of modernity from its detractors.1 This defense hasinvolved a description of a formal account of reason (communicative rationality), adeontological approach to ethics (discourse ethics), and a procedural defense of democracy(deliberative democracy) independent of comprehensive worldviews. In his major worksHabermas has articulated a secular, postmetaphysical account of reason, ethics, and thefoundations of democracy.2 In the essays collected in three recent volumes, however,Habermas has expressed interest in a renewed dialogue between religious believers and non-believers on fundamental moral and political questions in the context of a post-secularsociety.3 One of the primary motivations for this turn to religion is Habermas’s view thatsecular reason has become incapable of defending and supporting the central moralcommitments of the modern project.4 Habermas goes so far as to suggest that continuing toappropriate the moral resources of the Judeo-Christian tradition is critical to any attemptto revitalize the emancipatory commitments of the modern project. Habermas observes:

Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of anautonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, humanrights and democracy, is the direct heir of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation andreinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of apostnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else isjust idle postmodern talk.5

Habermas’s strategy for continuing to draw on this heritage in a postmetaphysical contextis to engage in a secularization of the moral intuitions of the Judeo-Christian tradition bytranslating these commitments into a rational language accessible to non-believers.

The theological projects of Joseph Ratzinger and Johann Baptist Metz are of interest inrelation to Habermas’s recent reflections because both theologians have not only offered aseries of provocative reflections on the relationship between the Christian tradition and thepolitical culture of the West, but also have entered in to debate with Habermas on therelationship between faith/reason and religion/politics. In their engagement withHabermas and more broadly the secular project of modernity, Ratzinger and Metz haveleveled a series of criticisms at secular moral reason and the secular foundationsof democracy by pointing to the cultural, moral, and political significance of theJudeo-Christian tradition. Although sympathetic to Habermas’s recent call for a renewed

r 2011 The Author. The Heythrop Journalr 2011 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

HeyJ XLVIII (2011), pp. 1–14 DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2265.2011.00693.x

conversation between faith and reason in post-secular society, Ratzinger and Metz differwith Habermas over the degree to which faith and reason should be integrated and overwhat form this integration should take.6 First, Ratzinger and Metz criticize the abstractand formal character of modern reason (i.e., communicative reason) and point to thesignificance of retrieving tradition-dependent forms of reason found in the Judeo-Christian tradition as a means of restoring the authority of moral reason. Second, boththinkers argue that deliberative accounts of democracy are relativistic and it is thereforenecessary to propose an authority outside of the procedural mechanisms of democracy as anon-relativist foundation for the state. Finally, both thinkers acknowledge that in apluralistic cultural context it is necessary to engage in the project of translation, but offercritical variations on Habermas’s Kantian approach to translation.

In this paper we will examine the recent reflections of Habermas, Ratzinger, and Metzon a post-secular society, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which the projects ofRatzinger and Metz challenge the viability of an exclusively secular account of moralreason and the foundations of democracy. In conclusion, we will analyze the differencesbetween Ratzinger andMetz with respect to the proper approach to Christian engagementwith the world. The differences between Ratzinger and Metz will be framed in terms oftheir approaches to the process of de-Hellenization in modernity and their call for a returnto either Christian Platonism (Ratzinger) or the Jewish roots of the Christian tradition(Metz). These different forms of retrieval, in turn, give rise to an emphasis on either theprimacy of truth (Ratzinger) or praxis (Metz) in Christianity and support distinctiveprojects of translation.

This paper will unfold in four sections. We will first analyze Habermas’s recentreflections on the relationship between religion and politics in a post-secular context andhis call for translation as the proper approach to salvaging the moral intuitions of theJudeo-Christian tradition in a postmetaphysical context. Next we will turn to Ratzinger’scall for a return to Christian metaphysics as a means of defending the integrity of moralreason, his defense of a non-relativist foundation for the state, and his attempt attranslation in which he invites non-believers to ‘act as if God exists’ and accept the moralauthority of the Christian tradition. In the third section we will turn to Metz’s retrieval ofan anamnestic form of reason found in Judaism and early Christianity, his call for therecognition of the authority of those who suffer as a non-relativist foundation of the state,and his attempt at translation in terms of an appeal to the memoria passionis (the memoryof suffering). Finally in conclusion, we will frame the differences between Ratzinger andMetz in terms of their approaches to the theological significance of de-Hellenization andthe proper ordering of the relationship between truth and praxis.

1. HABERMAS ON RELIGION, REASON, AND TRANSLATION

In the two volumes of The Theory of Communicative Action Habermas argued that thesocially integrating function of religion had now been replaced by the practice ofcommunicative rationality in the public sphere. In these volumes the processof secularization is viewed as a positive development insofar as it serves the function ofreligion without the problematic byproducts associated with it (fanaticism, irrationality,etc.). However, between these statements in The Theory of Communicative Action and hismost recent writings in The Future of the Human, Between Naturalism and Religion, andAnAwareness of What is MissingHabermas has expressed an increased interest in engaging in

2 MATTHEW T. EGGEMEIER

a constructive dialogue between faith and secular reason. This recent interest in rethinkingthe relationship between religion and reason is motivated by a number of factors, mostsignificant among them is Habermas’s concern with the ‘defeatism lurking within’ secularreason.7 This defeatism is present in the challenges leveled at secular reason by postmodernthinkers who radicalize the dialectic of Enlightenment and positivists who naıvely valorizethe reduction of reason to scientific positivism.8More widespread is the challenge posed byglobalization and the tendency to reduce reason to mere profit motives under the pressureof capitalist principles of exchange.9 Habermas observes: ‘our hyper-capitalist societies -which reward only the exclusive focus on one’s own success - are less and less sensitive tosocietal pathologies, to the failure of individual life plans, and to the deformation of lifeworlds.’10

