Religion , livre ebook

religion
ROBERT CUMMINGS NEVILLE
religion

P HILOSOPHICAL T HEOLOGY
VOLUME THREE
State University of New York Press
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S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS , A LBANY
© 2015 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neville, Robert C.
Religion : philosophical theology / Robert Cummings Neville.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
“Volume three.”
ISBN 978-1-4384-5699-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5701-7 (e-book)
1. Religion—Philosophy. 2. Religions. 3. Philosophical theology.
I. Title.
BL51.N443 2015 210—dc23 2014031581
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Jay Schulkin
The art on the cover of this volume, by my wife, Beth Neville, is the third and last of a suite of drawings she did for the covers of this trilogy, Philosophical Theology . Like the others, it is a colored-ink drawing with apparently geometrical shapes. The balanced geometry is her response to my request for “dignified” covers befitting a large, systematic, and (to many people now) untimely project. The geometrical figures are hand drawn, however, and so are inexact (though she has a good eye). This symbolizes the vulnerable tentativeness of the system expressed in these volumes. On first impression we see a series, almost a modern Stonehenge, of elongated, inward-tilting diamond shapes, suggesting the upward reaches of a cathedral, or a flight upward, as in the architecture of the United States Air Force Academy Chapel. In the history of her own work, that impression is an outworking of an earlier preoccupation with mountains, as on her cover for the SUNY Press edition of The Cosmology of Freedom. A second look is dominated by two horizontal bands in the lower half, the upper one narrow and the lower broad. Behind all this is a series of vertical bands signifying the infinite higher and lower pulls of the human spiritual situation. The vertical elongated diamonds of human institutions are barely rooted beneath the Earth’s horizontal surface and somewhat more stable depths (like tectonic plates). They are vulnerable above. Reaching downward, they overlap and disjoin, symbolizing the tangled roots of our separate religious traditions, a major theme of the volume. But the carpentered diamond shapes are suddenly fragile, perhaps illusory, bound by the unbounded verticals and horizontals of nature. We must be prepared for the constructed edifices of religion to be temporary holding places as we realize our quotidian lives are most truly religionless religion, the volume’s conclusion.
Contents
Cross References
Preface
Introduction
I. Theology for Whom?
II. The Question of Truth in Popular Religion
III. Explaining Religion
IV. Understanding Religion
P ART I
Understanding Religion
Part I. Preliminary Remarks
C HAPTER O NE
Science and Culture
I. Cognitive Science with Evolutionary Biology
II. Social Science and Phenomenological Understandings of Religion
III. Evolution and Semiotics
IV. The Cultural Evolution of Religion
C HAPTER T WO
Axial Age Religion
I. The Axial Age Revolution
II. The Tribal Underground of Axial Age Religion
III. Religious Membership and Practice
IV. Sacred Worldviews of Axial Age Religions
C HAPTER T HREE
Theology and the Religious Situation
I. Confessional Theologies
II. Interpreting between Transcendence and Intimacy
III. Back-Reading History
IV. The Religious Situation
C HAPTER F OUR
A Viable Sacred Canopy
I. The Problem of Transcendent and Intimate Symbols
II. Transcendent Concepts of Ultimacy
III. The Critical Interpretation of Intimate Symbols of Ultimacy
IV. The Religious Situation and the Axial Age
Part I. Summary Implications
P ART II
Historical Religions
Part II. Preliminary Remarks
C HAPTER F IVE
Abrahamic Religions
Prologue
I. Form/Value/Possibilities/Obligation
II. Components/Groundedness/Wholeness
III. Existential Location/Engagement/Love
IV. Absolute Value-Identity
C HAPTER S IX
Buddhism
Prologue
I. Form/Value/Possibilities/Obligation
II. Components/Groundedness/Wholeness
III. Existential Location/Engagement/Love
IV. Absolute Value-Identity
C HAPTER S EVEN
Hinduism
Prologue
I. Form/Value/Possibilities/Obligation
II. Components/Groundedness/Wholeness
III. Existential Location/Engagement/Love
IV. Absolute Value-Identity
C HAPTER E IGHT
Chinese Religion
Prologue
I. Form/Value/Possibilities/Obligation
II. Components/Groundedness/Wholeness
III. Existential Location/Engagement/Love
IV. Absolute Value-Identity
Part II. Summary Implications
P ART III
Normative Religion
Part III. Preliminary Remarks
C HAPTER N INE
Value
