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In der Literatur jüdischer Autoren des letzten Jahrhunderts steht die Darstellung des Martyriums in drei spezifischen, sehr unterschiedlichen Kontexten: in Werken der literarischen Moderne, die die Übernahme der religiösen Traditionen verhandeln - hierzu gehört wohl auch noch Philip Roths Erzählung - im Umkreis der Literatur in und nach Auschwitz und in literarischen Texten zur Geschichte oder Befindlichkeit des Staates Israel. Am Beispiel eines literarischen Bezugs auf die Märtyrertradition aus jedem dieser Umfelder - im Werk Franz Kafkas, Nelly Sachs' und David Grossmans - gilt es nunmehr, jeweils die Korrelation von Verschriftung und interreligiösem Subtext herauszulesen.
Mit einer vergleichenden Lektüre der 'Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis' (203 n. Chr.) und des 230 Jahre früher entstandenen Berichts über den Tod der Lucretia in Livius' erstem Buch der 'Römischen Geschichte' (27 v. Chr.) soll hier eine kulturgeschichtliche Konstellation in den Blick genommen werden, vor deren Hintergrund die verbreitete These von der Singularität des christlichen Märtyrerkonzepts befragt werden kann. Durch eine genauere Betrachtung jener Elemente, die die beiden Todesfälle und -erzählungen von Lucretia und Perpetua verbindet, wird die - nicht selten fraglose, oft unausgesprochene - Auffassung problematisiert, dass erst mit den durch die 'Märtyrerakten' überlieferten Begebenheiten die 'eigentlichen' Märtyrer auf die Bühne der Geschichte getreten seien. Zudem können im Lichte der Verbindungen beider Figurationen deren Unterschiede Kontur gewinnen und damit dann auch jene spezifischen Elemente, die für die Herausbildung der christlichen Märtyrerkultur signifikant sind.
Barth und Benjamin verbindet ein radikales Bemühen, um ein neues Wort- und Sprachverständnis, das der eine gegen die traditionelle Theologie, der andere gegen eine positivistische Geisteswissenschaft vorbringt. Damit nehmen sie gewollt oder ungewollt eine prophetische Haltung ein, die sie zeitweise zu absonderlichen Einzelgängern und zu Protagonisten auf verlorenem Posten macht. Barths Diagnose der Erfahrungsarmut traditioneller Exegese für die Arbeit des Theologen ebenso wie Benjamins Sprachduktus und die teils surrealistisch anmutende Themenwahl seiner wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen lassen vermuten, dass der prophetische Gestus ihres Selbstverständnisses die Ablehnung der Umwelt schon einbezieht und Benjamins Text "Der destruktive Charakter" den Keim einer Theorie der Prophetie 'en miniature' für beide bereitzuhalten scheint. Denn der "destruktive Charakter steht in der Front der Traditionalisten" (GS IV, 398), von denen sich Barth und Benjamin umgeben sahen. Und so könnte man sagen, der Prophet (ebenso wie der destruktive Charakter) zertrümmert nicht einfach das Überlieferte. Er erarbeitet "Trümmer [...] um des Weges willen, der sich durch sie hindurchzieht" (ebd.). "[N]ur eine Parole: Platz schaffen", schreibt Benjamin, "nur eine Tätigkeit: räumen ", in einem Bedürfnis "nach frischer Luft und freiem Raum" (396).
Die Geschichte der frühen Christenverfolgung wird in Hollywoodstreifen wesentlich dramatischer dargestellt, als sie in der jüngeren Forschung beurteilt wird. Auch andere Kulte wurden unterdrückt, denn es bestand kein Recht auf Religionsfreiheit. Die Gründe für solche Maßnahmen lagen nicht in Glaubensvorstellungen, sondern in Handlungen, die als gefährlich für das Gemeinwesen galten. So fürchtete man, dass die Weigerung der Christen, Opfer darzubringen, den Zorn der Götter heraufbeschwören könne oder ein Zeichen mangelnder Loyalität sei. Vor diesem Hintergrund forderten Christen Religionsfreiheit von den Heiden, doch wurde diese auch im später christlichen spätantiken Reich nicht praktiziert.
Gehört Religionsunterricht in den Fächerkanon einer staatlichen Schule? In Deutschland wird dies sogar im Grundgesetz bejaht. Während atheistische Kreise die Abschaffung dieses Grundrechts fordern, sehen Politik und Wissenschaft darin eine Chance, auch Kindern aus muslimischen Familien religiöses Wissen näherzubringen, sie auf diese Weise besser zu integrieren und vielleicht sogar gegen fundamentalistische Hasslehren zu wappnen. In Hessen erhalten Grundschüler seit dem Schuljahr 2013 / 2014 bekenntnisorientierten islamischen Religionsunterricht; die Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen und künftig auch die Goethe-Universität bilden Lehrer aus.
Religion und Gesellschaft
(2016)
Religion und Gesellschaft
(2016)
Kaufen macht Spaß, hat aber einen schlechten Ruf. Schnell ist vom "Tanz um das goldene Kalb" die Rede, womit das religiös motivierte Register noch lang nicht erschöpft ist. Parallelen zwischen Konsum und Gottesglauben sind in der Tat nicht von der Hand zu weisen. Aber lässt sich unser Umgang mit den Waren wirklich auf die Suche nach Erlösung reduzieren?
