A Guide for the Perplexed
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Science, Reason and Religion 19.09.12 Professor Keith WARD Introduction: Revd Scott S
OPening ADDReSS: Science, ReASOn AnD ReligiOn 19.09.12 PROfeSSOR Keith WARD introduction: Revd Scott S. McKenna Good evening. Welcome to Mayfield Salisbury Parish Church. This is the first of five events which make up our Festival of Science, Reason and Religion. When we wrote to each of our invited guests, we said: In our view, the Church has never fully or adequately responded to the 'challenges' of science or reason and, in the present day, the Church is perceived to be anti-intellectual, superstitious, bigoted and homophobic, at times not without justification. We said: We are spiritual seekers after truth and recognise that there may be more than one truth. Our festival will be an honest, intellectually rigorous and, we hope, enjoyable exploration about the nature of reality and what it means to be human. This evening’s opening address is being delivered by Keith Ward. We were delighted when Keith accepted our invitation. Keith Ward is a philosopher, theologian and a priest in the Church of England. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and has over 25 books to his name. Keith graduated from the University of Wales. Through the 60s and 70s, he lectured in Logic at Glasgow University, then Philosophy at St Andrews. He has also lectured at King’s College London and Trinity Hall Cambridge. Finally, in 1991, Keith was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, a post he held for 13 years. In his retirement, if I may put it that way, he has written much and lectured across the world, from Calcutta to Auckland and Philadelphia to Bellagio. -
The Discourses of the Secular Sublime and the Concepts of the Numinous and Mysterium Tremendum in the Work of Rudolf Otto
THE DISCOURSES OF THE SECULAR SUBLIME AND THE CONCEPTS OF THE NUMINOUS AND MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM IN THE WORK OF RUDOLF OTTO Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Mary Catherine Theresa Bridget Jones Department of English University of Leicester July 2017 The Discourses of the Secular Sublime and the Concepts of the Numinous and Mysterium Tremendum in the Work of Rudolf Otto Mary Catherine Theresa Bridget Jones Abstract This thesis explores historical and postmodern ideas of the sublime and the numinous, and finds similarities and differences between the two concepts. Consideration is given to notions of the sublime, from its appearance in Longinus’s treatise Peri Hypsous, through to its historical development and reception by philosophers, theologians, and eighteenth- century theorists. The thesis discusses how the sublime is conceived in contemporary thought. Alongside this concept, and in order to examine similarities and differences between that and the numinous, Rudolf Otto’s work Das Heilige is used, in which the author argues for consideration of a non-rational element in religion and pleads for an original understanding of the holy. He shows how traditional representations of the deity lead to restrictions and limitations, and introduces his understanding of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans which, like the sublime, leads to awe and dread. Further analysing the sublime, the thesis discusses critical theories presented by John Dennis, Joseph Addison, John Baillie, Immanuel Kant, and Edmund Burke. I show how Otto was influenced by these writers, and how Friedrich Schleiermacher’s ideas on the essence of religion and the sensus numinis paved the way for Otto’s thinking. -
Humanities the Issue of the Religious Dimension Of
PERIODYK NAUKOWY AKADEMII POLONIJNEJ 37 (2019) nr 6 HUMANITIES THE ISSUE OF THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSION OF HUMAN NATURE Jan Mazur Prof. PhD, Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, e-mail: [email protected], http://orcid.org/0000-0002- 0548-0205, Poland Abraham Kome PhD, John Paul II International University of Bafang, e-mail: [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-7326-227X, Cameroon Abstract. This text is an attempt to answer the question of whether human nature needs religion. The author begins by presenting two concepts that are key in this discourse. These are the terms: religion and human nature. Then he undertakes an analysis of the problem, referring to the thoughts of religious experts: Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade and the philosopher Max Scheler. The subject of reflection is the definition of man as 'homo religiosus'. Questioning God's existence has a negative effect on human nature. This situation is illustrated by the views of two known philosophers, existentialists - Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their vision of the world was marked by unbelief in God. Life experience teaches that human nature strives for transcendent reality, longs for God. Any departure from this tendency does not, however, invalidate the religious nature of man, but certainly falsifies it. It results in the conversion of an authentic sacrum into its substitutes. In conclusion, the author draws attention to the mystery of man and God, which should be recognized. It is only in this perspective that the problem indicated in the title can be considered. The inspiration for such thinking is the famous phrase of Saint Augustine of Hippo: 'The human soul is restless until it rests in God'. -
