Jurgen Habermas and Russian philosopher-theologians dialogue through the century

During the era of the emergence of Sociology as a science of the early 20th century, the so-called Russian philosopher-theologians subjected the foundations of the Sociology of religion to powerful criticism. In opposing the idea of socialism, their counter-arguments turned out to be prophetic since the failure of the socialist society took place largely according to their predictions. However, at the time, the platform of scientific atheism emerged as dominant, thus forming the methodological atheism of the Sociology of religion. A century later, Jürgen Habermas was compelled to take cognisance of these two opposing worldviews of secular and religious societies. In this article, while the authors do not examine the reasons that prompted the pre-eminent contemporary sociologist of religion to return to this analysis, an attempt is made to compare the arguments of Russian philosopher-theologians of the early 20th century with those of the respected contemporary scholar. The aim of providing such a comparative analysis is to try to understand to what extent the 21st century views are consonant with the theological platform of the vision of social reality proposed by the Russian theological position of the early 20th century. © 2020, Ecozone, OAIMDD. All rights reserved.