Religious faith and social justice: on Hägglund’s incompatibility thesis

ABSTRACT Is religious faith necessarily a barrier to the achievement of a just society? In This Life, Martin Hägglund answers ‘yes’, defending a form of political atheism based on the claim that a wholehearted commitment to social justice presupposes the recognition of humans as altogether finite, mortal beings. Hägglund’s thorough contribution offers a useful entry point for exploring widely perceived—but seldom articulated—obstacles to more conciliatory approaches for seeking radical social change. In this article I unpack and reject what I call Hägglund’s incompatibility thesis on religious faith and social justice. I argue that it ultimately rests on false oppositions that present no insurmountable obstacles to firm coalitions for social activism across secular and religious worldviews. While Hägglund’s arguments raise relevant questions and challenges for some theological views, his global rejection of theistic faith from coalitions for social justice turns out to be (1) unnecessary, (2) illiberal, and (3) counterproductive. Considering the possibilities and hindrances for stable alliances for liberal equality across groups, I contend that political philosophy and social justice activism cannot afford to cut off or alienate theistic believers from egalitarian political struggles.

Introduction: religious faith versus social justice?Martin Hägglund's This Life is one of the most widely discussed contemporary contributions on the relationship between religious belief and egalitarian political commitments over the past few years.Central to his argument is a thesis about 'religious faith in eternity' and how it stands in the way of recognizing the value of our finite lives, assuming full responsibility for our actions, and firmly embracing social freedom of all as an end in itself. 1 Hägglund defends a vision of democratic socialism anchored in a notion of 'secular faith' that entails redirecting our spiritual needs more wholeheartedly into our social communities here and now, in 'this life'. 2 The book sparked debates on faith and politics all over the world and had a major influence on public discussions on politics and religion in many countries. 3As shown by the receptiveness of contemporary liberal democracies to Hägglund's claims, his views seem to resonate with widely held attitudes about reason, morality, and the politics of social justice.According to Hägglund, any robust emancipatory vision must be fully dissociated from religious faith and political theology.
Pleas for such a divorce of progressive social activism from religious faith gain traction by the many recent examples of how religious discourse is employed in the service of right-wing populism and democratic backsliding rather than egalitarian struggles for social justice. 4I will here approach Hägglund's claims as symptomatic of firmly entrenched views in many progressive movements, and much secular-rationalist discourse on the political implications of religious faith.Hägglund's thorough contribution offers a rare and useful entry point for exploring widely perceived-but seldom articulated-obstacles to more conciliatory frameworks for radical social change.This 'entry point' value in relation to considerations about how commitments of solidarity relate to religious beliefs can be appreciated regardless of what we (ultimately) think of Hägglund's philosophy, or whether we identify as religious or not.Despite the originality and wide impact of Hägglund's arguments, the intense public discussions they spurred among critics and commentators in media and civil society have not been matched by similar levels of thorough scholarly attention, thereby leaving some of his key claims on religion and justice unchallenged. 5Arguably, one reason for this is the style of Hägglund's writing, sometimes described as a mix of argument and sermon, resisting straightforward classification in traditional genres or scholarly disciplines.
Even though I disagree with Hägglund's main arguments on the political implications of religious faith, I find it important and productive to address them systematically.One valuable, distinguishing feature of his approach is the close attention it devotes to everyday practices and what it means to live by various attitudes of faith.How can we make our beliefs and doctrinal commitments cohere with the attitudes expressed in our daily acts of care?His wide-ranging analysis of philosophical and theological views of such questions through diverse types of material (relating as much to personal experiences as theoretical views) defends bold and thought-provoking claims.While Hägglund's rich and beautifully written contribution raises important questions, I shall argue that (what I refer to as) his incompatibility thesis on religious faith and wholehearted moral commitment is false, for reasons that are important to bring out.His argument serves to conceal the many ways in which religious faith and social justice activism can be mutually reinforcing (which is certainly not to say that they always are) at a time when religion, and critique of religion, are often sources of social and political divisions.
Two starting points of my analysis should be emphasized.Firstly, this article will mainly explore how Hägglund's claims play out in the context of Abrahamic-and especially Christian-forms of theism.Such a focus reflects the emphasis of Hägglund's own contribution, as clearly indicated by his overview of authors and sources addressed, most of which are Christian. 6The intellectual and social heritage of these traditions also occupy center stage in debates on the political role of religion in Western liberal democracies.Even though Hägglund advances a global rejection of religious faith (a remarkably broad category), it is fair to say that theistic faith in Jewish and Christian traditions constitutes his most central and politically relevant target of critique.The foundational ideas addressed are also expressed in key tenets of Islam. 7econdly, my motivation for exploring Hägglund's claims about religion and justice is not to engage with debates on theism versus atheism as such.My exploration remains fully neutral between these positions.The task at hand is not to examine whether any specific religious beliefs are true but to engage critically with Hägglund's strong claims about the moral and political implications of the forms of theistic faith that receives most of his attention. 8onsidering the possibilities and hindrances for stable alliances for liberal equality across groups, I contend that political philosophy and social justice activism cannot afford to cut off or alienate theistic believers from egalitarian political struggles.Ultimately, I argue that Hägglund's challenge provides no compelling reason to think otherwise.My central claim is that his incompatibility thesis rests on false oppositions that present no insurmountable obstacles to firm coalitions for social activism across secular and religious worldviews.
Section 1 reconstructs the most central themes in Hägglund's arguments.Section 2 will then focus on how Hägglund makes use of the test of Abraham in Gen. 22 to develop his core distinction between secular and religious faith, and his argument against the latter.Section 3 goes to the heart of Hägglund's criticism by analyzing the moral implications of this story in dialogue with contemporary religious viewpoints in the traditions addressed.Sections 4 and 5 address further elements of the incompatibility thesis.Section 6 concludes by arguing that the expulsion of theistic faith from coalitions for justice is not only unnecessary but also illiberal and counterproductive.
6 See Hägglund, This Life, p. 28f. 7One valid line of response to Hägglund's argument would be to stress how most of it seems to assume (and reproduce) a reductive, monolithic and theistically bent account of religious faith.Unpacking the wide and multifaceted category of "religious faith" leaves many possibilities to disconnect it from the eternity-oriented notions of faith (with their emphasis on detachment, salvation, and other-worldly objectives) against which Hägglund's central claims are directed.On Hägglund's narrow view of religion, and examples of religious philosophies to which his criticism would (arguably) not have much relevance or force, see K. Schilbrack, 'Spiritual Values for Those Without Eternal Life', Sophia 58 (2019), pp.753-759.For the purposes of this article, I will stay focused on forms of Abrahamic theism-and Christianity in particular-rather than religious faith in general since this is where his arguments have the strongest claim to present a well-targeted and politically relevant challenge. 8Given the close attention I devote to Christian sources in parts of this article, some readers may misinterpret my argument as an implicit defense of Christian theism, or of religion more broadly.I do offer a defense of the legitimate and fruitful contributions of theistic traditions to the quest for a just liberal democracy against Hägglund-type of objections.