“Baptized Mysticism”: an Exploration of Paul Tillich’S Theology of Mysticism and Its Spiritual Theological Implications
“BAPTIZED MYSTICISM”: AN EXPLORATION OF PAUL TILLICH’S THEOLOGY OF MYSTICISM AND ITS SPIRITUAL THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS by Sanghoon Baek A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Knox College And the Pastoral Department of the Toronto School of Theology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology awarded by Knox College and the University of Toronto © Copyright by Sanghoon Baek 2014 “BAPTIZED MYSTICISM”: AN EXPLORATION OF PAUL TILLICH’S THEOLOGY OF MYSTICISM AND ITS SPIRITUAL THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS Sanghoon Baek Doctor of Theology Pastoral Department Knox College and the University of Toronto 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis explores Paul Tillich’s theology of mysticism and its spiritual theological implications. It argues that Tillich’s concept of “baptized mysticism” weaves together his thoughts on mysticism and expresses a dialectical unity of Tillich’s two essential elements of religion, the mystical and the prophetic. The thesis begins in Chapter 1 with an overview of Tillich’s own experiences of the mystical and his definitive expressions of mysticism, then investigates his major writings in drawing out essential features of baptized mysticism in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, various appraisals of Tillich’s theory of mysticism from different vantage points and denominational backgrounds are presented to sharpen and enhance the understanding of his thoughts on mysticism and their spiritual theological implications. Finally, in conversation with some contemporary theorists of Christian spirituality, the thesis provides a modest proposal for Tillichian spirituality and prayer in Chapter 4. Paralleling aspects of the thought of Philip Sheldrake, Tillichian spirituality concerns the life oriented towards a sense of the “eternal now” and promotes not so much an ideal of a perfected state of being, but the “belief-ful” and courageous encounter of ontological threats and radical doubt in a condition of ever- increasing awareness, freedom, relatedness, and transcendence. -
Griset Lecturer: Keith Ward Spring 2016 (1 Unit)
Religion 329: “Science and Religion: the Great Debate” Griset Lecturer: Keith Ward Spring 2016 (1 unit) Class Meeting Times: Tuesday February 23 4:00‐6:00 (Lecture and Discussion) Wednesday February 24 4:00‐6:00 (Lecture and Discussion) Monday, February 29 7:00 (Public Lecture: Christ and the Cosmos—Attendance Mandatory) Tuesday March 1 4:00‐6:00 (Lecture and Discussion) Wednesday March 2 4:00‐6:00 (Lecture and Discussion) Monday March 7 4:00‐6:00 (Lecture and Discussion) Tuesday March 8 4:00‐6:00 (Lecture and Discussion) Units of Study: 1. Can there be a debate? Has there really been a war between science and religion? Can we define ‘science’ or ‘religion’, anyway? Has science killed both religion and philosophy, as Stephen Hawking has claimed? 2. How the universe began. Scientific and religious accounts of the origin of the universe. What do Christians mean by ‘creation’? Does this compete with modern cosmology? 3. How the universe will end. The scientific revolution in quantum physics. Can there be purpose in a scientifically understood universe? Is the universe pointless? 4. Is there a problem with evolution? How the theory of evolution began as a religious doctrine, why it came to be seen as anti‐religious, and why it is still such a contentious theory. 5. Has science eliminated miracles? Are there absolute laws of nature? Is science on the way to explaining everything? 6. The ‘hard problem’. Why does consciousness exist, and how does it relate to matter? Can rational animals (i.e.humans) survive death? These sessions will be a combination of lecture and discussion. -
The Sacred and the Profane
THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE THE NATURE OF RELIGION by Mircea Eliade Translated from the French by Willard R. Trask A Harvest Book Harcourt Brace & Company San Diego New York London INTRODUCTION The extraordinary interest aroused all over the world by induced by the revelation of an aspect of divine power. The Rudolf Otto’s Das Heilige (The Sacred), published in 1917, still numinous presents itself as something “wholly other” (ganz persists. Its success was certainly due to the author’s new and andere), something basically and original point of view. Instead of studying the ideas of God and religion, Otto undertook to analyze the modalities of the religious experience. Gifted with great psychological subtlety, and thoroughly prepared by his twofold training as theologian and historian of religions, he succeeded in determining the content and specific characteristics of religious experience. Passing over the rational and speculative side of religion, he concentrated chiefly on its irrational aspect. For Otto had read Luther and had understood what the “living God” meant to a believer. It was not the God of the philosophers—of Erasmus, for example; it was not an idea, an abstract notion, a mere moral allegory. It was a terrible power, manifested in the divine wrath. In Das Heilige Otto sets himself to discover the characteristics of this frightening and irrational experience. He finds the feeling of terror before the sacred, before the awe-inspiring mystery (mysterium tremendum), the majesty (maf estas) that emanates an overwhelming superiority of power; he finds religious fear before the fascinating mystery (mysterium fascinans) in which perfect fullness of being flowers. -
