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Sociological Analysis 1985, 46, 1 001-003

RELIGION AND ULTIMATE PARADOX:A SYMPOSIUM ON ASPECTS OF THE

SOCIOLOGY OF NIKLAS LUHMANN Introduction

In publishing this symposium on the work of the distinguished German sociologist

Niklas Luhmann, Sociological Analysis is privileged to contribute to a greater awareness

and understanding of his ideas in the English-speaking world.

Originating as a thematic session of the 1984 San Antonio Meetings of the American

Sociological Association, the symposium's appearance in permanent form is due, in

large measure, to the efforts of Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University. I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Wuthnow, and to Professors Luhmann, Schmidt and

Wallace for their enthusiastic co-operation in this venture.

Notwithstanding prolific publication in German, Niklas Luhmann has only recently

come to command the attention of English-speaking sociologists. It is thus probably safe

to assume that he is less well-known outside his native land than, for example, Jürgen

Habermas or Thomas Luckmann. In the last decade, partly as a consequence of his con

tinuing debate with Habermas, Luckmann's work has gradually become more widely

known in Britain and North America, in a few cases being accorded close scrutiny

(Poggi, 1979; Sixel, 1976, 1983; Bleichner, 1982; Stehr, 1982; Schöfthaler, 1984; Beyer,1984). Furthermore, from a rather slow beginning in the mid nineteen-seventies, Luh-

mann's writings have become increasingly available in English (Luhmann, 1974, 1976,

1977, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1984). Indeed a torrent of new translations may be anticipated

in response to a demand from the many branches of sociology in which Luhmann has

applied his ideas.

Luhmann's evolving intellectual enterprise is ambitious, abstract, complex and pro

vocative in the extreme. Though indebted to Parsons and Husserl among others, it is

a radically original attempt to formulate a universally applicable theory of social systems.

As a version of general systems theory which aims to supersede or "totalize" all earliertheories, Luhmann's sociology claims a unique relevance to the modern world. Thus,

while its main propositions are expressed in a familiar functionalist language, its under

lying assumptions entail a radical re-framing of the central problems of sociology. In its

depiction of the "humanistic tradition" of social theory, encompassing Liberalism,

Marxism, Critical Theory and Phenomenology among other perspectives, Luhmann's

theory attempts an epistemological counter-revolution. It posits nothing less than the

abolition of the human subject as the central point of social thought. Regarding social

systems as composed of communication units rather than human beings, it perceives indi

viduals merely as part of the environment of a social system. Without a system, accordingto Luhmann, there can be no meaning, experience or action. Thus, it is not human sub

jects which determine sense but on the contrary historically produced sense systems

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2 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

In positing his own systems-theoretical approach, Luhmann claims credit for formu

lating the most accurate, objective and comprehensive scientific description of modern

societies. While acknowledging the inherently incomplete nature of his enterprise, he

maintains this view despite critical assessments which portray his theory as a deterministic affirmation of the societal status quo; a conservative apologia for an unjust social or

der; and a blueprint for a technocratic dystopia.

Despite its renunciation of the classics, Luhmann's theory resembles those of the so

ciological founding fathers in the significance it accords to religion. Viewing religion as

"unavoidable," it echoes Simmel in perceiving a "religioid" quality in society itself. For

Luhmann religion involves both meaning and paradox (Schofthaler, 1980-81). In Luh

mann's special sense of the terms, "meaning" and especially "ultimate meaning" concern

"the paradoxical constitution of self-reference (which) pervades all social life." Moreover,

the "fundamental problem of the paradoxical world" is solved by religion. There is noother way of identifying religion, he states, than in terms of the solution of ultimate para-

dox. Religious forms "deparadoxise the world" according to Luhmann's definition, and

the ultimate reality of religion is to be found in the "plenitude and voidness of a para

doxical world."

Luhmann's writings reveal him as both student and master of paradox. Though in

timidating in their erudition, scope and complexity, they demand the attention of every

sociologist. For sociologists of religion, the discussion which follows offers further evi

dence of a growing interest in religious phenomena on the part of contemporary socio

logical theorists. It thereby reaffirms forcefully the first article of our subdisciplinary

creed: that the sociological understanding of religion is an indispensable element in the

theoretical analysis of society and culture.

Roger OToole.

REFERENCES

Beyer, Peter. 1984. "Introduction" to Niklas Luhmann. Religious Dogmatics and the Evolution of Societies. New

York and Toronto: Edwin Mellen.Bleichner, Josef. 1982. "System and Meaning: Comments on the Work of Niklas Luhmann." Theory, Culture

and Society l(l):49-52.

Luhmann, Niklas. 1974. "Institutionalized Religion in the Perspective of Functional Sociology" pp. 45-55 in

G. Baum and A. Greeley eds. Concilium: Religion in the Seventies. New York: Herder and Herder.

. 1976a. Th e Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society." Social Research 43:130-

152.

. 1976b. "Generalized Media and the Problem of Contingency" pp. 507-532 (II) in J. J. Loubser, R. C.

Baum, A. Effrat and V. M. Lidz eds. Explorations in General Theory in Social Science: Essays in Honour

Talcott Parsons. New York: Free Press.

. 1976c. "A General Theory of Organized Systems." pp. 96-113 in G. Hofstede and M. S. Kassem eds.

European Contributions to Organizational Theory. Assen-Amsterdam: Van Gorcum.

. 1977. "Differentiation of Society." Canadian Journal of Sociology 2(l):29-53.

. 1978. "Temporalization of Complexity." pp. 95-111 in R. F. Geyer and J. van der Zouwen eds. Socio-

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INTRODUCTION 3

Poggi, Gianfranco. 1979. "Niklas Luhmann's Neo-Functionalist Approach: An Elementary Presentation." pp.

vii-xix in N. Luhmann, Trust and Power. New York: John Wiley.

Schöfthaler, Traugott. 1980-81. "La Théorie Systématique dans la Sociologie de la Religion dans les Pays de

Langue Allemande: les Paradoxes Religieux de Niklas Luhmann." Social Compass. 27:63-74.

. 1984. "The Social Foundations of Morality: Durkheimian Problems and the Vicissitudes of NiklasLuhmann's Systems Theories of Religion, Morality and Personality." Social Compass 31:185-197.

Sixel, Friedrich W. 1976. "The Problem of Sense: Habermas versus Luhmann" in John O'Neill ed. On Critical

Theory. New York: Seabury.

. 1983. "Beyond Good and Evil? A Study of Luhmann's Sociology of Morals." Theory, Culture and So ciety 2(l):35-47.

Stehr, Nico. 1982. "The Evolution of Meaning Systems: An Interview with Niklas Luhmann." Theory, Culture

and Society 1(1):33—48. (Interview conducted at University of Alberta, Canada in 1977.)

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Sociological Analysis 1985, 46, 1:005-020

Society, Meaning, Religion —

Based on Self-Reference

Niklas Luhmann

University of Bielefeld, West Germany

When we are moved to seem religious only to vent wit, Lord deliver us. John Donne

A Litany 188-189

I.

Sociological theory in its present Alexandrian phase seems to be preoccupied with the

inte rpretation of its classical authors.1

Doing sociology of religion means doing empirical

research on presumably religious persons or institutions; and it means returning to

Emile Durkheim or Max Weber for theoretical inspiration. Religion, then, is supposed

to work as an integrat ive factor on t he level of tota l societies and as a motivat iona l factor

on the level of individuals. At both levels it supplies the meaning of meaning, a mean

ingful "ultimate reality". All symbols and values that operate at this highest level of last

resources can be qualified as religion—and be it a civil religion in the sense of Rousseau

or Bellah.We also know the objections. Religions can stimulate debates and fights. They also

have disintegrative effects. Their motivational effect may well be a questioning of reli

gion itself. It may be a social activity, bu t also a ret reat. Sta tements about th e funct ion

of religion resemble proverbs. They always need counter-proverbs to be operationally

useful.

Years ago Clifford Geertz (1966:1) aired the same complaint about dependence upon

classical authors with respect to anthropological research. It may have been a mere acci

dent that his lines were written in an essay on the cultural system of religion. But if this

coincidence happened only by chance, it still was a significant accident. In fact, systemstheory, at that time, was hardly able to deliver the goods. Parsons himself had started

be presenting his classical authors . He attempted to show th at the difference between

society and individual, between social and motivational factors, and between Durkheim

and Weber does not matter very much; and that it cannot matter very much in the field

of sociology where this very difference is the core problem of theory. This preoccupation

with a historical problem, with the split paradigm of individual and society, led Parsons

to look for a solution by unfolding the framework of the general action system which

could assign appropriate places to the personal system, the social system and other sys

tems as well. He had to pay foreseeable costs. He had to present his generalizations as

a purely analytical framework, based on an analysis of the components of the concept of

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action. Moreover, to compensate for generalization, he needed a technique of respecifica-

tion. His decision was to use cross-tabulation, and we all know the consequences.

The verdict on Parsons, accepted today by public opinion, is the verdict of a jury

based on an impressionistic evaluation of evidence. It is not based on an adequate understanding of the structural constraints of his theory—or for that matter: of any theory.

However, I do not want to found the following considerations on a judgment for or

against Parsons. Rather, my point is that, in recent years, general systems theory has

taken a fascinating turn toward a general theory of self-referential systems, and I want

to explore some of its consequences for a theory of society and a functional analysis of

religion.2

II.