There is no other way to challenge Hägglund's conclusions than to engage with the religious philosophies and biblical passages on which his claims are based.However, my interest lies squarely in the moral and political implications of influential worldviews, and the prospects for coalition-building across groups and traditions for social justice, not in religious belief per se.A first look at Hägglund's incompatibility thesis: the themes of devaluation and detachment Hägglund's notion of secular faith is consistently defined in contrast and opposition to religious faith: 'The object of secular faith-e.g. the life we are trying to lead, the institutions we are trying to build, the community we are trying to achieve-is inseparable from what we do and how we do it … the ideal itself, however, depends on how we keep faith with our commitment and remains open to being challenged, transformed, or overturned.The object of religious faith, by contrast, is taken to be independent of the fidelity of finite beings'. 9On Hägglund's view, embracing secular faith necessarily means rejecting religious faith.According to this binary, zero-sum interpretation of the relationship between the two, it follows that theistic or (more broadly) religious worldviews can never-once we fully understand what they imply-support the moral commitments he is concerned with.Thus, Hägglund's incompatibility thesis says that there is a fundamental or even (as he often puts it) 'necessary' incompatibility between religious faith and wholehearted moral commitment.A central implication of this view is that religious faith must be firmly rejected from egalitarian politics.Throughout This Life, categorical expressions such as 'required', 'must', 'necessary', 'can only be' are frequently used in statements of this claim: 'a genuine care for others must be based on secular faith' 10 ; 'secular faith is necessary for motivating ethical, political, and filial commitments' 11 ; justice (here interpreted as the 'move towards democratic socialism') is 'inseparable from the overcoming of political theology and the withering away of religious faith'. 12It is this strong claim that I will scrutinize in this article.
As already mentioned, Hägglund does not restrict his negative claim about religious faith and justice to specific religions or theological doctrines.He argues that a common denominator of all forms of religious faith, defined with reference to 'belief in an eternal being or an eternity beyond being' 13 , is the devaluation of our finite lives as a lower form of existence-something that must be overcome and that appears (more or less) meaningless in case 'this life' turns out to be all there is. 14n the religious traditions addressed, the key to peace of mind is a form of detachment which-according to Hägglund-devalues our mortal lives and weakens our social commitments.If our lives and experiences are interpreted as mere shadows or brief glimpses of ultimate reality (something permanent, higher, and far more significant), this dilutes trust in our moral judgements, and our sense of responsibility for what we do.This is reflected in religious attitudes of reconciliation expressing variations of the theme that everything that happens (including what appears blatantly unjust) happens for a reason, and the view that the ways of God are incomprehensible to us, fallen and fallible creatures.All of this makes the justification and meaningfulness of resistance to injustice questionable.Is it injustice at all, or in fact part of God's plan or purposes far beyond our ken?It also places responsibility for what happens in our societies elsewhere-in the hands of God. 15 Against such a theistic weakening of confidence in our own moral judgments, and our sense of responsibility for what happens in the world, Hägglund stresses the fragility of our cherished ideals, relations, and institutions.They can prosper only to the extent that we (finite humans) strive to achieve and sustain them.Justice will not be delivered to us through divine interference.Instead, it depends entirely on the strength of our social commitments to care for others. 16Awareness of this fact is needed for motivating our undivided efforts to caring for others and taking full responsibility for our actions.Thus, we only have a chance to realize our ideals 'if we grasp that everything is as stake in what we do with our finite time together'. 17he exact meaning of Hägglund's strong claim that there is a fundamental incompatibility between religious faith and social justice, and related moral commitments, is somewhat elusive.To pin down interpretive possibilities, I will distinguish two ways of understanding his notion of incompatibility.Firstly, we may take Hägglund to advance (a) an empirical, behavior-focused claim saying that the allegedly detached viewpoint of theistic faith inevitably fails to inspire the levels of committed care and devotion to finite human lives that the project of social justice requires.
Taken at face value, this claim seems plainly false, as made apparent by a visit to any well-organized church community (and Hägglund himself seems to recognize this [e.g.p. 332]).Indeed, such an empirical reading of Hägglund's claim will seem puzzling and provoking to anyone familiar with acts of committed care and unselfish attention that would be unlikely in the absence of religious communities.
There is also a comprehensive empirical literature on the seemingly firm, positive associations between religious networks/services attendance and various indicators of civic engagement (including charitable giving, volunteering, and political participation).These are well-established both in democracies where religion plays a prominent role, and in more secular democracies. 18One may reasonably ask: if the level and intensity of care associated with the paradigmatic forms of Christian charity-say, in the spirit of Mother Teresa's lifelong devotion to those 'unwanted, unloved, and uncared for'are not examples of firm moral commitment, then what is? Wouldn't it seem absurdmany will add patronizing and disrespectful-to suggest that such expressions of care are somehow not committed, sincere, or wholehearted?
The relevance of such examples may be questioned by pointing out that Hägglund's analysis advances an egalitarian critique of religious charity (developed in the footsteps of Marx) as tending to depoliticize the existence of poverty and to focus more on salvation of the poor than emancipatory struggles for social justice in this life. 19Still, we may simply redescribe the position considered by focusing on the many pleas for structural, transformative political action offered by the rich tradition of Christian socialism and social activism.Of particular relevance to Hägglund's case for democratic socialism are the views of politically egalitarian Christians such as R.H. Tawney, Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, and the wider tradition of liberation theology, mainly associated with Gustavo Gutiérrez (just to mention a few examples). 20gain, it is implausible to suggest that the theistic element of the worldviews of such thinkers and movements somehow competes with (rather than motivates and strengthens) the actions and virtues of wholehearted moral commitment and responsibility emphasized by Hägglund.On their self-understanding, theistic faith is not a dispensable add-on but constitutive to their worldviews and plays a key role for inspiring and sustaining their egalitarian, social activism.Except for his discussion of Martin Luther King's political commitments, Hägglund is remarkably silent about such traditions of thought, and the apparent challenges they pose to the incompatibility thesis.
As James Chappel puts it in an otherwise sympathetic review of This Life: 'Religious believers claim, in all manner of ways, that their care for the finite world is enlivened and awakened by their sense that the world is not dead matter, but rather emanates from the divine' … 'For many, this world matters precisely because of its linkage to the eternal'. 21The type of view that this remark highlights (and to which I return below) is one that I will refer to as a mutual reinforcement position.On such views, religious faith and wholehearted moral commitment to finite lives are bound to be mutually supportive: theistic faith demands and inspires service to others and service to others expresses and inspires theistic faith.