For Habermas, these challenges have created a situation in which secular reason hasbecome incapable of resisting ‘a modernization spinning out of control’ on the basis of‘pure practical reason.’11 In response to this situation, Habermas suggests that it isnecessary for postmetaphysical philosophy to rethink its history and to trace a moreinclusive genealogy of its development that includes not only Greek metaphysics but alsothe Judeo-Christian tradition.12 Rethinking the genealogy of postmetaphysical reasonopens the possibility for a self-forgetful secular reason to draw from the ‘unexhaustedforce’13 of religious traditions to the extent that postmetaphysical thought engages in a‘non-destructive secularization’ of the moral intuitions of revealed religion.14 Specifically,Habermas maintains that philosophy must re-express ‘what it learns from religion in adiscourse that is independent of revealed truth.’15 The history of modern philosophy fromKant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard to Bloch, Benjamin, Levinas, and Derrida witnesses to thecontinued importance of this project and the way in which philosophical discourse hasreceived profound moral impulses from religion when its insights have been freed from‘dogmatic encapsulation.’16

For Habermas, Kant’s project of translation is particularly significant insofar as itconstitutes ‘the first great example - after metaphysics - of a secularizing, but at the sametime salvaging, deconstruction of religious truths.’17 In Religion within the Limits ofReason Alone, Kant draws from the moral reservoir of the Christian tradition andtranslates the claims of revealed religion into the language of rational faith. According toHabermas, Kant’s approach possesses the virtue of opening philosophy to the content ofreligion without submitting religion to a ‘hostile takeover’ by philosophy (Hegel),18

returning philosophy to a pre-modern metaphysics (Strauss, Schmidt),19 or dissolvingphilosophy into a postmetaphysical mythos (Nietzsche, Heidegger).20 As we turn to thetheological reflections of Ratzinger and Metz we will see that in different ways boththinkers call for a more thoroughgoing interaction between faith and reason than we findin Habermas’s Kantianism. This influences not only their respective approaches to theproject of translation, but also their criticisms of Habermas’s Kantian claim that thejustification of democracy must be ‘self-sufficient’ and ‘independent of religious andmetaphysical traditions.’21

2. JOSEPH RATZINGER ON METAPHYSICAL REASON AND THE AUTHORITY

OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

In his theological reflections, Ratzinger has defended the capacity of reason to make moraltruth claims in an age of widespread suspicion and hostility to the very idea of universally

A POST-SECULAR MODERNITY 3

binding moral truths. Indeed, for Ratzinger, ‘the real danger of our time, the crux of ourcultural crisis, is the destabilization of ethics, which results from the fact that we can nolonger grasp moral reasoning and have reduced it to what is calculable.’22 In confrontingthis crisis, Ratzinger has expressed broad agreement with Habermas’s suggestion that in apost-secular society believers and non-believers should enter into a mutually criticaldialogue.23 This agreement about the importance of a renewed dialogue between faith andreason gives way, however, to two very different accounts of reason and approaches to thelegitimation crisis in contemporary democracy. Where Habermas has advocated for apostmetaphysical approach to reason and a procedural account of democracy, Ratzingerinsists that it is necessary to retrieve a metaphysical understanding of reason and anapproach to politics in which the state receives knowledge of what is good from outside ofitself - specifically from the moral resources of the Christian tradition. Finally, whereHabermas expresses support for the Kantian project of translation, Ratzinger proposes aform of translation that invites non-believers to act ‘as if God exists’ and accept theChristian moral tradition as authoritative.

In Ratzinger’s genealogy of the decline of moral reason in modernity he maintains thatthe modern era is characterized by the instrumentalization of rationality and the tendencyto reduce reason to its technical function. For Ratzinger, this constitutes nothing short ofan ‘ontological’ crisis in which those types of truth claims that fail to submit to thepositivist canons of reasonability are dismissed as arbitrary and irrational.24 Ratzingertraces the roots of this instrumentalization to the emergence of the positivist use of reasonin modernity in figures like Francis Bacon and August Comte.25 The success of the naturalsciences in their articulation of a form of reason independent of concrete traditionsresulted in the dominance of scientific and technical forms of reason. While these forms ofreason have been highly successful in the sciences and technology, the moral and politicalconsequences have been considerably less desirable.26 In particular, Ratzinger argues thatthe ‘evidential character’ of morality has been lost in a society shaped by positivist andtechnological forms of reason.27 As a result, moral reason has been instrumentalized andconsequentialism now determines what is right and wrong: ‘in a world based oncalculations, it is the calculation of consequences that determines what should beconsidered moral and immoral.’28 Or equally problematic, under the dominance ofscientific and technological reason, the truth claims of morality and religion are viewed assubjective, giving rise to what Ratzinger characterizes as the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ orthe ‘super-dogma of relativism.’29

Although Ratzinger is critical of the tendency in modernity to reduce reason to itspositivistic and instrumental use, his concern is not to engage in a totalizing critique ofmodernity. Instead, he argues that Christians ought to defend many of the central valuesof the Enlightenment, while also attending to the ‘internal contradictions of the presentform of Enlightenment culture.’30 In this regard, Ratzinger’s intention is not ‘one ofretrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and itsapplication.’31 In order to restore a truncated form of reason to its former grandeur,Ratzinger argues that it is necessary to resist the Scylla of instrumental-positivistic reasonwhile also avoiding the Charybdis of postmetaphysical reason and its commitment to theposition that truth is socially constructed (i.e., Habermas). In response to thesealternatives, Ratzinger proposes a retrieval of a metaphysical approach to reason inwhich truth is discovered in the order of reality.32 This retrieval of metaphysical reasoncommits Ratzinger to the position that there is an objective moral order inscribed in realitythat is accessible to human reason, but which is not the product of human reason.