Self-referential systems are not only self-organizing or self-regulating systems. Recent

theoretical innovations use the idea of self-reference also at the level of the elements or

components of a system (Luhmann, 1984). This means that self-referential—or for that

matter: autopoietic—systems produce the elements which they interrelate by the ele

ments which they interrelate. They exist as a closed network of the production of ele

ments which reproduces itself as a network by continuing to produce the elements

which are needed to continue to produce the elements.3

Societies are a special case of self-referential systems. They presuppose a network of

communications, previous communications and further communications and also com

munications which happen elsewhere. Communications are possible only within a sys

tem of communication and this system cannot escape the form of recursive circularity.

Its basic events, the single units of communication, are units only by reference to other

units within the same system.4 In consequence, only the structure of this system and

not its environment can specify the meaning of communications.

Unlike other types of social systems societies are encompassing systems, including all

communications which are conceived as possible within a given context of communica

tion and excluding everything else—even minds, brains, human beings, animals, natural

resources and so forth. Societies, of course, presuppose an environment. They depend

2The research to which I refer has interdisciplinary relevance. It is therefore (?) very heterogeneous. It in-

eludes: Pula, 1974 (based on Korzybski); Günther, 1976; Morin, 1977, 1980; Barel, 1979; Várela, 1979;

Maturana/Varela, 1980; Jantsch, 1980; Zeleny, 1981; von Foerster, 1981.3Since this innovation is largely due to Humberto Maturana, the best formulations might well be his ipsis-

sima verba: "We maintain that there are systems that are defined as unities as networks of productions of com

ponents that (1) recursively, through their interactions, generate and realize the network that produces them;

and (2) constitute, in the space in which they exist, the boundaries of this network as components that partici

pate in the realization of the network". And for a further elucidation: "An autopoietic system is defined as

a unity through relations of production of components, not through the components that compose it which

ever they may be. An autopoietic system is defined as a unity through relations of form (relations of relations),

not through relations of energy transformation. An autopoietic system is defined as a unity through the speci

fication of a medium in its realization as an autonomous entity, not through relations with a medium that

determines its extension of boundaries" (1981: 21 and 29 f.).4

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SOCIETY, MEANING, RELIGION-BASED ON SELF-REFERENCE 7

upon their environment. Their autonomy cannot be conceived as independence. It is

the self-referential circularity itself—not a desired state of being relatively independent

from the environment but an existential necessity. Whatever can happen as communi

cative event produces society, entering into the network of reproducing communicationby communication. The system expands and shrinks, depending on what it can afford

as communication. It cannot communicate with its environment, because communica

tion is always an internal operation.

Communication systems develop a special way to deal with complexity, i.e. introduc

ing a representation of the complexity of the world into the system. I call this representa

tion of complexity "meaning"—avoiding all subjective, psychological or transcendental

connotations of this term (Luhmann, 1971). The function of meaning is to provide ac

cess to all possible topics of communication. Meaning places all concrete items into a

horizon of further possibilities and finally into the world of all possibilities. Whatevershows up as an actual event refers to other possibilities, to other ways of related actions

and experiences within the horizon of further possibilities. Each meaningful item recon

structs the world by the difference between the actual and the possible. Security, how

ever, lies only in the actual. It can be increased only by indirection, by passing on to

other meanings while retaining the possibility of returning to its present position.

Again, a self-referential, recursive structure is needed to combine complexity and secur

ity.

This highly successful arrangement of meaning-based communication is the result of

an evolutionary development. It has three important consequences which togetherbuild up the basic structures of societies:

(1) The autopoiesis of communication by communication requires closure. Meaning, on

the other hand, is a completely open structure, excluding nothing, not even the nega

tion of meanings. As systems of meaning-based communication societies are closed and

open systems. They gain their openness by closure. "L'ouvert s'appuie sur le fermé"

(Morin, 1977:201).

(2) Communication and meaning are different ways of creating redundancy. Communi

cation creates redundancy by conferring information to other systems. Third parties,

then, have a choice of whom to ask (Bateson, 1977:405ff-417ff). Meaning creates redun

dancy by implying a surplus of further possibilities which nobody will be able to follow

up all at once. In view of this redundancy which is continuously reproduced by mean

ing-based communication, every next step has to be a selection out of other possibilities.

Within the world created by the operations of this system every coricrete item appears

as contingent, as something which could be different.5 Societies, therefore, operate within

a paradox world, the paradox being the necessity of contingency.6

(3) Nothing, of course, is paradox per se—not the world, not nature, nor even self-refer

ential systems. To call something "paradox" is nothing but a description, and it is appro-

5I use this term in its logical and theological sense, defined by the negation of impossibility and the negation

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priate only, if one wants to draw conclusions or use other ways of long-chain reasoning.

Paradoxes are obstacles only for certain intentions. The paradoxification of being, there

fore, is a sociological correlate of an increasing need for descriptions, particularly for self-

descriptions of the societal systems, and it seems to indicate that such descriptions haveto be used within a complex, highly interdependent semantic framework with problems

of logical control.

III.

The plenitude and voidness of a paradoxical world is the ultimate reality of religion.

The meaning of meaning is both: richness of references and tautological circularity.

Society can exist only as a self-referential system, it can operate and reproduce com

munications only within a Gödelian world. This general condition makes "religion"

(whatever this means) unavoidable. Social life, therefore, has a religious quality—Georg

Simmel (1898; 1906) would say: a "religioid" quality. The paradoxical constitution of

self-reference pervades all social life. It is nevertheless a special problem in social life.

The question of the ultimate meaning can be raised at any time and at any occasion—

but not all the time. If it can be reduced to one question among others, the meaning

of the whole becomes a special problem within the whole. Then, society develops forms

of coping with this problem, of answering this question, forms which deparadoxize the

world. Then, it becomes possible to focus consciousness and communication on these

forms and, by this very fact, it becomes possible to risk negation or to look for other

forms. Religious forms incorporate, so to speak, paradoxical meanings; they differentiate

religion against other fields of life; they involve the risk of refusal; they inaugurate deviant reproduction, i.e. evolution.

Forms convince by implicit self-reference. They propose themselves. They can be

"taken for granted in everyday life" because they resist further decomposition. They en

force a "take it or leave it" decision. They reject development. In this sense they have

a ritualistic quality (Rappaport, 1971; 1971a). The ritual represents religion because it

corks up self-reference. The ghost has to stay in the bottle. But, over time and within

the context of social evolution ritualistic forms may become maladaptive. They may re

tain their religious quality and fulfill their religious function by remaining maladaptive

(Rappaport, 1978). They may, however, find functional alternatives in increasing the ambiguity of forms.

Ambiguity of forms comes about, if the problem of form is reconstructed as a problem

of the relation between form and context. The religious (or aesthetic or whatever) meaning

of forms, then, depends upon the way in which the form organizes its context, e.g. the

temple organizes the surrounding nature by referring to itself (Valéry, 1960). Ambiva

lence creeps in, if several views are possible, seeing requires a second look, secrets can

be unveiled, alétheia (truth as the unveiled) becomes a problem. If such a relation be

tween form and context can be questioned and changed, forms can be preserved within

a changing context, for contexts can be used to renew forms. Cults may retain theirreligious meanings by survival and may transfer their function to a different context;

li i b d l l b h b ild h h

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and retain a religious meaning and may, at the same time, be exposed to deviant repro

duction, i.e. evolution.

Translating this into the language of functional analysis, we can say that the funda

mental problem of the paradoxical world can be "solved" (i.e. transformed into minorproblems) by religion. Plenitude and voidness is the same, meaningful and meaningless

life is the same, order and disorder is the same, because the world can be constituted

as unity only. But since we cannot accept this last unity as it is, we have to replace it

by easier paradoxes: by forms. Forms which retain this functional relation to the ulti

mate paradox remain thereby religious forms. Forms which can be observed as referring

to the ultimate paradox are accordingly observed as religious forms. And forms which

can be described as referring to the ultimate paradox are thereby described as religious

forms. There is no other way to identify religion, and there is no room for free play in

observing and in describing religion. There are, however, many functional equivalentsfulfilling its function, and we may find, within one society, many different degrees of

sensibility in observing and describing religion. Thus, particularly in modern society it

may become the job of divine detectives to find out what can be observed and described

as referring to religion in the paradoxes of art and love, or sovereign power, of making

money or of recognizing the conditions of cognition.

IV.

Special forms require special ways to treat them. The ways to encounter them, to

avoid them, to behave in their presence are part of their context, therefore part of theirmeaning. From a structural point of view, the differentiation of forms with specific reli

gious functions inaugurates the development of a special social system serving religious

goals. The history of religion is the history of its differentiation.

A theory of religious evolution does not need to be written in terms of a phase model

of religious development (Bellah, 1964). It is even questionable whether the theory of

evolution can ever arrange history in the form of Guttman scales or any other kinds

of linear succession, (Blute, 1979). The theory of evolution tries to explain the possibility

of unplanned structural changes; it is not a theory which describes the structure of pro

cesses, let alone a theory of a unique process of historical phase-to-phase development.

To renounce such an overambitious goal may well be the condition for recombining

sociological theory and historical research. The problem of how to combine a theory

of self-referential systems and a neo-Darwinistic theory of evolution is increasingly at

tracting attention (Várela, 1979; Roth, 1982). One possibility might be to conceive of

evolution as a transformation of the paradox of self-refer enee. The improbable state of self-

referential systems becomes possible and even probable by differentiation—above all by

the differentiation of systems and environments. The outcome is the probability of the

improbable which, at the same time, is the improbability of the probable.

Translated into a theory of religious evolution this means that religion becomes en

dangered by its own success. It is a successful way to handle paradoxes. However, every

new form inherits the improbable. It may become normal life, normal society, normal

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1 0 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

V.

