Religion among We the People: Conversations on Democracy and the Divine Good

by Franklin I. Gamwell

Overview

Franklin I. Gamwell holds that democracy with religious freedom is dependent on metaphysical theism. Democratic politics can be neutral to all religious convictions only if its constitution establishes a full and free discourse about the ultimate terms of justice and their application to decisions of the state, and the divine good is the true ground of justice. Notably, Gamwell's view challenges virtually all current accounts of democracy with religious freedom. This uncommon position emerges through a series of essays in which Gamwell engages a variety of conversation partners, including Thomas Jefferson, David Strauss, Abraham Lincoln, Jürgen Habermas, Alfred North Whitehead, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Iris Murdoch. Discussions of Jefferson, Lincoln, and the US Constitution illustrate the promise of neoclassical metaphysics as a context for interpreting US history. Gamwell then defends his metaphysics against both modern refusals of metaphysics and accounts of ultimate reality offered by Niebuhr and Murdoch.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438458090
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	10/06/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	744 KB

About the Author

Franklin I. Gamwell is Shailer Mathews Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Religious Ethics, Theology, and Philosophy of Religion at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. His many books include Existence and the Good: Metaphysical Necessity in Morals and Politics and The Meaning of Religious Freedom: Modern Politics and the Democratic Resolution, both also published by SUNY Press.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Consent to Religious Freedom: The Legacy of Thomas Jefferson

The Present Question
Jefferson’s Answers
Refining the Question
Reason’s Tribunal
Jefferson’s Legacy

2. On Constitutional Authority: A Conversation with David Strauss

The Living Constitution
Jefferson’s Question: Hermeneutical and Normative
The Tradition of Popular Sovereignty
Advancing the Tradition

3. Democracy and Nature’s God: The Legacy of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s Political Sentiments
The Declaration’s Laws of Nature
The Almighty’s Purposes
The House Divided
Lincoln’s Legacy

4. On Religion in the Public Sphere: A Conversation with Jürgen Habermas

The Institutional Proviso
Habermas’s Proposal: A Critique
Habermas and Rawls: The Basic Problem
The Better Solution
The Attachment to Democracy

5. On the Humanitarian Ideal: The Promise of Neoclassical Metaphysics

Kantian and Post-Enlightenment Challenges
Metaphysics and Human Purpose
Making the Humanitarian Ideal Explicit

6. Reinhold Niebuhr’s Theistic Ethic: The Law of Love

Niebuhr’s Systematic Project
Niebuhr’s Ethic: Harmony and Sacrificial Love
Niebuhr’s Ethic: A Critique
Niebuhr’s Intentions Revisited

7. On the Loss of Theism: A Conversation with Iris Murdoch

Emphatic Moral Realism
Good without God
The Loss of Worth
The Necessity of God

Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index