Habermas’ Formal Pragmatics and the Speech Act of St Stephen

E Alfred Knight

Abstract: The concept of formal pragmatics exhibits the potential for rationality that is
supposed to be implicit in the everyday language practices of societies. It is located in certain
idealisations that guide communicative action to the extent that communication is linked to
validity. While this reconstructive theory seeks to identify universal presuppositions of
everyday communication in modern societies, this paper will show that it can be transposed
onto an ancient communication (St Stephen’s speech) as an example of communicative
action. Interpreting St Stephen’s speech according to Habermas’ formal pragmatics in the
communicative framework, infers a conception of purpose and potential to build on this
example for other speech acts and communicative processes in the Bible.

The problem with communicative rationality is that it cannot be reduced to any local context
without the risk of it becoming useless for universal application and falling into moral
relativism. However, the Bible is full of idealised normative suppositions that can provide
standards for justifiable purposive and illocutionary activity. Even though Habermas hopes to
provide a post-metaphysical alternative to pre-modern ideals of normativity, it will be shown
that the pre-modern biblical text can still be an inspiration for the communicative rationality
he sought after. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the speech act of St Stephen in
Acts 6:8-7:60 in relation to his formal pragmatics within the context of communicative action,
as an example of critical biblical interpretation.


Habermas’ formal pragmatics (previously known as “universal pragmatics”) [1]
occupies a central place within the critical endeavour towards a construction of
communicative rationality that implicitly validates the base of everyday speech.
The introduction of this to the speech motifs found in the book of Acts can give
rise to a reading of it that can fit into this framework. Habermas’ The Theory of
Communicative Action vol. 1, 2 (TCA 1/2, 1984/1987) presents a thoroughly
systematic work that highlights the theory of language as a course to ground a
critical social theory, and move from the critique of ideology to the
reconstruction of presuppositions of universal conditions for knowledge and
action. This endeavour is referred to by Habermas as ‘formal pragmatics’ and it
can be seen as a semi-transcendental analysis in the Kantian sense that
reconstructs the universal pre-theoretical, implicit knowledge that enables

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practical processes of understanding (TCA 1, 1984, 328). It is pragmatic because
it focuses on the use of language rather than being empirical, which is concerned
with just the description of specific language elements. Therefore, it can be used
on speech acts, and these are seen as part of the broader sociological context.
While this was intended for everyday communication in modern societies, it can
be transposed onto an ancient communication like St Stephen’s speech as an
example of communicative action.

The number of speeches in the book of Acts varies from 24 to 36 depending on
how one defines them – from major speeches to mere speech statements.
Nevertheless, it is clear that there are an unusually large number of speeches in
it, which take up at least 20 percent of the whole book. It means that the Lukan
author placed a greater interest on speech material than others of his time [2],
and this alone makes it an excellent work to undertake an analysis of ancient
dialogues in relation to formal pragmatics in the context of communicative
action. This paper will focus only on the St Stephen speech for practical reasons,
although it is hoped that it will encourage further research, analysis and
theological praxis of biblical discourse using the procedural approach. The
speech of St Stephen was chosen in particular because it is a good example of
New Testament discourse, and it is easily categorised into specific functional
stages. Secondly, Stephen – as a Hellenised Jew and chosen leader – was
probably familiar with the style of Greek rhetoric, and judging by his speech,
well equipped to engage other learned people as a skilled apologist for the
gospel (cf. Acts 6:10). Thirdly, he expresses different emotions through the
course of his speech, and displays a deep passion and belief for what he is
saying. The paper will begin by introducing Stephen’s speech and evaluating the
application of Habermas’ communicative theory to something biblical. The
remainder of the paper will divide the speech into six sections, and each one will
be looked at exegetically and then analysed in relation to Habermas’ pragmatics.

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The sections will be as follows: 1. Acts 6:8-7:1, Stephen’s activity that arouses
initial opposition; 2. Acts 7:2-8, the patriarchal age; 3. Acts 7:9-19, Israel in
Egypt; 4. Acts 7:20-43, the Moses story; 5. Acts 7:44-50, the temple; and 6.
Acts 7:51-60, Stephen’s personal application and conclusion. There are several
issues in this particular biblical passage that could only be examined briefly –
the debate over the authorship and authenticity of the speech; the legality of
Stephen’s trial; the debate over the existence of an anti-temple trend in early
Christianity; and whether the execution of Stephen could have been legally
sanctioned by the Sanhedrin or if it was an illegal ‘lynch-mob’ response. These
are important and interesting issues, but nevertheless detract from the focus of
understanding the narrative function of the speech. The text will be approached
exegetically as stated, but for the same reason, it will not be indepth. Instead, the
focus will be on relating the speech to Habermas’ theory. Similarly, this paper
does not set out to offer an indepth critique of Habermas either; both these
approaches would have fallen outside the aim and the scope of this paper and
what was trying to be achieved.

