Abstract

According to Jürgen Habermas, religious consciousness (in the West) has been undergoing a process of modernization since the Reformation and Enlightenment. This modernization has been taking place in response to challenges which include encounters with a plurality of religions and other worldviews, the emergence of modern science, and the spread of positive law and secular morality. These challenges have motivated efforts to re-conceive the relation between secular and religious knowledge, as well as efforts to relate religion to other worldviews, and to uncover human and universal aspects implicit in religion (Habermas 2006: 13–14).