Having cleared the table from the empirical, behavior-centered reading of the incompatibility thesis, let us instead formulate a second and potentially more powerful construal of Hägglund's position.On this version, the core of the incompatibility thesis consists in (b) a theoretical point on the meaning and nature of wholehearted moral commitment, and the type of motivation it calls for.Even though the religiously inspired political activism of (say) Martin Luther King Jr., may be admirable to many, Hägglund repeatedly suggests that it remains somehow tainted, weakened, or unfulfilled due to an instrumental and/or detached element that he reads into it.
To the extent that our moral commitments are motivated by otherworldly concerns, or love-perhaps fear-of God rather than love for other fragile persons, as the actual, imperfect, finite, and fallible beings they are, they fail to live up to the right description of what wholehearted commitment to finite lives is, and what it requires.To Hägglund, all religiously motivated devotion is necessarily of this type. 22For what matters ultimately on such views is not social justice, or the flourishing of finite and imperfect persons, as ends in themselves.Instead, such commitments to justice, freedom, and care are embraced as means to objectives beyond this life-a path to salvation and, thus, full union with God.In spelling out arguments of this kind, he is particularly focused on a Christian view according to which the ultimate aim of our social efforts is not to do what is right, or to act out of love for another human being, but to do what God commands.
Hägglund's claim that religiously motivated care necessarily falls short of wholehearted concern for actual persons can thus be said to present religious believers with a sort of litmus test.They are pushed to reveal if their concern is indeed full or genuine, which entails shrugging off its religious element, or if is morally tainted and limited in significant ways by remaining wedded to religiously infused attitudes.Thus, a corollary of Hägglund's interpretation is that theists who are fully committed to social justice in the relevant sense are in fact mistaken about their own beliefs.
In engaging with writings of many Christians, including St Augustine, C.S. Lewis, and Martin Luther King Jr., he argues that by thinking and acting in ways that seem to fully recognize death as irrevocable, and that express a full attachment to finite and fragile lives as ends in themselves, they contradict presuppositions of the religious faith they claim to live by.In short, on our second, motivation-centered reading of the incompatibility thesis, they seem entangled in performative contradictions by thinking and acting against religious beliefs to which they claim adherence, and that are constitutive to their theistic faith. 23If we are to fully embrace care, morality, and responsibility, Hägglund insists that we must address these tensions by closing the door to the transcendent and, thus, reject the attitudes of religious faith.

Religious versus secular faith in the test of Abraham
To fully appreciate the dilemma that Hägglund constructs for morally committed believers, it is important to see how he associates theistic faith with ideas of sacrifice and subordination to the will of God, and why he thinks that such attitudes are incompatible with full moral commitment to finite lives.The key step in Hägglund's development of the distinction between religious and secular faith is a close reading of God's test of Abraham in Gen. 22:1-8 through the lens of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.
In this story, traditionally referred to as the Akedah (which is Hebrew for 'binding'), Abraham seems to confirm his religious faith and his submission to the will of God by demonstrating his readiness to go through with the sacrificial killing of his own son.Abraham and his wife Sarah had been promised a son (despite that they were far beyond the age of fertility) and that this son, Isaac, would give rise to an entire people.The test of Abraham begins when he is told by God to prepare the sacrifice of Isaacto whom such great happiness, love and expectations are attached-on a mountain in the land of Moriah.
Once in Moriah several days after God's call ('on the third day'), Abraham builds an altar for the sacrificial offering.He makes all the preparations for the fire, binds Isaac and is ready to kill him with a knife.However, at this point God intervenes through an angel to stop Abraham.Isaac is spared, and instead a ram appears that takes Isaac's place for the sacrifice.Abraham's obedience and trust in God is rewarded, and God's original promise to Abraham is eventually realized.
Focusing on Hägglund's discussion, I will here (like him) stick to the biblical narrative most of the time, but it should be emphasized that the test is also ascribed fundamental significance in Islam.Notably, in the Surah As-Saffat version of the story (Qur'an 37:101-111), the son is actively involved by Abraham in responding to God's command and voluntarily agrees to be sacrificed (hence no binding occurs) before God eventually interrupts the sacrifice and rewards their obedience.Another crucial difference is that Muslims take the identity of the son to be Ishmael [son of Abraham and Hagar] rather than Isaac. 24ll the central elements of Hägglund's incompatibility thesis are expressed in his interpretation of this passage.Hägglund attacks the religious logic-as powerfully expressed by Kierkegaard-according to which we open ourselves to (the possibility) of full union with God and eternal life only when we are prepared to sacrifice mortal life and express faith that our own life and the life of others may persist regardless (independently) of what we do. 25'Even if Abraham has to kill Isaac, he believes that God will bring Isaac back to life, and as long as he keeps this expectation he cannot be defeated'. 26hus, Abraham's intention to kill Isaac / Ishmael, following God's command to do so, is an option that religious faith is open to whereas secular faith is not.
In this analysis, religious faith is identified with an inward conviction that shields us from the pain of loss. 27The faith and trust in God are imbued with expectations that nothing can ultimately be lost in our finite relationships, with all the dangers of recklessness and insensitivity associated with this attitude.Abraham 'closes his eyes to Isaac's suffering by virtue of religious faith'. 28Similarly, on the Christian view considered, the crucifixion of Jesus is interpreted as a holy act where the Father's sacrifice of the son on the cross offers the key to salvation and eternal life.In contrast, by affirming secular faith, we can remain true to our own moral conviction that 'there are things I cannot do and a world I cannot lose on pain of losing myself'. 30An important aspect of this theme of detachment and/or devaluation in Hägglund's thought is the idea that a religious basis for morality as constituted by (or revealed and enforced through) divine commands cannot underpin the attitudes of devotion, responsibility, and responsiveness to the needs of others that morality calls for in these examples.'If God is dead, everything is permitted' is a view expressed in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.Hägglund says-on the contrary-that if 'there is a God for whom anything is possible … anything can be permitted'. 31If the resurrection of mortal bodies through divine interference is possible, even the brutal sacrificial killing of a loved one (as in the cases of Isaac / Ishmael and Jesus) can be accepted.This stance is extremely dangerous by clouding or potentially distorting our moral judgments in disastrous ways.If I am confident that life will persist whatever I do (or fail to do), this invites carelessness.If I am prepared to sacrifice mortal lives as a key to salvation I am desensitized to human suffering.If I act only because God tells me to act, I lose touch with-'disown'-my moral judgment and sense of responsibility. 32ägglund's contribution is meant to address both religious and secular audiences, and to offer an immanent critique of religious faith.His project invites us to 'proceed from the secular [in the sense of worldly, temporal, historical] faith we share' in common practice.In this sense, he claims to incorporate and build on religious tradition rather than dismiss it or 'divide the world into separate camps of atheists and believers'. 33onsidering Christian practices of solidarity and anti-poverty campaigns, Hägglund recognizes the services for the poor and struggles against urgent injustices that are associated with many forms of religious discourse and collective organization. 34One example is the radical political activism of Martin Luther King Jr, which Hägglund reads as expressing an admirable form of secular faith, giving priority to the 'new Memphis' rather than the 'new Jerusalem'.Instead of approaching present hardships by placing an otherworldly frame around them, these struggles demand nothing less than democratic emancipation and human flourishing here and now.However, this-Hägglund claims-is ultimately incompatible with King's theological views. 35When religious believers are in fact fully committed to 'social justice as an end in itself', they are not committed qua religious believers.Instead, there is a different and rival type of motivation (alien to religious faith) at work in their actual sense of 'responsibility for our life together' that can only be articulated in terms of secular faith. 36hus, Hägglund's philosophy clearly does advance a firm separation between atheistic and theistic values.He not only insists that the religiously motivated ethical practices of these communities-with their expressed 'commitment to a shared social life'-do not 'require' religious faith.Such religious forms 'must' be converted into practices of secular faith to fulfill their emancipatory potential and to fully realize 'social justice as an end in itself'. 37nstead of accommodating genuinely theistic paths to embrace the common practices of solidarity we share, Hägglund's way of stressing his commitment to 'unearth the emancipatory resources within religious practice itself' unambiguously reaffirms his claim that theistic believers face a binary, either/or type of choice: 'That the divine only exists between us entails that we are answerable to one another … rather than a higher being'. 38Theists can therefore be part of this project only insofar as they turn 'God' or the 'divine' into names for the mortal life we share together, or, in other words, only insofar as they abandon theistic belief.