One of the premises for Habermas’ project of the theory of communicative
action is that communicative discourse can be emancipatory, and that forms of
discourse have a type of priority over other forms of linguistic usage. His aim is
to continue to improve on the dialectic of enlightenment rationality free from the
constraints of the philosophies of consciousness. This can be made clearer using
Saussure’s (1959) distinction between diachronic and synchronic schema for
understanding language. Diachronic follows the model of the enlightenment,
understanding language in a historical-evolutionary scheme, while synchronic is
an a-historical scheme that isolates language from time, seeing it as a structure
of internal relations. Therefore, if language has synchronic elements, it need not
be associated with modernity or solely based on an evolutionary model. The
historical study of language for example, can still be approached diachronically,

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evaluating language evolving in characteristics and complexity – but even in
this, it has been discovered that language is universally complex regardless of its
place in time, that is, an ancient language can be just as complex as a modern
one (Saussure 1959). Importantly, the discovery of synchronic systems in
language presents problems for the diachronic approach in the philosophical
study of language and modernity, because it cannot correlate its principles with
a specific temporally discernable form of linguistic apprehension. As a result,
value assumptions often have to be associated with diachronicity when studying
language, and this in turn is inconsistent with a modern scientific approach. It
does not mean that language cannot be studied diachronically, but the value
assumptions associated with it have to be given up. For Habermas, the polemic
in modernity is this need to have a certain validity, without forcing it to rely on
synchronic schema and avoid the potential error of basing arguments on pre-
modern theoretical assumptions. It is difficult to determine whether his project is
closer to the diachronic model or the synchronic, but it is clear he is attempting
to develop a structure of normativity in language that originates out of itself. It is
still not clear whether philosophy can do this, as it depends on our conceptions
of philosophy, but theological normativity in scriptural language may be able to
help.

Ultimately, Habermas’ aim is decidedly different. While the aim of this paper is
to provide a contributory element for the reading of theology, Habermas’ is to
provide a basis for a post-metaphysical (modern) concept of reason (Habermas
1979). To him, religion and theology in the public sphere is positive as the
upholder of cultural life, but he argues that moral theory must be post-religious,
because religious authority undermines human autonomy (Adams 2006, 1-4).
The public sphere must not remain the territory of one particular kind of
tradition because it is there to host all traditions. Be that as it may, the attempt to
develop a kind of usefulness from a biblical speech motif will bring with it its

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own concept of reason that can be extrapolated not only from the text, but also
from the theological presuppositions of that particular kind of text, to which the
speech of St Stephen belongs. Furthermore, as Nicholas Adams points out that
Habermas shows no knowledge of post-liberal theology, and his approach fails
to do justice to contemporary theology (2006, 2). However, according to
Habermas, all Christians can enter into a moral debate despite denominational or
cultural differences because they share a tradition, and all substantive ethical
practices have their roots in religious life (Habermas 1989). If we can reduce
any complexity to ‘religious life and thought’ then a full understanding of post-
liberal theology is not necessary.

Habermas’ formal pragmatics fulfils the functions of a theoretical underpinning
for his theory of communicative action as a critical social theory, and
contributes to problems of truth, action and meaning. With this in mind, the
issue is how to apply this to a speech in an ancient biblical text when Habermas’
intention was its application in the modern sciences. Part of the answer is to use
the reconstructed universal competencies that he argues are involved when
social actors interact with the aim of achieving mutual understanding. His thesis
is based on action aimed at understanding, and this in turn has an in-built
connection with validity. As Christians within a shared tradition, the reading of a
biblical text pivots on a mutual understanding of the ultimate source of the text,
and the validity not only that it comes from God (or at least the acknowledgment
that it is regarded as sacred), but the moral imperative not to question this
validity. Therefore, St Stephen’s speech as an example of this contains within it
a common social context, a mutual understanding of the Tanakh, and the
assumption of validity. While ultimately it was the authority of Jewish tradition
that led to his martyrdom, the extreme hostility generated by his speech is an
acknowledgment of the commonality they shared in the public sphere as a form
of communicative action. It is an example where the everyday processes of

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communication of the day must have presupposed in all parties who were
listening and speaking, formal properties of thought, belief and practice, which
reconstructed universal competencies that achieved mutual understanding. It
brought to the fore manifest presuppositions that underlie and guide dialectic
exchanges between the speakers and hearers during the process of
communication, and from this, universal competencies were reconstructed that
led to mutual understanding. The action to achieve this understanding is a type
of social action – communicative action. This in turn is connected to an ‘in-built’
connection with validity, and so it appears to display that the everyday processes
in the exchange can be interpreted as claims to validity.