Evolution is not a goal-seeking process. Its causes are accidental, they are not appro

priate means to produce a result. In other words, the evolution of religious forms and

religious systems does not depend on religious causes, events, experiences (although thereligious system will describe its own history in these terms). Since we conceive of society

as a self-referential system of communication, we have to suppose that changes in the

structure of communication will be one, if not the important change which makes it

necessary to adapt religion to new means. The breakthrough may well have been the

invention of an easy system of writing, the invention of the alphabet (Havelock, 1982).

By no means does this amount to saying that religion essentially had to be reduced

to written communication. The contrary is true. Orality, as a specific way of communi

cation, even gained in importance (Ong, 1967; 1969). The point is that the new facilities

of writing and reading did change the modes and ways in which self-reference is implied incommunication. Referring to another previous or later communication became indepen

dent of the spoken word as an actual event (Ong, 1977:20f). It became independent of

the presence of persons, independent of situations, independent of gesticulation and in

tonation and above all: independent of the individual and collective memory. It became

a matter of arranging the text. Moreover, the written text did preserve everything, im

portant or not, that was written. It was no longer necessary to give special marks to pre

servale communication, e.g. solemn expression or rhythm. But these had been the tra

ditional ways of religious design. Its form became replaceable. It did not become super

fluous. But to the extent that the ways of religious expression were the result of generalproblems of self-reference in oral communication, this was no longer the case. Solemnity

became a matter of linguistic choice and, thereby, a problem of belief.

Therefore, it it not inappropriate to see the elaborate forms of theological semantics

and argumentation of later on as the desperate attempt of religion and its professionals

to survive in spite of the alphabet.7 This necessity became a virtue. The theological con

struction of the Trinity has been invented as the most appropriate reaction: Its internal

unity achieved by the spoken word which all three components hear at the same time,

and its external presentation adapted to the closure of human society as a system of oral

and written communication. The technological device of writing itself became sanctified, the Gospel was preserved in book form, and this bookish attitude to religion was

still reinforced by the invention of printing. The Gospel was now accessible to every

body who could read. The Church could no longer present itself as a long chain of oral

transmissions, it had to change itself into a system of instructing and supporting reading

believers. Again, preaching did not become superfluous; but it had to be good preaching

with a view to the fact that all cross-references of the religious belief system were avail

able as written and printed text.

Then, and only then, the ancient ways to formulate religion could be rediscovered

as "sublime style," and the 18th century pursued this line by inventing the differencebetween the sublime and the beautiful to make sure that religion (and particularly reli-

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gious terribleness) could now, as ever, find appropriate forms and be preserved in spite

of aesthetic alternatives (Monk, 1960).

A further consequence of literacy was even more important. The most immediate re

sult of alphabetic writing was the introduction into evolution of wide discrepancies between semantics and social structure. In a way, the resulting problems were formulated

by Plato, but his philosophy itself sided with "ideas".8 In general, the literature of the

Greek city states became aware of differing realms of meaning, especially of politics and

law, knowledge and friendship (politela, nómos, episteme/dóxa, philía) (Goody ck Watt,

1963) but these differences were no longer representative of social structure, they under

rated, for example, economy and religion.

From that time on, and depending upon a technique of easy writing and reading, the

increasing probability of the improbable has been generating further complications. For

society in general and religion in particular we have to follow two different ways to copewith this dilemma, the one being semantic, the other relying on social structures, e.g.

the churches. The discrepancies between these two—the church never becomes a com

munio sanctorum—is one aspect of the problem. It is also the main dynamic factor in reli

gious and perhaps in social history.

VI.

It is easy to recognize our problem if we look at the semantic forms of theological belief

which have evolved within the Christian religion. "God" can be seen as the centralized

paradox which at the same time deparadoxizes the world. Therefore, we find the asymmetrical notion of creation and, contingent upon this, the idea of the contingency of

the world. We have the roots of a hierarchical structure which can be copied every

where. Original sin symbolizes the beginning of difference and the transformation of the

paradox, becoming labor, but remaining difference. The incarnation of God on earth

makes the improbable probable. The issue is "salvation", i.e. overcoming difference. But

then, salvation again becomes improbable; it becomes contingent upon grace and, fi

nally, in itself turns into an impenetrable and unrecognizable determination. The faith

may remain simple, but the belief becomes complex. The theological elaboration uncov

ers the circular relation between the problem and its solution. It exposes the paradox.It tries to tackle the latter with its own means. And "all was reduce to Article and Prop

osition," as Shaftesbury (Shaftesbury, 1714) complains. Whatever we may think of the

belief system of this particular religion, it brings about an important structural

change —some would say: evolutionary advance, or even: evolutionary universal (Par

sons, 1964)—compared with earlier religions. Never before had religion been so articu

late. Never before had it set up its own distinction between believers and non-believers,

abstracting from all other distinctions like our people/other people, citizens/strangers

or free men/slaves. Never before was it so completely on its own in regulating inclusion

and exclusion. Never before had religion in this sense been a network of decision premises. And never before did its own unity of reproduction become so dependent on inter

pretation i e professional skill in handling distinctions

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This kind of self-regulation seems to require another semantic innovation. The old

difference between sacred and profane, applied to places, occasions, persons etc., had

to be replaced with a difference which could be handled as a purely internal difference

within the religious system itself, representing, as it were, the difference between thoseincluded in and those excluded from the religious system. This problem was solved by

the distinction between salvation and damnation, accessible to all kinds of clerical and

private manipulation. This difference could be presented to the believer as the most im

portant question of his life. It could, then, be conditioned by all kinds of secondary reg

ulations. And even in the face of non-believers Pascal and others (Pascal and Jesuits!)9

could argue that it was not worthwhile to risk damnation even if one did not believe

in it. The scheme could be handled as a totalizing device, including the whole world

and even those excluded. At this level, the paradox became a suggested calculus of deci

sion.

10

As a result of long debates, the paradoxes surrounding salvation became moreprominent in the late Middle Ages. And whereas tradition did maintain a simple in

verse relation between certainty of salvation and fear in everyday life—the more cer

tainty the less fear—the problem became exaggerated and culminated in the issue of sal

vation itself: in its uncertainty.

Another area of problems relates to communication. A long process of doctrinal evo

lution has reduced the possibility of communication with the sacred to two forms: reve

lation and prayer.11 The same process had intensified the communicative character of

revelation and prayer and, thereby, gave rise to private concerns. When Japanese beat

the gong, bow and think of wishes

in front of the temple we don't know for sure whetherthis is intended as communication or not. The Christian prayer is intended as commu

nication and therefore requires a sufficient distinctness of belief. Revelation, too, does

not simply create states, consecrate places, destroy the evil, or interfere in some other

way in worldly affairs. Again, it is intentional communication, and this means freedom

to accept or not to accept the message. Since God can and cannot reduce Himself to

something visible, (again a paradox!) He sent His son to preach the Gospel.

The result of this doctrinal evolution is differentiation. The specification of forms of

communication between God and man leaves the relation of man and nature free for

other concerns—be they economic, scientific or aesthetic. All these concerns retain a

religious quality too because God has created the world and given nature to man. But

there is no communicative relation between man and nature.12 This must have been

a very difficult decision, possible only with religious support. Francis of Assisi talks to

animals. The way Petrarch sees nature almost becomes a new religion. Scientific experi

ments are styled as questioning nature. But, actually nature remains silent as an object

of pleasure and exploitation. It does not complain.

9For a Jesuit example of the famous wager of Pascal see de Villiers, 1700, vol. 1, pp. 204 f.10

There are many secondary paradoxes associated with salvation, for example the idea that the most external sign is given by God as the most reliable warrant of internal certainty: verbum solum habemus; or later,

as Max Weber would have it: business only!

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VII.

This stupendous and unique construction of theological doctrine was possible only

on the basis of structural differentiation. Above all it presupposed a separation of politi

cal and religious roles and a certain "privatization" of religious concerns, already realizedduring the classical period of the Greek city state.13 This structural differentiation made

it possible to think of membership in religious organizations as a matter of private choice

and to begin to develop decision premises and rules of control which made it feasible

to separate members and non-members without using other roles (e.g. citizenship) as a

guideline. The decision to belong or not to belong to a, certain religious collectivity be

came independent from other roles of the individual. The articulation of belief was nec

essary to orient this choice, and the paradoxical structure of belief (e.g. a man of lowest

birth, the Son of God) could symbolize the independence of this choice. It is one of the

accidents of evolution that this condition lasted long enough for the consolidation of a belief system that could survive the abolition of its starting mechanism. The estab

lished church into which we are born did retain (with new meanings) ceremonies of en

rolment and admittance (baptism) and, above all, the independence from other roles.

Everybody can become a Christian: a son, a wife, a slave, a heathen of whatever com

plexion, and even a criminal.

There is a circular relation of reciprocal support between semantics and social struc

ture which for a long time stabilized the result of an improbable evolution. However,

we are recovering the improbability of the probable. The religious system evolved and

it had to pay the penalty. The inherent improbability reappeared as a discrepancy between semantics and social structure and as a permanent incitement to reform. The

Church did not live up to its own expectations. From the twelfth century, it became

the object of more or less continuous claims for spiritual and organizational reforms,

and it became hardened by accepting and rejecting reforms. This, too, contributed to

differentiation. No other institution had a similar history. The differentiation of religion

and politics became practically irreversible, and it became one of the main conditions

for a new type of solution: for the differentiation of the mother church itself into several

churches, sects, and denominations.14

At the same time, a new differentiation of religious and economic questions emerged.The religious system had to renounce any attempt to supervise and justify economic be

havior—church policy in matters of usury and just prices having been her main foothold

in divine economic consultancy (de Roover, 1958; Grice-Hutchinson, 1958; Nelson,

1969; Malorey, 1971)—and the economic system had to renounce any attempt to buy

salvation. Both systems had to look for less immediate forms of mutual influence, re

specting the autonomy of the other. Quite similar problems of structural differentiation

came up in relation to areas of personal intimacy. The religious system had to withdraw

from regulating the position of bodies engaged in sexual activities (Flandrin, 1976; 1983),

13For the very advanced state of structural differentiation and religious privatization in Athens, see

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but it could stop all attempts to point to the woman as the way to salvation—from

SchlegeFs Lutinde to ClaudePs Soulier de satin (Hörisch, 1983).

