Today we need a scientific analysis of basic world views which expresses genuine understanding of the sacred. Such world views hold the main principles for cognizing reality. A ‘substratum’ understanding of the Sacred is characteristic of mythology and magic, wherein all spiritual phenomena are closely connected with a material or corporeal bearer. Functional understanding of the Sacred is developed by the earliest civilizations in which the spiritual is separated from the material. For example, Plato, Aristotle, and Neoplatonism created European functional theology. Substantial understanding of the Sacred appears in Christianity. Here we find the synthesis of substratum and functional peculiarities which are looked upon as "creaturous," revealed by God to man and integrated in their fundamental unity as the basis for variety. It is only unity which avoids the mixing of the three images of an object-substratum, function, and substance-that allows us to cognize a true object. In reproducing the Sacred as such, we can show the Sacred as the unity of the mysterious and the obvious, the static and the dynamic, and the passive and the active.

Der Sinn der philosophischen Gottesbeweise besteht in der Hauptsache in der Widerlegung pseudowissenschaftlicher Argumente des Atheismus und in der reflexen Unterstützung des religiösen Glaubens. Zwischen der philosophischen Theologie und der Religion kommt eine wesentliche Dialektik zur Geltung. Wird die philosophische Theologie, die eben im philosophischen Gottesbeweis kulminiert, abgelehnt, so tritt an ihre Stelle die Gefahr des Abgleitens in einen irrationalen Dezisionismus. Die Grundgedanken der metaphysischen Gottesbeweise sind unwiderlegbar und damit jederzeit gültig und tragfähig. Ihre für das moderne Bewußtsein erforderliche methodische Absicherung und systematische Entfaltung zeigen, daß sie in einen anthropologischen Gottesbeweis übergehen, dessen Erfahrungsbasis der Mensch selbst ist. Alle Sätze der philosophischen Theologie sind Sätze über die Welt und den Menschen; sie erklären deren Bedingung der Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit, samt den Implikationen dessen, was ihr ‘Urgrund’ ist. Darüber hinaus ist der Einwand, der philosophische Gottesbeweis sei in bezug auf den religiöses Glauben überflüssig, ebensowenig berechtigt wie der Einwand, der philosophische Gottesbeweis rationalisiere den religiösen Glauben. Einerseits sucht der (weit verstandene) Glaube reflexe Einsicht, andererseits läßt theoretische Gotteserkenntnis dasjenige intakt, worauf es dem religiösen Menschen unbedingt ankommt: die ‘Funktion’ der freien Hingabe.

In this paper, I shall argue as follows: (1) Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit deserves to be called a phenomenology of sacrificial spirit: it sacrifices the world with its unsolvable contradictions on the alter of dialectics by depriving it of its materiality and corporeality in favor of the appearance of the one spirit-world (Weltgeist) to which nothing seems strange anymore, with one exception-the Sacred. The idealistic sacrifice of the world goes hand-in-hand with an unholy sacrifice of the Sacred through the thorough profanization of the latter by historicizing, finalizing, instrumentalizing, and rationalizing it. This disappearance of the Sacred is the condition of the possibility of modern reason. Since it corresponds to the disappearance of the world out of objectivity (Gegenständlichkeit), which is increasingly being conceived of as a mere means-purpose relation, it also means the loss of a whole range of human experiences. (2) It is George Bataille’s philosophical task to reveal the ‘impossible’ and ‘unthinkable’ ‘Other’ of Hegel’s sacrificial spirit. In his a-theological Theory of Religion (1948), he pleads for a ‘return to the Sacred’ by withdrawing the ‘thing’ from the sphere of profane objectivity and restoring it to its sacred origin. This restitution, according to Bataille, is the meaning of ritual sacrifice as a religious practice, as we encounter it in archaic religions. It is an interruption of the profane production process, in which suddenly and violently the Sacred reappears.