Religious faith and moral commitment: conflicting or mutually reinforcing?
Hägglund's arguments pose difficult and important questions for some religious views, especially theologies with a strongly escapist and/or fundamentalist orientation.However, I see no compelling reason why theistic believers qua believers 'must' be committed to a type of view that necessarily demands them to 'renounce' or dilute firm commitments to finite lives and an urgent sense of responsibility to counter social injustices. 39ndeed, it is wrong to conclude that such views follow inevitably or naturally from the texts and themes addressed by Hägglund, when read in ways theistic believers should recognize as reasonable from within interpretative frameworks of their religious traditions.
A major limitation of Hägglund's work on faith, responsibility, and detachmentdeveloped in close dialogue with Kierkegaard's thought-is that it does not engage more deeply with resources in contemporary philosophy in working out his claims or in considering how possible replies may block his far-reaching conclusions.To facilitate such a dialogue, let us now move on to identify key resources internal to religious frameworks to show how they (can) respond to Hägglund's concerns and provide natural homes for mutual reinforcement positions.Again, the point is not to discuss whether the religious beliefs expressed in such frameworks are true (that is not the question) but to challenge Hägglund's strong claims about their moral and political implications.
To engage charitably with the theistic views at the center of attention in Hägglund's book, using illustrations from contemporary theistic philosophy, let us first note that a distinguishing feature of a common religious reading of the Bible is that this book is divinely inspired.Taking such a religious approach seriously, specific biblical passages must always be read in light of other parts of the Bible.Someone trying to distill a deeper and valid meaning in an early biblical text that may help explain and guide religious attachments cannot treat it in isolation from its wider social and historical context, or broader questions about how to interpret such a text with sensitivity to its style and contemporary audience. 40f the key message in the test of Abraham is that we ought to take an attitude of blind obedience and loyalty to whatever we may perceive as God's command and be prepared to do anything, including killing an innocent child in the name of God (without any explanation or justification), then the story and the message is repugnant indeed.In considering how Jewish and Christian theists may respond to Hägglund's immanent critique, a first observation to make is that such notions of religious faith as blind obedience are obviously very hard to reconcile with the pillars of biblical ethics.One of the central expressions of 'love of God' in these religious traditions is respect for the most fundamental moral commands in the Bible.The commandment not to kill is one of the key moral imperatives throughout the tradition and among the ten commandments in the Torah (Exodus 20:13).
The Hebrew Bible expresses numerous firm condemnations of pagan rituals involving child (or, more broadly, human) sacrifice. 41In Christianity, the concept of agapism is 39 Hägglund, This Life, p. 162.often used to describe the core component of the attitudes called for.Agapē is the Greek word translated as love and used in the New Testament epistles expressing Jesus' message that 'the greatest commandments in the Torah were to love God above all and one's neighbor as oneself'. 42ut what are we then to make of Abraham, whose expression of faith precedes the Mosaic law and Jesus' (re-)interpretation of the Torah?Wasn't Abraham, after all, explicitly rewarded for 'not withholding' his son?To say that a wealth of interpretations has been offered through the millennia is to understate the enormous complexity and ambivalence in responses to this question in all the three Abrahamic religions. 43or present purposes, we may distinguish two main possibilities.Firstly, one option for theistic believers-taken by Martin Buber and Robert Adams-is to join Kant in thinking that our certain knowledge that it is wrong to kill (an innocent child) must lead us to reject the idea that a call to do such an abhorrent thing could ever be God's (genuine) call.While perceptions of possible divine commands may often be hazy and unclear, no such ambivalence pertains to the wrongness of child sacrifice.Such an act is contrary to God's loving nature and the moral law. 44ocusing on Jewish tradition, this is also the conclusion that seems to follow from Boehm's radical, textual reinterpretation of the Akedah, according to which the angelic interference that interrupts the sacrifice of Isaac has been inserted by a later redactor.This, argues Boehm, conceals an original and more consistent narrative where it is Abraham that prevents the tragedy 'on his own responsibility' by sacrificing the ram instead of his son.He thereby denies the validity or authority of such a call. 45ägglund refers to Boehm's study but fails to mention that Boehm's thesis is far from supporting Hägglund's view that a secular approach is necessary for such an act of wholehearted moral commitment to-and personal responsibility for-finite lives.46 On the contrary, Boehm declares that disobedience to 'God's' (perceived) command was Abraham's 'true affirmation' of monotheistic faith.47 It presents us with a religious model of disobedience in line with Kant's way of grounding 'faith in morality, not morality in faith' 48 , thereby bringing (with Ibn Caspi's words) 'God inside our heads'.49 Abraham's act may, for example, be taken to reveal the 'command' as an echo of voices, norms, and opinions inherited from past traditions, that must be firmly rejected.50 Hägglund's binary distinction between secular and religious faith suggests that we must squeeze any wholehearted personal responsibility for earthly commitments into a category of secular faith that is sealed off from any element of theistic belief.Boehm's Kantian path illustrates the need to move beyond this crude dichotomy and highlights theological possibilities for grounding such firm attitudes of responsibility and ethical integrity in Abrahamic theism.Many traditional models of faith-with Job and Abraham as key examples-clearly suggest that fear of God is properly imbued with protest, doubt, and independent reflection relating to the expectation of divine justice.As Abraham puts it in the case of Sodom (Gen 18:25): 'shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?'