“Mysterious” and “diff erentiation” as a category of interpretation of religion and science in Niklas Luhmann’s works

Abstract

The article discusses some aspects of understanding of a phenomenon of religion in a context of the theory of «autopoietic» systems of Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann seeks to abandon the compulsory “ontological metaphysics”, asserting the importance of functional-structuralism explanations in understanding social reality. According to Luhmann, religion is one of the many functionally differentiated social systems that make up modern society. Luhmann explains how religion provides a code for coping with the complexity, opacity, and uncontrollability of our world. Religion is to make the indefinite definite, to reconcile the immanent and the transcendent. The religion acts as a renewed «control beyond the unknown», knowledge of «secret». Three typological forms of religion are defined as follows: magic-mythological tradition, differentiation of “High Tradition/little tradition” and religiousness of «differentiated society».

Keywords:

Niklas Luhmann, religion concept, religion forms