Religion, Politics and Law: Philosophical Reflections on the Sources of Normative Order in Society

Description

Modern, liberal democracies in the West living under the rule of law and protection of human rights cannot articulate the very values from which they derive their legitimacy. These pre-political and pre-legal preconditions cannot be guaranteed, let alone be enforced by the state, but constitute nevertheless its moral and spiritual infrastructure. Until recently, a common background and horizon consisted in Christianity, but due to secularisation and globalisation, society has become increasingly multicultural and multireligious. The question can and should be raised how religion relates to these sources of normative order in society, how religion, politics and law relate to each other, and how social cohesion can be attained in society, given the growing varieties of religious experiences. In this book, a philosophical account of this question is carried out, on the one hand historically from Plato to the Enlightenment, on the other hand systematically and practically. CONTENTS Acknowledgements List of Contributors Philosophical Refl ections on Religion, Politics and Law: An Introduction --- Bart C. Labuschagne and Reinhard W. Sonnenschmidt PART A PHILOSOPHICAL-HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES: WITH VOEGELIN BACK TO PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AUGUSTINE AND HEGEL I. Eric Voegelin's Philosophy of Law and Ethics: A Cr itique --- Andreas A.M. Kinneging II. Plato's Political Ontology: On the Nature of Man and Regime --- Benjamin Bilski III. Religion and Order: Philosophical Refl ections from Augustine to Hegel on the Spiritual Sources of Law and Politics --- Bart C. Labuschagne PART B POLITICO-RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES: A CRITICAL REAPPRAISAL OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT, AND THE NEW APPROACH OF THE ‘POLITICAL SCIENCE OF RELIGION’ IV. Politics and Religion in the Philosophy of the Enlightenment I: Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke and Rousseau --- Claus-E. Bärsch V. Politics and Religion in the Philosophy of the Enlightenment II: Kant --- Claus-E. Bärsch VI. Basic Outlines of the 'Political Science of Religion' --- Claus-E. Bärsch PART C SYSTEMATICAL-PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES: ON EVIL, LOVE AND VIOLENCE, TOTALITARIANISM AND THE CURRENT MEANING OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT VII. The Diabolical Dimensions in the Shapes of Political Reality --- Peter Berghoff VIII. Love and Violence: Dialectical Refl ections on the Phenomenology of the Crusade --- Timo J.M. Slootweg IX. Totalitarianism and Radical Islamic Ideologies --- David A.J. Suurland X. The Enlightenment in Contemporary Cultural Debate --- Paul Cliteur and Geoff Gordon PART D PRACTICAL-PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES: DEALING WITH RELIGIOUS PLURALISM UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OR: THE CHALLENGING VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN MODERN DEMOCRACIES XI. The Religious Aspects of the Founding of the American Republic: A Design of Religion and Reason --- Detlef David Bauszus XII. Taking Pluralism Seriously: The US and the EU as Multicultural Democracies? --- Hans-Martien Th.D. ten Napel and Florian H. Karim Theissen XIII. Law, Politics and Religion: In Search of Criteria for Understanding Modernity --- Reinhard W. Sonnenschmidt XIV. From Transcendence to Introcendence: The Consciousness of Political Reality and Psycho-Esoteric Constructions of Salvation --- Andreas Dordel and Andrea Ullrich Name Index Subject Index