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On the Relations Between the

Secular Liberal State and Religion

Ju ̈rgen Habermas

1

The suggested theme for our discussion today is reminiscent of a ques-
tion that Ernst Wolfgang Bo ̈ckenfo ̈rde, in the mid-1960s, succinctly put
as follows: Is the liberal secular state nourished by normative precondi-
tions that it cannot itself guarantee?^1 The question expresses doubt that
the democratic constitutional state can renew the normative precondi-
tions of its existence out of its own resources. It also voices the conjec-
ture that the state is dependent upon autochthonous conceptual or
religious traditions—in any case, collectively binding ethical traditions.
Were the doubt substantiated and the conjecture proven true, the state
would find itself in trouble, for it is obliged to maintain ideological
neutrality in the face of the ‘‘fact of pluralism’’ (Rawls). This conclusion
doesn’t, however, invalidate the conjecture.
I would like to begin by specifying the problem in two respects.
Cognitively, the doubt refers to the question of whether, once law has
been fully positivized, political rule is at all open to a secular, that is, a
nonreligious or postmetaphysical justification. Even if such legitimation
is granted, with respect to motivation it remains doubtful whether such
an ideologically pluralist community could be stabilized normatively—
that is, beyond a mere modus vivendi—by presuming an at best formal
background consensus, one limited to procedures and principles. And
even if this doubt could be removed, it remains a fact that liberal sys-
tems are dependent upon the solidarity of their citizens—a solidarity
whose sources could dry up completely as a result of a ‘‘derailed’’ secu-
larization of society. While this diagnosis cannot be dismissed, it must
not be understood to mean that the learned among the defenders of
religion can generate an argumentative ‘‘surplus,’’ as it were, on the

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