4 MATTHEW T. EGGEMEIER

In Ratzinger’s theology, this analysis of metaphysical reason is supplemented by theclaim that the recognition of an objective moral order is identifiable only within concrete,historical frameworks because ‘metaphysical and moral reason comes into action only in ahistorical context.’33 While there are a number of concrete, historical traditions of moralreflection in the West, Ratzinger contends that Christianity offers the ‘most universal andrational religious culture’ and should continue to serve as the basis for the attempt tobroaden reason to accommodate the view that there are objective moral truths given in theorder of reality.34 Thus, Ratzinger calls for the replacement of a secular Enlightenmentwith a Christian Enlightenment which acknowledges that the roots of the emancipatorycommitments of the modern project are found in the Christian tradition.35 In particular,Ratzinger argues that ‘the Enlightenment is of Christian origin’ and ‘was born preciselyand exclusively in the realm of the Christian faith’ and therefore any attempt to rescue itmust involve a return to its roots.36 In this sense, Ratzinger’s defense of moral reasoninvolves a critique of the modern invention of ‘autonomous’ reason and a return to atradition-dependent form of reason found in the Christian metaphysical tradition.37

Ratzinger’s description of the task of defending moral reason is closely connected to hisanalysis of the relationship between religion and politics.38 While, for Ratzinger, a certainmeasure of autonomy between religion and politics should be maintained, he argues thatreason without faith leads to the instrumentalization of reason and a politics that is notrooted in the moral commitments of religious traditions leads to a functionalist andrelativist understanding of the state. Ratzinger detects this functionalism in the tendency incontemporary culture to prioritize the values of tolerance and co-existence over thecommitment to truth in the political sphere. The end result, for Ratzinger, is that‘relativism appears to be the philosophical foundation of democracy.’39 It followsthat what is moral and true in the political life of democracy is decided by majority vote sothat ‘there is ultimately no other principle governing political activity than the decision ofthe majority, which occupies the position of ‘‘truth’’ in the life of the state.’40

Ratzinger’s response to the relativism he sees at the foundations of democracy is toinsist once again on the capacity of humanity to discover truth: ‘the explicit skepticism ofrelativistic and positivistic theories is countered here by a basic confidence in the ability ofhuman reason to make truth known.’41 Because Ratzinger maintains that truth isdiscovered in the order of reality and not merely constructed through debate ordeliberation, he contends that there exists a truth that is antecedent to political activitywhich makes this activity possible.42 For Ratzinger, the implication of this position is thatthe state must look outside of its own mechanisms for knowledge of what is true and good.According to Ratzinger:

the state is not itself the source of truth and morality. It cannot produce truth from its own self bymeans of an ideology based on people or race or class or some other entity. Nor can it produce truthvia the majority. The state is not absolute . . ..accordingly the state must receive from outside itselfthe essential measure of knowledge and truth with regard to that which is good.43

For Ratzinger, the recognition that there are transcendent values that are not constructedby human beings constitutes the only legitimate foundation for a non-relativistunderstanding of the state.44 Accordingly, Ratzinger maintains that an atheist state is acontradiction in terms because it is incapable of defending the transcendent source of itsfundamental values.45 Once again, Ratzinger suggests that because the Christian traditionhas served as the protector of transcendent values in the West it is critical that the staterecognize ‘that a fundamental system of values based on Christianity is the precondition

A POST-SECULAR MODERNITY 5

for its existence . . ..there is a fund of truth that is not subject to consensus but ratherprecedes it and makes it possible.’46

At the center of Ratzinger’s reflections on the relationship between faith/reason andreligion/politics is the call for a return to a pre-secular metaphysics in order to articulate apost-secular approach to moral reason and the foundations of democracy.47 Ratzingerbrings this project into a context of pluralism by describing the moral commitments of theChristian tradition in a language that is accessible to those who stand outside theconfessional bounds of Christianity. Although he acknowledges that the traditionalCatholic approach to translation has been natural law, Ratzinger maintains that thisdiscourse as an instrument has become ‘blunt’48 in the modern era when the very idea of‘nature’ has come under critical scrutiny.49 In the place of natural law, Ratzinger proposesan alternative approach to translation in which he invites non-believers to share withbelievers the moral certainties of the Christian tradition. Specifically, echoing Pascal’swager,50 Ratzinger proposes that non-believers should act ‘as if God exists’ (veluti si Deusdaretur) and commit themselves to the moral universalism of the Christian tradition.51

Ratzinger’s argument represents a clear attempt to reverse the Enlightenment commitmentto a morality that is binding even if God does not exist (etsi Deus non daretur) andcrystallizes the main contours of Ratzinger’s strategy for combating moral relativismthrough a return to the moral teaching of a concrete, historical tradition. This approachinvolves an implicit critique of abstract, ahistorical approaches to morality and an explicitattempt to invite non-believers to participate in the truth claims of the Christian tradition.Because Ratzinger is committed to the proposition that ‘reason needs revelation in orderto be able to function as reason’ he views the Christian tradition as the indispensableresource for the project of moral regeneration in modernity.52

3. JOHANN BAPTIST METZ ON ANAMNESTIC REASON AND THE AUTHORITY

OF SUFFERING

Metz also attempts to bring the religious resources of the Judeo-Christian tradition to bearon the contemporary crises of moral reason and the foundations of democracy. But incontrast to Ratzinger and his return to the Christian metaphysical tradition, Metz suggeststhat it is necessary to open modern reason to the category of remembrance by retrievingthe anamnestic form of reason found in Judaism and early Christianity. This retrieval of atradition-dependent form of moral reason serves as basis for a form of democracy notbased exclusively on consensus and majority rule, but on the absolute foundation ofrespecting the authority of those who suffer. Finally, this anamnestic form of reasonprovides the basis for an approach to translation grounded in the retrieval of the memoryof suffering (memoria passionis).