Thus, evolution of religion is not simply a change of religious forms. The point is not

simply the development of a clearer conceptualization of the paradox. It is differentia

tion in a more complicated sense. Evolution propels itself by changing systems which are

at the same time the environment for other systems, forcing the latter to adapt or resist.

This may amount to changing structures or retaining unchanged structures within a

changed environment—but in both cases: to a strengthening of differentiation. Under

these pressures of social evolution structural differentiation seems to reinforce and ex

tend functional specification and the result is the functional differentiation of the whole

society, the modern type of society we are all familiar with (Luhmann, 1982:esp. 229ff).

Semantic and structural differentiation of religion leaves other areas of life without

religious support. Their structures remain inherently paradox, if they cannot be re

formulated in religious terms. Classical political ecomony, for example, defined its con

cept of labor as relation between man and nature. This contained obvious references

to biblical tradition. But labor is no longer the consequence of original sin or an element

within the religious dramaturgy of salvation. It is a natural necessity, even a "natural

law". Thus, the paradox re-enters the theoretial framework of political economy: The

relation between man and nature is again a natural relation. Therefore endless contro

versies cropped up concerning the status of labor within the system of economic produc

tion and distribution, and any solution had to rely, if not on religious, then on ideologi

cal deparadoxization.15

VIII.

Today, religion survives as a functional subsystem of a functionally differentiated so

ciety. It has gained recognized autonomy at the cost of recognizing the autonomy of the

other subsystems, i.e. secularization (Luhmann 1977:225ff). It represents the world

within the world and society within society. Its paradox can be reformulated as the well-

known paradox of set theory: It is a set which includes and excludes itself.16

The traditional way to deparadoxize this paradox has been "representation". The

modern way seems to require a functional orientation. The "deparadoxization" (I am try

ing to find a linguistic correlate for the improbability of the probable) of the world be

comes a job and "calling God" becomes the solution of a problem. At the same time,

we know how inadequate it is to treat religion in this way. *We may ask whether a solu

tion will be found at all for the problem of religion, or for that matter: the problem of

meaning; and we may also ask, if our solutions, and particularly the solution we call

15We can see this by consulting a text from Hodgskin, 1827: 28 ff.: "It is a law of our being, that we must

eat bread by the sweat of our brow; but it is reciprocally a law of the external world, that it shall give bread

for our labour, and give it only for labour. Thus we see that the world, every part of which is regulated by

unalterable laws, is adapted to man, and man to the world" (28). Hodgskin admits "that men have, to a certain

degree, the power of throwing the necessity to labour off their own shoulders; as they may alter the direction

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modern society, can find their problem. We know of countermovements, the recent re

actions of the Islamic religion against secularization being the most spectacular.17 But

defining the modern way of life or western style or capitalist society or secular rationality

in negative terms and reacting to it by negating this negativity is in itself a very modernway of coping with problems and, as we well know, not a very successful one.

A less fundamental and more appropriate way would be to look for adequate theoreti

cal descriptions of this very situation, not negating, but abstracting from the framework

in which we experience modern life. We could, for example, start by revisiting the se

mantical and structural choices made by the system of religion as it was approaching

modern times. We may ask:

(1) Was it a good idea to strengthen, beginning with the Council of Trent and with

Protestant "state churches," the organizational infrastructure of the religious system, to re

duce its professionals to a status of functionaries and to develop a hierarchic unification

although this centralized power of programming and decision-making proved unable to

adapt religion to modern conditions (de Certeau, 1972; Luhmann, 1972; Kaufmann,

1979)?

(2) Was it a good idea to symbolize the paradox by a semantics of invisibility18 which

was, by the way, always known or felt to be unsatisfactory with respect to religious

needs19?

(3) Was it a good idea, this being perhaps most important of all these semantical

changes, to drop the notion of Hell20 , to renounce terror and fear in religion, to presentit as pure love and thereby lose the distinction between salvation and damnation, the

only binary schematism specified for the religious system?21

It is easy to see that these and similar structural changes responded to the functional

differentiation and to the increasing complexity of modern society. It is difficult to see

any alternatives and it would be presumptuous to say that this was all wrong. The point

is that sociological theory and particularly systems theory offer a conceptual framework

17

With respect to "functional differentiation" as societal background of defensive aggressiveness see Tibi,1981; 1981a. For critical views, see de Certeau, 1972: 31-94; Kaufmann, 1979. See also Luhmann, 1972.18In the 18th century the metaphor of "invisibility" or "hiddenness" was used in many different contexts to

solve the paradoxes of order (e.g. the hidden order of order and disorder, the unity of multiplicity etc.). The

well-known "invisible hand" refered to by Joseph Glanvill, Adam Smith and others is only one case in point

formulating the expectation of progress in functionally differentiated subsystems (science, economy). For a cos-

mological argument see Lambert, 1761; 116: "Die Unordnung in der Welt ist nur scheinbar, und wo sie am

größten zu seyn scheint, da ist die wahre Ordnung noch weit herrlicher, uns aber nur mehr verborgen."19See a scene in: Mercier, 1767, with the feeble comfort: "un jour nous le connaîtrons" (119). Cf. also for

the 17th-century Goldmann, 1956. The point is no longer hearing the voice of God (Gen. 3,8; 7,1; 8,15; 22,1;

31,11 etc) but seeing something; and the visible is only the surface of things behind which something else may

be hidden.20The Hell being but an intellectual instrument of priests to terrify and dominate the people, runs the argu

ment (Cuppé, 1768; "J. J.", 1782). See also Blake, 1969, for a different view concerning the function of the differ

"With t C t i i P i Att ti d R l i R d E L d H t

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for describing such developments in more abstract terms, for example the distinction

between society and organization as different types of social systems (ad l.)î the notion

of semantic reformulations of paradoxes (ad 2.)i or the notion of binary schematisms

(good/bad, true/false, right/wrong, healthy/sick, salvation/damnation, to have or notto have property, etc.) as information processing devices (ad 3). Described in this way

religion can be perceived as developing along lines which are partly typical and partly

untypical of other functional subsystems of modern society. Reliance on organization

is characteristic of the political system, focusing on the "state", but not of science. Reli

ance on formulas which bypass the original problem, are typical of education,22 but not

of art, perhaps of the economy, but not of the medical system. Trying to get along with

out any fundamental distinction, without any binary schematism seems to be a unique

experiment, characteristic of the religious system only. It looks as if the monotony of

a loving God had to compensate for the diminishing importance of religion in everydaylife

23 and it seems that this reinforces the organizational difference between members

and non-members of churches or denominations. And, above all, abandoning the fun

damental difference between salvation and damnation, materialized as heaven and hell,

leads back to the fundamental paradox of self-referential unity (Barel, 1979:89f). Reli

gion returns to its original problem.

IX.

In sociological terms this original problem is the problem of paradoxical self-reference.

In religious terms it may be formulated—and formulation is already a kind of solution—as the problem of transcendence. In fact, the essence of the surviving religious traditions

can be resumed under this heading (Dowdy, 1982). Seen from a meta-perspective both

formulations may have the same meaning.

Within the context of traditional religious formulation transcendence is conceived as

something given, an almighty power of creation and/or interference from outside. In the

eyes of an anthropologist or sociologist this is but the solution of a problem, transcen

dence being an imaginary creation of man to solve problems of meaning within the

world. Each position can take account of the other. To the religious mind, sociologists,

living without faith and in a state of sin and limited knowledge, have no chance to see

the reality of transcendence. Maybe they took the wrong apple. As sociologists see it,

religious people are faced with the problem of "latent functions." They cannot be aware

of the functions of their belief because this would destroy the belief itself. They cannot

believe in the function of their belief,24 they cannot believe in "deparadoxization" and

have to remain in the shadowy cave of everyday life. However, this may be but a battle

of academic disciplines or intellectuals (Luhmann &L Pannenburg, 1978; Scholz, 1982).

And this, again, may be but an exercise in self-reference, using contradictions to make

one's own point. Why are we supposed to decide on this issue? To paraphrase Ranulph

"and here: particularly for Germany but not for France. (Luhmann &. Schorr, 1979; Schriewer, 1983).23Cuppé, (1768) and J. J., 1782 could at least imagine a system of gradation in heaven to replace the crude

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Gianville (1978:401-409) the question of fundamentals is not necessarily a fundamental

question.25

The main problem of contemporary religious practice might well be the problem of

transcendental communication. For structural reasons our society discourages any attempt to communicate with partners in its environment. The universe has withdrawn

into silence. But relations between God and man have to be communication—or what

else?—yet cannot be communication.26

The Bible itself seems to react to its own increasing literacy. "Hearing" the voice of

God had become a written text, a report about past events and thus was no longer possi

ble in the same sense. God had to send His Son to be audible. He did send Him as His

word. Eo verbum quo filius. But this again became part of the same written book and will

not be repeat able. Today this impossibility of communication is not only enforced by

writing, it is reinforced by the structural development of the societal system. All communication reproduces society and remains a strictly internal operation. Moreover,

only human beings can support the social network of communication. Communication

with gods, like communication with pets, may be emotionally gratifying; but it operates,

at least for observers, somewhat out of touch with reality—like "hearing voices." "Calling

God" in public places amounts to strange behavior or to socially oriented communica

tion, e.g. by car stickers. Our normal understanding of communication points to human

receptors and all the refinements of awareness and empathy makes this so much more

unavoidable.

