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2 (2015) Miscellaneous 1: A-N Biographical Metamorphoses in the History of Religion Moshe Idel and Three Aspects of Mircea Eliade EDUARD IRICINSCHI Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe”, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany © 2015 Ruhr-Universität Bochum Entangled Religions 2 (2015) ISSN 2363-6696 http://dx.doi.org./10.13154/er.v2.2015.A–N Biographical Metamorphoses in the History of Religion Biographical Metamorphoses in the History of Religion Moshe Idel and Three Aspects of Mircea Eliade EDUARD IRICINSCHI Ruhr-Universität Bochum ABSTRACT This paper includes an extended review of Moshe Idel’s Mircea Eliade: From Magic to Myth (New York: Peter Lang, 2014) through a triple analysis of Eliade’s early literary, epistolary, and academic texts. The paper examines Idel’s analysis of some important themes in Eliade’s research, such as his shift from understanding religion as magic to its interpretation as myth; the conception of the camouflage of sacred; the notions of androgyny and restoration; and also young Eliade’s theories of death. The paper also discusses Idel’s evaluation of Eliade’s programatic misunderstanding of Judaism and Kabbalah, and also of Eliade’s moral and professional abdication regarding the political and religious aspect of the Iron Guard, a Romanian nationalist extremist and anti-Semitic group he was affiliated with in 1930s. KEY WORDS Mircea Eliade; Moshe Idel; history of religion; magic; myth; sacred and profane; the Iron Guard Gershom Scholem sent Mircea Eliade a rather personal letter on June 6, 1972. The two famous historians of religion met with a certain regularity, between 1950 and 1967, at various summer Eranos meetings in Ascona, Switzerland, for interdisciplinary conferences initially organized under the guidance of Carl G. -
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. -
THE PHILOSOPHY BOOK George Santayana (1863-1952)
Georg Hegel (1770-1831) ................................ 30 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) ................. 32 Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-1872) ...... 32 John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) .......................... 33 Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) ..................... 33 Karl Marx (1818-1883).................................... 34 Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) ................ 35 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914).............. 35 William James (1842-1910) ............................ 36 The Modern World 1900-1950 ............................. 36 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) .................... 37 Ahad Ha'am (1856-1927) ............................... 38 Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) ............. 38 Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) ....................... 39 Henri Bergson (1859-1941) ............................ 39 Contents John Dewey (1859–1952) ............................... 39 Introduction....................................................... 1 THE PHILOSOPHY BOOK George Santayana (1863-1952) ..................... 40 The Ancient World 700 BCE-250 CE..................... 3 Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) ................... 40 Introduction Thales of Miletus (c.624-546 BCE)................... 3 William Du Bois (1868-1963) .......................... 41 Laozi (c.6th century BCE) ................................. 4 Philosophy is not just the preserve of brilliant Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) ........................ 41 Pythagoras (c.570-495 BCE) ............................ 4 but eccentric thinkers that it is popularly Max Scheler -
Augustine on Heart and Life Essays in Memory of William Harmless, S.J
Augustine on Heart and Life Essays in Memory of William Harmless, S.J. Edited by John J. O’Keefe and Michael Cameron 10. Augustine’s Tragic Vision Paul M. Blowers, Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan College Abstract This essay explores Augustine’s capacity to accommodate a tragic vision of human existence within his interpretation of the Christian revelation. Broadly speaking, for Augustine, sacred history combines the tragic necessity of self-inflicted human sinfulness with the benevolent necessity of the economy of divine grace. Augustine to some degree admired the pagan tragedians for compelling the attention and emotion of their audiences in confronting the ineluctability of evil (and other tragic themes), but their mimesis ultimately failed since it could not touch the reality conveyed in divine revelation. Two exegetical test cases, the story of Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter (Judges 11) and King Saul’s tragic heroics in 1 Samuel, exemplify how Augustine greatly profited from interpreting Scripture through a tragical lens. A whole other dimension of Augustine’s tragic vision appears in his attempt – inspired from his own early experience of staged tragedies in Carthage – to reenter ancient philosophical debates on tragedy and mimesis, and to revamp in Christian terms the tragic emotions, especially tragic pity as Christian mercy. 