I discuss some of the problems of the application of the notion of truth to religion. After introductory remarks on the problem called truth and religion to show the peculiarity and the actuality of the problem discussed, I examine the different meanings of the notions of truth and religion, in order to formulate some comments on the different concepts of the truth of religion. I name the main types of religious truth, and consider the competencies of the diverse types of the study of religion to determine the truth of religion, and to analyze how to understand the truth of distinct types of religion. I conclude with some remarks on the appropriate approach to the question of the truth of religion. The considerations show that there is no simple answer to the question of the truth of religion in general or in particular. As it turns out the answer requires some relativizations, among others to the notion of truth and of religion. The notions of true religion and credibility of religion, though at first sight distinct, seem to condition each other. The notion of the truth of religion can be a valuable instrument of interpretation of religious phenomena not only in philosophy and theology of religion, but in the social sciences of religion too.

Jean-Luc Marion claims that God must no longer be thought of in terms of the traditional metaphysical category of Being, for that reduces God to an all too human concept which he calls "Dieu." God must be conceived outside of the ontological difference and outside of the question of Being itself. Marion urges us to think of God as love. We wish to challenge Marion’s claim of the necessity to move au-delà de l’être by arguing that Marion presents a very limited understanding of Being: he interprets the Being of God as causa sui. The thought of Edith Stein will be employed in order to bring out a fuller sense of the metaphysical notion of the Being of God. Stein offers us a rich backdrop against which we can interpret more traditional readings of God as Being, thereby challenging Marion’s claim of the caducity of Being.

Dans cette communication, je voudrais donner un aperçu de la pertinence de la pensée de Fernand Dumont (philosophe, sociologue, théologien et chrétien engagé) en regard des débats contemporains en philosophie de la religion. La première partie fait ressortir les principaux points de désaccord entre Dumont et Marcel Gauchet (Le désenchantement du monde, 1985) quant à la place et au rôle du christianisme dans une société sécularisée. Alors que, selon Gauchet, la religion chrétienne est destinée à ne subsister que sous le mode d’une expérience personnelle et subjective du sacré, Dumont s’efforce de penser les conditions d’ "une conversion de la pensée chrétienne" au drame de l’histoire et du salut collectif. Dans la seconde partie, je centre l’attention sur les idées et les valeurs qui fondent la foi anthropologique de Dumont. La comparison avec "l’humanisme transcendental" de Luc Ferry (dans L’homme-Dieu ou le sense de la vie) permet de saisir, par contraste, toute la profondeur et l’originalité de l’humanisme dumontein, ainsi que sa portée critique à l’égard des humanismes désincarnés.

The history of Heideggerian commentaries confront us with a string of parallel concepts: metaphysics and theology, onto-theology and Christian theology, thought and faith, Being and God, and so on. It should also be noted that these different dual concepts have served, in various ways, several strategies for the interpretation of Heidegger. These various strategies are summarized as follows: the relation between philosophy and theology in the thought of Heidegger is threefold and should be read to the rhythm of his thinking according to the themes of facticity and transcendence.

The disputes between philosophy and religion can be avoided and solved not by the contemporary separation of their conclusions but because Socrates-Plato taught us how valid judgments are established. Plato is the founder of "scientific logic", because he discerned the instantaneous relations of similar, different, equal through the intelligibility between ultimate distinctions. This relation, not very accurately called "like" by Socrates, holds too for the intelligence in its relation to the intelligibility of the distinctions of "can" and "must", of which every person is "implicitely" aware, and both "can" and "must" are known as "real possibilites". Final, ultimate distinctions are perceived since they are "evident per-se ". They cannot be doubted by the person which is conscious of itself. These immediate relations are distinguished from relations in which one term is "in the likeness of" the other, which expresses a judgment due to an active comparison, established by man through thinking and through physical actions, placing those relations into the region of time and space. They are the relations of kinship that are in the "likeness of"- (syggenes called in Greek). It will be shown why Aristotles criticism of Plato's use of the word "partaking" has fanned the dispute among the students of Plato, who consider the timeless, eternal reality of distinctions - called ideas by Plato- of highest, ultimate importance. It justifies the validiy of human insights and judgments. This is also not correctly understood by the Christian theologians, who hide behind supernatural revelations and dogmas. Plato did not jutify his metaphysical insights with "transcendental moonshine" as the follower of Aristotle accuse him.