Religion sei "das Opium des Volks", das einem herz- und geistlosen "Jammertal" einen Heiligenschein verleihe. Der werde verschwinden, wenn "die Kritik des Jammertals" zur "Wahrheit des Diesseits" geführt habe, so Karl Marx 1844. Und heute: Die Religion existiert weiter, eine "wahre" Gesellschaft ist nicht verwirklicht. Im Gespräch mit vier Frankfurter Professoren erkundet der Philosoph und Publizist Rolf Wiggershaus, wie Religionsexperten das aktuelle Verhältnis von Religion und Gesellschaft sehen.
Die Erforschung der Biographie des Theologen Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) ist recht weit gediehen. Doch ein Aspekt seines Lebens und Wirkens ist bislang nicht genügend erforscht und gewürdigt worden.
Von 1939/40 an war er Mitarbeiter im Amt 'Ausland/Abwehr' im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Diese zu wenig beachtete Tätigkeit wird in diesem Beitrag genauer beschrieben. Der Entschluss des Theologen, in der militärischen Abwehr Dienst zu tun, wurde lange als familiär initiiert angesehen oder als Versuch, sich dem Kriegsdienst zu entziehen. Es wird aber gezeigt, daß sich Bonhoeffer sehr bewusst zur geheimdienstlichen Mitarbeit im militärischen Apparat "Abwehr" entschieden hatte, um auf diese Weise wirksam das Nazi-Regime Adolf Hitlers zu bekämpfen. Er war sich dabei der persönlichen Gefahren dieses konspirativen Engagements wohl bewußt. Bonhoeffer, so wird hier gezeigt, war demnach nicht nur Widerstandstheologe, sondern ein politischer Aktivist, der von Theologie und Kirche erwartete, dass sie entschieden situativ auf die Politik und das Weltgeschehen reagiere.
Since his death, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century. But some decisions of his life stay in the dark. Why did he join the Military Secret Service in Germany and what lead him to the judgement, that the Regime of the Nazis could only be ended with the power of military force? The author shows Bonhoeffer as a situatively influenced personality and the measure of his ethics as situativ as well.
Genese und Genealogie : zur Bedeutung und Funktion des Ursprungs in der Ordnung der Genealogie
(2012)
"Genealogia" hieß auf Griechisch die Erzählung von der Geburt der Götter und der von ihnen erschaffenen Welt. Der griechische Kosmos, war eine genealogische Konstruktion, die ursprungsmythischem Denken ebenso entsprang, wie sie es abbildete. Als Urform des Weltverstehens hat die Genealogie Jahrhunderte lang die Ordnung der Dinge in der vormodernen Welt bestimmt.
Das vorliegende Buch erschließt das genealogische Denken vom Mythos des Ursprungs her. Protogonos - der "Erstgeborene" der orphischen Kosmogonie - ist ein urgöttliches Wesen, das in sich die Keime aller Seienden enthält, und immer wieder ist das Ursprüngliche ein paradigmatische Vorgänger, der die Zukunft weist und vorbestimmt. Am Ursprung durch die Genealogie verankert schufen die Menschen ihre ersten Gemeinschaften, die sich im Laufe der Geschichte bis zu den modernen Nationalstaaten entwickelten. Dabei scheint die Blutsverwandtschaften eine zweitrangige Rolle zu spielen, aber auch in der Zeit der Moderne ist die Menschheit nicht nur einmal in die "ursprungsmythische Geisteslage" vom "Blut und Boden" verfallen. 1933 schrieb Paul Tillich: "Der Ursprung enthält in sich das Gesetz des Kreislaufs: Was von ihm kommt, muss zu ihm zurück. Wo der Ursprung herrscht, kann es das Neue nicht geben. Die Herrschaft des Woher macht die Ernsthaftigkeit des Wozu unmöglich."
Die Dissertation widmet sich der Religionspolitik des oströmischen Kaisers Marcianus, der während der Zeit des Konzils von Chalcedon regierte (450-457). In der Arbeit wird die These aufgestellt, dass der Kaiser einen geradlinigen und konsequenten Kurs in seiner Religionspolitik verfolgte.
Um die These zu untermauern, wurden als Quellen vorwiegend zeitgenössische Dokumente herangezogen: neben Gesetzen und Briefmaterial aus der Feder des Kaisers sowie des römischen Bischofs Leo bestehen diese aus den umfangreichen Konzilsakten.
Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass sich Marcianus bereits bei seinem Herrschaftsantritt in den dogmatischen Streitigkeiten der Zeit positionierte, indem er sich eindeutig auf die Seite des Dogmas stellte, das der kurz zuvor verstorbene Bischof von Constantinopel Flavianus vertreten hatte, und gleichzeitig das radikal alexandrinische Glaubensbekenntnis ablehnte, das durch den Constantinopolitaner Mönch Eutyches verfochten wurde und dem die Mehrheit seines Reichs im Sommer 450 folgte. Damit setzte er sich von seinem Vorgänger Theodosius II. ab, unter dem es offensichtlich zu keiner Kursänderung in der Religionspolitik gekommen war. Weil das Wohl des Reichs und seine Herrschaft vom orthodoxen Glauben abhingen, war er während seiner gesamten Regierungszeit bemüht, alle für den ‚rechten Glauben‘ zu gewinnen und so die Glaubenseinheit zu wahren. Auch bei den in der Folgezeit des Konzils auftretenden Widerständen gegen die Beschlüsse der Synode setzte Marcianus nicht nur seinen religionspolitischen Kurs durch, sondern verteidigte ziemlich einsam die Glaubensformel des Konzils; selbst in den Widerstandszentren hielt er seinen religionspolitischen Kurs durch, indem er in Palaestina die Aufstände zum Erliegen brachte, in Aegypten mit Hilfe des Militärs den chalcedonischen Bischof zumindest bis zu seinem Tod stützen konnte. Somit kann sein religionspolitischer Kurs von Herrschaftsantritt an bis zu seinem Tod als konsequent und geradlinig bezeichnet werden.