157 Augustine on Heart and Life Keywords: tragedy, necessity, theodicy, mimesis, catharsis, tragic pity Introduction “Tragedy” and “the tragic” are notoriously slippery terms both in historical and colloquial usage. Over the centuries “tragedy” has been employed to indicate, on the one hand, a genre of ancient drama – one depicting flawed human characters struggling heroically against the leviathan forces of cosmic necessity (in the form of abject suffering, death, etc.) – and, on the other hand, commonly today, a catastrophic event catching observers by utter surprise and upending their sense of cosmic stability and justice. -
Evaluating Near-Death Testimony: a Challenge for Theology' Carol G
Evaluating Near-Death Testimony: A Challenge for Theology' Carol G. Zaleski Committee on the Study of Religion Harvard University ABSTRACT In nearly every culture, people have told stories of visionary journey to other worlds, in which an individual dies, enters the afterlife, and-by divine decree or medical prodigy-comes back to life. The return-from-death story has a long history in Western culture, developing within the apocalyptic traditions of late antiquity, flourishing in the medieval Christian vision narratives that inspired Dante's Divine Comedy, and re-emerging today in reports of near-death ex periences (NDEs). Evaluating the literature of NDEs is a task for historians of religion and theologians as well as psychologists. On the basis of a comparative study of medieval and contemporary accounts, this article proposes a nonreduc tionist interpretation, showing that it is possible to give credit to individual testimony while still taking into account the physiological, psychological, and cultural conditions that influence visionary experience in the face of death. In nearly all cultures, people have told stories of travel to another world, in which a hero, shaman, prophet, king, or ordinary mortal passes through the gates of death and returns with a message for the living. In its most familiar form, this journey is a descent into the underworld. Countless figures of myth, sacred history, and literature are said to have ventured underground to the kingdom of death, to rescue its shadowy captives or to learn its secrets. The voyage to the underworld-portrayed in religious epics and enacted in rituals, dramas and games-is often associated with in itiatory death and rebirth. -
The Philosophy of Religion Past and Present: Philosophical Theology Or the Critical Cross
“The Philosophy of Religion Past and Present: Philosophical Theology or the Critical Cross- Examination of Institutionalized Ritual and Belief?”1 Bryan Rennie Vira I. Heinz Professor of Religion Westminster College October, 2014 Abstract The disciplinary or “traditional” philosophy of religion has come under increasing attacks that claim that it is unacceptably focused on specifically monotheist, and even specifically Christian, issues to such an extent that it does not merit the appellation “philosophy of religion.” It should, it has been claimed, more honestly and accurately be termed “philosophical theology.” A discipline more reasonably entitled “philosophy of religion” or perhaps “philosophy of religions” should expand its focus to include the traditionally philosophical questions of ontology, epistemology, and ethics raised not only by the history of the Christian, or even the other Abrahamic, traditions but by all such institutionalized systems of ritual and belief. Contemporary movements in both Philosophy and the Study of Religion have begun to raise this point with increasing emphasis. What might such a reformed philosophy of religion(s) look like, and what role might it play in the future of the academy? What Do I Mean by “Philosophy”? At the outset it behooves me to make some attempt to clarify what I mean by (Western) philosophy. The word, of course, has a plurality of senses, and one is never justified in claiming that any given singular sense is the “right” one. Philosophy does mean a personal, possibly very 1 The following paper draws heavily on previously published work, especially Rennie 2006, 2010, and 2012. Rennie Philosophy of Religions: Past and Present 2 loose, system of beliefs relative to some identifiable class, as in “my philosophy of life.” It can also mean speculative metaphysics, as in “The subject of the attributes of deity was until recent times reserved for the speculations of theology and philosophy” (Pettazzoni 1956: 1). -
“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. -
Classical Theories of Religion Autumn Quarter 2010 Christian K