The Canadian philosopher J.L. Schellenberg has recently put forward an argument for atheism based on the idea that God is supposed to be perfectly loving and so would not permit people to be deprived of awareness of his existence. If such a deity were to exist, then, he would do something to reveal his existence clearly to people, thereby causing them to become theists. Thus, the fact that there are so many non-theists in the world becomes good reason to deny the existence of God conceived of in the given way. I first raise objections to Schellenberg’s formulation of the argument and then suggest some improvements. My main improvement is to include among the divine attributes the property of strongly desiring humanity’s love. Since to love God requires at least believing that he exists, if God were to exist, he must want widespread theistic belief. The fact that so many people lack such belief becomes a good argument for atheism with respect to God conceived of in the given way. Some objections to this line of reasoning are considered, in particular the claim that God refrains from revealing himself to people in order to avoid interfering with their free will or to avoid eliciting inappropriate responses from them or some other (unknown) purpose. An attempt is made to refute each of these objections.

I give reasons to believe that our present situation is not as bleak as some would have it. I show how the historical process can be understood in terms of a Premodernity (Aquinas), Modernity (Hegel), and Postmodernity (Nietzsche) division of human history. I argue that both Hegel and Nietzsche were fully aware that Modernity was over and that a negative Postmodern condition was to necessarily precede a consummatory positive one. Also since history may be taken to have reached its goal at the end of Modernity (with Reasons grasp of Christianity’s principle), Postmodernity can best be understood in terms of its central task of elevating all humanity into absolute knowing (the knowing of the God within)—an elevation via Reason and Faith achievable only by the abolition of the God outside, i.e., by a negative followed by a positive period of history, which Schelling refers to as the Church of John, a synthesis of Catholicism and Protestantism, the perfected Church.

Normally, activity is regarded as discernible, but according to relativity theory whatever is discernible lies in the past of the discernible. Only the present subjective immediacy is properly active. Subjectivity is properly understood as present becoming; objectivity as past being (so Whitehead). I propose that we extend the domain of subjective immediacy to include the future as well as the present. This future universal activity is pluralized in the present in terms of the many actualities coming into being. Subjectivity is the individualization of becoming, and so can apply to the future as a whole as well as to particular present subjects. The future as divine grows out of Whitehead's revisions of traditional notions of omnipotence and omniscience. But he separates creativity (best understood in terms of Hindu and Buddhist thought) from the God of Western theism. This separation can be overcome if God is future creativity individualized in its own realm, which is the source of the creativity within each of us.

If an alleged experience of God can constitute evidence for God’s existence, then it must be possible for God to be a perceptual particular, that is, a substantive, enduring object of perception. Furthermore, if several such experiences are to be cumulative evidence for God’s existence, then it must be possible to reidentify God from experience to experience. I examine both a "conceptual" and an "epistemological" argument against these possibilities that is derived from the work of Richard Gale. I argue that neither of these arguments is successful. For God to be a perceptual particular, he must have an inner life; for God to be reidentified across experiences, he need not exist in dimensions analogous to the spatiotemporal.

Curiously, in the late twentieth century, even agnostic cosmologists like Stephen Hawking—who is often compared with Einstein—pose metascientific questions concerning a Creator and the cosmos, which science per se is unable to answer. Modern science of the brain, e.g. Roger Penrose's Shadows of the Mind (1994), is only beginning to explore the relationship between the brain and the mind-the physiological and the epistemic. Galileo thought that God's two books-Nature and the Word-cannot be in conflict, since both have a common author: God. This entails, inter alia, that science and faith are to two roads to the Creator-God. David Granby recalls that once upon a time, science and religion were perceived as complementary enterprises, with each scientific advance confirming the grandeur of a Superior Intelligence-God. Are we then at the threshold of a new era of fruitful dialogue between science and religion, one that is mediated by philosophy in the classical sense? In this paper I explore this question in greater detail.

Religion acquired a bad press in philosophical modernity after a rivalry developed between philosophy and theology, originating in philosophy’s adopting the role of our culture’s superjudge in all of morality and knowledge, and in faith’s coming to be seen as belief, that is, as assent to propositional content. Religion, no longer trust in the face of mystery, became a belief system. Reason as judge of propositional belief set up religion’s decline. But spirituality is on the rise, and favors trust over reason. Philosophy could make space for the spiritual by acknowledging a difference between belief as propositional assent and religious faith as trust, a distinction lost with the mixing of Greek philosophy and Christian faith. Artistic or religious truth disappeared as authentic forms of knowing. But Michael Polanyi reintroduced knowledge as more than can be thought. Also postmodern and feminist thought urge us to abandon autonomous reason as sole limit to knowledge. We have space again for philosophy to look at openness to the spiritual. If spirituality confronts us with the mystery of the existential boundary conditions, religion may be a form of relating to the mystery that confronts us from beyond the bounds of reason. That mystery demands our attention if we are to be fully in touch with perennial issues of human meaning.