We can of course say that we mean something different by communication with God.But then, what do we mean? And can we, without stumbling over the paradox, say that

we do not mean what we say knowing that others will not know what we mean when

we say that we do not mean what we say?

We can renounce any attempt at active or passive transcendental communication. But

then, we would admit that we have to rely on psychological and social resources or rein

forcement of belief and would again be faced with the invisible God and the situation

etsi non daretur Deus. We have churches. They are places where calling God, explaining

His revelation (as if it were communication) and prayer is adequate and expected be

havior. In sociological terms, churches seem to cultivate countermores, depending for their success on being different. Religion may have become counter-adaptive

27, and this

may be the very reason for its survival and for its recurrent revival as well. The Church

itself, by now, may have become a carnival, i.e. the reversal of normal order (Bakhtin,

1968; Gross, 1978).

"See also another piece of British wisdom: "in reality, profound Thinking is many times the Cause of shallow

Thought" (Shaftesbury, 1968:226).26

See again Blake, 1969:153: "The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and 1 asked them how they

dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, and so be the cause of imposition.

Isaiah anwer'd: Ί saw no God nor heard any in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the

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To propose this account may be sound sociological reasoning. And it would be good

sociological theory, were it not for the fact that the function of religion refers to the

constitutive paradox of the whole society as a self-referential system. On the one hand

we can admit that enclosure of the paradox, counter-adaptive behavior, preservingmemory, and keeping a place where the unusual may become usual, the unbelievable

believable, the improbable probable may be the solution; on the other hand, it is part

of the functional perspective to look for functional equivalents and to keep asking the

question whether and why we have to be satisfied with this sort of paradoxical solution.

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Religion and the Social Fabric:Comments on Niklas Luhmann

James Schmidt

Boston University

"Social life," Niklas Luhmann writes (acknowledging his debt to Georg Simmel), has

a "religioid quality." The "paradoxical constitution of self-reference" which religion, as

Luhmann understands it, takes for its peculiar concern "pervades all social life/' Society

presupposes "a network of communications, previous communications, and further

communications"—but these presupposed communications in turn presuppose, and are

meaningful only by reference to, still other communications. Hence the entire system

of communications which we encounter when we study society is marked by an ines

capable "recursive circularity." Religion has taken upon itself the task of reflecting on

the "necessary contingency" of all meaning and of elaborating strategies which "depara-

doxify" the world. For Luhmann, then, "there is no other way to identify religion" than

as that form of communication which continually makes reference to the "ultimate para

dox" which haunts all social life.

It should be obvious, even from so breathless a summary that Luhmann's approach

to religion is a novel and provocative one. My comments on it will fall into three parts,

the first and third of which will take us some distance from the immediate concerns of

his paper, but hopefully not too far from another broad sociological theme. What inter

ests me about Luhmann's treatment of religion is the way it reflects his understanding

of the nature of "the social fabric."

I will begin by attempting to draw out the implications of a contrast Luhmann

broaches at the start of the paper between his analysis of religion and the approach

which has more typically prevailed in sociological theory. Then I will go on to raise

more specific questions concerning his account of religion—questions which are directed

both at the way in which he has defined religion and at the discussion of the evolution

of religion which he undertakes towards the end of his paper. Finally, taking as my starting point a comment Luhmann makes at the conclusion of his paper regarding the

proper stance of the sociologist towards modern society, I would like to examine the

type of questions which Luhmann's account is able to entertain and ask whether his

account has been able to do justice to a set of equally important problems which take,

as their point of departure, the relationship between the individual and the social sys

tem.

Civic Religion and Social Differentiation

Even if one has doubts as to whether society in fact has a "religioid quality," it is difficult to deny that a good many of the descriptions of society which are to be found in

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society and God. In approaching Luhmann's account it is crucial to realize that while

Luhmann sees religion as playing a central role within the "social fabric," his under

standing of how society is bound together is so unconventional that the account of reli

gion he offers must of necessity diverge from many of the conventions of traditional approaches.

One of the most basic of Luhmann's reservations with regard to traditional sociologi

cal theory has been an uneasiness with its persistence in treating society as a civitas sive

societas civilis [city/state or civil society]—as an entity whose identity is accounted for

by a theory which is a "peculiar amalgam of morality, law, and politics" (Luhmann,

1982:336-7; Habermas & Luhmann, 1971:7-11). In opposition to such a picture of soci

ety Luhmann has elaborated his peculiar vision of society as a system which coordinates

possible communications between a host of subsystems, no one of which (except in the

fantasies of theorists) provides a royal road to the understanding of the whole.The traditional conception of society as societas civilis has its origin in Aristotle's Poll·

tics, which opened with the argument that the polis must be understood as a species

of koinonia—a unity of individuals with differing needs whose pursuit of a common goal

is marked by a feeling of fellowship [philia] and governed by a sense of justice [to dikaion]

(Politics 1252a; Ethics VIII:9; see also Riedel, 1969:135-66 & 1975a). The polis or koinonia

politike is distinguished from all other communities by virtue of the fact that it is the

final and most all inclusive community and hence the community which pursues the

most complete and self-sufficient of all goods.

We owe this usage of the term societas civilis to Leonardo Bruni's 1438 translation of the Politics (Riedel, 1975b: 109-67). A model of sorts for Bruni's translation could be

found in the Institutes, where societas designated a corporation formed by a number of

contracting partners for the pursuit of a set of clearly defined ends (Institutes IILxxv).

In following this model Bruni was consciously departing from conventions which had

been established a century and a half before him by the first translator of the Politics,

William of Moerbeke, a Flemish Dominican. He had rendered Aristotle's koinonia poli

tike as communicatio politica—communicatio had been employed by St. Jerome throughout

the Vulgate to render the Greek koinonia and imparted a dual sense of "fellowship" and

"participation," paradigmatically that fellowship between believers which is the consequence of their common participation in the Eucharist (Seesemann 1933:244-9;

Michaud-Quantin 1970:147-53).

These somewhat arcane matters of translation illuminate an important aspect of Luh

mann's critique of the traditional understanding of society. They suggest that traditional

social theory has been dominated by two diverging ways of treating society—ways which

received their classic exposition in Tönnies' work but, as we can see from the tension

between these two translations, were afoot long before Tönnies' famous distinction of

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. One approach views society as a sort of sacramental

bond, which transcends the individual communicants who happen to comprise it at anygiven moment. The other sees society as the product of a series of individual decisions,

th lt f b f di t t t b t fl ti ti l t h i h

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RELIGION AND THE SOCIAL FABRIC 23

ety as a societas being perhaps the most obviously so. The field of sociological investiga

tion cannot possibly be confined to forms of association which are entered by individ

uals only after reflection on the possible benefits which will accrue from their participa

tion. Against such an unconvincing portrait of society, there is an obvious attractiveness to the notion of society as a communicatio or—to revert to Tönnies' more familiar

conception—as a communitas. Indeed, if we follow Robert Nisbet (1966:47-51), it is the

notion of community, not the category of society, which presides over the advent of

the sociological tradition. But this way of understanding the social fabric, as Luhmann

has continually stressed, is not without its shortcomings. It approaches society as if it

were a moral order and reformulates the problem of social integration as a problem of

normative integration (Luhmann 1982:73-4). Whether society coheres or collapses is ul

timately a question of whether it can succeed in inculcating in its members some core

set of normative dispositions.Once society has been conceptualized in this way, the role of religion is straightfor

ward enough: it is a factor which either promotes or thwarts social integration by pro

viding or not providing the core normative dispositions which society requires. We need

only recall the argument of one of the examples Luhmann suggests, Rousseau's account

of civil religion in The Social Contract, to appreciate what is required of religion in this

conception. Civil religion provides a way of educating the general will. It is, in a sense,

the social precondition for the possibility of there being a coherence of individual wills

into a will which is capable of serving as the active principle of the social body.

Now, as Luhmann has argued, this is asking a bit much of religion and expecting abit much from modern society. We do not live, nor are we likely to live, in a society

which is as uni vocal in its normative foundation as this conception would suggest. We

are instead fated to live in a society which does not appear to rest on any single set of

basic shared beliefs. But, in spite of this absence, the society in which we live is not nec

essarily less capable of maintaining its integrity than earlier, simpler societies.

A rather different role for religion follows from Luhmann's image of society. We do

not need religion to provide a moral foundation for society—society seems to get along

quite well without a normative foundation. Religion, for Luhmann, far from being the

ultimate moral foundation on which society rests, is rather one of the possible formsof communication which society brings about—a form which has the peculiar character

of "resolving" the paradoxes inherent in all communication by indulging in them. It does

not so much lay a foundation as create an institution which reflects on the absence of

foundations, which confronts and tries to find a meaning in the paradox that all mean

ing is meaningful only with respect to other meanings which have no more sovereign

claim to being meaningful than any of the meanings whose meaning we are trying to

ground.