The Quest for Ultimate Reason Transcript
The Quest for Ultimate Reason Transcript Date: Tuesday, 18 December 2007 - 12:00AM THE QUEST FOR ULTIMATE REASON Professor Keith Ward Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza; the age of Rationalism. If there is one philosophical view that is almost universally disparaged in the modern world it is 'Cartesian Dualism'. Everyone knows it is wrong, and some philosophers are scandalised by it. 'Dualism must be avoided at all costs', writes the American philosopher Daniel Dennett. And most psychologists and neurologists, even when they talk about and seem to admit the existence of, consciousness and its contents - dreams, images, sensations, thoughts and feelings - hasten to add, 'But of course I am not a Cartesian dualist'. This is very sad, because Descartes was trying to respond to the scepticism of writers like Montaigne, who held that we could not know anything. He was trying to find at least one thing of which we could be absolutely certain. As we all know, he found it in the proposition, 'I think, therefore I am'. But the modern world not only finds it possible to doubt that proposition. It completely rejects it as incoherent. I will say straight away that I am not part of this modern world. I find Descartes' arguments convincing. But I have to say that furtively, for fear of the scorn of my philosophical colleagues, 'No wonder that man became a theologian', they say, 'He was, after all, a Cartesian dualist'. However, there is no safety in theology either, since most theologians, also, have nothing good to say about Descartes. 'Humans are psycho-physical unities', says one of the most respected physicists and theologians, John Polkinghorne. -
Rudolf Otto and the Kantian Tradition
Rudolf Otto and the Kantian Tradition Philip C. Almond, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia 4067 Much has been written about the relationship between Rudolf Otto's mature philosophy of religion and bis commitment to that philosophical tradition inaugurated by Immanuel Kant. Yet, a considerable lack of clarity still remains over the question of the extent to which Otto's commitment in the first decade of this Century to a version of Kantianism originally expounded by Jakob Fries (1773—1843) permeates the work for which Otto is most widely renowned, Das Heilige.1 In this article, I hope to demonstrate that Otto's commitment to Friesianism plays a much greater role in Das Heilige, especially in the structural framework of Otto's account of the Holy, than has previously been thought to be the case, not only of its more overtly philosophical parts, but of its apparently phenomenological parts also. Continuity and Discontinuity An essential part of this task is the resolution of the problem of the continuity of Otto's work — both within Das Heilige itself, and between it äs a whole and the earlier parts of Otto's work, especially his Kantisch- Fries'sche Religionsphilosophie2 in 1909. For how we perceive his philoso- phy of religion in Das Heiligey and his notion of the a priori category of the Holy in particular, depends upon whether we find an overall continuity or discontinuity within the corpus äs a whole. The first of these issues, that of the continuity within Das Heilige itself, is certainly a contentious one. -
Understanding and Teaching Rudolph Otto's the Idea of the Holy
CHAPTER EIGHT UNDERSTANDING AND TEACHING RUDOLPH OTTO'S THE IDEA OF THE HOLY "These words were chosen that that which could not be comprehended might yet in some measure be understood." -Hugh of St. Victor (Cited by Otto in the The Idea of the Holy) Rudolph Otto's book on the holy is both simple and complex: simple in pre senting a single, compelling definition of religion's meaning; complex in for mulating concepts that explain religion's origins and development. 1 Students who do not appreciate Otto's complexity run the risk of oversimplify the idea of the holy, rendering it a discrete religious object which can be experienced directly in the way the sun's light is experienced on hot summer days. This essay is devoted to a clarification of what is simple and what complex in Otto's account of the holy. Otto's descriptive account of the unique experience of religious feeling as mysterium tremendum etfascinans, is the simpler, more vivid, and perhaps more convincing part of his book. The complexity begins when Otto moves from a description of religious feeling to an analysis of the idea of the holy, the origins and essence of religion, and finally of religion's historical devel opment and fulfillment. This account which mixes phenomenology, episte mology, and theology in bewieldering amounts, seems at times to confuse rather than to clarify the nature of religious feeling. Yet it is a necessary part of Otto' account of religion, as we shall see. However complex Otto's argument is about religion his genius as a writer was to give his readers the confidence that religious experience has a unique content and a distinct meaning. -