.51 The second possibility is to stick to traditional theological views that do recognize God as the source of a genuine call to sacrifice Isaac / Ishmael (which play a foundational role in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions and would be very costly to reject in many such contexts), and to seek coherent and meaningful explanations of such a test.One well-established theological key in this line of thought is to read the Akedah as a part of a long-term, progressive, transitional process, in which the example of Abraham has great historical and theological significance but 'is never to be emulated'.52 On this type of view, religious believers should leave open that such a divine command may have played a formative role at an early stage of this transitional process, and that it is too easy to dismiss based on something we know that Abraham (initially) didn't.The Bible is written by a great number of authors, at different times and places, and the texts reflect the diverse cultures and practices of these various historical and social contexts.John Hare makes use of a parent-child analogy to read early elements of Jewish and Christian traditions, suggesting that 'God's commands, like those of human parents to their children, are given in relation to our development'.53 Similarly, Peter van Inwagen offers a reading of the Hebrew Bible that stresses the theme of a 'gradual straightening' of the 'crooked timber of humanity' … 'under the hands of a master joiner' [God]. Inan Inwagen's interpretive frame, we may often read passages where God is represented as permitting or even commanding violations of the moral law as snapshots of people at various stages of the straightening process.They are gradually developing a more 'adequate sense of justice' towards a 'new and unobvious morality' that we today-whether atheists or theists-take for granted but that was in many respects foreign and challenging to these biblical authors.54 On such accounts, a crucial point is that God's purpose is not (only) to tell people what is right but also to make them receptive to-and thus trained to act on-the relevant ideals.To achieve this, God must then be prepared to meet people halfway, as the relevant moral standards evolve out of attitudes and practices familiar to the communities addressed.It would often be counterproductive to impose overly demanding or radically foreign standards.To understand what may appear as God's acceptance or toleration of what we now take to be blatantly unjust or immoral practices can then be interpreted as reflecting a mindset that was firmly rooted in the relevant context (and shared by biblical authors of the time) that 'God was gradually leading the Hebrews out of'. 55 A natural way of reading the Akedah through such a lens-represented in traditions of all three forms of Abrahamic theism-is to take its message to consist essentially in replacing old practices of child / human sacrifice with animal sacrifice.56 Inspired by Jewish writer Maimonides, Hare argues that this step accommodates people's need to sacrifice something as a way of expressing their devotion to God but brings an end to pagan practices of sacrificing their children for such ends.57 To comment, the purposes of child sacrifice and the extent to which it was practiced at the time are not fully known.But, as Boehm points out, we do know that echoes of the notion of child sacrifice to save a city or people in times of crisis appear in other ancient Near Eastern tales from this period and were thus familiar and meaningful to the target audience of the story.
Whether we interpret the interruption of the sacrifice as the culmination of Abraham's inner ethical doubts about the validity of such a perceived command, or follow the traditional view that God was the source of a genuine call to sacrifice the son and to interrupt the sacrifice, the narrative fits a pattern of progressive revelation.In contrast to contemporary Near Eastern myths where child sacrifice was the means to save a people, the logic is now inverted: the people will exist-as God had originally promised-only because the sacrifice is prevented, and Isaac / Ishmael stays alive. 58ith respect to Hägglund's conclusions about the implications of Christian belief, Christians may reasonably interpret the Akedah holistically as prefiguring at least two very central ideas on faith, love, and morality in agapism, firmly supporting the mutual reinforcement type of view.Firstly, it can be read as testing and rewarding Abraham's trust in a loving God rather than blind obedience and callous submission to an alien and frightening voice we cannot relate to.This stance connects religious faith with attitudes of hope and perseverance.It conveys the familiar biblical message that we must not be paralyzed by fear ('be not afraid'), even when all seems lost.Love of God-and trust in a loving God-is a basis for (rather than competing with) our earthly commitments, and our well-being in 'this life'. 59econdly, it clearly seems to tell us that we should live in a way that ascribes a certain priority to love of God, as reflected in the idea of being prepared to sacrifice what is most dear to us for the love of God.However, the way in which this priority is expressed in the greatest commandment is very far from a competitive, zero-sum relationship where greater 'love of God' implies less for 'love of neighbor' (through insulation from-or 56 Levenson, op cit. 57Hare, Conscience, op cit, p. 112.On Christian interpretations, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount-including its powerful articulation of the golden rule-and the parable of the good Samaritan, with its anti-tribal and seemingly universalist message that "love of neighbor" must be extended to everyone in need, tend to be identified as other defining elements of this radical, moral straightening. 58Boehm, op cit., p. 57.Going beyond Boehm and placing the test of Abraham in a Christian context, we should note that Jesus' statement of "the greatest commandment" in the gospel of Mark follows a similar pattern, explicitly contrasting its core message against past practices that ascribe central importance to burnt offerings and sacrifices.A man who asks Jesus to explain which commandment is the most important among of all the commandments, interprets Jesus' message as follows: "to love him [God] with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices" (emphasis added).Jesus confirms that the man speaks wisely, adding that "you are not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 12:34). 59Abraham has already been promised a son and that this son would give rise to an entire people.When he is confusingly asked (or so it seems) to make all the preparations to sacrifice this long-awaited son, he must assume that this cannot be what will happen in the end.Indeed, he seems convinced that the two of them will return home together, as expressed when telling his servants that "we will come back" (Gen 22:5) before heading to Mount Moriah.In the end of the story, the sacrifice is prevented, and God realizes his original promise.
renouncement of-our relational commitments and responsibilities). 60Instead, these two dimensions of agapism are inseparable and mutually reinforcing.Indeed, the former is experienced, expressed, and fulfilled through the latter. 61As Jeremy Waldron puts it, Islamic, Jewish and Christian traditions all emphasize that ' … our capacity to love is in part our capacity to echo God's love in our love for each other', that love is inherently relational, and that ' … it is important to see God in our seeing ourselves in the other'. 62o many contemporary commentators, perhaps the most central insight conveyed by the Christian story of sacrifice-in the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus-is precisely this: the message is to respond to our circumstances (however difficult, undeserved, and full of suffering they seem), and to the needs of others in a loving way, and that love in any deep and meaningful sense involves some degree of self-sacrifice.
