Judaism, Christianity, and the Religion of Pure Reason

2020 ◽  
pp. 302-320
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religion Of Reason

This chapter reads Kant’s Religion as a response to Part II of Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem. Mendelssohn had argued that different peoples can have different ways of practicing the common religion of reason, and that the commandments of Judaism are intended only as occasions for reflection, valid for Jews, on these truths, while other religions can get at them in different ways. In the first two parts of his Religion, Kant argued that the central ideas of Christianity are uniquely well-suited as symbols of the religion of reason, and he further argued in Part III of the book that morality requires a single church of practitioners. However, he then argued that this church must be “invisible” and ultimately transcend all scriptural religion. Mendelssohn’s insistence on the acceptance of religious diversity seems more plausible than Kant’s confidence in the ultimate transcendence of all visible churches.

Public Theology as Christian Witness: Exploring the Genre

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
John de Gruchy
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
The Common ◽  
Christian Witness

AbstractThis article explores the genre of public theology from the specific context of South Africa, while looking for the points of commonality set out by Duncan Forrester. Since the phrase 'public theology' refers to an engagement between theology and politics in specific locations, its content will be diverse and, yet, there is much that diverse public theologies share. Moreover, good practice in public theology requires that secularity and religious diversity are taken seriously. Consequently, Christian witness in secular democratic society means promoting the common good by witnessing to core values rather than seeking privilege for the Christian religion. In particular, this article offers the anti-apartheid and other activities of Joseph Wing and Douglas Bax, as well as the academic work of Denise Ackermann and the political service of Alex Boraine as examples of good practice in public theology in South Africa. The article concludes with the affirmation that public theology implies engagement in matters of public importance either through debate or action and always with self-critical theological reflection.

Pluralism in Religion and American Education

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana L. Eck ◽  
Brendan Randall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
American Education ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Established Fact ◽  
The Common

The United States is among the most religiously diverse countries in the world. Although such diversity is not a new phenomenon, its degree and visibility have increased dramatically in the past fifty years, reigniting the debate over a fundamental civic question: What is the common identity that binds us together? How we respond to religious diversity in the context of education has enormous implications for our democratic society. To the extent that previous frameworks such as exclusion or assimilation ever were desirable or effective, they no longer are. Increased religious diversity is an established fact and growing trend. The United States needs a more inclusive and robust civic framework for religious diversity in the twenty-first century—pluralism—and this framework should be an essential component of civic education.

scholarly journals Hermann Cohen, Maimonides, and the Jewish Virtue of Humility

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Erlewine
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religion Of Reason ◽  
Hermann Cohen ◽  
Bear Witness

AbstractThis paper explores Hermann Cohen’s engagement with, and appropriation of, Maimonides to refute the common assumption that Cohen’s endeavor was to harmonize Judaism with Western culture. Exploring the changes of Cohen’s conception of humility from Ethik des reinen Willens to the Ethics of Maimonides and Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, this paper highlights the centrality of the collective Jewish mission to bear witness against the dominant order of Western civilization and philosophy in Cohen’s Jewish thought.

scholarly journals Kant, Hegel, and the Bounds of Thought

2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 56-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Deligiorgi
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Absolute

Hegel's relation to Kant is often portrayed in terms of epistemic impatience. For W.H. Walsh, for example, whereas Kant seeks to ‘demonstrate that certain kinds of thing [cannot] be objects of human knowledge’, and thus that there are ‘limits to men's cognitive aspirations’, Hegel issues the ‘demand that thought be free to range unchecked wherever it chooses’ and claims the ‘Absolute’ as an object of human knowledge. There are two flaws in this standard account. First, it underestimates the cognitive confidence of Kant's project of a critique of pure reason. Central to this project is the idea that reason has the resources to adjudicate its own claims and thus to know itself. Second, it neglects Hegel's conception of dialectic as the inner discipline of thought. I shall deal with each of these issues in turn. The first part of the paper examines the intellectual commitments entailed by the very idea of a critique of pure reason; the second part addresses the boundary-determining function of dialectic. A fuller understanding of what is meant by ‘critique’ and ‘dialectic’ should enable us not only to re-assess Hegel's relation to Kant, but also to retrieve their shared conception of philosophical reflection as rational self-knowledge. The aim of this paper therefore is to highlight the common ground between the two projects, rather than to emphasise their critical distance. I seek to show that Hegel shares Kant's conviction that ‘philosophy consists in knowing its bounds’ (seine Grenzen zu kennen), even though he accords such knowledge a different status from Kant.

scholarly journals Godsdiensgelykwaardigheid, -uniekheid en -verdraagsaamheid ’n Prinsipiële besinning (2)

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. Van der Walt
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Religious Intolerance ◽  
The Common