What is at least in part afoot in Luhmann's discussion of religion, then, flows rather

directly from his suggestive way of approaching society. While never denying the "fundamental" character of religious concerns, he does cast considerable doubt as to whether

such discussions of fundamentals are really necessary for the survival of society Social

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Religion: Its Identity and its Evolution

That, at least, is how I understand the relationship of Luhmann's discussion of reli

gion to the themes which have marked his previous writings. Bu while I find much that

is provocative in his general rejection of the traditional understanding of the functionof religion, I have a few reservations about certain of the more specific arguments which

he advances in his present article. My criticisms will concentrate on two points: the

somewhat peculiar way in which he has gone about defining religion and the sometimes

ambiguous account of the evolution of religion which he has given towards the close

of his article.

Because of the self-referential character of communications within society, Luhmann

argues that " Religion' (whatever this means)" is "unavoidable." I am troubled here both

by the rather peculiar paranthetical interjection which follows the word "religion" and

by the argument to support the "unavoidability" of religion. It may well be that bothof my problems are intertwined.

Luhmann argues that there is "no other way to identify religion" save that of defining

religion as those "forms which can be observed as referring to the ultimate paradox."

Immediately thereafter he notes that there are "many functional equivalents fulfilling

its function" and goes on to assign to "divine detectives" the task of finding out what,

in any given society, "can be observed and described as referring to religion in the para

doxes of art and love, of sovereign power, or making money by making money or of

recognizing the causes of cognition." There are, I think, some problems with this way

of defining religion. It is not a definition which any practitioner of a religion would recognize as describing what he or she is doing when he or she is engaged in religious prac

tices. It moves on a level of abstraction a good deal more refined—drawing as it does

on research into the nature of autopoietic systems—than that which any member of the

social system being studied is likely to engage in on a day-to-day basis. There is nothing

inherently wrong with this, but we must be clear that it is "religion" in this sense, and

only in this abstract sense, which has been claimed to be unavoidable—i.e. any society

in which there are communications which must presuppose other previous communica

tions which themselves are not without similiar presupposition will create a space for

certain practices which reflect on these paradoxes. But does it make sense to say "religion" when what is really meant is "practices which reflect on the paradoxical constitu

tion of meaning?" And what is gained by sending out a group of "divine" detectives who

are charged with the task of finding "religion" in a series of places where, at best, all

that more profane detectives could turn up would be "practices which reflect on the

paradoxical constitution of meaning?" Must we regard Lewis Carroll as a theologian?

What, then, is Luhmann claiming to be "unavoidable" here—religion in his own ab

stract sense or religion in the sense in which social actors are likely to employ it? Luh

mann wants us to restrict the definition of religion to the former, more technical sense,

but if we do, the argument of this paper becomes a bit less ambitious. What he hasshown is "unavoidable" is a set of practices (only some of which resemble anything that

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RELIGION AND THE SOCIAL FABRIC 25

I also have reservations about the account of the evolution of religion which occupies

the fifth, sixth, and seventh parts of Luhmann's paper. Luhmann's concern here is with

the relationship between changes in the structure of communication and the transfor

mation of theological arguments. Throughout this discussion, I am, once again, lessthan clear as to what exactly is being claimed for religion. On at least two junctures

Luhmann seems to be claiming that the consequences of the evolution of religion are

quite far-reaching—at the close of section five we are told that the discrepancy between

semantic and institutional solutions to problems encountered by the church as a conse

quence of literacy "is . . . the main dynamic factor in religious and perhaps in social his

tory" and at the close of section eight Luhmann appears to be saying that "the functional

differentiation of the whole society" is the result of the evolution of religion. These

claims are perplexing since it is by no means clear how religion, a form of reflection

about whose efficacy and import Luhmann is quite skeptical of elsewhere in the paper("the question of fundamentals is not necessarily a fundamental question") should be af

forded so central a role. Why should the apparently always contradictory efforts of reli

gion to "deparadoxify" communications be treated as if they were more crucial for social

evolution and social differentiation than subsequent transformations in modes of com

munication?

Luhmann has sketched a provocative account of the origins of modern society, but

it is an account which is written from the standpoint of the transformation of one partic

ular subsystem: religion. Doesn't this account need to be supplemented with other his

tories written from the standpoints of other sub-systems? How are we to be sure, in thevarious cases Luhmann discusses, what is the consequence of the working out of certain

dilemmas which are inherent in the project of religion and what might be the result of

external factors impinging on religious discussions?

Social Theory and Modern Society

Let me close with a more general reservation, one that may have been lurking behind

certain of my earlier comments and one which is brought to the fore by Luhmann's clos

ing discussion. It concerns the attitude which Luhmann counsels the sociological the

orist to take toward modern society. Luhmann argues that attempts to characterizemodern, "functionally differentiated" society in "negative" terms and then react to this

negativity by "negating the negativity" represent "a very modern way of coping with

problems and, as we well know, not a very successful one." In its place Luhmann advises

a strategy which would "look for adequate theoretical descriptions of this very situation"

which abstract from, rather than negate the framework in which we "experience modern

life." As an example, he offers a set of questions which might be posed upon "revisiting

the semantical and structural choices made by the system of religion as it was approach

ing modern times." The problem I have with the questions this approach produces—let

us take as an example "was it a good idea . . . to drop the notion of hell to renounceterror and fear in religion, to present it as pure love and thereby lose the distinction

between salvation and damnation the only binary schematism specified for the religious

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have to presuppose that needs and requirements of the system whose evolution is being

traced. But might it not be equally appropriate to observe that while the abandonment

of the notion of hell might have deprived the religious system of that binary structure

which allowed it to function in a certain way, the abandonment of the notion mightalso have allowed for relations between priests and their congregations—not to mention

between believers and their God—which were less dominated by coercion and fear,

more open to reflection and discussion?

To raise this sort of question is, of course, to return to a rather old set of controversies

—the relationship between the needs of a system and the needs of individuals within

that system (see Habermas & Luhmann, 1971)—and to raise a set of questions about

functionalist accounts which have been raised time and again—do they have to pay a

price for their decision to explore society on a level which eschews a focus on the indi

vidual's actions, are they not forced to ask questions about social systems which are concerned only with the ability of these systems, and not the individuals who live within

them, to survive and prosper (see Giddens 1977:96-134)? Systems accounts have been

able (to torture the metaphor one last time) to analyse, in often novel ways, the manner

in which the social fabric is stitched together. It remains to be seen how helpful they

can be in determining whether the garment which has been woven fits anyone properly.

REFERENCES

Giddens, Anthony. 1977. Studies in Social and Political Theory. New York: Basic Books.

Habermas, Jürgen and Luhmann, Niklas. 1971. Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie-was leistet dieSystemforschung? Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag.

Luhmann, Niklas. 1982. The Differentiation of Society. New York: Columbia University Press.

Michaud-Quantin, Pierre. 1970. Universitas: Expressions du Mouvement Communautaire fans le Moyen-Age LaParis: J.Vrin.

Nisbet, Robert. 1966. The Sociological Traditon. New York: Basic Books.

Riedel, Manfred. 1969. Studien zu Hegels Rechtsphilosophie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag.

. 1975a. "Gesellschaft, bürgerliche," pp.719-800 in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Vol.2, ed. Otto Brun

ner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck. Stuttgart: Klett/Cotta.

. 1975b. Metaphysik und Metapolitik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag.Seesemann, Heinrich. 1933. Der Begriff KOINONIA im Neuen Testament. Giessen: A. Töppelmann.

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Religion, Privatization and Maladaptation: A

Comment on Niklas Luhmann*

Ruth A. WallaceGeorge Washington University

The major thrust of Niklas Luhmann's article represents a continuation of his earlier

theoretical work. In The Differentiation of Society, Luhmann (1982:xii) states that the

analysis of society as a functionally differentiated system "requires a detailed study of

each of its single functional subsystems." The present paper, which focuses on religion

as a "functional subsystem of a functionally differentiated society," is, then, a step in the

direction he proposed earlier.1

It also reveals some of the strengths and weaknesses of his effort to combine self-referential systems theory and evolutionary theory. My re

marks will be limited to two issues emerging from Luhmann's paper: the first concerns

religion as a functional subsystem; and the second, the major point to be addressed

here, concerns the relationship between privatization and maladaptation.

1. Religion as a Functional Subsystem

Luhmann's theoretical concerns reveal the influence of Talcott Parsons under whom

he studied (Poggi, 1979:viii). In Parsonian terms religion as a social structure contributes

primarily to latent pattern maintenance and tension management. As a subsystem ina functionally differentiated society, Luhmann sees religion primarily concerned with

the maintenance of institutionalized cultural patterns. He omits tension management,

or at least downplays its importance as a functional exigency. Luhmann argues that "the

fundamental problem of the paradoxical world," the "improbability of the probable,"

can be "solved by religion." Yet he recognizes and laments the fact that religion, as a

result of structural differentiation, has become privatized in modern society. Religion

is no longer the overarching structure in society. How, Luhmann asks, is it possible to

maintain continuity in the modern world? In the framework of his self-referential sys

tems theory at the societal level, he defines meaning as the "representation of the complexity of the world" which is introduced by communication systems. The function of

meaning, then, is to "provide access to all possible topics of communication." How, he

asks, can the tension between the "security of the actual" as opposed to the "complexity

of the possible" be solved?

If we return to Parsons' analysis of the pattern maintenance/tension management sub

system we can recall that two of the social structures which meet this need of the social

system, the need to transmit cultural values and to manage tensions, are viewed as pre

dominantly in the "private" sphere, namely religion and family. Luhmann makes the

1 Unless otherwise indicated, ail Luhmann quotes are from his article published in this issue of Sociological

A l i

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point that the evolutionary process of structural differentiation separated religion from

politics and the economy. Yet he laments the privatization of religion when he says,

"semantic and structural differentiation of religion leave other areas of life without reli

gious support." In Luhmann's eyes this means that there is no solution to the paradoxical world if religion alone can solve the paradox.