¼ PHILOSOPHY of RELIGION.Pdf
ACONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA of the PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION other books in the same series A Concise Encyclopedia of Judaism, Dan Cohn-Serbok, ISBN 1–85168–176–0 A Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Klaus K. Klostermaier, ISBN 1–85168–175–2 A Concise Encyclopedia of Christianity, Geoffrey Parrinder, ISBN 1–85168–174–4 A Concise Encyclopedia of Buddhism, John Powers, ISBN 1–85168–233–3 A Concise Encyclopedia of the Baha´’ı´ Faith, Peter Smith, ISBN 1–85168–184–1 A Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, Gordon D. Newby, ISBN 1–85168–295–3 related titles published by oneworld Ethics in the World Religions, Edited by Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin, ISBN 1–85168–247–3 The Fifth Dimension, John Hick, ISBN 1–85168–191–4 Global Philosophy of Religion: A Short Introduction, Joseph Runzo, ISBN 1–85168–235–X God: A Guide for the Perplexed, Keith Ward, ISBN 1–85168–284–8 God, Faith and the New Millennium, Keith Ward, ISBN 1–85168–155–8 Love, Sex and Gender in the World Religions, Edited by Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin, ISBN 1–85168–223–6 The Meaning of Life in the World Religions, Edited by Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin, ISBN 1–85168–200–7 The Phenomenon of Religion, Moojan Momen, ISBN 1–85168–161–2 ACONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA of the PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION ANTHONY C. THISELTON A CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Oneworld Publications (Sales and Editorial) 185 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7AR England www.oneworld-publications.com # Anthony C. Thiselton 2002 All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library ISBN 1–85168–301–1 Cover design by Design Deluxe Typeset by LaserScript, Mitcham, UK Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow NL08 Contents Preface and acknowledgements vi A Concise Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion 1 Chronology 329 Index of names 337 Preface and acknowledgements Aims, scope and target readership he following selection of subject entries has been shaped in the light of Tmany years of feedback from my own students. -
The Final Destiny of the Unevangelised
T The Final Destiny of the Unevangelised Gordon Grant Beliefs about the postmortem destiny of the unevangelised can strongly influence pastoral ministry. In innumerable households the wife retains a live faith and active membership of the church, but the husband is either agnostic or an atheist, and his church membership is either non-existent or merely nominal. It is also a fact that men tend to die before their wives. When the minister visits the bereaved widow, what comfort can he bring her? She is apt to reflect upon her husband’s lack of faith, and wonder about his final destiny. If she retains a smattering of traditional teaching, she may well believe that an active faith in Christ is the sole passport to heaven, and that her unbelieving and indifferent husband is consigned to eternal damnation. That traditional views regarding the destiny of the unevangelised are still very much in vogue among church people, recently came to light in a survey conducted by Eric Stoddart.1 He discovered that a clear majority of Scotland’s clergy believe that there will be a Judgment Day at which we will be separated into two categories – the ‘saved’ and the ‘lost’. A similar majority of clergy consider there to be no postmortem opportunities for us to switch from being lost to being saved. The result, in their opinion, will be that some of us will be eternally separated from God. Over a third of clergy believe that this separation will involve eternal mental anguish in hell; more than one fifth hold that this suffering will be an eternal physical torment. -
Uninhibited: Redefining & Relocating Rudolf Otto's Dichotomous “Holy”
Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2016 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2016 Uninhibited: Redefining & Relocating Rudolf Otto’s Dichotomous “Holy” Abigail Juliette Labrecque Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2016 Part of the Religion Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Labrecque, Abigail Juliette, "Uninhibited: Redefining & Relocating Rudolf Otto’s Dichotomous “Holy”" (2016). Senior Projects Spring 2016. 297. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2016/297 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Uninhibited: Redefining & Relocating Rudolf Otto’s Dichotomous “Holy” Senior Project submitted to Division of Social Studies of Bard College by Abigail Labrecque Annandale-on-Hudson, New York May 2016 Preface/Acknowledgements Rudolf Otto first made himself known to me in the religion and ritual scholar Catherine Bell’s book Rituals. The book was part of the curriculum professor Bruce Chilton put together for Sacred Pursuits, my college’s required theory and methods course for religion majors. If you have read Bell’s book, you may be thinking “Bell talked about Otto?” It’s only a few sentences but it was enough.