Along with Habermas and Ratzinger, Metz is concerned to defend moral reason againstits positivist instrumentalization as well as the totalizing postmodern critique of reasonwhich views a defense of moral universalism as a form of ‘latent imperialism.’53 But incontrast to the genealogies offered by Habermas and Ratzinger, Metz suggests that thecause of the dialectic of Enlightenment is the perpetual forgetfulness of anamnestic reasonin Western culture. For Metz, anamnestic reason is the specific ‘dowry of the Jewishspirit’54 and is characterized by ‘the power of memory, a power unknown or continuallyrepressed in Europe.’55 In his genealogy, Metz claims that the forgetfulness of anamnesticreason took place rather early in the history of the Christian tradition when it embraced

6 MATTHEW T. EGGEMEIER

Greek metaphysics and abandoned the form of reason specific to the Jewish tradition.56

For Metz, this forgetfulness has only intensified with the eclipse of metaphysical reasonand the rise of scientific-instrumental reason in modernity. In response to the crises causedby ahistorical, metaphysical approaches to reason and the instrumentalization of reason inmodernity, Metz calls for a retrieval of a form of reason that remembers. According toMetz:

In my view we can only reckon with the insights of the dialectic of Enlightenment - for the most partonce again forgotten or repressed - in the light that is shed by anamnestic reason. Only in that lightcan the Enlightenment enlighten itself about the disaster it has brought about; only in that light canit arrive at some understanding of the moral and political exhaustion of the Enlightenment, or, thatis to say, of European modernity. Anamnestic reason is quite amenable to the Enlightenment andmodernity; it gains its own legitimate universalism because it allows itself to be guided by a specificmemory: the memoria passionis, that is, the memory of suffering, or more precisely the memory ofsomeone else’s suffering.57

For Metz, the problem with metaphysical and modern reason is that in its commitment touniversality it has abstracted itself from concrete historical experiences and failed toacknowledge the primordial universalism that emerges from the memoria passionis. In thissense, Metz suggests that ‘we have so much abstract Enlightenment, so much Enlight-enment cut in half’ because we have ‘so much Enlightenment that has not cultivatedmemory.’58

In his reflections on the dialectic of Enlightenment Metz has criticized not onlymetaphysical and instrumental reason for engendering forgetfulness about anamnesticreason, but also the communicative account of reason articulated by Habermas. AlthoughMetz acknowledges that communicative reason represents a significant corrective tometaphysical and instrumental forms of reason, he nevertheless points to its failure toappropriate the insights of tradition-dependent forms of reason oriented by concretememories of suffering in history. In an explicit criticism of Habermas’s account ofcommunicative reason, Metz observes: ‘with the form of reason that it developed andwhich is dominant today, the Enlightenment has a deeply rooted prejudice that it cannotovercome: the prejudice against memory. It calls for discourse and consensus andundervalues the intelligible power of memory, and thereby of anamnestic rationality.’59 Atthe root of Metz’s criticisms of communicative reason is his view that the fundamentalauthority to which this form of reason is committed is the authority of consensus amongdialogue partners. Because of this, Metz argues that the solidarity cultivated throughHabermas’s communicative account of reason is a solidarity only among the rational oronly among those who have mastered the language of communicative reason.60 By way ofcontrast, a morality grounded in the universalism of memoria passionis supports a form ofsolidarity that is universal in reach.61

Metz’s insistence on the importance of retrieving a form of reason that remembers andacknowledges the authority of those who suffer is also central to his engagement with thecontemporary crisis over the foundations of democracy. For Metz, the contemporarylegitimation crisis in democracy is the result of the commitment in modern politics to animmanent foundation for the state. In particular, Metz claims that politics within amodern framework is committed to a secular approach to legitimation: ‘politics onmodern ground: in the current view this means a politics without any anchoring intranscendence; a politics with a purely worldly legitimation of political rule; a politicsstrictly separated from religion and from all religious symbolizations of political

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legitimacy.’62 While not wishing to adopt the position of an ‘antidemocratic fundamen-talist’ or an ‘antipluralist traditionalist,’63 Metz is critical of the adequacy of these secularforms of legitimation and is particularly critical of the proceduralist model defended byHabermas and other Kantian political philosophers (e.g., Rawls). Metz’s criticism ofproceduralism is based on the fact that within a proceduralist account of the foundationsof democracy the basis for judging the correctness of a political decision is reduced towhether or not the proper procedures were followed in coming to a decision.64 Accordingto Metz: ‘there is no stable center, no core for its self-reflection. What it views as itsfoundations are consensus which can be revoked; the contract, which can be dissolved orcertainly renegotiated at any point; the institution, as a codification of social agreementsthat is in principle mutable, and so on.’65 It is the formalism of Habermas’s proceduralism,therefore, that makes it vulnerable to the charge of relativism.

For Metz, by prioritizing the ‘a priori of communication’ over the ‘a priori of suffering’Habermas has cut his philosophy off from a source of moral truth capable of providingdemocracy with a non-relativist foundation.66 In the words of Metz:

There is, after all, one authority that has not been superseded by any of the critiques of authorityformulated on modernity’s ground: the authority of those who suffer. In my view every liberalpolitics aiming at the universal must reckon with this authority. Respecting someone else’ssuffering is a requirement for any political culture. And articulating others’ suffering is thepresupposition of all universalist claims, as they are formulated in the politics of human rights.67

For Metz, this non-relativist foundation for the state is a priori or simply given and cannotbe grounded on the basis of dialogue and consensus.68 In this regard, Ratzinger and Metzshare the common strategy of defending a moral foundation for democracy that isdiscovered in reality and not constructed by conversation, debate, or consensus. But whereRatzinger advocates for the acknowledgment of the authority of the Christian tradition asa historical tradition which has the capacity to orient the state in what is true and good,Metz focuses his attention on the authority of those who suffer - an authority whosehistorical genealogy Metz traces back to the ‘pathic monotheism’ of the Judeo-Christiantradition.69