I would argue that Luhmann's concern about the diminishing importance of religion

for pattern maintenance is related to the origin of Parsons' four-function paradigm. How

did the AGIL model emerge? Recall that Parsons' attempt to incorporate propositions

about the nature of goals into his theory of action evolved from his collaboration with

Robert F. Bales in his experiments on leadership in small groups. As these groups at

tempted to solve their task problems, Bales observed changes in the quality of the activ

ity among the group members. The patterns emerging from these activities led him to

develop the following categories: 1) common orientation to the task; 2) evaluation anddecisions about the task; 3) social control; and 4) integration and tension management.

As we know, Parsons re-conceptualized Bales' categories to include all systems of action,

and this led to his four-function paradigm and the categories of adaptation, goal-attain

ment, integration and pattern maintenance (later labeled latent pattern maintenance/

tension management). Bales' data, then, were the bases on which Parsons built his four

functional pre-requisites.

My recent re-reading of Working Papers in the Theory of Action (Parsons et al., 1953)

in which Bales' work is described prompted me to question the data base. Years ago,

on the first reading, I had not noticed that Bales' small groups were made up entirelyof Harvard undergraduates, all males, whom Bales obtained "through the Harvard em

ployment service." (Parsons, et al. y 1953:113) In the early 1950s that sample would have

been typically white, upper-middle to upper class, young adult Protestants. What possi

ble issues might the sample's homogeneity raise?

It could call into question the number, type and range of functional system problems.

Would the changes in the quality of activity in small task-oriented groups which were

less homogeneous, and which included, for instance, blacks, women, lower class, Catho

lics and older people have exhibited the same patterns as those observed by Bales? What

I am suggesting is that perhaps Parsons' four functional exigencies need not be viewed

as exhaustive categories. In particular, it is conceivable that pattern maintenance and

tension management could be treated separately or differently. Recent research by

Carol Gilligan, reported in her book In a Different Voice (1982) showed that women are

more likely than men to sacrifice the pursuit of achievement in order to preserve rela

tionships with others. Gilligan concludes that female moral development is largely a

matter of attachment and care for others, while males' is a matter of increasing separa

tion to achieve independence. It would seem that Parsons' AGIL categories should be

applied to other groups, regions and countries to see whether or not these four cate

gories are exhaustive and universal. Indeed, a search for other functional imperatives

is in order.

The ascriptive bias operating in the Bales' groups is directly related to Luhmann's pa

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RELIGION, PRIVATIZATION AND MALADAPTION 2 9

If so, then Luhmann need not lament the privatization of religious forms because they

can, in fact, be functional for individuals and for society. Perhaps the paradox is not

as acute for individuals as Luhmann sees it. This brings me to the major point I wish

to address, namely his hypothesis regarding privatization and maladaptation.

2. Privatization and Maladaptation

At the core of Luhmann's theory is the paradox of social structures which are both

changing (structural differentiation) and unchanging (self-reference), and are thus ex

hibiting both complexity and security. I would argue that privatization can, in fact, con

tribute to a solution to the paradox, to reducing complexity and coping with contin

gency. With increasing structural differentiation, individuals lead a somewhat "bloodless

existence" in order to survive in the public sphere; they must operate successfully on

the instrumental side of Parsons' pattern variables. On the other hand, there is a need

for a place, (a "carnival," in Luhmann's words), where pluralistic believers can somehow

experience the bondedness of close relationships despite their other differences. Al

though Luhmann may label the following as "a preoccupation with classical authors,"

I turn to Emile Durkheim, whose idea of intermediate groups is the basis for my argu

ment. In the preface to the second edition of The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim

(1964:28) writes:

Where the state is the only environment in which men can live communal lives, they in

evitably lose contact, become detached, and thus society disintegrates. A nation can be maintained only if, between the State and the individual, there is intercalated a whole series of sec

ondary groups near enough to the individuals to attract them strongly in their sphere of action

and drag them, in this way, into the general torrent of social life.

Durkheim's solution is an alternative to the binary classification public/private which

is alluded to by Luhmann. The private/public classification results in a labeling of the

various parts of a social system as one or the other. For instance, in a modern society,

economy and polity are viewed as public, religion and family as private. Within subsys

tems the same process of dualism continues: some roles are placed predominantly in the

public sphere, others in the private.What about social forms which are in between the public and private spheres, which

Durkheim labels as secondary groups? Religion, I would argue, should be placed in more

of an intermediate position in modern society. As a social form it is not totally outside

the public realm in that it still has some influence, both nationally and internationally.

Witness, for example, the influence of the Catholic Church in Poland and in Central

America, or in the United States the influence of the churches regarding issues like nu

clear warfare, abortion and equal rights for minorities and women. Neither is religion

totally privatized. Most ritual prayer still takes place in congregations, not homes; and

the interpretations of religious writings are not, in some churches, left entirely to theindividual believer, but are subject to control or direction by religious authorities. As

Luhmann points out changes in the structure of communication have led to difficulties

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writers would not be inhibited in their ability to address new questions and to search

for new formulations, but this is not the case. Thus, I am arguing that religion falls in

between the public and private spheres.

Luhmann makes the point that religious differentiation has meant the proliferationof sects and new religious movements. But this proliferation has made it more possible

for individuals to find bondedness and communal life in small religious groups. Other

intermediate groups which are functional equivalents where such bonding can take

place and where individuals can experience what Luhmann calls the "security of the ac

tual" are families, friendship groups and small interest groups based, for example, on

neighborhood, occupation, sports or leisure. These are groups where satisfying rituals

can bring about tension management, and which, therefore, function as buffer zones

for individuals living in a complex world.

With respect to society's evolutionary process, these intermediate groups are, by definition, maladaptive in the Parsonian sense because they are non-economic or non-ra

tional. As Luhmann would say, they "resist development." However, because they can

offer to individuals moments of affective security in the midst of complexity, they can

also help to solve the problem of the paradoxical world. These intermediate groups are,

in Luhmann's words, "forms which can be preserved within a changing context." What

modern society needs is a proliferation of these mediating institutions which touch the

everyday lives of individuals; small groups oriented to church, family, leisure or occupa

tion. Luhmann suggests the function of these groups when he characterizes the pri

vatized churches as bodies "operating out of touch with reality," which "cultivatecounter mores" and are, therefore, counter-adaptive. I agree with Luhmann that their

maladaptation is the reason why many churches are not only surviving but are, in fact,

undergoing a recurrent revival as well. The same could be said for other intermediate

groups. Modern individuals need these "carnivals," these "reversals of normal order."

Parsons alluded to this need in Action Theory and the Human Condition where he ana

lyzed the "expressive revolution" in America, which he viewed as both a lessening of

self-interest and a reinforcement of affective solidarity, as well as the revival of a sense

of collective solidarity. As Parsons (1978:321) saw it, the emerging pattern of institution

alized individualism involved a "much broader conception of the self-fulfillment of theindividual in a social setting in which the aspect of solidarity (i.e., affective solidarity

or love) figures at least as prominently as does that of self-interest in the utilitarian

sense." Parsons called this "the new religion of love," which he saw as existing in conti

nuity with the generalized value system of Bellah's civil religion in America.

Parsons' evolutionary theory which includes the need for some generalized value sys

tems in modern society is related to the issue of religious privatization. When Luhmann

laments the shrinking importance of religion, he is referring to traditional religion with

its overarching value system which Berger (1969) describes as the "sacred canopy." Par

sons' evolutionary theory states that a result of social differentiation is the emergenceof generalized value systems. These generalized value systems could be labeled a "secular

canopy" because they take the place of the overarching religious values Robert Bellah's

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RELIGION, PRIVATIZATION AND MALADAPTION 3 1

in fact, that generalized value systems contribute more to pattern maintenance for soci

ety, and privatized religious forms contribute to tension management for individuals.

What is missing in Luhmann's paper, however, are individual actors. He explicitly

side-steps the issue when he says he "is avoiding all subjective, psychological or transcendental connotations" in his definition of meaning. Ruling out subjective meaning is con

sistent with his earlier statement (1982:232) that "there is no plausible way to base sys

tems theory on a Weberian concept of meaningful action." Nonetheless, a concern for

individual actors is implicit in his discussion of communication. For instance, Luhmann

says, O u r normal understanding of communication points to human receptors." He

also says that "only human beings can support the social network of communication." 2

With respect to the total society, privatization does mean that religion will have di

minishing importance in everyday life. Luhmann is correct. Nonetheless, privatized

forms, religious or otherwise, are functional for individuals in modern pluralistic societies. The love and support found in these intermediate groups can provide individuals

with more energy in their public everyday lives; thus society stands to gain as well. "Car

nivals," which Luhmann calls the "reversal of normal order" are healthy for both society

and for individuals, and, as he predicts, it is because they are counter-adaptive that they

are functional.

Bring on the carnivals! Families which "preserve memory," friendships where the "un

usual may become usual," and small interest groups, religious or otherwise, where the

"unbelievable is believable"—these are Luhmann's carnivals and Durkheim's secondary

groups. Because they can de-paradoxize the world for individuals, and offer some continuity in the midst of change, intermediate groups can serve as functional equivalents

in a pluralistic and secularized society.

REFERENCES

Bellah, Robert N. 1967. "Civil Religion in America." Daedalus 96 (Winter): 1-21.

