Project GODINEST
The sign "God" in post-secular Estonia – a critical-hermeneutical and constructive contribution to conviviality of the religious and the secular in liberal democracy (GODINEST)
GODINEST is a research project carried out by a team of six scholars that examines how religious and non-religious people can live together constructively in (post)secular liberal democracies. The project focuses on the sign “God” and asks whether it can function beyond the usual divide between the religious and the secular, as a critical and transformative point of orientation that supports dialogue rather than conflict. Rather than promoting a particular understanding of God, the project approaches “God” as a shared reference point that is not fully controllable or reducible to any one system of beliefs, but instead points beyond them and invites reflection on how people orient their lives.
The project takes Estonia’s religious and ideological diversity as its starting point, where tensions between secular and religious perspectives are often pronounced. It argues that this situation calls for a fresh approach to the relationship between religion and secular society. By re-examining how the sign “God” is used and understood, the project explores its potential to challenge fixed positions, open new perspectives, and build bridges across differences.
Using a theosemiotic approach, the research analyses carefully selected social contexts and real-life situations that matter for liberal democracy. These include case studies from Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Chinese philosophy, as well as public debates on issues such as education, environmental responsibility, and financial ethics. Overall, the project contributes to theological, philosophical and semiotic research on religion in Estonia while also aiming to inform wider academic discussion about how religious and secular viewpoints can engage with one another in a pluralistic society.
This project is supported by the Estonian Research Council grant (PRG3064).
- To clarify, explicate, and critique the sign “God” by engaging with the diversity of religiousity and worldviews in Estonia through philosophical and theological reflection.
- To contribute, through critical-hermeneutic theory-building, to the construction and shaping of a shared, public, and dynamic sign-space between the boundaries of religious and secular exclusivism.
- To imagine, theorize and describe possibilities for conviviality among differently religious and non-religious people in Estonia as a (post)secular liberal democracy.
- How to develop further the innovation potential of the Estonian semiotic tradition in addressing current questions related to religion?
- Which ways and situation of using the sign "God" support and could support religious and secular life together?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of Habermas’ imperative of translating the "religious into the secular" as a proposal for dealing with the religious-secular relationship in the context of liberal democracy?
The project focuses on three main research areas.
This research area develops a framework for studying how references to "God" function as meaningful signs in culture. Drawing on philosophy, theology, and contemporary research in semiotics, it maps the different contexts in which people invoke God – such as everyday speech, religious practice, and public discourse—and explains what these uses do socially and symbolically.
The aim is to analyse selected examples to show how communication involving God works across different perspectives: when people speak to God, about God, or from a religious standpoint. Special attention is given to rituals and religious speech, which combine words, actions, and other forms of expression, to understand how meaning is created and negotiated in religious communication.
This research area examines how the sign "God" can be used reflectively and self-critically to support respectful coexistence between religious and secular people in Estonia (and beyond). It brings together theological perspectives rooted in lived religious practice and philosophical approaches focused on public reasoning and open debate.
The research explores how meanings traditionally associated with God may appear in other domains of public life: in education, where Estonians sometimes describe themselves as having "faith in education"; in environmental discourse, where nature is spoken of as sacred or pure; and in economic life, where money can take on roles similar to religious devotion.
It also compares how ultimate concepts such as God in Christianity and Islam, or the Way in Chinese thought, relate unity and diversity, and how misunderstandings arise when these ideas are interpreted too literally.
Finally, the project studies how certain Jewish theological approaches to God, especially those that emphasise unpredictability and humility, can encourage a suspension of judgment and greater tolerance, offering resources for navigating disagreement in pluralistic societies.
This research area explores how religious and secular forms of reasoning interact in public life, with particular attention to Estonia as a society often described as highly secular. It engages with Jürgen Habermas’s influential proposal that religious ideas should be translated into secular language when they enter democratic public debate. While this proposal aims to protect inclusivity and mutual understanding, the project critically examines whether such translation actually promotes recognition and respect, or whether it risks losing important forms of meaning. From a cultural-theosemiotic perspective, the research asks how religious and secular discourses function as different systems of signs, each with its own ways of creating meaning, and what happens when ideas move between them.
The project investigates these questions through several concrete contexts. It examines online education as a test case for translating religious concepts such as presence and community into secular settings, drawing parallels with debates during the Covid-19 pandemic about virtual participation and shared practices during Holy Communion. It also examines how philosophy, theology, science, and art employ different semiotic strategies to describe reality, and why knowledge from specialised fields cannot be transferred directly into everyday language without transformation. In addition, the research addresses the tension between religious certainty and agnostic or sceptical attitudes, asking whether strong claims to certainty necessarily block dialogue or whether they can coexist with more tentative forms of knowing.
