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Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter One: Consent to Religious Freedom: The Legacy of Thomas Jefferson -- The Present Question -- Jefferson's Answers -- Refining the Question -- Reason's Tribunal -- Jefferson's Legacy -- Chapter Two: On Constitutional Authority: A Conversation with David Strauss -- The Living Constitution -- Jefferson's Question: Hermeneutical and Normative -- The Tradition of Popular Sovereignty -- Advancing the Tradition -- Chapter Three: Democracy and Nature's God: The Legacy of Abraham Lincoln -- Lincoln's Political Sentiments -- The Declaration's Laws of Nature -- The Almighty's Purposes -- The House Divided -- Lincoln's Legacy -- Chapter Four: On Religion in the Public Sphere: A Conversation with Jürgen Habermas -- The Institutional Proviso -- Habermas's Proposal: A Critique -- Habermas and Rawls: The Basic Problem -- The Better Solution -- The Attachment to Democracy -- Chapter Five: On the Humanitarian Ideal: The Promise of Neoclassical Metaphysics -- Kantian and Post-Enlightenment Challenges -- Metaphysics and Human Purpose -- Making the Humanitarian Ideal Explicit -- Chapter Six: Reinhold Niebuhr's Theistic Ethic: The Law of Love -- Niebuhr's Systematic Project -- Niebuhr's Ethic: Harmony and Sacrificial Love -- Niebuhr's Ethic: A Critique -- Niebuhr's Intentions Revisited -- Chapter Seven: On the Loss of Theism: A Conversation with Iris Murdoch -- Emphatic Moral Realism -- Good without God -- The Loss of Worth -- The Necessity of God -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index.

Existence and the Good -- Existence and the Good -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: The Metaphysics of Existence -- The Western Background -- The Necessity of Existence -- The Task of Metaphysics -- Chapter 2: The Metaphysics of Subjectivity -- Totality and Meaning -- Totality Is Prior to Meaning -- Chapter 3: The Metaphysics of God and the World -- Final Real Things -- The Divine Individual -- God and the World -- Chapter 4: The Metaphysics of Human Purpose -- Decision for a Self-Understanding -- The Comprehensive Good -- Human Purposes -- The Good of Human Rights -- Chapter 5: The Metaphysics of Democracy, Part 1 -- Introduction -- Democracy without Metaphysics -- Chapter 6: The Metaphysics of Democracy, Part 2 -- The Principle of Communicative Respect -- Constitutional Principles of Justice -- Democracy and Substantive Justice -- Democracy and the Comprehensive Good -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index.

Introduction : the present purpose --Render to Caesar.The early account ;Assessing the early account ;The modern difference --Government by the people.Popular sovereignty ;The constitutional task ;The union of "we the people" ;Democracy and the way of reason --Faith and the way of reason.Defining the question ;The majority voice ;Discourse as a Christian commitment --Justice in the community of love.The community of love ;The principle of justice ;The ultimate ground of worth --Religious decisions at stake.The aim at justice ;Alternative ideals for community ;Politics as a religious question --Political deliberations.Abortion ;Affirmative action ;Economic distribution ;Conclusion --Appendix : on the humanistic commitment.