HREL 32900 / AASR 32900 / ANTH 35005: Classical Theories of Religion Autumn Quarter 2010 Christian K. Wedemeyer M/W 10:00–11:20 AM Swift 310B Swift Hall Rm. 106 Office Hrs: T/W 2:00–3:00PM All readings will be on electronic reserve, with the exception of items marked with an asterisk (*). Schedule of Meetings: 27 September 2010: Organizational/Introductory Meeting Reading(s): none 29 September 2010: Natural Religion through Immanuel Kant Reading(s): Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, pp. 3–13, 139–90 Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, De Veritate, pp. 289–307 4 October 2010: David Hume Reading(s): “A Natural History of Religion” (entire) 6 October 2010: Friedrich Schleiermacher Reading(s): On Religion, pp. 77–95, 189–223. 11 October 2010: Karl Marx Reading(s): “Contributions to a Critique of Hegel’s Theory of Right,” “Concerning Feuerbach,” and “On the Jewish Question” 13 October 2010: F. Max Müller Reading(s): “The Perception of the Infinite” (Lectures on Origin and Growth, pp. 1–51) “Forgotten Bibles” (from Last Essays, pp. 1–35) 18 October 2010: C. P. Tiele Reading(s): Elements of the Science of Religion, pp. 1–57, 155–181, 208–236 20 October 2010: Edward B. Tylor Reading(s): “Religion of the Savages” Primitive Culture, vol I, pp. 1–25 and vol. II, pp. 443–453 25 October 2010: William Robertson Smith and James George Frazer Reading(s): Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, pp. 1–27 Frazer, The Golden Bough (abridged), pp. 1–69 and 812–827 “The Crucifixion of Christ” (note to GB 3rd ed., Part IV: The Scapegoat) 27 October 2010: Emile Durkheim Reading(s): Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, pp. -
Platonic Mysticism
CHAPTER ONE Platonic Mysticism n the introduction, we began with the etymology of the word I“mysticism,” which derives from mystes (μύστης), an initiate into the ancient Mysteries. Literally, it refers to “one who remains silent,” or to “that which is concealed,” referring one’s direct inner experi- ence of transcendence that cannot be fully expressed discursively, only alluded to. Of course, it is not clear what the Mysteries revealed; the Mystery revelations, as Walter Burkert suggested, may have been to a significant degree cosmological and magical.1 But it is clear that there is a related Platonic tradition that, while it begins with Plato’s dialogues, is most clearly expressed in Plotinus and is conveyed in condensed form into Christianity by Dionysius the Areopagite. Here, we will introduce the Platonic nature of mysticism. That we focus on this current of mysticism originating with Plato and Platonism and feeding into Christianity should not be understood as suggesting that there is no mysticism in other tradi- tions. Rather, by focusing on Christian mysticism, we will see much more clearly what is meant by the term “mysticism,” and because we are concentrating on a particular tradition, we will be able to recog- nize whether and to what extent similar currents are to be found in other religious traditions. At the same time, to understand Christian mysticism, we must begin with Platonism, because the Platonic tra- dition provides the metaphysical context for understanding its latest expression in Christian mysticism. Plato himself is, of course, a sophisticated author of fiction who puts nearly all of what he wrote into the form of literary dialogues 9 © 2017 Arthur Versluis 10 / Platonic Mysticism between various characters. -
Marquette Studies in Philosophy Andrew Tallon, Series Editor Full List by Series Number
Marquette Studies in Philosophy Andrew Tallon, Series Editor Full List by Series Number Links go to pages for each book. To Order Please Go to “Order Books” tab on Home Page or click here 1. Harry Klocker, SJ. William of Ockham and the Divine Freedom. ISBN 0-87462-001-5. ©1996. 141 pp. Paperbound. Index. $15. First edition sold out. Second edition, reviewed, corrected and with a new Introduction. 2. Margaret Monahan Hogan. Finality and Marriage. ISBN 0-87462-600-5. 121 pp. Paperbound, $15. NOTE: See #34, below for the second revised and updated edition. 3. Gerald A. McCool, SJ. The Neo-Thomists. ISBN 0-87462-601-1. ©1994. 3rd printing, revised & corrected, 2003. Paperbound, 175 pp. $20 4. Max Scheler. Ressentiment. ISBN 0-87462-602-1.©1998. 4th printing, corrected, 2003. Paperbound. Index. New Introduction by Manfred Frings. 172 pp. $20 5. Augustine Shutte. Philosophy for Africa. ISBN 0-87462-608-0. ©1995. Paperbound. 184 pp. $20 6. Howard P. Kainz. Democracy and the ‘Kingdom of God.’ ISBN 0-87462-610-2. ©1995. Paperbound. Index. $25 7. Knud Løgstrup. Metaphysics. ISBN 0-87462-603-X. ©1995. Volume I. 400 pp. Paperbound. Formerly $40; now $20.00 ISBN 0-67462-607-2. Volume II. 400 pp. Paperbound. Formerly $40; now $20.00 8. Manfred Frings. Max Scheler. A Concise Introduction into the World of a Great Thinker. ISBN 0-87462-605-6. ©1996. Paperbound. Second edition, revised. Index. New Foreword by the author. $20 9. G. Heath King. Existence, Thought, Style: Perspectives of a Primary Relation, portrayed through the work of Søren Kierkegaard. -
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. -
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.