A theological theory of communicative action that takes form and develops in conversational and in critical engagement with the social science and philosophical theory of action recognizes that the differentiation of validity claims delivers both impo ...

A theological theory of communicative action that takes form and develops in conversational and in critical engagement with the social science and philosophical theory of action recognizes that the differentiation of validity claims delivers both important insights into the foundations of human communication and interaction. The theological theory of communicative action has a interdisciplinary orientation in relation to the social science and philosophy. This study introduces the approach of a communicative theory of action, taking as its starting point the central concept of communicative action. I then explain the complementary concept to that of communicative action, the concept of communicative rationality. In this process an essential aim is to show both that and how the concept of communicative rationality characterizes the barometer for a comprehensive concept of rationality that does not reduce reason to its cognitive-instrumental dimension, but elucidates it from the perspective of its constitutively communicative dimension. Furthermore, I deal with relation between ethics and discourse. This includes discussing the basic features of Habermas's and Karl-Otto Apel's moral-theoretical approach to discourse ethics. And then I explain Habermas's proposal for a consensus theory of truth. I think that the communicative theory of action is not an arbitrary, non-theological theory to which theology can relate following from three view-points. First, Helmunt Peukert has made clear and has systematically expounded both the fact that and the extent to which science requires for its grounding the return to communicative practice. Second, the communicative theory of action is dedicated to those problems of rationality, subjectivity and inter-subjectivity, modernity, on which contemporary theology is also working. Third, the communicative theory of action can be made theologically productive, and demonstrates in its theological appropriation that it is capable of approaching theological question.