In his approach to translation, Metz maintains that the memoria passionis is present insome form in every culture, even if its historical roots are found in the traditions of biblicalmonotheism. In his analysis of the moral significance of memoria passionis, Metz hasargued that it is critical that the appeal to the memoria passionis involves not only the callfor the remembrance of the past suffering of one’s own culture, but also the sufferingexperienced in other cultures and even the suffering of one’s enemies.70Where a fixation onthe history of suffering in one’s own culture often leads to hatred and violence, Metzargues that the remembrance of the suffering of one’s enemies represents the onlylegitimate path toward an authentic politics of peace. We can see, therefore, that incontrast to Ratzinger’s project of translation in which non-believers are invited to ‘act as ifGod exists’ and to accept the Christian moral tradition as authoritative, Metz points to theuniversal authority of those who suffer which is present in some form in every culture.71

4. DE-HELLENIZATION AND DIFFERING TRANSLATIONS

Although Ratzinger and Metz formally converge in striking ways in their criticisms ofsecular reason and procedural defenses of democracy, their projects represent distinctive

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attempts to bring the resources of the Christian tradition into dialogue with modernculture. The differences between Ratzinger and Metz could be described in terms of theircommitment to the theological styles of Augustine (Ratzinger) or Aquinas (Metz),ressourcement (Ratzinger) or aggiornamento (Metz), or the ways in which they negotiatethe relationship between nature and grace in terms of a preference for either de Lubac(Ratzinger) or Rahner (Metz).72 These all constitute important components of thedifferences between these two theologians, but in conclusion to this paper we will focus onthe disagreement between Ratzinger and Metz over the process of de-Hellenization inmodernity and the significance of Kant’s critique of metaphysics within this process.Where Ratzinger mourns the process of de-Hellenization and advocates for a return tometaphysics as a means of grounding absolute moral truth claims in an age of relativism,Metz views the process of de-Hellenization as an opportunity to return Christianity to itsJewish roots in order to prioritize praxis over metaphysics. These emphases lead to verydifferent approaches to translation in which Ratzinger invites non-believers to participatein the truth of the Christian tradition and Metz points to the importance of cross-culturaland interreligious dialogue on the basis of the practical recognition of the authority ofthose who suffer. In this sense, the division between Ratzinger and Metz revolves aroundthe question of whether contemporary Christian theology should engage in a retrieval ofChristian Platonism (Ratzinger) or Hebraic Christianity (Metz) in response to moral andpolitical crises of modernity and whether Christianity is a religion grounded in the primacyof truth (Ratzinger) or praxis (Metz).

In the genealogy of modernity recounted in his Regensburg address, Ratzinger traces theprocess of de-Hellenization back to Luther’s critique of metaphysics and follows itsintensification in Kant’s critical philosophy, von Harnack’s theology, and contemporarytheologies of religious pluralism.73 For Ratzinger, de-Hellenization is characterized by aradical suppression of the Greek roots of not only patristic and medieval theology, but alsothe biblical tradition in whichGod is named as Logos in the Gospel of John. For Ratzinger,the synthesis between biblical faith and Greek metaphysics in the Gospel of John,Augustine, and Aquinas was no mere accident of history, but instead a ‘providential’ eventwhich served to support the fundamental Christian intuition that reality is rational andintelligible.74 At various points in the history of Christianity this synthesis has been calledinto question, but there is perhaps no challenge that is more decisive for Ratzinger thanKant’s critique of metaphysics. Ratzinger observes: ‘Since Immanuel Kant the unity ofphilosophical thought has more and more become disrupted. The thing to suffer most hasbeen the reliable certainty that man can feel his way, by solid intellectual argument, behindthe realm of physics to the being of things and the their ultimate cause.’75 Because reason ‘isincapable of any metaphysical knowledge’76 Kant refashions Christianity as a moralreligion and limits its scope to the realm of ‘practical reason, denying it access to reality as awhole.’77 With this, Kant inaugurates a dominant trajectory in modern theology thatsurvives today in political and liberation theologies as well as various theologies of religiouspluralism.78 Ratzinger’s criticism of these trajectories in contemporary theology is wellknown and rooted in his view that these forms of theology constitute a rupture with theclassical Christian tradition and its commitment to Christian metaphysical truth claims.Because he judges praxis to be an inadequate foundation for Christianity Ratzingerexpresses profound skepticism about the vitality and staying power of post-Kantian formsof theology. In particular, Ratzinger argues that if the pathway to metaphysical knowledgeis ‘barred, if we cannot pass beyond the limits to human perception set by Kant’ the endresult is that ‘faith will necessarily atrophy, simply for lack of breathing space.’79

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While Kant’s project is cast in a decidedly negative light in Ratzinger’s analysis, Metzinterprets Kant’s critique of metaphysics and his related turn to practical reason morepositively as an opening that makes possible the emergence of political theology in the 20th

century. According to Metz: ‘political theology always started from the insight that theturn to the primacy of practical reason in philosophy (Kant and Enlightenment; Marx) isto be considered the real Copernican shift.’80 As a post-idealist form of theology, politicaltheology operates out of a commitment to the primacy of praxis over metaphysics andemphasizes the priority of social transformation over the contemplation of truth. It shouldbe noted here, however, that Metz’s turn to praxis in Kant’s The Critique of PracticalReason and in Marx’s philosophy is not a reduction of theology to secular reason (contraMilbank81), but rather an opportunity to retrieve the Jewish roots of the Christiantradition which have been covered over by Greek metaphysics.82 It is with respect to thisissue that Metz has criticized explicitly Ratzinger’s claim that the Christian synthesisbetween biblical faith and Greek metaphysics constitutes a providential event in historybecause it was precisely this synthesis which led to what Metz characterizes as the epochalforgetfulness of the Jewish roots of Christianity.83 According to Metz, the move from theJewish approach to belief in the Synoptic Gospels to the more Greek inclined approachfound in the Gospel of John and the early Christian writers resulted in the ‘halving of thespirit of Christianity.’84 Christianity took its faith from biblical Israel but its way ofthinking from the Greek metaphysical tradition in which ‘ideas are always morefundamental than memories.’85 Thus, over time a religion originally focused on thesuffering of the innocent, the problem of theodicy, and discipleship as a practice offollowing Jesus was transformed into a religion focused on individual sin, redemptionfrom sin, and belief as a form of knowledge.86

