[560] This brings me immediately to the problem which belongs already to social ethics, namely tradition^a and revolt, or tradition and autonomy. Now how is this relationship? Religion is usually identified with tradition because of the long authoritarian history of the Church and the continuous relapse to authoritarian elements, even in the ANTI-authoritarian Protestants.

Tradition must be understood in the following way: it must be understood as the life substance of our historical existence. And there is one irrefutable argument about this, namely language. Whatever you reject, in the tradition which comes to you, you can reject it only in terms of language, even if you don't speak out, even if you only THINK---but we are THINKING--- in universals---and universals are real only in words, for us. Therefore language is that element of tradition from which nobody can extricate himself because in order to do so, he NEEDS the traditional language itself. The same is true of all other realms. On no place can one start completely anew. America is especially interested in this problem because the history of the United States is the history of a new beginning, or a radical way, as it has seldom happened in the history of mankind. Therefore the historical sense, which is also the sense for tradition, is often very poorly developed in this country, and historical knowledge cannot be presupposed, if you teach theology or

philosophy, or any other thing, for that matter. So the question is: In how far can rebellion really make [one] independent? Now the answer cannot be given in abstract terms, but the rebel should realize at least one thing, that he always rebels in terms of elements of the past