Defining Religion

Robert Cummings Neville

Description

In this collection of essays, written over the past decade, Robert Cummings Neville addresses contemporary debates about the concept of religion and the importance of the comparative method in theology, while advancing and defending his own original definition of religion. Neville's hypothesis is that religion is a cognitive, existential, and practical engagement of ultimate realities—five ultimate conditions of existence that need to be engaged by human beings. The essays, which range from formal articles to invited lectures, develop this hypothesis and explore its ramifications in religious experience, philosophical theology, religious studies, and the works of important thinkers in philosophy of religion. Defining Religion is an excellent introduction to Neville's work, especially to the systematic philosophical theology presented in his magisterial three-volume set Philosophical Theology.
List of Tables
Preface

Part I: Heuristics

Preliminary Remarks

1. Problems of Definition

2. A Heuristic Definition of Religion

3.Theory of Religion in a Pragmatic Philosophical Theology

4. Modeling Ultimate Reality: God, Consciousness, and Emergence

Part II: Pragmatics

Preliminary Remarks

5. A Pragmatic Approach to Religious Experience

6. Semiotics versus Phenomenology: Existential and Hermeneutic Dimensions

7. Hermeneutic and Validity Dimensions of Religious Experience

8. Self-Reliance and the Portability of Pragmatism

Part III: Religious Studies

Preliminary Remarks

9. Why All Theology Should Be Comparative

10. Does the Study of Religion Need Philosophy?

11. Some Recommendations for the Future of Liberal Theology

12. Naturalism: So Easily Wrong

Part IV: Philosophical Theology

Preliminary Remarks

13. A Respectful Alternative to Process Theology: A Letter of Grateful and Affectionate Response to David Ray Griffin’s Whitehead’s Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for Its Contemporary Relevance

14. The Triune God and Creation ex Nihilo, or “The One and the Many” Strikes Again

15. Perpetual Apophasis and the Existential Implosion of Worldviews

16. Ultimate Realities for the Sciences and Humanities

Part V: Players

Preliminary Remarks

17. John E. Smith: Doing Something with American Philosophy

18. Richard Rorty: Pragmatism, Metaphysics, Comparison, and Realism

19. William Desmond’s Philosophical Theology

20. Nancy Frankenberry: Philosopher of Religion, Radical Empiricist, Herald of Contingency

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Philosophy of religion

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 17 janvier 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438469591
• Langue: English

Extrait

DEFINING RELIGION
DEFINING
RELIGION
Essays in Philosophy of Religion

ROBERT CUMMINGS NEVILLE
Cover design of the cosmos by Beth Neville
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Diane Ganeles
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Neville, Robert Cummings, author
Title: Defining Religion : Essays in Philosophy of Religion
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438469577 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438469591 (e-book)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to the memory of Nancy Ellegate, extraordinary SUNY Press editor
CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES
PREFACE
Part One: Heuristics
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
CHAPTER ONE
Problems of Definition
CHAPTER TWO
A Heuristic Definition of Religion
CHAPTER THREE
Theory of Religion in a Pragmatic Philosophical Theology
CHAPTER FOUR
Modeling Ultimate Reality: God, Consciousness, and Emergence
Part Two: Pragmatics
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
CHAPTER FIVE
A Pragmatic Approach to Religious Experience
CHAPTER SIX
Semiotics versus Phenomenology: Existential and Hermeneutic Dimensions
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hermeneutic and Validity Dimensions of Religious Experience
CHAPTER EIGHT
Self-Reliance and the Portability of Pragmatism
Part Three: Religious Studies
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
CHAPTER NINE
Why All Theology Should Be Comparative
CHAPTER TEN
Does the Study of Religion Need Philosophy?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Some Recommendations for the Future of Liberal Theology
CHAPTER TWELVE
Naturalism: So Easily Wrong
Part Four: Philosophical Theology
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Respectful Alternative to Process Theology: A Letter of Grateful and Affectionate Response to David Ray Griffin’s Whitehead’s Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for Its Contemporary Relevance
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Triune God and Creation ex Nihilo , or “The One and the Many” Strikes Again
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Perpetual Apophasis and the Existential Implosion of Worldviews
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ultimate Realities for the Sciences and Humanities
Part Five: Players
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
John E. Smith: Doing Something with American Philosophy
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Richard Rorty: Pragmatism, Metaphysics, Comparison, and Realism
CHAPTER NINETEEN
William Desmond’s Philosophical Theology
CHAPTER TWENTY
Nancy Frankenberry: Philosopher of Religion, Radical Empiricist, Herald of Contingency
INDEX
TABLES

TABLE 6.1
Dimensions of Religious Experience
TABLE 6.2
Existential Dimensions of Religious Experience
TABLE 6.3
Hermeneutic Dimensions of Religious Experience 1
TABLE 7.1
Hermeneutic Dimensions of Religious Experience 2
TABLE 7.2
Validity Dimensions of Religious Experience
TABLE 7.3
Summary Dimensions of Religious Experience
PREFACE

