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840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

Existentialism and Modern Atheism

Part One: Religion and Modern Society (modernity)

A. Historical Background: The break-up of  pre-modern society and the rise of modern culture.

1. The Pre-modern Synthesis

2.  The 17th century and the age of reason : 1787 – Newton’s Principia

3. The possibility of a non-religious culture

B. Cultural Background: The moral accounting of Modernity

1. E. Durkheim – anomie and the cult of the individual

2. G. Simmel – rationalization

3. M. Weber – disenchantment

4. Three characteristics of modernity

• The split between the public and the private worlds and the subjectivizing of    

                 religion

• The loss of tradition and the breakdown of community and the  

marginalization of religion

• Disenchantment and the meaninglessness of religious language

C. Modernity as a new “sensibility” or new consciousness: nature as random and our

            need for control.

Part Two: Philosophical Background

A. G. F. Hegel (1770-1831)

1. Descartes’ idea of objectivity and the “self” as the common ground beneath the

              subject-object split

2. The self as model for the cosmos; the world “Geist.”

3. Three crucial concepts:

• Projection – the world as a projection of the Absolute
• Alienation – the world as the Absolute’s self-alienation
• Human consciousness as the Absolute overcoming alienation and coming to

             know itself; the dialectic of history: thesis – antithesis – synthesis

B. L. Feuerbach (1804-1872)

• Standing Hegel on his head
• The idea of the Absolute is a projection of human consciousness
• The idea of God represents our self-alienation
• The idea of God is where we overcome our self-alienation and come to

                           understand ourselves

• Feuerbach as the bridge to Marx and existentialism
• The relation between humankind and God is the same as the relationship 

             between the Universal and the particular in Hegel’s philosophy –

                                  God as a threat to human autonomy and freedom

 2. God as a projection of human consciousness Nietzsche – values as human creations; 

C. F. Nietzsche (1844-1900)

1. The Death of God

2. The “Ubermensch” or “higher man”

3. The survival of the fittest and the end of Christianity

4. Nietzsche and the history of modern atheism

5. Nietzsche as a prophet of modernity or why the century’s greatest atheist mourned the death of God

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

                    Religious Thought and Modern Society (modernity)

A. Historical Background: The break-up of medieval society and the rise of modern culture.

1. The Medieval Synthesis

2. Nationalism, capitalism, and the reformation

3. The 17th century and the age of reason

• 1648 – Peace of Westphalia
• 1689 – Toleration Act
• 1787 – Newton’s Principia

3. The possibility of a non-religious culture

B. Cultural Background: The moral accounting of Modernity

1. E. Durkheim – anomie and the cult of the individual

2. G. Simmel – rationalization

3. M. Weber – disenchantment

4. Three characteristics of modernity

• The split between the public and the private worlds and the subjectivizing of    

                 religion

• The loss of tradition and the breakdown of community and the  

marginalization of religion

• Disenchantment and the meaninglessness of religious language

C. Modernity as a new “sensibility” or new consciousness: nature as random and our

            need for control.

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

                                       Existentialism and Modern Atheism

                                       Part One: Philosophical Background

A. G. F. Hegel (1770-1831)

1. Descartes’ idea of objectivity and the “self” as the common ground beneath the

              subject-object split

2. The self as model for the cosmos; the world “Geist.”

3. Three crucial concepts:

• Projection – the world as a projection of the Absolute
• Alienation – the world as the Absolute’s self-alienation
• Human consciousness as the Absolute overcoming alienation and coming to

             know itself; the dialectic of history: thesis – antithesis – synthesis

B. L. Feuerbach (1804-1872)

• Standing Hegel on his head
• The idea of the Absolute is a projection of human consciousness
• The idea of God represents our self-alienation
• The idea of God is where we overcome our self-alienation and come to

                           understand ourselves

• Feuerbach as the bridge to Marx and existentialism
• The relation between humankind and God is the same as the relationship  

                                  between the Universal and the particular in Hegel’s philosophy –

                                  God as a threat to human autonomy and freedom

• God as a projection of human consciousness Nietzsche – values as human creations;  Sartre – existence before essence

C. F. Nietzsche (1844-1900)

1. The Death of God

2. The “Ubermensch” or “higher man”

3. The survival of the fittest and the end of Christianity

4. Nietzsche and the history of modern atheism

5. Nietzsche as a prophet of modernity or why the century’s greatest atheist mourned

        the death of God

                              Part Two: The Philosophy of John Paul Sartre (b. 1905)

1. “The self as project” – the primacy of freedom: radical freedom and total responsibility
2. “there is no reality except in action” – human nature, the human condition,   existence before essence, the “for-self” and the “in-self”.
3. Anguish, abandonment, despair, anxiety and atheism, the absurdity of freedom and authentic existence.

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

John Paul Sartre (b. 1905)

Sartre’s definition of existentialism —“existence before essence”

“There is no a prioi”

The distinction of the “for-self” and the “in-self”

“The self as project” – the primacy of freedom: radical freedom and total

responsibility

“Condemned to be free” —Anguish, abandonment, despair, anxiety and atheism, and

authentic existence.