Die vorgelegte Arbeit behandelt Gauguins Selbstporträts und seine Darstellungen von Frauen, seinen Evas. Gauguin war sympathisch mit den europäischen Frauen; denn in seinem Auge litten sie unter den damaligen religiös-gesellschaftlichen Normen. Sie konnten keine genuine Liebe finden, welche ihr Leben glücklich machte. Andererseits sah er an dem Schicksal der Frauen zugleich sein eigenes Geschick. Deshalb lassen sich viele seiner Frauendarstellungen als Darstellungen von seinem Selbst interpretieren. Durch Analyse seiner Selbst- und Evadarstellungen gewinnt man Einsicht in Gauguins Inner- und Kunstwelt, nämlich seine inneren Konflikte, seine Entscheidung, zugunsten der Kunst auf ein bequemes Leben und damit auf eine glückliche Familie zu verzichten, seine Suche nach wahrer Liebe, die allerdings in sexuelle Ausschweifungen umschlug, und seine Auffassung von der Aufgabe der Kunst, welche eng mit Sexualität in Verbindung steht. Nicht zuletzt wird gezeigt, wie Gauguin, der von der christlichen-katholischen Religion tief geprägt war, mit Sünde und Tod rang.
Unternehmen sind heutzutage nicht mehr nur Hersteller von Gebrauchsgegenständen. Ihr Firmenname und ihr Logo bedeuten für die Kunden mehr als die Kennzeichnung der hergestellten Produkte und ihre Bedeutung scheint über das bloße Verständnis von Markenprodukten als Statussymbole und Prestigeobjekte hinaus zu gehen. Wie sonst ist zu erklären, dass Menschen vor den Geschäften der Bekleidungskette „Abercrombie & Fitch“ Schlange stehen und lange Wartezeiten in Kauf nehmen, um sich Kleidung zu kaufen? Und warum sonst, musste dem Ansturm auf den Apple-Store in Peking beim Verkaufsstart des iPhone 4GS mit der Polizei entgegengewirkt werden?
One memorable quote from Karl Marx’s conception of religion is, “religion is the opium of the masses.” By this, he critiqued religion as an analgesic that dulls the senses, thus inducing a false sense of satisfaction, and preventing the oppressed from revolting against the grubby socio-economic system. As the sigh of the oppressed, religion makes them to resign to fate since it only gives an unrealistic eschatological hope. Rather than conceive religion from this prismatic way, contemporary events have shown that religion has become an amphetamine or a catalyst for revolt, not only at the global but also national level. This work argues that religion is used as an amphetamine, an energizing pill, to pursue other goals than religious as depicted in the activities of Boko Haram sect, which has raised security challenges in contemporary Nigeria.
By organizing the approach to religion historically, we trace the evolution, diffusion, and genealogies of ideas and themes and how those ideas have been inspired or configured by the events of times and human agency in looking at selected texts, actors, and themes. In other words, we inquire into the articulated problem of existence, its solutions, techniques and examples on a case-to-case basis contextualizing specific texts, actors and themes by relating them to time, space and situations.
Neu-Isenburg wurde 1699 von Hugenotten gegründet, die nach der Widerrufung des Toleranzedikts von Nantes 1685 zunäcst in die evangelischen Kantone der Schweiz und bald danach in die relativ rückständigen Territorien des Alten Reiches emigriert waren – aus religiösen und wirtschaftlichen Motiven. In der reichsunmittelbaren Grafschaft Ysenburg und BüdingenOffenbach nahm der ebenfalls reformierte Graf Johann Philipp gern die technisch innovativen weltläufigen Franzosen auf und sicherte ihnen im Gründungsprivileg des Dorfes weitgehende wirtschaftliche und politische Freiheitsrechte zu. Dank des Modernisierungspotentials der Bewohner und der zugestandenen Freiheiten entwickelte sich das geplante Bauerndorf am südlichen Rand Frankfurts trotz Fluktuation und Armut schnell zu einem regionalen Zentrum der mechanischen Strumpfwirkerei. Es wurde damit auch Anziehungspunkt deutscher Zuzügler und Händler - Lutheraner, Katholiken und Juden. Seine Wirtschaft atmete im Rhythmus der beiden jährlichen Frankfurter Messen. ...
1890’lı yıllarda Alman filozof Edmund Husserl’in çalısmaları ile temelleri atılmıs bir bilim dalı olan fenomenoloji, dini, estetik, ahlaki ve duygusal her türlü dogrudan deneyimi analiz edip betimleyen felsefi bir yaklasımdır. Fenomenolojinin din arastırmalarında kullanılması, farklı dini bakıs açılarının oldugu gibi anlasılabilmesine, kisinin önyargılarından kurtularak diger inançları dogru ve tarafsız bir sekilde anlayabilmesine fırsat verebilecegi düsüncesine dayanır. Din egitiminde fenomenolojik yöntem, dinlerarası din ögretimi yaklasımı ile Ingiltere’de uygulama alanı bulmus ve daha sonra ortaya konulacak olan din egitimi uygulamalarına esas olusturmustur. Bu yaklasımda farklı dinlere deger veren, genel bir din olgusu anlayısına sahip bireylerin yetismesi hedeflenmektedir. Bu makalede fenomen ve fenomenoloji kavramlarına deginildikten sonra din arastırmalarında ve din egitiminde fenomenolojik yaklasımın nasıl bir iz bıraktıgının ortaya konulması amaçlanmıstır. Bu amaç çerçevesinde, Ülkemizdeki din ögretiminde çok kısmi bir fenomenolojik bir yaklasımın var oldugu, bu yöntemle sadece inanç konusunun ögretimin yapıldıgı, inanç olgusu çerçevesinde bazı Islam içi mezhep ve yorumlar ile diger dinlere ortak ögeler ön plana çıkarılarak ögretim programında yer verildigi tespit edilmistir.
