In the history of religion primitive experience gives way to mythical religions which are superseded in three ways: mysticism (based on firsthand experience with the divine), monotheism (based on a divine call), and enlightenment (based on reason).
"Even the third of the entities we found, which we called 'enlightenment', referring to the move to an attitude based on a strictly rationalistic conception of reality, has its own absolute value: the absolute value of rational ('scientific') knowledge. When science becomes the dominant element in a view of the world (and this is just what we mean by 'enlightenment' here), this absolute value becomes exclusive; it develops into the theory that scientific knowledge is the only valid knowledge and becomes a denial of the absolute value of religion, which is in itself on a different level of reality. In that case, the believer, or even someone who practices religion, will have to point to the limitations of this absolute claim. It moves within the limits of certain categories, within which it is strictly valid; but to maintain that it is only within these categories that man can know anything at all is an unfounded presupposition, which in any case is shown by experience to be untrue. But we must bear in mind that this third way is only indirectly involved in a decision about religion; the real questions concerning relations between religions arise between the first and the second way ('mysticism' and 'monotheistic revolution')."
Truth and Tolerance, Joseph Ratzinger, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004, 31-32.
Cf. We Are All Learners: "Faith Cannot be Presupposed!"
Freedom Comes From Truth, Michael Novak 1994 Prize Lecture