On such readings, the example of Jesus does not (pace Hägglund) represent subservience and heteronomy but-with Cottingham's words-a wholehearted and 'autonomous self-orientation towards the good'. 63The priority of love of God in the greatest commandment entails that by setting love and reverence of God before love of neighbor, the authority of the most fundamental, objective moral commands overrides temptations to harm (or ignore the legitimate claims of) others because a person we love, or a community with which we identify, asks us to do so.
Thus, for many agapists, duties to obey true moral principles are grounded in love of God and firmly bound up with feelings of respect, humility, gratitude, and moral integrity.Whenever we offend our neighbor, we also offend God. 64This brings out how mutual reinforcement views in this tradition operate through the notion of God as an everlasting source of love, and the idea that anchoring oneself firmly to such a source is also what can give us the hope and strength to love 'our neighbor', even when it is challenging or inconvenient for us to do so. 65his type of view is not, of course, reserved for Jewish and Christian traditions.Typically, Abraham's submission to God-and the survival of the child-has a more direct presence in the lives of Muslims worldwide, being the object of celebration on the days of Eid al-Adha, one of the two main holidays in all forms of Islam.In this context, the example of Abraham serves to anchor and guide the moral virtues of selflessness, 60 Hägglund, This Life, p. 162. 61The first epistle of John describes such a necessary link between them as follows: "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us"/ … /"he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister."(1st John 4:20-1). 62J. Waldron, One Another's Equals: The Basis of Human Equality (Cambridge MA: HUP, 2017), p. 198. 63J. Cottingham, Philosophy of Religion: Towards a More Humane Approach (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 137; cf.p. 119, p. 129.Cottingham's analysis stresses Jesus' statement before Pilate at the moment of his trial: "For this I came into the world" (John 18:37), and reads it as reflecting the attitudes of "someone whose internal life is fully integrated around a wholehearted desire for, and union with, the good", as opposed to heteronomous or self-alienated.Ibid., p. 137.See also C. Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge MA: HUP, 2007), p. 654f. 64Wolterstorff, op cit., p. 106f. 65Hägglund's illustrations of how love, commitment and finitude are interconnected are typically relationships of deep personal affection-such as love for a son, a wife, or a daughter.Indeed, love is easy to give and to celebrate when it takes the form of attraction, attachment, identification, compassion, an immediate sense of solidarity with victims of apparent injustices, or a willingness to care that flows from our natural inclinations as more or less spontaneous expressions of devotion.Yet, the forms of religious faith now considered also speak to the need for something that is far more difficult: to respect, protect, or even care for those to whom we are not drawn through such natural inclinations, or perhaps even find it difficult to feel compassion with.
compassion, and generosity, as expressed in the Eid al-Adha tradition of sharing the meat from a sacrificed animal with the poor and disadvantaged.The traditions from Abraham in Christianity, Judaism and Islam are highly differentiated and full of tensions, with the scars of supersessionary claims raising barriers to more thoroughly integrated interfaith systems. 66Nonetheless, with respect to the themes of self-sacrifice and moral progress associated with the test of Abraham, they all offer a rich set of converging pathways to the conclusion that theistic faith and service to others are inseparable.

To hell with morality? Divine commands and autonomous moral commitment
Having identified avenues for explaining how mutual reinforcement views are not only possible but also plausible and meaningful from diverse religious interpretations of key texts addressed by Hägglund's argument, let us now move on to consider the moral implications of such views.Does Hägglund's critique of theistic faith identify ways in which such a position is-after all-necessarily incompatible with a firm, autonomous and genuine moral commitment?
One challenge to theistic morality in Hägglund's approach is repeatedly suggested by his insistence on the need to decouple the idea of genuine moral commitment from all notions of divine rewards that believers may associate with moral duties and acts of goodness. 67Placing such an otherworldly frame around our actions and connecting them to self-interested hopes for post-mortem rewards (or, negatively, fears of post-mortem punishment) necessarily involves a failure to care autonomously for another person, or a social cause, as an end in itself.
A first observation on this claim is that the depiction of Christian faith as associated with an instrumental, self-interested basis for care and justice stands in stark contrast with the key message of agapism, where the highest form of love is always non-instrumental in the sense that we are supposed to care for our neighbor as an end it itself.A recurring theme in the New Testament is the contrast between acts of love performed out of genuine care for another-as performed when nobody else [but God] can see us-and the hypocrisy of giving while boasting about one's generosity, or expressing a commitment to God or religious practices only to increase one's social status (e.g.Matt 6:1-8; Mark 12:38-40).
Still, one underlying reason why mutual reinforcement views may harbor a self-defeating, internal contradiction can be inferred from Hägglund's claim that we do not really choose to care for another person or a social cause on moral grounds if we are-deep down-moved by the prospect of personal, post-mortem rewards.This is too rash though.To the extent that notions of rewards and punishments play a role in such theistic worldviews, it would be hard to make coherent sense of them through the idea of a commanding God that provides us with sticks and carrots to push us into obedience, based on our self-interested calculations of pros and cons of different courses of action.Respecting rights, or performing acts of goodness, exclusively in the hope of 66 Sherwood, op cit.; Levenson, op cit. 67Hägglund, This Life, p. 10f.; p. 209f.personal, post-mortem rewards would fall short of loving your neighbor as yourself since no non-instrumental concern for another would be involved in such acts (Luk 10:27; Matt 22:37-40). 68ant's position is instructive to bring out this point.According to Kant, notions of post-mortem rewards and fear of (eternal?)punishments should not motivate the (Christian) moral agent in any direct way, but that does not make them meaningless or redundant.Instead, their positive contribution to our (genuine, wholehearted, freely chosen) moral commitment is to support the hope that the world is ultimately morally governed, i.e. that the universe is not indifferent to our actions. 69ant's views are also relevant for addressing a second way in which religious faith may necessarily stand in the way of wholehearted, autonomous moral commitment.As already mentioned, Hägglund argues that we cannot be fully sensitive to human suffering and injustices, and answer to these conditions as responsible moral agents, if we think that they reflect the incomprehensible ways of God and that God will ultimately set things right, i.e. according to standards and intentions beyond our grasp.
By contrast, Kant offered an important argument (near the end of his Critique of Practical Reason) for why God's relative hiddenness-the fact that he does not reveal or explain himself more evidently-is in fact a precondition for what Hägglund finds so important, namely that we are to act as responsible, autonomous moral agents. 70A utilitarian, micro-managing God that would appear to us like an ever-present parent, steering our actions using sticks and carrots to prevent or alleviate injustices, would be inconsistent with the development and exercise of moral virtue.The latter entails that people are doing what is right (at least partly) because it is right rather than (say) selfinterested fear of punishment.'God's revealing himself would preclude the development of virtue because we would lose the experience of conflict between self-interest and the moral law'. 71We would be like puppets.