From the dawn of civilization, a multitude of religious has developed each very complex. These great differences among religions make it difficult to find a least common denominator or to talk at length of religion in general. On the other hand, focusing on just one specific religion often causes us to ignore or underestimate some of the very broad traits that religions seem to share. The fact remains that we will make no headway into the question of what makes a specific religion a religion if we do not seek some characteristics common to all religions.
Religion is usually associated with the supernatural or the divine.505 However, the notion of a supernatural realm does not occur in the non-theistic schools of Buddhism and functions in very different ways, say, in Taoism, Hinduism, and Islam. These shortcomings suggest that religion is notoriously difficult to define. To me, religion is any action taken through every aspect of our being to release us from our weakness or imperfection, and bring us closer to the divine reality. In other words, it is a human inner desire or activity to unite with an absolute being.
The examination of the intellectual dimension of religion that is, its key beliefs is most beneficial when it is guided and informed. Since epistemology is the theory of knowledge, one would therefore expect epistemological discussions of religion to concentrate on the question whether one could have knowledge of religious beliefs. Religious epistemology is simple to say that it is the epistemology of distinctively religious beliefs, but that will not be helpful in the absence of a definition of religious beliefs.
Philosophers of religion might consider the epistemology of religious belief, pondering questions about the sources and justifications of religious knowledge. Fundamental questions regarding the nature of knowledge are likely to arise in any culture. After all, everyone has some stake in distinguishing truth from error, wisdom from ignorance, and the path to knowledge from the path to ignorance. Epistemologists have discussed, in addition to the defining conditions and the sources of knowledge, the extent of human knowledge. They have asked how far human knowledge can extend. Many philosophers find it obvious that we know at least some things, if only things about personal experiences or household physical objects. Others have claimed, however, that we really have no knowledge. Such philosophers admit that people typically feel confident that they have some knowledge, but these philosophers insist that our apparent cases of knowledge are mere illusions. Many epistemologists aim not to set knowledge beyond our reach or to escape the quest for knowledge but rather to make many of our ordinary claims to knowledge more secure by explaining knowledge. They seek to explain what knowledge consists in and how we get it.506
Therefore, a good deal of the task of general epistemology is to understand the nature of the various truth-relevant merits which beliefs can possess, the necessary and sufficient conditions for beliefs to possess those merits, and the virtues of mind and practice requisite and apt for their presence merits such as being reliably formed, being warranted, being entitled, being scientific, being rational, being justified and indeed being true.
Epistemology in Western philosophical tradition has until recently offered a prominent definition of knowledge that analyzes knowledge into three essential components: justification, truth, and belief. According to this analysis, propositional knowledge is, by definition, justified true belief. Epistemologists typically focus on propositional knowledge. Knowledge that something is the case, as opposed to knowledge of how to do something. The content of propositional knowledge can be expressed in a proposition, that is, what is meant by a declarative sentence. Knowledge how to do something is by contrast, a skill or competence in performing a certain task. Within the last few decades, philosophers have discovers that these three conditions are not really sufficient for knowledge; something else is required. Genuine knowledge requires not only truth and belief, but also the satisfaction of the belief condition be appropriately related to the satisfaction of the truth condition. That is, on the traditional approach, genuine knowledge requires that a knower have an “adequate indication” that a believed proposition is true. The required “adequate indication”507 of truth, according to Plato, Kant, and many other philosophers, is evidence indicating that a proposition is true. These philosophers thus hold that knowledge must be based on evidence, or justifying reason.
The kind of justification crucial to knowledge is called epistemic justification. Even if knowledge requires justification, a justified belief can be false. In allowing for justified false beliefs, contemporary epistemologists endorse fallibilism about justification. Reformed epistemologists contend that belief in the existence of God can, in some circumstances, have an epistemic status high enough to render it worthy of acceptance even if it has no support from the arguments of natural theology or from any other beliefs. The views of Alston and Mavrodes are sometimes said to display an affinity with Reformed epistemology, and Nicholas Wolterstorff has made significant contributions to its development. But Plantinga has clearly been the leading contemporary advocate of this school of thought in religious epistemology. During the earlier phase of their development, Plantinga concentrated on defending the view that theistic belief can be in certain conditions, is justified or rationally held even in the absence of any propositional evidence or supporting argument.508
For the conviction that theistic belief is properly basic, foundationalists carry out a reconstructive project that would put our revised doxastic structures on foundations so firm that they could withstand rather than ignore skeptical challenges. That is, for the classical foundationlist theistic belief requires support from propositional evidence or argument if it is to be rationally or justifiably held. However, it is fairly clear that belief in God’s existence does not satisfy this criterion; it is neither self-evident nor incorrigible nor evident to the sense for humans at any time in this life.