Habermas draws further distinctions for members of a communication
community, where they are meant to have the competency to distinguish
between external nature, society and internal nature (Habermas 1979, 67). It is
the competence of the speaker relating to these different ‘worlds’ that enables
the adoption of different attitudes, and the communication of the different
validity claims of each. In communication directed at society, as in the speech of
St Stephen, there is an interactive attitude and the raising of a validity claim that
offers an evaluation of the rightness of claims governing the relations between
social actors. Speech acts are themselves social actions for Habermas, and the
speech made by the disciple can be seen as a form of social action whose social
use of language was oriented to reaching understanding. It was understanding
that focused on the action co-ordinating effects of the validity claims behind the
speech act that eventually led to the subsequent lethal actions of the Jewish
authorities. Habermas identifies three types of validity claims for understanding:
the first is the claim to the truthfulness of what is said (truth), the second is the
claim to the normative rightness of the speech act in a given context (rightness),
and the third is the genuineness of the speaker (sincerity) (TCA 1, 1984). We
shall see how this particular speech act meets these claims later, henceforth

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referred to as truth, rightness and sincerity. The three validity claims are
described as universal by Habermas, and are present in every communicative
speech act, but with only one claim being highlighted explicitly in a
communicative exchange, and the other two being implicit presuppositions of
understanding underlying the speech (Habermas 1979). Therefore, the validity
claims of the apostle’s speech established intersubjective social relations that
made possible the socially-binding recognition of their claims. They were a form
of social mechanism for reaching understanding, though instead of building
agreement and consensus, they created antagonism, though nevertheless born
out of a universal normative connection between the speaker and the recipients.
Perhaps the speech may have ended less violently if there had been a rational
motivation to accept the claims of the speaker, as the speaker was able to
provide grounds and reasons to support his claim. Nevertheless, the resultant
action on the part of Jewish authorities from their perspective was still
communicative action, because their response was connected to their own
communicative rationality to stop a blasphemer and Jewish heretic (though the
first validity claim of truth was absent in the members of the synagogue, as the
accusations of witnesses were disingenuous). Nevertheless, what underlies the
communicative exchange is the reciprocity of the second validity claim of
rightness regardless of the subsequent mode of action.

An analytical survey of St Stephen’s speech act shows an identity of structure
and characteristic variations which show that older traditions may have been
used [3]. The general schema flows from a direct address particular to the
situation, a drawing of attention, a highlighting of scriptural misunderstanding,
quotations and proof from scripture, the kerygma of Christ, condemnation, and
the proclamation of Jesus as the ‘Christ.’ It should be noted here that there have
been doubts raised about attributing the speeches in Acts to the actual
participants; being inventions of the Lukan author. At the forefront of this view

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were scholars like Martin Dibelius, Ernst Haenchen and Hans Conzelmann, with
Dibelius stating:
These speeches, without doubt, are as they stand inventions of the author. For
they are too short to have been actually given in this form; they are too similar to
one another to have come from different persons; and in their content they
occasionally reproduce a later standpoint (e.g. what Peter and James say about the
Law in chapter xv). (cited in Bruce 1974, 55).

However, while these contributions are significant to the interpretation of the
speeches in Luke-Acts, it is immaterial here because we are only concerned with
the structure of the speech and its pragmatics as a social tool, regardless of its
historical authorship [4]. Nevertheless, it will be assumed for the sake of
consistency and ease, that it was not the invention of the Lukan author (though
his style may be present), and that it was a historical figure named “Stephen”
who delivered it. It need not be assumed that the speech is recorded verbatim,
and while it may be a composition or condensed account of the speech, it is a
suitable and sufficient interplay of the speakers, the hearers, and the
circumstances surrounding it to be useful.

Beginning with Acts 6:8-7:1, Stephen’s address was aimed at Hellenised Jews
who were members of the Synagogue of the Freedman in Jerusalem [5], which
comprised people from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia (6:9). These were
former slaves or children of former slaves who had been emancipated by their
owners and given the status of “freedmen”. A full and formal debate was
probably arranged, but it is not indicated what the subject of the debate was to
be, though undoubtedly the messiahship of Jesus became the central issue, with
Stephen radically explicating this with a passion, using validity claims that
included the law of Moses and the temple. It was the very nature of his debate
and arguments that brought about the charges laid against him, and the very
strength of his reply meant that they “could not hold their own against the
inspired wisdom with which he spoke” (Acts 6:10). It is important to note that

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the Jewish authorities accepted his premises, that is, the rightness of the
authority of the Tanakh, but they could not accept his conclusions; to them they
were blasphemous and revolutionary. Their defeat in open debate led to the
placement of charges that would particularly anger the people of Jerusalem – a
threat to the temple and the Law, and it probably jeopardised the livelihood of
the priests also. He was subsequently brought before the Sanhedrin where he
gave his speech. The nature of that speech henceforth displays the validity
claims of formal pragmatics, and provides an example of biblical application
which can be extended to communicative action.

