Religion

Jacques Derrida in 'Faith and Knowledge' (1998: 34) notes, following Emile Benveniste in Indo-European Language and Society (1973), that the word 'religion' (religio) has two distinctive roots. First, relegere from legere means to bring together, to harvest or to gather (in). Second, religare from ligare means to tie or to bind together. The first meaning indicates the religious foundations of any social group that is gathered together, while the second points to the disciplines or morality that are necessary for controlling human beings and creating a regulated mentality. The first meaning indicates the role of the cult in forming human membership, while the second meaning points to the regulatory practices of religion in the discipline of passions. This distinction formed the basis of Kant's philosophical analysis of religion and morality. In Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason (1960), Kant distinguished between religion as cult (des blossen Cultus), which seeks favours from God through prayer and offerings to bring healing and wealth to its followers, and religion as moral action (die Religion des guten Lebenswandels), which commands human beings to change their behaviour in order to lead a better life. Kant further elaborated this point by an examination of 'reflecting faith' that compels humans to strive for salvation through faith rather than the possession of religious knowledge. The implication of Kant's distinction was that (Protestant) Christianity was the only true 'reflecting faith', and in a sense therefore the model of all authentic religious intentions. Kant's distinction was fundamentally about those religious injunctions that call human beings to (moral) action and hence demand that humans assert their autonomy and responsibility. In order to have autonomy, human beings need to act independently of God. In a paradoxical fashion, Christianity implies the 'death of God' because it calls people to freedom and hence the Christian faith is ultimately self-defeating.