The question of justification attracts philosophers especially in contemporary epistemology. And controversy of this question focuses on the meaning of ‘justification’ as well as on the substantive conditions of a belief’s being justified in a way appropriate to knowledge. William Alston, for instance, has introduced a non-deontological normative concept of justification that relies mainly on the notion of what is epistemically good from the view-point of maximizing truth and minimizing falsity. Alston link epistemic goodness to a belief’s being based on adequate grounds in the absence of overriding reason to the contrary. But for some epistemologists “Epistemic justification” means simply “evidential support” of certain sort.509 To say that s is epistemically justifiable to some extent for you is, on this view, just to say that s is supportable to some extent by your overall evidential reason. According to epistemologist, knowledge entails beliefs, so that I cannot know that such and such is the case unless I believe that such and such is the case.
Robert Audi mentioned that knowledge arises in experience. It is constituted by conclusively justified true belief, meaning that: the believer may be justified by psychological certain of the true proposition in question and this proposition is so well-grounded as to be itself propositionally certain. And knowledge constitute by such belief may be called epistemic certainty. When we come to religious knowledge, Audi says that religious propositions are simply beyond the scope of human knowledge. But the point is why would it be thought that no religious propositions are known? The most common ground for holding this view is namely, that religious propositions, such as that God exists, cannot be known either a priori or on the basis of experience. The concept of justification or evidence would occur with the concept of belief in a more complex analysis of the concept of knowledge.510
In recent decades, questions of knowledge seem to have been marginalized by question of justification. As a matter of fact, however, epistemological discussion of religious belief, at least since the Enlightenment has tended to focus, not on the question whether religious belief has warrant, but whether it is justified. More precisely, it has tended to focus on the question whether those properties are enjoyed by theistic belief - the belief that there exists a person like the God of traditional Christianity, Judaism, and Islam: an almighty, all knowing, wholly benevolent and loving spiritual person who has created the world. The main epistemological question about religious belief, therefore, has been the question whether or not religious belief in general and theistic belief in particular is rational or rationally acceptable, or whether it is justified?
In its primary sense, rationality is a normative concept that philosophers have generally tried to characterize in such a way that, for any action, belief, or desire, if it is rational we ought to choose it. Rationality is the use of reason to reach a certain level of reasonableness or unreasonableness. Many positive characterizations of rational beliefs have been proposed by beliefs that are either self-evident or derived from self-evident beliefs by a reliable procedure and beliefs that are consistent with the overwhelming majority of one’s beliefs.511 Analytic epistemology in the twentieth century was conducted as if there were a part from truth itself - just one truth-relevant merit in beliefs, that one typically called either “justification or rationality;”512 and since there was a great deal of disagreement on the answer to that question, there was a great flowering of theories of justification, or theories of rationality.
According to Nicholas Wolterstorff, there are a large number of distinct truth-relevant merits in beliefs, and that neither “Justification” nor “rationality”513 picks out single such merit, both are highly ambiguous terms, each picking out a number of distinct merits. Religious beliefs are formed or evoked by experience of some sort, or by believing what is said in some discourse, or by reflection on the implications of some complex of beliefs that one has previously acquired. Here, we notice that there are no rational activities to understand or justify the experience.
Richard Swinburne considered the nature of actual belief. He saw how in a sense all beliefs given rise to action and must be based on evidence. But he knows that not all beliefs are rational beliefs. For him a beliefs will fail to be rational if it is based on evidence in the wrong way or if it is based on the wrong sort of evidence. According to Swinburne beliefs are rational in so far as they are based on investigation which was, in the believer’s view, adequate, and if the believer believes it to be rational. Swinburne understand by religious beliefs as about transcendent reality, including his belief about whether or not there is a God, and his beliefs about what properties God has (what God is like) and what actions he has performed.514
According to John Hick, the issue is not whether it can be established as an item of indubitable public knowledge that God (or the divine or the Transcendent) exists, or most probably exists, but whether it is rational for those who experience some of life’s moments theistically to believe that God exists, and to proceed to conduct their lives on that basis. Hick looks at a rational belief in general way. For him “belief” can mean a proposition believed or it can be defined as an act or state of believing. The idea of evidence normally presupposes a gap between an observed fact, or body of facts, and an inferred conclusion. Therefore, our ordinary moment - to moment perceptual beliefs contradict the principle that all rational believing must be based upon adequate evidence. It is not that they are based upon inadequate evidence, but rather that the model of evidence-inference-belief does not apply here. Ordinary perceptual beliefs arise directly out of our experience, and it is entirely appropriate, proper, and rational to form these beliefs in this way. The relationship between experience and belief has been much debated in recent work in the philosophy of religion. This discussion has focused upon specifically theistic belief and Hick discusses also in these terms and his argument is that it is rational to believe in the reality of God.
Alvin Plantinga argues on these manifestation-experiences that they are properly basic.515 That is to say, it is as rational for religious persons to hold these basic religious beliefs as it is for all of us to hold our basic perceptual beliefs. But, more basically, it is the biblical assumption translated into philosophical terms. According to Plantinga this experience is what justifies me in holding (the belief) that is the ground of my justification, and by extension, the ground of the belief itself. He then applies this principle to religious beliefs.
In philosophy, experience is generally what we perceive by the senses what we learn from others, or whatever comes from external sources or from inner reflection. In the sense, experience is associated with observation and experiment. Empiricism stresses that our knowledge must be based on experience, but rationalism claims that experience is a potential source of error and prefers rational certainty to mere empirical generalization. In ordinary usage, for every experience there must be something experienced that is independent of the subject of experience. But in philosophy, the relation between experience as a state of consciousness and independent objects of experience becomes a focus of debate. There are many different kinds of experiences, but it is religious experiences that interest me here.
