The philosophy of the death of God, pronounced by Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882, resulted in many negative consequences experienced in contemporary culture. The Nietzschean critique of the classical hierarchy of values inspired radical declaration about the death of metaphysics and the end of human history. In its form developed in deconstructive postmodernism, this philosophy proclaims the dissolution of the human subject. Consistently, it rejects the very concept of human person and tries to reduce human existence to the level of psychoanalitic, social and/or cultural phenomena. In this conceptual framework, either the classical version of humanism must be questioned or its nihilistic reinterpretation, in terms of a humanism of despair, should be adopted.

Globalism denotes the most recent direction of economical and political changes that are going on in the world. The new structures presuppose some ideological assumptions: a conception of man and cultural dominating trends. This is a naturalistic and liberalistic vision of man, a vision that does not take into account his transcendent dimension.Encounters and controversies between globalism and religion, that is Christianity, focus on the conception of man. Christianity assumes, proclaims and safeguards the conception of man as person. In this view person comes from the Personal God and goes towards Him; God is man’s ultimate source of existence and the Highest Good at which man is supposed to aim through his life.The personalistic conception of man requires that in the globalistic processes man should occupy the primary place. All structures, including economical and political, should take man in all personal dimensions, together with the ethical and religious ones.Christianity as a universalistic religion is not against globalization; it takes care that its related processes are carried out in the full truth about man and aim at the authentic good of all people.

The article consists of two parts. Part one presents various philosophical and theological standpoints concerning the case of plurality of religions. Part two concerns the possibility of philosophical appraisal of various religions. The philosophical background makes it possible to say that each religion has its subjective reasons in the ontic structure of human being. Philosophical solutions can be useful for discussions concerning the object of religion, the doctrinal truth, coherence and consistency and also credibility of revelation.

Bernard Lonergan SJ (1904-1984), the most famous English exponent of transcendental thomism („the American Rahner”), attached greater and greater importance, particularly after his existential turn, to religious experience. For him, the most significant form of this experience is being-in-love-with-God as basic, proper fulfillment of man’s unrestricted thrust of self-transcendence in the direction of being, truth and value. It is experience of self-actualization, of complete integration, of complete fulfillment, it is a dynamic state of love in an unrestricted fashion, without qualifications or conditions or reservations or limits. This experience cannot be man’s achievement, it is always granted to us as a gift, it is in principle independent of knowledge, we can only receive it, accept it when it comes quietly, secretly, unobtrusively. It is the core and focus of religious life, for Christians it is experience of God’s grace; however the analysis of the main common features of religious experience in all highly developed religions demonstrates that, in point of fact, it is often a very similar experience, it is often the same experience. Religions have then a common origin, common essential realm. Of course, the understanding and interpreting of this experience depend always on the horizons of meaning in which it occurs and these horizons are as varied as the concrete, historically conditioned human cultures, human religious traditions, human temperaments, human lives are. Due to them, this one primordial experience manifests itself in countless ways, in countless religious expressions, but in spite of that it remains the real root and ground of the unity of all religions, it remains the basis for dialogue between them.

The attitude of the Catholic Church towards this matter has been briefly mentioned in the introduction. The main body of the article presents an attempt of philosophical (realistic) characteristic of the nature of religious meditation. Ontological pluralism and creationism have been found as one of the main metaphisical features of the world. However our main attention has been drawn to the antropological implications of the act of meditation.In the article some works concerning religious meditation written by St. Thomae Aquinatis have been recolled. Not only for reasons however but mainly because of timless, realistic solution given there.Meditation is shown as sensual-intellectual cognitive act when the thruth concerning God and the human being is considered. This truth, of natural and revelled kind, due to sensibilities are expressed in the impressions which have an impact to the intellect for further considerations. Cognitive operations are followed by an appetite constituted in acts of senses and mainly in acts of will.The paper has also shown some further consequences of the obtained results. It has been pointed out that an act of religious meditation cannot be seen as one of difficult to explain structure, relies on drowning in unconceptualized atmosphere of God’s presence. On the contrary, religious meditation appears to be a highly rational act, having objective foundations, understable (to some extend) for a human being.

The paper discusses Henryk Elzenberg’s views on religion and mysticism, as they are scattered in his essays and critical writings, especially in his intellectual diary Kłopot z istnieniem [A Trouble with Existence]. The author relates his evolution of thought in the context of the philosopher’s biography. He was first interested in epistemology and axiology (ethics and aesthetics) and then got involved in religious and mystic quest. The type of intuitive knowledge through participation in the object, which eludes positive and conceptual definitions, is called by Elzenberg intusception. The religious perspective affects also his relation to values. Initially, it was treated as a universal system of perfect determinants of ethical action and aesthetic experiences. In later Elzenberg’s axiology they took on religion meaning, as metempirical and transrational signs − symbols − of Infinity (Indeterminacy). Eventually, this „religion of values” gives way to mysticism of negation, individual and solitary, in which the leading role is played by the „sense and taste of Infinity”. The author puts forward an interpretative hypothesis i.e. Henryk Elzenberg’s via negativa was undoubtedly inspired by his Buddhist reading list. It may be traced to Jewish cabalistic tradition, although the author of A Trouble with Existence never refers to this source.

Cleanthes’ hymn is unique among extant fragments of the Early Stoa in respect to its form and its content. Cleanthes says that poetry is closest to theological truth and the truth that Cleanthes brings to the fore more than other Stoics is the personal character of God. God is a person and men can, and ought to, treat him accordingly by directing their prayers and worship to him. The hymn indicates that the Stoics were not fully satisfied with the discussion of theological matters in philosophical treatises in the context of physics, cosmology, and logic. The knowledge of logical laws allows man to know Logos, the knowledge of physics leads to the recognition of God as an active principle and designing fire. To see what is a proper relation of man to God, a literary form should be used in which the personal character of this relation is best seen. Cleanthes’ hymn is saturated with the Stoic philosophy, but it also goes beyond this philosophy by indicating its inadequacy in respect to fulfilling spiritual needs of man. With this hymn, Cleanthes becomes a forerunner of the Roman Stoicism with its emphasis placed on religion and ethics.

The author takes up the question of the beginning of philosophy − its mythological-religious sources and autonomic constitution. He depicts Greek mythology (Homer and Hesiod) and its picture of the world as a cultural background for the first philosophers. He turns our attention to the formal (object, method and goal) and semantic (vision of the world and its „causes”) similarities and differences between the mythological thought and the philosophical thought. He claims that philosophy did not derive from mythology as a result of its evolution or transformation, but through a radical change in cognitive attitude: accepting the autonomy of the world and of human reason, and, eventually, a break-off from mythological religion.