The reconstruction of religion Book

	Acknowledgments	ix
1.	Introduction	1
	Three Writers Facing the Modern Challenges to Religion	1
	Modernity: Religion as Construction	5
	Anticipations of Postmodernism?	11
	Technical Information and a Reflection on the Scope of This Study	13
2.	Lessing: Conceptual Differentiation, Critique of Tradition, and Acceptance of Plurality	15
	Introduction	15
	Setting the Stage: Lessing's Historical Position and Contribution	17
	Lessing's Aim	23
	Truth and Human Development--Anthropological Teleology	24
	Is There Religious Truth without Secure Historical Truth? Toward a New Notion of Natural Religion	31
	The Background for Human Development in the Treatise on Education	41
	The Relationship between Natural and Revealed Religion	44
	On the Development of Religion and Religious Subjectivity in Christianity and Its Background	46
	Plurality without Truth?	53
	Lessing's Mediate Position as a Critic and a Mask Wearer	55
	Relativizing the Impact of Religion--Transforming the Subject: Nathan as a Final Gateway to Lessing's Understanding of Religion	59
	Concluding Remarks	69
3.	Kierkegaard: Irony and the Struggle for Authentic Appropriation of Religion: Anticipations of Postmodern Attitudes, Insights, and Problems	75
	Kierkegaard's Dissertation on Irony Read as a Prolegomenon to Postmodernism	76
	Socratic Irony	77
	Romantic Irony and Christian Faith	85
	Conclusion: As a Mastered Element, Irony Creates Reality	87
	Faith, Truth, and History--Kierkegaard's Answer to Lessing	88
	The Religious Mode of Existence: Subjectivity as Passion for Truth	101
	Faith Shapes the Development of Subjectivity	107
	Decontextualized Individuality	112
	Different Modes of Religious Subjectivity	116
	Conclusion: Religion and the Quest for Self-Formation--a Postmodern Interpretation	121
4.	Nietzsche: The Deconstruction of Religion as an Expression of Powerless and Self-Deceptive Subjectivity	131
	Who Is Nietzsche--and Where Is He?	131
	Critique of Language as a Constituting Element of Subjectivity	135
	Perspectivism and Plurality	143
	Annihilation of the Metaphysical World, Consequently: Dissolving Radical Otherness	149
	The Concept of God as an Expression of Human Subjectivity	152
	The Death of God	162
	Relating to History: The Productivity of Life in the Subject	167
	Concluding Reflections	173
5.	Conclusion	181
	Formation of the Self	181
	Religion's Contribution to Humanity	186
	The Relation to History: Criticism and Suppositions	188
	Reflections on the Role of the Other and of Otherness	190
	Irony and Double Reflexivity	194
	Literature	201
	Index	207