Is this, and the many similar theistic ways of connecting morality with the 'autonomous self-orientation towards the good' (as opposed to a puppet-like existence of submissive instrumentalism), undercut by religious views according to which morality is revealed, enforced, or even constituted through divine commands? 72Unlike the Kierkegaard-inspired position considered by Hägglund, the most authoritative, contemporary epistemologies of divine commands give no reasons to divert from Hägglund's great emphasis on how the project of justice is always associated with responsible and thoughtful moral agents, acting autonomously on their own reflective judgements.
While such religious views come in different versions, they all tend to stress that in order to detect, know and act on God's commands, and to apply them sensibly to particular circumstances, we always depend heavily on our own independent moral judgment and active interpretation. 73Rather than opposing such processes to reason, doubt, and ambivalence, they require a critical, thoughtful attitude to any moral impulses by, for example, interpreting whether they are consistent with God's loving nature, in light of the relevant sources and traditions. 74Thus, once again the stated conflict between theistic faith and (genuine, autonomous) moral commitment seems to evaporate on closer scrutiny.
Incidentally, Kierkegaard's analysis seems more amenable to such an emphasis on doubt, autonomy, and ambivalence in the relationship between religious faith, morality, and divine commands than Hägglund's interpretation might suggest.I fully share Hägglund's concerns in relation to Kierkegaard's Abraham, and Kierkegaard's philosophy is not exactly a firm foundation for reasoned or systematic reflection on egalitarian causes.Nonetheless, it would be misleading to suggest that Fear and Trembling offers an analysis with any clear-cut, generalizable ethical implications, or a straightforward embrace of the cruelty involved in the Akedah.
Anyone who takes a religious call for service to others to have politically radical implications (say, who takes great personal risks in fighting an unjust war in an oppressive regime, or by standing up against fundamental socio-economic inequalities in the face of powerful economic interests) can relate to central themes in Kierkegaard's analysis.In his existential notion of faith, the religious is associated with the strength to do what we take to be right, even though this may be highly demanding and fraught with risk and uncertainty.This entails a state of anxiety, because we must seek to do what is right even though it could lead us far away from predictable social worlds of ethical conventions where we can safely expect our actions to be met with wide social recognition.At the same time, the precise meaning, or ultimate purposes, of God's commands may be unclear and impossible to know. 75inally, considering the implications of such lines of argument, there is no necessary contradiction in a theistic view, such as the one that Hägglund ascribes to Martin Luther King Jr., 76 simultaneously accepting both that: (a) divine reasons and intentions-and how they relate to all the suffering and injustices in the world-are largely beyond the reach of our cognitive abilities, and (b) we can form trustworthy moral judgements about the right response to these circumstances, in part through religious revelation. 77he theological view to which Hägglund alludes here, so-called 'skeptical theism', holds that the intentions and ways of God are largely beyond the reach of human cognitive abilities. 78But clearly, this stance need not imply global moral skepticism in the sense that all moral knowledge is beyond human epistemic horizons.
For example, van Inwagen argues that skepticism is justified with respect to values relating to 'cosmic matters' far beyond the 'concerns of everyday life', but he also accepts that human moral intuitions about value are typically trustworthy in the more familiar contexts of our ordinary lives, for which our human cognitive faculties are well-suited. 79Such a distinction allows theists to stress the limitations of human cognitive abilities as a key to reconciling belief in God with divine hiddenness while accepting that theism can help explain the existence of objective moral truths and why we should have confidence in our (partial) knowledge of such truths, as they apply to our everyday lives.

Tainted love? The relationship between mortality and wholehearted moral commitment
There is a further reason why religious faith may be incompatible with wholehearted moral commitment, suggested by Hägglund's way of emphasizing that only finite beings need care to survive and flourish.Morality's call for relations of mutual care only seems relevant and meaningful if we fully recognize our shared finitude and vulnerability.We are mortal beings who are utterly dependent on the efforts and devotion of others.As we have seen, Hägglund argues that there is necessarily something unfulfilled about forms of love and care that do not altogether accept our mortality, i.e. that do not recognize that death is final.For example, in discussing beliefs in bodily resurrection, he associates religious faith in eternity with recklessness, and the idea that there is no irreplaceable value in the loss of finite lives.
The theme is also central in Hägglund's analysis of the devastating sense of loss and grief expressed by C.S. Lewis in mourning the death of his wife, Joy Davidman.Hägglund claims that we can only make full sense of it as an expression of secular faith that contrasts sharply with the beliefs that we associate with Lewis' Christian theism.To suggest that death should be viewed as a mere transfer to a higher form of existence, or that death is somehow not 'really final', is to relativize death and to lessen the 'gravity of our responsibility for mortal lives'. 80urely, lost lives are irreplaceable, and loss of life irrevocable.The human lives we lead -our lives as we know them-are mortal, finite, and fragile lives.But what follows from this? Again, while Hägglund's analysis raises relevant and important concerns in some religious contexts, his conclusions about their implications for the relationship between moral commitment and theistic faith are overstated.Suppose we hold the door open to the possibility of an afterlife-whether in the form of a disembodied immaterial self (Plato), a resurrected, radically different kind of body (St Paul), or perhaps some other type of future existence we cannot even begin to comprehend.Why would this deny the fundamental vulnerability and the irreplaceable value of the lives we lead?
Considering the inevitable limitations of human cognitive abilities and horizons, we may ask how any philosopher could reasonably claim to know that we can finally settle questions of whether there is a future existence and, if so, what it would look like and how desirable it would be-on 'this side of death'. 81In fairness, we should also recognize that the message conveyed in key passages on this theme in the Bible is that such an existence would be radically different to anything we are familiar with (and thus able to fully relate to), rather than taking the form of a seamless continuation of present lives and relations.
For example, according to the gospel of Mark (in a formulation also mentioned by Hägglund), Jesus said: 'when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in 80 Hägglund, This Life, p. 68. 81Cottingham, op cit., p. 145.marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven' (Mark 12:25).And when St Paul speaks thoroughly of bodily resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), the 'body' he has in mind is a 'glorious', 'spiritual' new body, representing a very different type of existence.The message is not that we will be 'restored' 82 but radically transformed (1 Corinthians 15:51).We should thus question why any (such) belief in (the possibility of) 'life after death' must contradict the claim that this life and all our relationships, as we know them, will cease once and for all when we die.It is therefore unclear why retaining the religious hope of union with God after death (whatever that means) would deny mortality, or the irreplaceable value of our mortal lives, in the sense that is relevant for human morality. 83f my argument up until now is correct, we should reject Hägglund's view that we must root out all theistic motivations if moral commitment to persons and causes are to count as autonomous and wholehearted commitment.However, highlighting the motivational purism of his approach allows us to make the further point that it also seems illiberal and counterproductive to take such an anti-religious philosophy (as distinct from non-religious) as the starting point for a political vision of how our communities should be (re-)organized.