I. Differential Value in a Purposeless Cosmos
II. The Formal Nature of Value
III. The Actualization of Value: Future, Present, Past
IV. Obligation, Responsibility, and Conjoint Action
C HAPTER T EN
Religious Ethics
I. The Religious Dimension of Ethics
II. Religious Values
III. Ritual Forms of Normative Action
IV. Minimal Ethics, Freedom, and Life Abundant
C HAPTER E LEVEN
Spirituality
I. Wisdom: A Spirituality of Form and Choice
II. Discipline: A Spirituality of Groundedness and Comportment
III. Desire: A Spirituality of Existential Location
IV. Excellence: A Spirituality of Value-Identity
C HAPTER T WELVE
Religious Companionship
I. Semiotic Space
II. Religious Community Defined
III. Critical Belonging
IV. Ultimate Belonging
Part III. Summary Implications
P ART IV
Religionless Religion
Part IV. Preliminary Remarks
C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
The Plausibility of Sacred Worldviews
I. Consistency with Knowledge
II. Appropriateness for Predicaments and Ecstatic Fulfillments
III. Sustaining Intimacy and Transcendence in Symbols
IV. Authority in Orientation
C HAPTER F OURTEEN
The Implausibility of Sacred Worldviews
I. Consistency and Science
II. Appropriateness for a Global Society
III. Transcendence and Intimacy in a Purposeless Cosmos
IV. Authority, Fallibility, and Containment
C HAPTER F IFTEEN
Imploding Worldviews and Ontological Predicaments
I. Cosmological and Ontological Boundary Conditions
II. Apophasis and Kataphasis
III. The Desperation of Meaning-Making
IV. Terror of the Infinite
C HAPTER S IXTEEN
Ontological Salvation and Ecstatic Fulfillment
I. The Dao Cannot Be Named
II. “To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruit”
III. “Love your enemies”
IV. This Is Not the Only Time or Place
Part IV. Summary Implications
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Cross References
As a systematic work, the three volumes of Philosophical Theology involve cross-referencing among its parts. Although each of the volumes has a primary title— Ultimates , Existence , Religion , the cross-references are to the volumes by number. Cross-references are in endnotes on the occasions when commentary is required; otherwise they are in the lines of the text. The general rubric for cross-referencing is this: Cross-references will always be in italics , and this means that they refer to volumes of Philosophical Theology ; the first roman numeral refers to the volume. If the reference is to a chapter, the volume number will be given first, followed by a comma, then the chapter number as an arabic number, and perhaps if needed a comma followed by a section number in lower-case roman numerals. So, “Volume II, Chapter 3, Section IV” would be II, 3, iv . If the reference is to a part of a volume, the roman volume number is first, followed by a comma and “pt.” for part and an arabic numeral for the number of the part. So, “Volume II, Part III” would be II, pt. 3 . Often a part is referred to as a whole; but if the reference is to the “preliminary remarks” or the “summary implications,” which are always keyed to parts, not chapters, then the referent to the part would be followed by a comma and “pr” and/or “si.” So, “Volume III, Part IV , preliminary remarks and summary implications” would be III, pt. 4, pr, si . If a reference does not indicate a volume number, this means the volume referred to is the one in which the reference is made. The text spells out units of the three volumes when it discusses them directly.
Preface
Philosophical Theology consists of three volumes. Ultimates: Philosophical Theology One is an essay on the metaphysics of ultimacy interwoven with the development of an epistemology of symbolic engagement connecting the metaphysics to religion. Existence: Philosophical Theology Two is an essay in theological anthropology, interpreting the human condition with regard to ultimacy. Its principal claims are that inevitably there is something or several things ultimately wrong with the human condition in its ordinary manifestations and that religion addresses those senses of ultimate wrongness. In addition to, related to, and beyond these predicaments are ecstatic fulfillments in religion that make religion worthy, even if the predicaments cannot be remedied (and despite the downsides of many religious practices and movements). Religion: Philosophical Theology Three is an essay in philosophy of religion. It presents a philosophy of the nature and scope of religion. In this regard, it approaches religion in social and cultural terms. It does not primarily analyze how any one individual is religious, and in very importan