Berger, Peter. 1969. The Sacred Canopy Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Garden City, New York

Anchor.

Durkheim, Emile. 1964. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: The Free Press.

Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lidz, Victor. 1982. "Religion and Cybernetic Concepts in the Theory of Action." Sociological Analysis 43,4

(Winter):287-305.

Luhmann, Niklas. 1982. The Differentiation of Society. New York. Columbia University Press

Parsons, Talcott. 1978. Action Theory and the Human Condition. New York. The Free Press.

Parsons, Talcott. 1977. The Evolution of Societies. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Parsons, Talcott, Robert F. Bales and Edward A. Shils. 1953. Working Papers in the Theory of Action Glencoe,

Illinois: The Free Press.

Poggi, Gianfranco. 1979. "Niklas Luhmann's Neo-Functionalist Approach: An Elementary Presentation." pp

vn-xix in Niklas Luhmann. Trust and Power. New York: John Wiley.

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It is recommended that potential contributors first write to the generaleditor to determine whether or not the subjects on which they wish towrite have already been assigned. Contributions concerning methodsand approaches for studying the areas under discussion are desired.Structural and systematic reflection on the articles already published inthe journal are welcome. Reviews and assessments of articles pu bushed

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Response to Commentators

Niklas Luhmann

The comments on my paper do not give much occasion for counter-arguments, con

troversy, or defense. However, the paper needs clarification on several complicated the

oretical issues which I carefully tried to avoid or even to sweep under the rug. The points

1, 2, and 4 relate to the co mments of James Schmidt; the poin ts 3 and 5 to the comments

of Ruth Wallace.

1) Th e a rgument tha t religion "whatever this means" is unavoidable remains ambigu

ous. I should have been more explicit about the distinction of operation and observation

which plays a fundamental role in recent research on self-referential systems.

At the operational level systems are closed. Social systems use communication to pro

vide an occasion for further communication and, at this level, nothing else can be done

with communications. At this level, the distinction of information, utterance, and un

derstanding is essential. At the observational level the communication is seen with re

spect to the distinction between system and environment. Here you can see (and com

municate about, closing your own system, e.g. sociology) input and output, unintended

meanings, latent structures, adaptive functions.

Social systems are not only autopoietic but also self-observing systems.1 They observe

ongoing communications, communicate about communication, and can differentiate

subsystems specialized in observing communication. At the operational level religion is

neither avoidable nor unavoidable. It is presupposed as a meaningful context for choos

ing further communications and, of course, we can choose communications without

touching religious meanings. Only for an observer (and particularly for sociologists) the

question may arise whether or not religion is avoidable, i.e. whether or not it fulfills

a necessary function—whatever religion means on the operational level.

2) Professionals of the religious systems, theologians or "divine detectives," are observ

ers too. They also contribute to the processes of self-observation of the society within

the society. My point is: If this group would accept the theory that religion has its special

function in handling the paradoxes of self-reference, they could discover hidden reli

gious premises in apparently secularized codes.2 Since most functional subsystems of

modern society rely on binary codes to deparadoxize their operations and observations,

a critique of coding as a technique of deparadoxification could launch a movement of

"religious enlightenment."

*It is, at present, an unsettled question whether this case can be treated as "autopoietic system" in an ex

tended sense (my view) or whether we should restrict the term "autopoiesis" to living systems and formulate

a different theory of "meaning-tight" self-referential systems. See Brâten (1984).2See with respect to the difference of cognition and object (where the constitution of the object already im

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3) The operations of self-referential systems can maintain or change their structures.

There may be a problem of "pattern maintenance," of course, but also a problem of pat

tern change. It simply is not true that religion has an interest in pattern maintenance

rather than in pattern change. The more a system develops in the direction of functional differentiation and specialization the less any of its functions will be able to opt

either for pattern maintenance or for pattern change as a matter of principle. This will

always have to be an open choice.

The Parsonian concept of "latent pattern maintenance" refers to the problem of inter

mittent non-use of patterns, e.g. sleep. The alphabet has to be available whenever we

read or write, but it also has to be inhibited when we are engaged in other activities.

Availability and inhibition are two sides of the same coin and if the action system be

comes more complex and its patterns more specialized it may become increasingly prob

lematic to combine easy availability and strict inhibition from interference with otheractivities. Easy reading and writing may be desirable, but we do not want to be literate

all the time.

This certainly is an important point, but how could we say that this is the special func

tion of religion? Moreover, the maintenance of an autopoietic system depends, first of

all, upon its possibility to produce events by events, e.g. communications by communi

cations. The urgent, undeferrable problem always is: how to come to a next and different

event and not: how to make sure that the same pattern can be re-used at another similar

occasion. The primary, unavoidable choice is whether or not to continue life, conscious

ness, communication and not whether to maintain or to change patterns. The maintenance of a system depends upon this kind of dynamic stability and not primarily upon

a sufficient degree of structural stability. Structures are required to narrow the span of

choice of the next event and they may be maintained or changed as hoc in view of this

function.

A paradox in its strict logical sense says: to stop is to continue; to continue is to stop.

A true statement is a false statement. Doing right is doing wrong. Or even: you have

to stop because you have to continue, or your action is wrong because you are pursuing

your rights. Deparadoxifying such problems—and they arise by necessity in all self-refer

ential systems—amounts to giving meaning and direction to the next step, to re-estab

lishing a difference between the yes and the no and to encouraging continuance (of

course: with either positive or negative meanings, with either cooperation or conflict,

with either peace or war or with a change from the one to the other). 3

4) I do not mean to say that "the functional differentiation of the whole society is the

result of the evolution of religion." This sounds like a "one-factor theory" which every

body is careful enough to avoid nowadays. How functional differentiation evolves and

finally, in the eighteenth century, outdoes differentiation according to strata is a very

complicated story. My point is only that, if functional differentiation evolves and wins

primacy over other schemes of societal differentiation the religious system has to adapt

3This addition in brackets refers to the view discussed in Germany that this theory of religion recommends

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RESPONSE TO COMMENTATORS 3 5

to this order and has to become a functional subsystem, specifying its function and its

codes and its special social performances. At least it will be treated as such whether it

finds this situation comfortable or not and whether or not it prefers to remain maladap

tive to some extent.However, within the semantics and the social structure of religion, we find many ex

amples of preadaptive advances. Territorial boundaries, for instance, had been invented

by church policy and not by secular political rulers during the middle ages. The new

concept of an inward-directed individual accepting or rejecting its own actions has been

developed within the context of confessional practice (cf. Hahn, 1982); and Max Weber

might have been right in assuming that urgent concerns for securing salvation by indi

vidual action (and not by the institutional mediation of the church) cleared the path

for more secular, i.e. economic, insecurities and endeavours. Clearly, these are not deci

sive "causes" of modernity but semantic or structural inventions which could be usedduring the transition to buffer the discouraging effects of newness. A theory of systems

evolution will never select one cause or another as decisive or one subsystem or another

as leading the evolution; the point is rather to explain how minor changes can produce,

under exceptional circumstances and in accidental combination with other changes,

large effects by setting off deviation-amplifying developments (Maruyama, 1963).

5) The distinction public/private does not and cannot refer to a differentiation of sys

tems. It is a purely semantic device regulating access of persons to social systems. The

transition from traditional societies to modern society required a change of meaning

with respect to "public" and "private" because the very conditions of access had to bechanged. The old European notions of "public" and "private" referred to the distinction

of the polity and the economy (in the sense of household; e.g. Spontone, 1599: 181ff.)

During the 18th century the public/private distinction became a "counterdistinction"

(Holmes, in press and 1984: 24Iff.) replacing the traditional differences between families,

clans and sects by a new scheme, compatible with functional differentiation and free

and equal access to every functional subsystem. The decision to be religious or not, and

in what sense, became a private affair, because it now had to be disconnected from other

(e.g. political, economic, professional) roles. It was in this (modern) sense that I men

tioned the privatization of religious concerns (not forms!) in the Greek city as a consequence of high structural differentiation. The Greeks themselves, of course, could never

have said this. We can. In any case, in view of the function of this distinction of "public

and private," I see no point in characterizing churches or sects, cults or rituals as either

public or private, except in the sense that this designation refers to rules of access. Now

adays they are normally public in the sense that everybody can go, and private in the

sense that everybody can stay away. They are forms of inclusion of whoever wants ac

cess to the religious system, but the inclusion cannot be based on other roles; it has to

be based on private decision.

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Hahn, Alois 1982. "Zur Soziologie der Beichte und anderer Formen institutionalisierter Bekenntnisse:

Selbstthematisierung und Zivilisationsprozeß." Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 34:408-

434.

Holmes, Stephen 1984. Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism. New Haven: Yale UP.

Holmes, Stephen in press. "Differenzierung und Arbeitsteilung im Denken des Liberalismus," in Soziale Differenzierung: Zur Geschichte einer Idee, ed. Niklas Luhmann. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

Huet, Pierre Daniel 1723. Traité Philosophique de la Foiblesse de l'esprit humain. Amsterdam: Du Sauzet.

Luhmann, Niklas 1984. "Die Theorie der Ordnung und die natürlichen Rechts." Rechtshistorisches ]ournal

3:133-149.

Maruyama, Magoroh 1963. "The Second Cybernetics: Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes." Gen

eral Systems 8:233-241.

Scholz, Frithard 1982. Freiheit als Indifferenz: Alteuropäische Probleme mit der Systemtheorie Niklas LuhmaFrankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Spontone, Ciro 1599. Dodici libri del Governo di Stato. Verona: Pigozzo &L de Rossi.

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