Concluding remarks: the rejection of religious faith from the coalition for social justice is illiberal and counterproductive Hägglund's vision of democratic socialism claims continuity with a liberal heritage. 84ut to the extent that the political philosophy of secular faith is not only silent onbut incompatible with-theistic belief and is meant to guide the collective aspirations of the polity, it is hard to see how it can be reconciled with liberal-egalitarian starting points.The latter demand us to establish a non-sectarian, normative foundation for egalitarian (and potentially socialist) demands, consistently with an inclusive civic identity. 85pparently, there are many different, reasonable views on whether and, if so, how we should define the aims of human lives in relation to transcendent horizons, including how we should understand notions of finitude and eternity, and how they relate to our moral commitments.Liberal-egalitarian conceptions of justice are defined by a firm public commitment to the freedom of all citizens to define, explore and pursue a great diversity of conceptions of the good life as free and equal citizens, in a spirit of 82 Hägglund, This Life, p. 169. 83Similarly, Hägglund's repeated assertion that notions of divine love are empty and meaningless since God is unaffected by anything that happens in the world-is "eternally just the same" (This Life, p. 167)-ignores the many diverse, theological discussions of the notion of divine impassibility.One influential strand in the literature deviates from tradition by arguing that the Bible rather supports the belief that "God can and does suffer; his capacity for suffering exceeds ours in the same measure that his knowledge ours", thereby suggesting that God's love should not only be described as impassive benevolence but also involves a desire for union that is expressed in suffering and rejoicing with his creatures (A.Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief (Michigan: Eerdmans, 2015), pp.77-79).Others hold on to the doctrine of divine impassibility but stress the need to avoid anthropomorphic interpretations of divine attributes, arguing that God certainly has the emotions involved in suffering but does so in a divine manner.This involves a full understanding of human suffering but also an immutable capacity to help overcome it, i.e. that necessarily remains unaffected by anything that happens in the world.(A.W. Oei, "The Impassible God Who 'Cried'", Themelios, 41:2 (2016), pp.238-247). 84 liberty and mutual respect across worldviews.By contrast, the intended coalitions and destination of Hägglund's project seem to leave no place for the ways in which a very substantial majority of the world's population (holding religious beliefs) makes sense of the world, their relationships, and the wider ramifications of their moral commitments.Instead, the vision of emancipation as 'the liberation of finite life' places one (highly controversial) answer to fundamental questions of faith, meaning and purpose in life at the center of political discourse. 86he expulsion of theistic faith from emancipatory struggles not only generates fundamental tensions with liberal standards of justice and public justification.It is also counterproductive to egalitarian objectives by unnecessarily alienating religious believers, thereby cutting off such political projects from one of the main pillars of human rights discourse.There are, of course, familiar examples where certain forms of religious faith blind people to human suffering and lead them to 'renounce finite lives' for what they wrongly perceive as higher causes or as targeting evil forces at work (e.g.witch hunts, the crusades, or violent jihadism).But it is also undeniable and significant that religious believers often see human dignity where others find it challenging to do so.In the case of agapism, the radical message is to love our enemy.As Wolterstorff points out, the type of motivation needed in cases when our spontaneous impulse is not to care, 'the fallback position' is to 'love' out of duty. 87n addressing the motivational roots of that precious sense of duty, and how it can be nourished, I contend that we should embrace (rather than suppress) the diversity of secular and religious human motives and reasons that play a role in supporting it.Responding to Hägglund's welcome invitation to reflect systematically on the relationship between different interpretations of faith and the everyday commitments we live by, it is important to recognize the close affinities and interplay between struggles for justice and religious ways of thinking.
Hägglund asserts that 'there are things I cannot do and a world I cannot lose on pain of losing myself' 88 as part of a critique of religious faith.But in considering the moral commitments he has in mind and how well they cohere with the rest of our beliefs, two fundamental questions are inescapable: firstly, what is the basis for assuming that egalitarian morality is (in some sense) true and/or authoritative and, secondly, how can allegiance to these fundamental commitments of equal rights be socially reproduced over time?They are far from universally shared and did not pop up out of nowhere as spontaneous expressions of human nature.The moral transgressions he considers were, after all, not always or everywhere rejected as inconsistent with people's sense of humanity or moral agency.Indeed, the practice of child sacrifice is a relevant example.
Considering the growing appeal of autocratic alternatives in some democratic countries, it has become increasingly evident that even stable liberal democracies cannot afford to take such convictions for granted.Criticism and calls for revision of religious traditions are indispensable aspects of social justice activism.However, while justice discourse on freedom, equality and universal rights has often challenged institutionalized religion, such criticism was largely based on convictions traditionally interpreted as moral truths revealed to us through divinely inspired sources. 89Foundational elements of contemporary human rights thinking, and practices of care for the most vulnerable ('the least' among us, Matt 25:40) that established a basis for western welfare states, were formed by religious beliefs that Hägglund rejects as incompatible with wholehearted moral commitment. 90s emphasized also by many atheistic rationalists, a naturalistic viewpoint-saying that nothing is real except what can be revealed by the natural sciences or psychology -has little to offer in support of a morally authoritative notion of objective obligations of social justice.No scientific methods will ever help detect the inviolability or equal dignity of each person, founded on justice. 91Yet the liberal-egalitarian project of social justice depends entirely on our firm commitment to such egalitarian, normative foundations and a culture of equality that sustains it. 92That wider culture may often be expressed and reproduced through emotional appeals, stories, and rituals as much as philosophical principles or abstract reflection. 93o be sure, there are many different pathways (secular and religious, realist and nonrealist) to egalitarian values and their political survival.Hägglund's philosophy of secular faith offers a fascinating and inspiring exploration of one such pathway.In the diverse landscape of social activism, theistic groundings of the fundamental norms of equality we live by provide a distinctive positive foundation for the claim that the imperatives of justice articulate a message that is true, authoritative, and has profound moral significance.Hägglund fails to show that this type of view is an obstacle rather than (in many cases) an asset in the quest for social justice.
None of this invalidates the many other contributions of This Life.Even though there is no necessary incompatibility between theistic belief and the central egalitarian values at the core of Hägglund's vision, plenty of theological views are vulnerable to his criticisms. 94And for those that are not, engaging with Hägglund's exploration provides a welcome impetus to spell out how religious philosophies can best channel an awareness of the stakes involved in what we do with our finite time together into struggles for greater social justice.Moreover, I see no reason why the key elements of Hägglund's positive vision of justice-and similar secular-humanist projects-cannot be dissociated from the incompatibility thesis' dead end of binary, either/or type of distinctions between religious belief and wholehearted moral commitment.The good news is that such a detachment would greatly improve the prospects for secular faith to serve just and egalitarian causes.