The essay holds that religion harbours a twofold potential for shaping our encounters with otherness and, hence, with the other of reason in general. One potential of religion is something that can be addressed as its tendency to auto-immunity: In an attempt to protect its view of reality, it seeks to escape from encountering otherness as an integral and constitutive part of its own identity. The result is not just a deformation of its own character, but also the possibility of a violent reaction to such otherness. Religion’s second potential consists in its capability to transcend the relative autonomy of pre-given senses. It allows the shaking of pre-given interpretations by accepting otherness as an integral and irreducible part of its own identity. Referring mainly to the works of Jacques Derrida and Jan Patocka, the article claims that both of these potentials and their difficult relationship have to be addressed, in order to understand religious worldviews.
