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The Heretical Imperative: Peter Berger

This document discusses the shift from a pre-modern "world of fate" to the modern "world of choice". In pre-modern societies, institutions and beliefs had a strong taken-for-granted certainty. But modernization disrupted this by pluralizing options through technology and enabling choice in many areas of life. This movement from fate to choice meant that individuals now had to make beliefs meaningful through choice. The document argues that in modern societies, heresy - or the necessity to choose between alternatives - is crucial, as plausibility structures no longer automatically confirm beliefs and individuals must think for themselves.

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428 views10 pages

The Heretical Imperative: Peter Berger

This document discusses the shift from a pre-modern "world of fate" to the modern "world of choice". In pre-modern societies, institutions and beliefs had a strong taken-for-granted certainty. But modernization disrupted this by pluralizing options through technology and enabling choice in many areas of life. This movement from fate to choice meant that individuals now had to make beliefs meaningful through choice. The document argues that in modern societies, heresy - or the necessity to choose between alternatives - is crucial, as plausibility structures no longer automatically confirm beliefs and individuals must think for themselves.

Uploaded by

Princess
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Heretical Imperative

Peter Berger
Reasons for using the text:
1. It tells us about the situation that we find ourselves in
right now
2. It provides us with a rationale for doing philosophy of
religion
“Modern consciousness
entails a movement from
fate to choice.”
The premodern society is a world of fate.

● “What is must be, and it could be no other.”


● Choices made available by modern technology were not available
for pre-modern man at the time
● Marked by the fact that their institutions (programs for human
activity) have a very high degree of taken-for-granted certainty.
● Not confronted with the issue of having to make a choice between
alternatives.
The world of fate is disrupted by modernity.
● The onset of modernity allowed for the production of many things.
● Modernity pluralizes (Pluralization affects not only human actions but
also human consciousness)
Human beings require social confirmation (AKA
plausibility structure) for their beliefs.
-In order for a belief to be accepted, it needs to have a strong
plausibility structure.
-Our beliefs make sense, at least to us, as long as these plausibility
structures are there and make sense.
The modern society is a world of choice.
● People choose in innumerable situations of everyday life, e.g.,
food, clothing brand etc. and it reaches to belief, values, and
worldviews.
Modernization brought a strong accentuation of
the subjective side of human existence.

● There is a need to make a choice; to make a choice, you


need to think.
● There is a movement from fate to choice, from destiny to
option, from objective to subjective, from truth to
meaning.
Modernity has come in a package with secularization

Secularization is the process by which religious institutions and religious symbols have lost in
importance.
The Heretical Imperative
● “Heresy” comes from the greek verb hairein, which means “to
choose.”
● “Imperative” means necessary and crucial
● Understood together, the Heretical Imperative is the necessity to
choose.

“For the pre-modern man, heresy is a possibility. But for the modern man,
heresy is a necessity.”

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