For some philosophers, scholars, religious thinkers, and intellectually curious people, defining religion is a gripping topic. For others, it is of little or no interest. In the latter group fall both people who have no interest in religion whatsoever and people whose interest in religion is so great that they are concerned only to become better at being religious, thus finding questions of definition a distraction. 1 This book is directed at the first group, those with an interest in defining religion. Among the authors who have made recent important contributions are Terry F. Godlove, Timothy D. Knepper, Jeffrey J. Kripal, Thomas A. Lewis, Kevin Schilbrack, and Wesley J. Wildman. 2 Of course, if those with no interest in religion suddenly realized that religion properly defined includes something that does interest them, this book might be of significant help. People who dismiss religion but respect spiritual depth might be among these. And perhaps those sharply focused on becoming better at being religious might find that this book reorients them in profitable ways, especially as it might point out hitherto neglected dimensions of religion.
The controversies about defining religion come from several sources, as will be explored in the first two chapters. One source is that in public discussions everyone knows what religion is at the same time that there is huge disagreement about what it is. Another source is the common postmodern view that “religion” is a Western category and that its use in understanding other cultures is colonialist. A third source is the practice of the various university disciplines studying religion to define it in terms of their own discipline, reductively leaving out other perspectives.
Yet religion in any of the many ways it is defined seems to be a very potent social and personal force these days for many people and thus worth studying. The essays in this book collectively work at defining religion on many levels and from many angles. Recently, I have completed a very large Philosophical Theology in three volumes (with small print). This is a systematic presentation of a theory of religion with detailed defenses of its main contentions. 3 But for many people, system is hard to take. Sometimes, brief essays that come at the topic from different angles and in different genres of conversation are much more effective. Except for the first, all the essays here were written during the years I was working on the Philosophical Theology trilogy. Some of the essays were invited presentations, some conference presentations, some for Festschrifts, and one a long letter. Some have been previously published and some not. Some are formal, whereas others are relaxed and joshing with friends. I have not tried to smooth out these differences.
Nevertheless, I have rewritten most of the essays somewhat to relate them to one another. I have updated many notes, and in some instances, have changed my mind about what I had said earlier. Where possible, I have eliminated repetition, although the coherence of an essay sometimes requires treating topics treated in other essays, hopefully with a new contextualization. I have also inserted some references to Philosophical Theology where that might be helpful.
The essays are grouped into five thematic parts for the sake of focus and continuity. To be sure, the essays relate in many different ways and there could be other ways of grouping them, though this one makes the most sense. The first part, entitled “ Heuristics ,” contains four essays on the definition of religion itself, both about the nature of definition and the proposal of a definition that will be defended in various ways in the other parts. The definition proposed is not intended to be primarily descriptive, phenomenological, scientifically reductive, or discipline oriented. I propose it heuristically as a helpful way to delimit and characterize religion so as to get at religion in its multifarious dimensions while allowing religion to be distinguished from other domains of human experience such as the political, artistic, psychological, and economic. All of these dimensions relate to but are not the same as religion. The second part, entitled “ Pragmatics ,” contains four essays that develop a specifically pragmatic approach to religious experience and the study of religion. This twenty-first-century approach to the definition of religion builds on American pragmatism (not neo-pragmatism) but also incorporates Confucian sensibilities. European resistance to pragmatism is also discussed. The third part, “ Religious Studies ,” contains four essays that approach the nature of religious studies regarding comparison, the role of philosophy in the study of religion, the role of nonconfessional theology in religion, and the limits of religious naturalism. The fourth part, “ Philosophical Theology ,” contains essays dealing with four first-order issues in philosophical theology, understood in accord with the definition of religion given throughout the book, namely, conceptions of God, creation, the breakdown of all religious worldviews, and how ultimate realities can be studied in the sciences and humanities, defending, of course, a specific theory of ultimate realities. The fifth part, “ Players ,” contains essays about the work of four philosophical theologians with whom I have engaged for a long time, John E. Smith, Richard Rorty, William Desmond, and Nancy Frankenberry. (Rorty probably would duck the label of philosophical theology, although his work has important theological implications and he is the grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch, one of America’s most important philosophical theologians.) By “players” I mean to signify that they are personal friends who have played with me the academic rituals of inquiry into matters of our common interest. David Griffin ( chapter 13 , in part 4) and Joseph Bracken ( chapter 14 , in part 4) are also friends with whom I have grown for decades, but those chapters are more about specific problems and less about my responses to their overall work.
Chapter 1 has been written for this volume. Chapter 2 began as an invited lecture at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, March 8, 2016, and has not been published before. Chapter 3 began as a presentation entitled “Pragmatism and the Theory of Religion” at a conference of the same title at