Religious equality, uniqueness and tolerance. A principial reflection (2) The previous article discussed three interrelated issues, viz. religious diversity, religious intolerance (and even violence) and the constitutional acknowledgement of religious freedom and its implications in practice. This article builds on insights gained in the previous article, but also tackles three other closely related new issues, viz. religious equality, religious uniqueness and religious tolerance. The main problems to be answered in this connection are the following: If religions are regarded as legally equal, does it also imply that every one of them can be regarded as of equal value or equally true? If Christians reject the principial equality of all religions, in what sense should Christianity be regarded as unique? What should be the ground(s) for and nature of religious tolerance in the light of the common phenomenon of religious intolerance, conflict and even violence?

scholarly journals The Concept of Virtue in Religious Philosophy of Hermann Cohen

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 398-412
Author(s):  
Z. A. Sokuler
Keyword(s):  
Usual Sense ◽  
Religious Philosophy ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
The Social ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religion Of Reason ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Hermann Cohen

The concept of virtue was of great interest and importance for H. Cohen. In the interpretation of this concept in his latest work “Religion of reason from the sources of Judaism” the most important concepts of this work were brought in the focus: the specificity of definition of what is the religion of reason; understanding of the uniqueness of God; correlation; messianism. For Cohen, a single system of virtues presupposes a single and unique ethics and correlates with the idea of the unity of humanity. The last concept, in his opinion, maturated in the fold of monotheism. Humanity is one, because all people are creations of the unique God. “Religion of reason” treats of the common universal virtues. In the religion of reason, the idea of God and morality are inextricably linked. Cohen rejects metaphysical speculation about the nature of God, about the attributes of God inherent in himself. The religion of the mind speaks of God only in correlation with man. God is a moral ideal and reveals himself to man by giving him moral commandments. Morality connects man and God, and this connection is revealed in detail by Cohen in the theme of virtues. Understanding God as Truth is important for the disclosure of this topic. The corresponding virtue for a person is faithfulness to truth, or truthfulness. In addition to truthfulness in the usual sense, for Cohen, faithfulness to truth requires correct worship of God. The correlation culminates in the idea of messianism, which is interpreted by Cohen as an endless movement of a whole humanity to the social justice.

Multiple Religious Belonging and the ‘Deconstruction’ of Religion

Exchange ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daan F. Oostveen
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Understanding

Abstract In this article I briefly survey the meaning of ‘religion’ in the context of multiple religious belonging and the consequences of the so-called deconstruction of religion to it. I argue that we can distinguish three hermeneutics on religion and religious diversity in theology and religious studies: a hermeneutics of multiple religions, a hermeneutics of hybrid religiosity and a hermeneutics of deconstruction. Both a hermeneutics of hybrid religiosity and a hermeneutics of deconstruction challenge the common understanding of multiple religious belonging as belonging to multiple religious traditions. Following Wouter Hanegraaff and Paul Hedges, I will argue that the deconstruction of religion could make us aware that the idea of religious traditions are ultimately reified imaginative formations, which give rise to the so-called ‘World Religions’ paradigm. Following from this, we can learn how the imagination of multiple religions to which an individual can belong is always in interaction with the imagination of a hybrid or dynamic religious belonging.

scholarly journals The Burqa Affair across Europe

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-120
Author(s):  
Anna Piela
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Religious Discrimination ◽  
European Law ◽  
Common Space ◽  
Personal Rights ◽  
The Common ◽  
Full Face ◽  
P 53

This edited collection provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal contextswithin which the “burqa affair” is located across Europe. It was published followingthe December 2012 “Secularism and Religious Diversity in Europe:Opportunities and Perspectives” conference organized under the auspices ofthe RELIGARE project (Religious Diversity and Secular Models in Europe).Its aims are ambitious and commendable: to analyze the socio-legal situationof face-veil wearers in eight Western European countries where regulationsrange from outright bans (disguised under the tagline of banning full or partialface coverings to avoid reasonable allegations of religious discrimination directedat the already besieged European Muslim populations) to the simultaneouslack of general prohibitions but specific rulings against full-face veils.Despite the baffling personal interpolations made by some contributorsto express their personal dislike of this practice (e.g., p. 5), they neverthelessrecommend in their collective conclusion that legislators should not introducegeneral prohibitions into the common space (i.e., “the physical territory thatpeople must necessarily enter to meet their basic needs,” p. 53), for doing sowould unjustly criminalize those who exercise their personal rights, be theyreligious or human. However, they do allow for restrictions based on a caseby-case approach.The contributions are significant in that they display the frequent tensionthat exists between the local anti-burqa movements’ introduction and enactmentof local and regional anti-face-veil legislation and the various nationallegal systems, European law, and human rights frameworks. Many of the casespresented illuminate the issues under discussion in national contexts. For example,Lisbet Christofersson’s “A Quest for Open Helmets: On the DanishBurqa Affair” and Jorn Thielmann and Kathrin Vorholzer’s “Burqa in ...

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