                                          Soren Kierkegaard  (1813-1855)

“The poor, lonely existing individual” – existentialism as the antithesis of Hegel

The writer’s tasks

• Recovery of the individual
• The recovery of religion

“A spy for God”

“Anonymous authorship”

The pilgrimage of consciousness, “stages on life’s way,”

1. The aesthetic – the search for pleasure, repetition and boredom “The Seducer’s Diary”
2. The ethical – the search for meaning and the loss of self
3. The Religious: “Fear and Trembling” and the binding of Isaac

• “The teleological suspension of the ethical”
• “The individual is above the universal”
• “The inwardness that has no outwardness”

The Great Transition – the failure of the ethical

• Resignation — “Purity of heart is to will one thing”
• Faith — “Truth is subjectivity”

The self —“A relation that relates to itself” — and God — “that power that grounds

the self”

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

                                             Paul Tillich  (1886-1965)

1. Existentialism and the meaning of existence
• Ex-ist means to “stand out,” a verb, not a noun
• The polarity of being and non-being
• Two approaches – religion and philosophy
2. The life of tension

• Individuation and participation
• Dynamics and form
• Freedom and destiny

1. Existence and God

• Does God exist?
• Not a being but being itself
• Not particular but universal

1. Speaking of God – nature of religious language

• Signs – concrete and arbitrary
• Symbols – point, participate, create new meanings, not arbitrary, grow and die   

1. Faith as “ultimate concern”

• Distortions of faith  - intellectual, volitional, emotional
• Dynamics of faith – demands surrender, promises fulfillment, involves

                        entire self

1. A typology of religions – conflict between ultimacy and concern, universal and

                      Particular

1. The existential virtue of courage and the “God beyond God”
2. Tillich’s appeal: theology as translation

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

                                         Martin Buber

1. Biographical background: A man without ideology
2.  “All life is meeting”
• The primary relationships

           I-you (thou)

           I-it

• Different “I’s” but the same object
• The priority of the I-You
• The primacy of relationships and the problem of knowledge 
1. The Eternal You

            “All lines of relationship meet in the eternal you”

            “God is the subject who can never become an object”

            “The eclipse of God” and human responsibility

1. The primary pattern: rejection and reunion

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

                            KOWLEDGE (IN RELIGION AND SCIENCE)

• First Thesis: Knowledge begins with experience - The nature of experience: to

           perceive is to interpret

B. Theories in science (and religion)

• selectivity
• symbolization

C.. Second thesis: Knowledge begins with theory

• dialectical relation of theory and data

D. Personal knowledge: Passions. Skills, discoveries (M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge)

E. Proof: must we prove everything we say?

Augustine: "I believe in order to understand"

        1. proving something true

• proofs and assumptions
• proofs and disciplines

         2. Faith and the basis of knowledge as axioms and convictions

   3 .Faith and the basis of  knowledge as paradigms (Kuhn, The Structure of  

                 Scientific Revolutions)

   4.Faith and the foundations of knowledge as primary  perceptions

F. Verification: how do we validate the claims we make?

• Objectivity as communal verification
• Function: ideas as tools (S. Toulim, Philosophy of Science)

G. .Knowledge in Religion and Science

• Knowledge as a human construction
• Contexts, disciplines, maps, alternative realities
• The question of truth
• The metaphor of truth or the truth of the metaphor,
• On seeing the same thing differently

.

H. Summary: Religion & Science: similarities and differences

• Consciousness. knowledge and reality in religion & science

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

                                       RELATIVISM AND PLURALISM

Part One: The Philosophical Problem of Relativism A. Review: the nature of knowledge

• The contextual nature of knowledge: has truth become relative?
• Objectivity and communal verification: has truth become subjective?

B. The inevitability of relativism and the problem of pluralism

C. Traditional answers

• Absolutism: there is only one truth
• Relativism: there is no truth
• A dialogue between an absolutist and a relativist

D. Is there a middle way?

• Relativizing the relativizers (P. Berger)
• Critical relativism

Part Two: The Sociological Problem of Pluralism or how St. Paul never met a Buddhist and the Buddha never met a Jew

A. Pluralism and modern culture: a genuinely new situation for religion

B. Possible philosophical responses

• Hard absolutism: my truth is the only truth
• Hard relativism: there is no truth, nothing universal
• Simple universalism: all religions are basically the same d. inclusive or

          parochial universalism: all religions are really forms of my religion

• Radical pluralism: there are a variety of equally true religions

C. Possible practical responses

• Dialogue and discussion
• "Passing over and returning" (J. Dunne)

D. Relativism, pluralism, and the future of religion

• Must religious people be absolutists?
• How can relative religious traditions claim to give us knowledge of an Absolute?
• Can different absolute truths coexist peacefully? how might I choose what to believe?
• Is pluralism the problem or the solution?

840:222 ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dr. James W. Jones

                                       RELATIVISM AND PLURALISM

Part One: The Philosophical Problem of Relativism A. Review: the nature of knowledge

• The contextual nature of knowledge: has truth become relative?
• Objectivity and communal verification: has truth become subjective?

B. The inevitability of relativism and the problem of pluralism

C. Traditional answers

• Absolutism: there is only one truth
• Relativism: there is no truth

D. Is there a middle way?

• Critical relativism

Part Two: The Sociological Problem of Pluralism or how St. Paul never met a Buddhist and the Buddha never met a Jew

A. Pluralism and modern culture: a genuinely new situation for religion

B. Critical Relativism and the Problem of Religious Pluralism

C. Relativism, pluralism, and the future of religion

• Must religious people be absolutists?
• How can relative religious traditions claim to give us knowledge of an Absolute?
• Can different absolute truths coexist peacefully? how might I choose what to believe?
• Is pluralism the problem or the solution?

D. Toward a new approach to understanding religion

• Universal, secular, non-religious understandings of religion
• Particular, religious understandings of religion
• A Universal Religious Understanding of Religion

E. Other Possible philosophical responses

• Hard absolutism: my truth is the only truth
• Hard relativism: there is no truth, nothing universal
• Simple universalism: all religions are basically the same
• Inclusive or  parochial universalism: all religions are really forms of my religion
• Radical pluralism: there are a variety of equally true religions

F.  Possible practical responses

Dialogue and discussion

• "Passing over and returning" (J. Dunne)