From Critical Theory to Critical Political Theology: Personal Autonomy and Universal Solidarity

At present, in European and American civil society a new paradigm of doing not only psychology, sociology and philosophy, but also comparative religiology and theology is emerging: it is called communicative rationality and action. A new communicative theology and religiology are also arising. Their central theme is the theodicy problem. The present study approaches this theme in the framework of a critical political theology and comparative religiology in a narrative and discursive fashion. In search for a solution to the theodicy problem, we explore with the help of the critical theory from Max Horkheimer through Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno to J rgen Habermas, and with the assistance of the new political theology from Johann B. Metz through Helmut Peukert to Edmund Arens, the psychological, sociological, philosophical and theological constellation of universal freedom, reconciliation, and non-possessive love and solidarity out of personal autonomy and sovereignty.

The Author: Rudolf J. Siebert was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He studied history, philology, philosophy, sociology and theology at the University of Frankfurt, the University of Mainz, the University of Münster and the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Siebert has taught, lectured and published widely in Western and Eastern Europe, the United States and Canada. He is professor of religion and society and director of the Center for Humanistic Future Studies at Western Michigan University, and director of an international course on the «Future of Religion» in the IUC, Dubrovnik, Croatia. His previous major work is The Critical Theory of Religion: Frankfurt School.