From the point of view of epistemology the modifications of consciousness consisting our apparently perceptual experience are of importantly different kinds. In addition to true perceptions there are misperceptions, illusions, and hallucinations. Therefore, if anyone misled by any of these forms of perceptual error, he or she is then deluded. In each case the delusion consists in a mistaken implicit belief about the cause of the experience: Applying this concept of delusion to the realm of religious experience, we have to ask whether those who assume that their experience of living in God’s presence is caused by their being in God’s presence are believing truly or are, on the contrary, under a delusion.
In modern philosophy of mind a major theme which bears on many theoretical issues, concerns the alleged privacy of an experience as an event knowable only to its possessor and the possibility of public access to that experience. There is much philosophical debate concerning precisely how perception is to be analyzed. In particular, questions are raised concerning the status of the phenomenon. But there is general agreement that in perception, objects present themselves to us in ways that enable us to know them. Similarly, in religious experience God presents himself in ways that enable us to know him and his actions. For Alston there are, it seems, important differences between ordinary perceptual or sense experience and religious experience. Sense perception is a common experience, whereas religious experience is less common, perhaps, even rare, sense perception yields a great deal of information about the world, whereas religious experience yields apparently little information about God, all humans have the capacity for sense perception, but many seem not to have the capacity for religious experience. These differences, however, do not show that religious experience has a structure unlike perception. For one thing, neither the frequency of an experience nor the amount of information it yields tells us anything about its structure.
On the other hand, the limitation of the rationalist way is that the only truths capable of being strictly proved are analytic and ultimately tautological. But we cannot by logic alone demonstrate any matter of fact and existence; these must be known through experience. For sure if nothing were given through experience in its various modes, we should never have anything to reason about. This is as true in religion as in other fields. If God exists, God is not an idea but a reality outside us, in order to be known to men and women, God must therefore become manifest in some way within their experience. This conclusion is in line with the contemporary revolt against the rationalist assumptions which have dominated much of western philosophy since the time of Descartes.516 Descartes held that we can properly be said to know only truths that are self-evident or that can be reached by logical inferences from self-evident premises.
Therefore, those who stress faith and attack reason often place a great deal of emphasis on religious experience. However, religious experience is by no means a purely emotional “happening”; rather, it involves concepts and beliefs about the being that is experienced. If we tried to separate religious experiences from such concepts and beliefs - from the religious belief-system, as we shall call it - then there would be no way saying who or what is that is experienced, or of explaining what sort of difference the experience ought to make to the person who has it. However, such a religious belief system needs to be understood; at least to some degree - it is hard to see how understanding it is not going to involve the use of reason.
For Rationalisms, in order for a religious belief-system to be properly and rationally accepted, it must be possible to prove that the belief-system is true. Rationalism in this sense implies a reliance on reason, or intelligence, in deciding our beliefs and actions. The central idea of strong rationalism was stated forcefully by W. K. Clifford. According to his opinion, no religious belief-system is capable of meeting the high standard of proof that should govern all of our believing, and so a reasonable (and moral) person must do without religious beliefs. Among the objections to Christian belief, as well as to Judaic and Muslim, Characteristic of the modern intelligentsia is the objection that it is no longer rational, if ever it was, to believe that God exists. Therefore, the rational person will have to make his way in the world without supposing that there exists any God in whom he could trust.517
However, according to Nicholas Wolterstorff, to believe in God is our fundamental human obligation. Central to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam alike is the conviction that we as human beings are called to believe in God to trust in him, to rely on him, to place our confidence in him. Central also is the conviction that only by believing in God can the deepest stirrings of the human heart be satisfied. Duty and fulfillment here coalesce. The rationality of trusting someone presupposes the rationality of believing that person exists.
John Locke was among the first to formulate articulately the evidentialist challenge to theistic belief. Reason is reasoning for Locke, and clearly he thinks of it as one among others of our belief-forming processes. Faith is another belief-forming process. It, by contrast, consists in accepting something “as coming from God.”518 However, for Locke it still belongs to reason to judge of the truth of its being a revelation, and of the signification of the words wherein it is delivered.
For evidentialist, one’s belief that God exists is rational only if it is formed or sustained by good inference by inferring it from others of one’s beliefs, which in fact provide adequate evidence for it. But, Wolterstorff, see no reason what so ever to suppose that by the criterion offered the evidentialist challenge is tenable. He see no reason to suppose that people who hold as one of their immediate beliefs that God exists always have adequate reason to surrender that belief or ought to believe that they do. However, for him those abstract and highly general theses of evidentialism no longer look very interesting, once we regard them in the light of the criterion offered. Therefore, for him the fact that it is not rational for some person to believe that God exists does not follow that he ought to give up that belief.
But can we accept the Principle of Credulity? One problem is that whereas there is a fundamental uniformity about the way we report both ordinary perceptual experiences and the beliefs about objects of those experiences, there is quite a diversity of reports about religious experiences and the claim based on them. Person give incompatible descriptions of the Reality experienced. Therefore, where perceptions yield conflicting testimony, we must turn to other experiences and rational arguments to determine the truth of the various claims. That is, where there are different accounts, additional considerations must be introduced to help decide which, if any, of the religious experiences are veridical. Although the reports provide a prima facie ground for their acceptance, not all beliefs based on such experiences are true. Just as we at times doubt perceptual claims for good reason, we might do the same for claims based on religious experience.
According to Hick, religion constitutes our varied human response to transcendent reality. Religious experience then is structured by religious beliefs which are implicit within religious experience. But the question is if this complex of experience and beliefs that takes place in different shapes within the different traditions, is to be regarded simply as a human creation or as our response to a transcendent reality, even if a response whose particular forms always involve the creative activity of the human imagination. Of course the problem of terminology is obvious as we see in many parts of philosophy, and without explanatory gloss none of the available descriptive labels for these two possibilities is entirely adequate.
