The Heretical Imperative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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