InMetz’s theology, the retrieval of the Jewish roots of the Christian tradition representsthe attempt to not only reverse this process and restore the prioritization of praxis overmetaphysics, but also to underscore the fact that the precondition of all truth claims isallowing the voices of suffering to speak (Adorno).87 Accordingly, Metz’s approach totranslation involves a commitment to interreligious and cross-cultural dialogue on thebasis of a shared commitment to the authority of those who suffer, which constitutes thefoundation for ‘a global ethic, a world ethic, which obliges all humans prior to anyconsensus or agreement.’88 This practical and ethical approach to dialogue is similar toHans Kung’s call for the creation of a global ethic or basic consensus among worldreligions about fundamental ethical commitments.89 While Metz’s reflections move verymuch in the direction of Kung’s global ethic, Metz modifies Kung’s approach by insistingthat morality is grounded in recognition of the authority of those who suffer and not inconsensus.90

From Ratzinger’s perspective, this approach constitutes a repetition of Kant and thereduction of the truth claims of Christianity to an ethics which attempts ‘to replace‘‘orthodoxy’’: by ‘‘orthopraxy’’ ’ in view of the fact that ‘there is no common faith anymore (because truth is unattainable), only common praxis.’91 For Ratzinger, theprioritization of praxis over truth turns Christianity ‘upside down’92 because ‘the Biblewas not just meaning to introduce some kind of ‘‘orthopraxy.’’ It lays claim to somethingmore. It regards man as being able to recognize truth and means to confront him withtruth itself . . ..’93 Engaging in a defense of the priority of truth over praxis is a critical issuefor Ratzinger because in his view it is truth that makes praxis possible and not thereverse.94 Ratzinger’s approach to translation is consistent with this claim insofar as itinvites non-Christians to participate in the truth of the Christian tradition by ‘acting as if

10 MATTHEW T. EGGEMEIER

God exists.’ This commitment to the specificity of Christian truth claims also shapesRatzinger’s approach to dialogue in which he has emphasized the importance of truth asthe starting point of dialogue.95

For his part, Habermas’s recent reflections on the theologies of Ratzinger and Metzhave focused on their respective genealogies of modernity and the role that Kant plays inthese genealogies. In his analysis of Ratzinger’s theology, Habermas has focused hisattention on the Regensburg address and has interpreted it as a totalizing critique ofmodernity. For Habermas, Ratzinger’s comments were ‘unexpectedly critical ofmodernity’ and described a situation in which Christian theology must deal with ‘modern,postmetaphysical reason in the negative.’96 According to Habermas, Ratzinger’sgenealogy of modernity recounts a narrative in which the transition from the medievalworld to nominalism, Luther, and Kant is one of unmitigated decline and in which the taskof contemporary theology is to return to the pre-modern ‘synthesis of Greek metaphysicsand biblical faith.’97 Against this genealogy, Habermas argues that modernity is a morecomplex phenomenon than Ratzinger suggests and that ‘the move from Duns Scotus tonominalism does not merely lead to the Protestant voluntarist deity (Willensgott) but alsopaves the way for modern natural science. Kant’s transcendental turn leads not only to acritique of the proofs of God’s existence but also to the concept of autonomy which firstmade possible our modern European understanding of law and democracy.’98 In contrastto his critical comments about Ratzinger’s theology, Habermas approaches Metz’stheology more positively and views it as a form of theology with which postmetaphysicalphilosophy can engage in constructive dialogue. In a recent interview, Habermas states hispreference for Metz’s theology when asked whether Metz is his ‘ideal religious postseculardialogue partner’:

That is to express it in a catchy phrase, but it is not entirely mistaken. Metz’s great merit is to havethematized the temporal sensitivity of postmetaphysical thinking without any contextualistblackouts, in such a way that the theme can serve as a bridge to contemporary theology. In part byway ofMetz’s influence, a younger generation of theologians emerged in Germany. This generationno longer shares the view that was expressed by the Pope in his Regensburg speech. The members ofthis generation start theologically, as it were, afterKant’s critique of reason, so they do not lamentnominalism as the gateway to modernity’s history of decay. Rather, they also recognize inpostmetaphysical directions of thought the learning processes from which these directionsemerged.99

It should be noted here that while Metz’s approach is supported by Habermas, Ratzinger’sopposition to Kant and concern to retrieve an Augustinian-Thomist Christianmetaphysics finds support in contemporary theology in Radical Orthodoxy.100

In the end, there are solid arguments to be made on behalf of the projects of bothRatzinger andMetz because each approach has distinctive strengths and liabilities. And, inany case, the purpose of this paper has not been to argue for the superiority of Ratzinger’sapproach over Metz’s or Metz’s over Ratzinger’s, but rather to bring the reflections ofHabermas, Ratzinger, and Metz into conversation with one another on the relationshipbetween faith/reason and religion/politics in a post-secular situation. In analyzing thetheologies of Ratzinger and Metz it is clear that the post-secular conversation cannot belimited to the philosophical task of engaging in a salvaging deconstruction of religiousdiscourse, but must also involve the theological task of a salvaging recovery of a derailedmodern project. What form this salvaging recovery should take in our increasingly post-secular situation is the decisive question and the projects of Ratzinger andMetz provide uswith two distinctive options as we move toward an adequate response to this situation.