Habermas describes his universals as a continuation and transformation of
worldviews, and the problem of religious worldviews is that they are
particularist in their own worldview and not universalist (Adams 2006, 92). This
does not pose a problem in analysing Stephen’s narrative, as we are attempting
to seek its application from the particular to a descriptive foreshadow of formal
pragmatics, as an example of the everyday linguistic interaction that raised and
recognised validity claims. There is a picture of social order in the act, as a
network of relationships of mutual recognition that displayed characteristics of
cooperative relations of sincerity (implicitly) and responsibility, played out as
punishment and religious justice based on the validity claim of rightness
(explicitly) in the Tanakh. Chapter seven of Acts marks the beginning of
Stephen’s speech where the high priest seeks a redress from him, as it was
necessary in the Jewish court for the accused to have a right of reply after
charges were understood and made clear to them. Here is a procedural
framework that in its initial phase provides a validity claim of truth, which
consist of rights and obligations that they believed were necessary in their
interactions with each other, as well as the obligations others had in respecting
these rights. The status of the high priest’s office as the head of the Sanhedrin
and chief judge in Israel was derived from birth, and this was symboled by the

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honour and prestige already accumulated and preserved by his inheritance. To
be an honourable man was the first-century ideal, and he had to fulfil this by
living up to his inherited obligations [6]. Hence, there was a relationship of
mutual recognition to begin with, and this is a characteristic of formal
pragmatics, to facilitate an inherent rational dimension as part of its truth
validity claim, so the high priest had an obligation to act on that truth validity by
uttering the declaration “Is this so?” – addressed not only to Stephen, but to the
whole council and audience as an acknowledgment and honourable obligation to
the validity claim. Thus, Acts 7:1 establishes the validity claim of truth for
understanding, which is characteristic of communicative action.

The next section of Stephen’s address (7:2-8) is about the patriarchal age, and
begins a form of ‘salvation-history’ approach that looks back to ancient events
concerning Israel as predictions for the future, made literal through his
interpretation of recent events. Stephen’s application of the prophetic tradition in
his structural pattern and his adaptation of biblical typology, creates a sequence
of events so that they are presented in a thematic parallel, reinforcing the
argument for legitimacy. The account is concentrated on Abraham’s migration,
God’s promise, the covenant of circumcision, and the birth of Isaac. These are
fundamental to the history of ancient Israel, but they have not been given a
biblical style, and at several points there are Septuagint phraseologies that are
not used in the Judaic Pentateuch story of Abraham (Keck & Martyn 1968). The
speech alters the biblical account at some points in a substantial manner, not
only to match a Hellenised crowd, but as a way to push the posterity of Abraham
into the foreground, to provide reasons for the claims of validity he raises in the
face of challenge. His counterparts had the onus of providing a better basis of
reasons, but these were cut off by the validity of rightness that they both agreed
on. Hence, to question the patriarchal narrative was to question the normative
context of the sacred scriptures.

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Document Outline

• Habermas Formal Pragmatics and the Speech Act of St Stephen
• E Alfred Knight
• Abstract: The concept of formal pragmatics exhibits the potential for rationality that is supposed to be implicit in the everyday language practices of societies. It is located in certain idealisations that guide communicative action to the extent tha...
• The problem with communicative rationality is that it cannot be reduced to any local context without the risk of it becoming useless for universal application and falling into moral relativism. However, the Bible is full of idealised normative supposi...
• Conclusion
• NOTES
• REFERENCES
• Habermas
• Adams, N. 2006. Habermas and Theology. Cambridge University Press.
• Habermas, J. 1996. Between Facts and Norms. Translated by W Rehg. Cambridge: Polity.
• Sassure de, F. 1959. Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• New Testament/Acts
• Bruce, F. F. 1988. The Book of the Acts. (Revised). Michigan: Eerdmans.
• Haenchen, E. 1971. The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary. Westminster: John Knox.
• Keck, L. E; Martyn, J. L. 1968. Studies in Luke-Acts. Great Britain: Abingdon.
• Kistemaker, S. J. 1990. The speeches in Acts. Criswell Theological Review. 5:1, 31-41.
• Klijn, A. F. J. 1957. Stephen's speech … Acts VII. 2…53. New Testament Studies. 4, 25-31.

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