Habermas and Theology

Nicholas Adams, Habermas and Theology, Cambridge University Press, 2006, 278pp., $29.99 (pbk), ISBN 0521681146.


Reviewed by Eduardo Mendieta, Stony Brook University

"Adjoining two nouns in the title of a book is like writing a blank check to "cash." One better know who is receiving the check and one better make sure to have sufficient funds when it gets cashed. This book promises too much, and thus delivers too little, but what it delivers is still worth the trouble. The author manages to say some interesting things that may be of use to both philosophers and theologians, notwithstanding the author's avowed claims and disclaimers. The book is vituperative, contrarian, combative, and irreverent. In many ways and on many occasions, the very assumptions of the book are refuted in its execution. The book is a large performative self-contradiction: the form of the enunciated speech act is contradicted by its enactment."

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