DEMOCRACIA Y RELIGIÓN

Abstract

Religion and Politics being a dialectical unity, the same will be true of religion and political democracy. Nevertheless, this is not the same in the case of any religion or any form of democracy, and Western democracy’s presupposition historically is Christianity. Hence the fertile dialectic derived from the “two powers” —between auctoritas and potestas— that facilitates the development of political freedom, since, precisely because no authentic religion is political, religion always limits power. Yet, as political democracy transformed into social democracy has become omnipotent and, suppressing any limitation, democratic power has moved, at least in Europe, towards a form of the religion of politics that excludes Christianity. The problem is whether democracy can endure after dispensing with its suppositions.