Bringing these strands together, the project aims to revise Habermas’s translation imperative so that it better reflects how meaning actually works in culture and more effectively supports constructive coexistence between religious and non-religious people in a pluralistic democracy.
Theosemiotics Lab is the GODINEST project’s invitation-based monthly online seminar.
In each hour-long session, we discuss a short text circulated in advance. Contributions may be work-in-progress or published/forthcoming work, and the conversation unfolds at the intersection of theology, philosophy of religion, and semiotics. A broad thematic link to GODINEST is encouraged, but participants need not share the project’s premises or objectives. The seminar convenes an international circle of invited scholars and selected early-career colleagues, functioning also as an informal feedback and advisory network for the project. Participants may invite additional colleagues, including doctoral researchers. As the seminar is invitation-based, to express interest in participating, please contact the PI.
The first Theosemiotics Lab session will take place at the beginning of the 2026/2027 academic year, on 30th September 2026.
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Thomas-Andreas Põder Dr. theol., Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion (with special focus on Semiotics of Religion) Thomas Andreas Põder is the principal investigator (PI) of the project and is responsible for its overall direction. His main scholarly contributions focus on Theosemiotic Theory Building and Analysis and on Cultural Theosemiotics in Dialogue with Communicative Reason, building upon and critically reworking Lotmanian cultural semiotics. Under his leadership, the project develops the theory and analytical toolbox of cultural theosemiotics, including the multimodal analysis of religious communication and a typology of the uses and contexts of the sign "God". Thomas-Andreas is responsible for a critical theosemiotic examination of Habermas’s translation imperative and for its constructive modification, with the aim of supporting the coexistence of religious and non-religious forms of life in a liberal democracy. Expertise: Theosemiotics, Lotmanian Cultural Semiotics, Systematic Theology / Dogmatics, Religious Communication (Multimodality), Ecumenical and Doctrinal Dialogue, Religion in the Public Sphere. Profiles: ETIS, academia.edu, ORCID |
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| Igor Ahmedov PhD, Research Fellow in Educational Thought and Theology Igor Ahmedov contributes to the Varieties of the sign "God" research area by examining God as education (including in Estonian public discourse), and to Cultural Theosemiotics in Dialogue with Communicative Reason by testing Habermas’ translation imperative from the perspective of theology of education, comparing online learning with the celebration of the Eucharist during the Covid-19 pandemic. Expertise: Søren Kierkegaard’s thought, philosophy and theology of education, and theology of Rowan Williams. Profiles: ETIS, academia.edu |
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| Karin Kallas-Põder Dr. theol., Research Fellow (during 2029–2030) Karin contributes to the research areas Varieties of the sign "God" and Cultural Theosemiotics in Dialogue with Communicative Reason through studies focused on epistemic questions. She examines how a radical orientation to God in theology can foster suspension of judgment in situations where conflicts between religious, non-religious, and differently religious groups stem from high epistemic confidence. In addition, she will study two contrasting attitudes toward questions pertaining to religion: agnosticism and scepticism on the one hand, and certainty on the other. Her work is based on Jewish and Christian sources. Expertise: Christian systematic theology, 16th century Reformation thought, Jewish studies, Hasidism. |
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| Margus Ott PhD, Research Fellow in Complex Systems and Philosophy of Religion Margus Ott contributes to the Varieties of the Sign "God" research area by developing an ontology for complex systems in relation to the philosophy of religion (Eastern and Western). He further contributes to the Cultural Semiotics in Dialogue with Communicative Reason research area by studying semiotic strategies of expression in philosophy, religion, art, and science. Expertise: Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy. Profiles: ETIS, academia.edu, ResearchGate |
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| Mati Simm Junior Research Fellow in Theological Economic Ethics and Systematic Theology Mati Simm contributes to the Varieties of the sign "God" research area by examining the sign “God” in economic discourse. He is also responsible for controlling project costs and monitoring the budget. Expertise: theological ethics of personal finance, theological economic ethics, theological virtue ethics, ethnographic theology. Profile: ETIS |
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| Laura Maria Vilbiks MA, Junior Research Fellow in Environmental Philosophy and Theology (PhD student) Laura contributes to the Varieties of the sign "God" research area by analysing how the sign “God” operates in environmental discourse, particularly within philosophical and theological discussions of wilderness conservation. Expertise: environmental and political philosophy, ecotheology. Profile: ETIS |
Upcoming
| 20–23 August 2026, Tartu | Societas Ethica Annual Conference "Crisis & Recovery: Ethics in Interdisciplinary Dialogue" |
