Science, Action and Fundamental Theology Toward a Theology of Communicative Action

This book offers a rigorous examination of the possibility of a theology based on contemporary conceptions of rationality, with special attention given to JÜrgen Habermas's idea of a communicative rationality. The title underscores the interdisciplinary nature of the author's attempt to formulate a foundational theory of theology in response to the challenges of the theories of science and action in this century. The opening section discusses the reception of analytic philosophies of science and language in Germany. A convergence is then established between the theory of science and fundamental theology via the theory of communicative action. The second section of the book is particularly challenging. It deals with the relationship between theology and the theory of action. The limits and paradoxes of communicative action and its normative postulates point toward what Peukert calls the authentic problem - dimension of theological discourse and toward the religious language of the Judeo-Christian tradition. These remarkable arguments form a permanent contribution to the foundational theory of theology and to the contemporary debate on communicative ethics. Helmut Peukert belongs to the second generation of German theologians involved in the development of a "political theology," following on the work of JÜrgen Moltmann and Johannes Baptist Metz. He is presently teaching at the University of Monster in West Germany. This book is in the series, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.Peukert, Helmut is the author of 'Science, Action and Fundamental Theology Toward a Theology of Communicative Action', published 1986 under ISBN 9780262660600 and ISBN 0262660601.