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Notes

1 Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers and Peter J. Fritz for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.2 Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans.

Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action: Lifeworldand System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), JurgenHabermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen(Boston: MIT Press, 1990), and Jurgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory ofLaw and Democracy, trans. William Rehg (Boston: MIT Press, 1996).

3 Jurgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2003), Jurgen Habermas, BetweenNaturalism and Religion, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008), and Jurgen Habermas, An AwarenessofWhat is Missing: Faith and Reason in a Post-Secular Age, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Malden,MA: Polity Press, 2010). Onpost-secular society, see, for instance, Jurgen Habermas, Europe: The Faltering Project (Malden, MA: Polity Press,2009), 59–77.

4 Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing, 18 and 20.5 Jurgen Habermas, Time of Transitions, edited and translated, Ciaran Cronin and Max Pensky (Malden, MA:

Polity Press, 2006), 150. See also, Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 305.6 Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 104. See also, Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing, 20–21.7 Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing, 18.8 Ibid., 18.9 Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 238–239. Habermas, Time of Transitions, 166, and Habermas, An

Awareness of What is Missing, 73–74.10 Jurgen Habermas, ‘Again Religion and the Public Sphere: a Response to Paolo Flores d’Arcais,’ in The Utopian,

02/2009. See also, Jurgen Habermas, ‘‘‘The Political’’: The RationalMeaning of a Questionable Inheritance of PoliticalTheology,’ in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan Vanantwerpen(New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 15–16.

11 Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 211.12 Ibid., 6 and 108.13 Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing,18.14 Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, 114.15 Habermas, Time of Transitions, 164. See also, Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 113 and 245.16 Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 142.17 Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, 110. See also Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 211. With

respect to the success of Kant’s project of translation, see Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 110.18 Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 245. See also, Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing, 21.

Habermas does suggest that both Kant and Hegel illegitimately attempt to determine what is true and false in thecontent of religion. See Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 109.

19 Ibid., 243.20 Ibid., 246–247.21 Ibid., 104.22 Joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, Politics: New Endeavors in Ecclesiology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,

2008), 204–205.23 Joseph Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, translated by Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,

2006), 42 and Joseph Ratzinger, The Essential Benedict XVI: His Central Writings and Speeches, edited by JohnThornton and Susan Varenne (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2007), 334.

24 Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and the Future (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 80. See also, Ratzinger, Values in aTime of Upheaval, 110.

V25 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, Politics, 204–205.26 Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,

2004), 156.27 Joseph Ratzinger, A Turning Point for Europe – The Church in the Modern World: Assessment and Forecast (San

Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 33.28 Joseph Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, translated by Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius

Press, 2006), 31.29 Ratzinger, The Essential Pope Benedict XVI, 22 and Joseph Ratzinger, Without Roots: The West, Relativism,

Christianity, Islam (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 128.30 Ratzinger, The Essential Benedict XVI, 330. See also, Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, 43.31 Benedict XVI, ‘The Regensburg Address’32 See also, Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 40 and Ratzinger, A Turning Point for Europe, 44.33 Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 68. On this point see Gerald McKenny’s insightful article on Ratzinger

and Alasdair MacIntyre entitled, ‘Moral Disagreement and the Limits of Reason: Reflections on MacIntyre andRatzinger,’ in Intractable Disputes about the Natural Law: Alasdair MacIntyre and Critics, edited by LawrenceCunningham (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 195–226.

12 MATTHEW T. EGGEMEIER

34 Ibid., 69.35 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, Politics, 205.36 Ratzinger, The Essential Benedict XVI, 333.37 Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 135–136.38 Ratzinger, Europe Today and Tomorrow: Addressing the Fundamental Issues, translated byMichael J. Miller (San

Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 93.39 Ratzinger, The Essential Benedict XVI, 229.40 Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 56. See also, Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 29, 33–34, 55, 29

and Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, Politics, 216.41 Ibid., 57.42 Ibid., 56 and Ratzinger, A Turning Point for Europe, 60. This, of course, would stand in marked contrast to

Habermas’s Kantian claim that ‘citizens of the state understand themselves to be authors of the law’ as well as itsaddressee. Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, 104.

43 Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 68.44 Ratzinger, A Turning Point for Europe, 60. Against Habermas’s claim that citizens are the ‘authors of the law’

Ratzinger claims that ‘there can be no foundation for law without transcendence.’ See Habermas, Between Naturalismand Religion, 104.

45 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, Politics, 214.46 Ibid., 207. See also, Ratzinger, Europe Today and Tomorrow, 99.47 Adriaan Pabst, ‘Modern Sovereignty in Question: Theology, Democracy, and Capitalism’, Modern Theology 26

(2010), pp. 570–602, 594.48 Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 38.49 Ibid., 38–39 and 56.50 Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, 51, and 87–88.51 Ratzinger also suggests that non-religious persons accept the Ten Commandments as an authoritative code of

moral truth claims. According to Ratzinger, the Decalogue constitutes a ‘sublime expression of moral reason, and assuch it finds echoes in the wisdom of the other great cultures.’ Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 29.

52 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, Politics, 206.53 Johann Baptist Metz, Love’s Strategy, edited by John Downey (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International, 1999),

167.54 Johann Baptist Metz, Hope against Hope: Johann Baptist Metz and Elie Wiesel Speak Out on the Holocaust,

translated J. Matthew Ashley (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999), 15.55 Johann Baptist Metz, A Passion for God: The Mystical-Political Dimension of Christianity, edited and translated

by J. Matthew Ashley (NewYork: Paulist Press, 1998), 130. See alsoMetz’s comments in Metz,Hope against Hope, 34.56 Metz, A Passion for God, 86.57 Ibid., 142–143.58 Metz, Hope against Hope, 37.59 Johann Baptist Metz, ‘God: Against the Myth of the Eternity of Time,’ in The End of Time? The Provocation of

Talking about God, translated J. Matthew Ashley (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist Press, 2004), 42. See also, Metz, Hope againstHope, 24.

