religious revolution now 203of what we can become draws closer to the truth about ourselves than
do the beliefs characteristic of the overcoming of the world and of the
humanization of the world.
Even when it gives up faith in the narratives of divine intervention
that have been central to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the struggle
with the world, as it is exemplifi ed by democracy and romanticism, re-
mains radically defective. It provides inadequate guidance for the
change of self and of society. It is also defi cient in its articulation and
defense of the case for such a change.
Th is embrace and this criticism of the struggle with the world defi ne
the standpoint from which this book is written. Ideas that include these
moves do not off er simply an argument about religion; they represent
an argument within religion. Th ey outline the rudiments of theology: a
strange theology, devoted to a par tic u lar religion, as every theology
must be, but a religion that does not yet exist.
When he makes such claims, a man takes his life into his hands,
pressing to the limits, and beyond them, of what we can hope to know.
An argument signifying an intervention within religion as well as a
discourse about it must itself bear the traits of religious thinking and
experience. One of these traits is the unbridgeable gap between the
weight of the existential commitment— the engagement of life in a par-
tic u lar direction— and the insuffi ciency, or incompleteness, of the
grounds for such a commitment. To insist on the prerogative of the
mind to address what matters most, even when we must do so beyond
the boundaries of all established disciplines and methods, is an ex-
pression, in speculative thought, of our humanity- defi ning power of
transcendence.
However, even the theology of a religion that does not exist cannot
hope to overcome the implications of our groundlessness. Its argu-
ments remain fragmentary in their scope and inconclusive in their
force. Th ey may clarify, inform, and persuade. Th ey cannot demon-
strate. Th ey are powerless to exempt us from the imperative of faith, in
its double meaning of going beyond the evidence of reason and of plac-
ing ourselves in the hands of others when we act out a faith the rational
grounds of which are never enough.
When it fails to acknowledge these facts, speculative thought, whether
presenting itself as philosophy or as anti- theological theology, is