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I have thought and spoken about the "basic problems of systematic theology." But in what sense, exactly, are theology's basic problems "basic"?

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So the key to this answer to the question is Habermas' and Apel's distinction between the two levels of communicative action on which claims to validity may be more or less critically validated: (1) the primary level of interaction, by appealing to the consuetudinary norms or criteria established in the pertinent particular context; and (2) the secondary level of discourse, by appealing to the foundational (which is to say, "basic") authority of common experience and reason as it pertains to that particular context.

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