Much of the philosophical discussion of religious diversity continues to centre on the work of John Hick.519 He is not interested in the question of what can justifiably be affirmed in the face of such diversity, rather, he is primarily concerned with the question of which justified response is most reasonable. Moreover, on this question, he leaves no doubt as to his opinion:
519 See John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human response to the Transcendent, (New Haven: Yale University and London: Macmillan press, 1989), 172.
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religious pluralism is by far the most plausible explanation for the pervasive religious diversity we encounter.
Many Westerners will best understand the emergence of inclusivism and pluralism in terms of the history of Christianity. For most of its history, Christianity has been resolutely exclusivist. In late antiquity, it was a new religion, struggling to establish itself in the face of criticism and persecution. It is not surprising to find it making exclusive claims on behalf of its charismatic founder, Jesus of Nazareth. Of course, Christianity is not the only religion to have fostered exclusivist attitudes. In their more militant movements, Muslims have done the same. Some Jews cherish an ethnically exclusive identity as God’s chosen people, and some Hindus revere the Vedas as a source of absolute truth, Buddhists often see in the teachings of Gautama the only dharma that can liberate humans from illusion and suffering.
Hick has set forth a philosophically sophisticated pluralistic hypothesis that may avoid problems of this sort.520 As he sees it, each of the major religious traditions offers a path to salvation or liberation that involves a transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to reality- centeredness.
Religious plurality is simply a fact. There are religious traditions that differ deeply in terms of their doctrines, practices, institutions, scriptures, experiences, and hope. According to pluralism, a single ultimate religious reality is being differently experienced and understood in all the major religious traditions; they all, as far as the philosophers can tell, offer equally effective paths to salvation or liberation.
According to Harold Coward, Judaism is an appropriate tradition in which to begin the stay of religious pluralism and the world religions. The experience of being a minority group in other cultures, which becoming more common place for all the world religions as religious pluralism spreads, has been the norm for Judaism for countless generations. From the biblical period to the present, Judaism has had to formulate its beliefs and practices in the face of challenges from other cultures and religions. The viewpoint of the modern Jew opens the way for relations with Christianity, Islam, and perhaps Hinduism; however, Buddhism - especially Mahayana Buddhism may prove to be in a separate category. The Buddhist consciousness in which no transcendent God is recognized and the Mahayana awareness of the Divine in the
520 Ibid.
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secular may be judged by the Jewish philosopher as a modern idolatry. Therefore, perhaps the most serious challenge for Judaism comes in its response to Buddhism. As long as a religion is founded on the experience of a transcendent God, Judaism seems to be able to enter into spiritual partnership with it. But if that experience does not hold true for the Buddhist - if it is not a transcendent God that is being experienced - can the Jew still embrace the Buddhist as a spiritual partner? This question has yet to be faced by Judaism.521
The relationship between Christianity and the other religions is one of the key issues in Christian self-understanding. Perhaps pluralism is so pressing a challenge because of the exclusivist missionary approaches adopted by Christianity over the past several hundred years.
In the rapidly expanding body of literature resulting from the encounter with other religions, many Christian theologians are concluding that Christian theology cannot continue to be formulated in isolation from the other religions, and that in fact future developments in Christian theology will be the direct result of serious dialogue with the other religions. Although the Churches are altering their ecclesiology so as to open the way for serious dialogue with other religions, the fundamental Christology that underlies traditional ecclesiology has not yet changed.
Through out the centuries the basic Islamic approach to other religions was to search for some fundamental structures that were harmonious with Islam but which lay hidden beneath the other religion’s deviations from true Islam: A major obstacle for understanding other religions was the lack of accurate information. However, Islam has essentially reached the truth toward which all other religions are evolving. Christianity, it seems, has also virtually reached this goal. It is possible that various nations or cultures will reach the truth in their own way. The Qur’an itself teaches that every community in every age has had its prophet. However, modern education will offer Muslims an opportunity to understand each religion in terms of its own culture, history, world view, and claims to truth. This will have an effect on Islamic self-perception.
Therefore, the religious pluralism of the modern world will force Islam, finding itself in much the same position as the other traditions, to come to grips with them rather provincial
521 See Harold Coward, Pluralism: Challenge to World Religions, Harold Coward, 1-12.
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character of some of its past views of other religions.
According to Hinduism, there is one divine reality that manifests itself in many forms. The various religions are simply different revelations of the one divine reality. Hinduism sees itself as being a very open and tolerant religion. But because it asserts that the Vedas are the most perfect revelation of divine truth, Hinduism also sees itself as providing the criteria against which the revelations of all other religions must be tested. Nevertheless, the Hindu view that there is one Divine, which may be reached by many paths, has proven through out the centuries to be a powerful influence upon Hinduism’s interaction with the other religions.522 Therefore, the Hindu contribution to the modern challenge of religious pluralism is to encourage the inquiring spirit and devotion to truth that is larger than any individual tradition.
The Buddhist attitude to other religions has been described as “critical tolerance”523 combined with a missionary goal. Buddhism has demonstrated a remarkable degree of tolerance and flexibility throughout the course of its expansion. Unlike some other religious expansions, the spread of Buddhism has been accomplished more through the dissemination of ideas than by migration of peoples.