60 Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, translated by J.Matthew Ashley (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2007), 212.

61 Metz, A Passion for God, 3, 134, 144 and Metz, Love’s Strategy, 170.62 Metz, A Passion for God, 138.63 Ibid., 138.64 Ibid., 138.65 Ibid., 137.66 Ibid., 143. Metz observes that: ‘when obedience to discourse and communication has primacy over the authority

of those who suffer, then the basis of all morality is lost.’ Metz, Love’s Strategy, 171.67 Metz, A Passion for God, 144–145.68 Metz, ‘God: Against the Myth of the Eternity of Time,’ 90.69 Metz, A Passion for God, 149.70 Metz, Love’s Strategy, 170. Also, see Metz, A Passion for God, 134, 143 and Johann Baptist Metz, ‘Toward a

Christianity of Political Compassion,’ translated J. Matthew Ashley in Love that Produces Hope: The Thought ofIgnacio Ellacurıa (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2006), 252.

71 Metz, Love’s Strategy, 171.72 See, for instance, David Tracy, ‘The Uneasy Alliance Reconceived: Catholic Theological Method, Modernity,

and Postmodernity’, Theological Studies 50 (1989), pp. 548–570., Joseph Komonchak, ‘Vatican II and the EncounterBetween Liberalism and Catholicism,’ in Catholicism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Public Philosophy,edited by R. Bruce Douglass and David Hollenbach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 76–99, andLieven Boeve, ‘Europe in Crisis: A Questions of Belief or Unbelief? Perspectives from the Vatican’ inModern Theology23 (2007), 205–227.

73 Benedict XVI, ‘The Regensburg Address.’ (Accessed October 5, 2010).

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74 Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 95. See also, Benedict XVI, ‘The Regensburg Address’ and Ratzinger, Church,Ecumenism, Politics, 216–217.

75 Ratzinger, Faith and the Future, 62.76 Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 126.77 Benedict XVI, ‘The Regensburg Address.’78 Ratzinger, Faith and the Future, 90–91.79 Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 135. See also, Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 140–141.80 Metz, Faith in History and Society, 63. See also, Metz, A Passion for God, 33.81 Notwithstanding Milbank’s influential reading of political and liberation theology through this lens in John

Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1990).82 Metz, A Passion for God, 64.83 Ibid., 64. For his part, Ratzinger has criticized these moves, suggesting that ‘radicalized political theologians’

have returned the New Testament to the horizon of the Old Testament by interpreting the kingdom of God as a humansocio-political act. Ratzinger, A Turning Point for Europe, 77.

84 Johann Baptist Metz, ‘On theWay to a Christology after Auschwitz’ inWhoDo You Say That I Am? Confessingthe Mystery of Christ, edited by John C. Cavadini and Laura Holt and translated by J. Matthew Ashley (Notre Dame,IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), 149. In a passage that damns with faint praise Metz observes: ‘not even theso-called Johannine way of believing stands wholly under the spell of Gnosticism.’ Metz, A Passion for God, 192.

85 Ibid., 149.86 See, for instance, Metz, A Passion for God, 58 and Metz, ‘Toward a Christianity of Political Compassion,’ 250.87 Ibid., 148.88 Johann Baptist Metz, Memoria Passionis: Ein provozierendes Gedachtnis in pluralistischer Gesellschaft (Verlag

Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau, 2006), 171. My translation. On the authority of suffering, see Metz,Memoria Passionis,173, Metz, Love’s Strategy, 170, Metz, ‘God: Against the Myth of the Eternity of Time,’ 89–90, Metz, A Passion forGod, 4, 144–146.

89 Hans Kung, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics, translated John Bowden (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1998).

90 Metz, Love’s Strategy, 171.91 Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 155.92 Ibid., 155.93 Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 94–95.94 Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 56–57. Ratzinger’s statement stands in marked contrast to Metz’s

claim that ‘theory and praxis are not seen here in their usual linear relationship, according to which praxis meanscarrying out, applying, or concretizing a theory that has already been formulated.’ Metz, Faith in History and Society,61.

95 See the reflections on dialogue in Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance.96 Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing, 22.97 Ibid., 22.98 Ibid., 22–23.99 Jurgen Habermas, ‘A Postsecular World Society? On the Philosophical Significance of Postsecular

Consciousness and the Multicultural World Society,’ interviewed by Eduardo Mendieta. http://mrzine.monthlyr-eview.org/2010/habermas210310p.html (Accessed September 10, 2010).

100 Ratzinger and Radical Orthodoxy share a critical opposition to Kant’s critique of metaphysics and the moderninvention of the secular. In opposition to these tendencies in modern culture Ratzinger and Radical Orthodoxy call fora retrieval of Christian metaphysics as a means of resisting the problematic consequences of the project of modernity.John Milbank has suggested that there is close the relationship between Radical Orthodoxy and the theology ofRatzinger (now pope Benedict XVI): ‘I would say that I see a very large congruence between Radical Orthodoxy andthe theology of the Pope: both stress the unity of faith and reason, the natural desire of the supernatural, theimportance of the Platonic legacy for the development of Christian understanding and the view that only a Christianhumanism can overcome the inherent drift of secularism towards an amoral nihilism.’ www.ilsussidiario.net/News/Culture-Religion/2010/9/18/Newman-a-saint-for-our-age/1/113310/(Accessed September 15, 2010).

14 MATTHEW T. EGGEMEIER