The doctrines of the Socinians represent a rational reaction to a medieval theology based on submission to the Church’s authority. Though they retained Scripture as something supra rationem, the Socinians analyzed it rationally and believed that nothing should be accepted contra rationem. Their social and political thought underwent a significant evolutionary process from a very utopian pacifistic trend condemning participation in war and holding public and judicial office to a moderate and realistic stance based on mutual love, support of the secular power of the state, active participation in social and political life, and the defense of social equality. They spoke out against the enserfment of peasants, and were the first Christians to postulate the separation of Church and state. The spirit of absolute religious freedom expressed in their practice and writings, ‘determined, more or less immediately, all the subsequent revolutions in favor of religious liberty.’(1) The precursor ideas of the Socinians on religious freedom later were expanded, perfected, and popularized by Locke and Pierre Bayle. Locke’s ideas were transplanted to America by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson who implemented them in American legislation. The rationality of the Socinians set the trend for the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment and determined the future development of many modern intellectual endeavors.

In what follows, I examine the renaissance of the idea of freedom as a fundamental measure of humanity in the work of Karol Voitila (Pope John Paul II). I examine as well Karol Voitila's concept of the human person as found in his work "Love and Responsibility" as well as the encyclical Evangelium vitae, which affirms the incomparable value of the human person. I also consider the celestial predestination of the human person as discussed in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Charles S. Peirce sketches "a nest of three arguments for the Reality of God" in his article "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God." I provide careful analysis and explication of Peirce's argument, along with consideration of some objections. I argue that (1) there are significant differences between Peirce's neglected argument and the traditional arguments for God's existence; (2) Peirce's analysis of the neglected argument into three arguments is misleading; (3) there are two distinct levels of argument that Peirce does not recognize; and (4) it is doubtful whether the argument meets all the criteria set by Peirce himself.

I clarify Hume's concept of miracle with Kierkegaard's concept of absolute paradox. I argue that absolute paradox is like that miracle which, according to Hume, allows a human being to believe Christianity against the principles of his understanding. I draw such a conclusion on the basis that Kierkegaard does not think Christianity is a doctrine with a truth value and, furthermore, he holds that all historical events (such as miracles) are doubtful. Kierkegaard emphasizes the absolute paradox as the condition of faith in such a way that it becomes close to Hume's idea of personal miracle which causes the subversion of the believer's principles of understanding. Hence, the absolute paradox cannot be a possible supporting event (Hume's first miracle) for the credibility of Christianity. Absolute paradox more closely approximates Hume's second miracle insofar as it makes persons believe contrary to their custom and experience.

I defend the uniqueness and irreducibility of religious forms of life from rationalistic criticisms. I argue that such a defense of religion affirms the fact of incommensurability between differing forms of life. Put differently, such a defense tacitly affirms ineradicable pluralism as well as cultural diversity. I contend that the defender of religion who argues from the incommensurability of this form of life must also give up all traces of "worldview exclusivism," the dogmatic claim to possess the one truth about the world. Finally, I argue that if we are to move into a future of peace, we must acknowledge that various forms of life are lived on a level playing field. That is, all forms have important contributions to make, and none have revelatory advantages over another. A critical discussion of differing forms of life will be concerned with cultural desirability of these forms.

In this essay I examine the relationship between Sartre's phenomenological description of the "self" as expressed in his early work (especially Being and Nothingness) and elements to be found in some approaches to Buddhism. The vast enormity of this task will be obvious to anyone who is aware of the numerous schools and traditions through which the religion of Buddhism has manifested itself. In order to be brief, I have decided to select specific aspects of what is commonly called the Theravadin tradition as being representative of Buddhist philosophy. By choosing to look primarily at the Theravadin tradition, I am by necessity ignoring a vast number of other Buddhist approaches. However, in my view, the Theravadin sect presents a consistent Buddhist philosophy which is representative of many of the major trends within Buddhism.