Buddhism rejects the worship of God or gods and the performance of religious rituals as a means to release. It also rejects speculations about ultimate beginnings, especially about whether the self and the world were eternal, and a number of speculations about the ultimate state of the self in the future. The tolerant but critical attitude of the Buddha toward the plurality of religious views is shaped into a rigorous philosophic approach by the Madhyamika Buddhists. If, as the Buddha discovered, the goal of religion is compassion, then, say the Madhyamika, the biggest obstacle to realizing that goal is attachment to our own religious beliefs in such a way as to make them absolute. Based on this understanding, the Madhyamika Buddhist’s attitude towards other religions is one of openness and indeed a “missionary desire”524 to enter into dialogue.
The inherent desire to conceptualize and share religious experience is too deeply ingrained in
522 Ibid., 63-80.
523 See K. N. Jayatilleke, The Buddhist Attitude to Other Religions (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1975). And see also Harold Coward Pluralism: Challenge to World Religions, 81.
524 See Harold Coward, Pluralism: Challenge to World Religions, 88.
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human nature to render silence an acceptable answer. In fact the Madhyamika himself has been far from silent. His prescription of silence was only intended to apply to claims of absolute knowledge. As long as the limitation is honored, then discussion, including theological discussion, could take place.
The dialogical approach opens the way for the meeting of Christians with Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. However, the theocentric premise could become an obstacle to meaningful encounters with Buddhists and Advaita Vedantists. Therefore, an unresolved problem for all of these approaches is the Buddhist and even those with considerable exposure to Buddhism and Hinduism seem almost willfully to turn a blind eye to this problem. One possible exception might be found in Tillich’s formulation of the “god above gods” as the “ground of being.”525
Dialogue starts from the assumption that each religion has its absolute claims which cannot be relativized. No amount of reformulation will do away with the difference. But, by letting our theologizing be influenced by others we will be forced to greater honesty and deeper spirituality. The prerequisite for dialogue is not the harmonizing of all beliefs but the recognition that each spiritual person has a committed and absolute conviction, and that these convictions are different.
Therefore, the expected outcome is not the homogenization of particular religions but the mutual deepening of spiritual experience within each particular religion, which may lead to glimpses of a common transcendent reality. This shift in perspective had the effect of drawing attention to the universal nature of religious experience in its many different traditions. In addition to turning attention away from metaphysics, rationalism, or revelation, the focus on the humanity of religion has had the effect of highlighting some of the limitations in human nature that must be taken seriously in all future religion.
Protestantismus im Territorium : Heinrich Steitz (1907 - 1998): Biographie als Zeitgeschichte
(2012)
When we observe today’s world, we can safely say that tensions and clashes still continue and that some of them arise from interreligious and intercultural conflicts. In search of a safer future world, man, naturally, looks for a solution. In this context, it is thought that empathic communication model will contribute greatly to the reduction of prejudices and to the formation of a healthy interreligious and intercultural dialog process. The aim of this study is to draw attention towards the importance of learning and teaching of empathic communication skills as a procedural method in interreligious and intercultural relations. In this study, emphasis was placed upon communication conflicts and prejudices and contributions that empathic communication can make in the reduction of prejudices were outlined.
Die Allmacht der göttlichen Gnade in der Gaudiya-Vaisnava-Theologie Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakuras
(2010)
Yajnavalkya : seine Philosophie – seine Soteriologie ; Klaus Mylius zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmet
(2010)
Das Verhältnis zwischen Gott und Mensch wird sowohl im katholischen Christentum als auch im Islam durch das fehlerhafte Verhalten des Menschen beeinträchtigt und verletzt. Basierend auf das jeweilige Schuldverständnis wurde in beiden Religionen der Weg der (Wieder-) Versöhnung mit Gott theologisch aufbereitet und dargestellt. Diese Theologien führen auf ihre jeweils eigene Art wieder zu Gott und ermöglichen seine Freundschaft, was für den sündhaften Gläubigen Hoffnung und Zuversicht beinhaltet und seine existentielle Sorge um seine Seele nimmt. Auf diese Weise bietet der jeweilige Glaube sowohl dem Katholiken als auch dem Muslim seelsorgerlichen Halt und Trost und lässt ihn auf ein glückliches Ende hoffen.
Les rapports du politique et de la religion et leur transformation au temps de et par la Réforme, dans le Saint Empire, la France et l’Angleterre, tels sont les objets des six articles de ce recueil. La Réforme fut-elle un mouvement populaire ou une initiative des princes, et dans ce dernier cas, comment le souverain parvint-il à vaincre les résistances, d’autant plus que l’espace du politique ne se bornait pas à l’État, les élites intellectuelles et sociales, théologiens et juristes de la bourgeoisie citadine allemande, gentry anglaise, nobles et bourgeois en France étant elles aussi des acteurs très présents? Si, d’un côté, il y eut désacralisation du monde et une relative autonomisation du politique, de l’autre la théologie politique fut renouvelée par les spirituels réformés qui reposèrent, entre tradition et innovation, la question de la légitimité du pouvoir et du partage de la souveraineté dans le cadre de la théorie des trois états, qui parfois allèrent même jusqu’à revendiquer, comme en Angleterre, un droit d’examen du politique, et justifier le droit de résistance. La circulation des idées dans l’Europe de la Renaissance, servie par l’universalité du latin, créa un univers intellectuel commun, mais néanmoins la diversité de destin des États fut patente: dans ce XVI e siècle des réformes, l’Allemagne et l’Angleterre parvinrent à des compromis, certes très différents, la paix d’Augsbourg (1555) et l’anglicanisme d’Élisabeth, tandis que la France fut déchirée par les guerres de religion. ...