OAKESHOTT ON THE CHARACTER OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: NEED THERE BE A CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION?

Zygon® ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Fuller
2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 278-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Veldsman

AbstractThe more recently proposed epistemological models (cf Gregersen & Van Huyssteen, eds., Rethinking Theology and Science: Six Models for the Current Dialogue) within the context of the science and religion debate, have opened up galaxie,s of meanirzg on the interface of the debates which are inviting for exploralive, theological travelling. But how are we epistemologically to judge not only oui journets but also the rethinking of the implications of these epistemological models for our understanding of religious experience and our experience of transcendence? The interdisciplinary space that has been opened up in an exciting post-foundational manner zuithirz these very debates, leaves us as rational persons, embedded in a very specific social and historical context, with the haunting cognitive pluralist question on how to reach beyond the limits of our own epistemic traditions (Wentzel van Huyssteen). This question is pursued as an effort on the one hand to unmask epistemic arrogance and, on the other hand, not to take refuge in the insular comfort of internally closed language-systems. It is an effort to address relativism and a 'twentieth-century despair of any knozuledye of reality' (Polkinghorne). It is finally an effort to conceptually revisit the implications of tltese models for our understanding of our culturally embedded religious experience.


Horizons ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-295
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Hohman

This article examines John Haught's proposal for a “metaphysics of the future” within his program for an evolutionary theology. After offering an overview of Haught's metaphysics and its roots in process thought, it argues that Haught's account undermines his larger goal of dialogue between science and religion by making all knowledge of reality dependent on a prior and explicitly religious experience. This critique is brought into greater relief through a comparison with the thought of Bernard Lonergan, whose epistemology and metaphysics Haught has engaged numerous times throughout his career. The final section suggests one way of reframing Haught's project that avoids these serious issues without jettisoning his important core insights.


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Dilley ◽  

For those who wish to affirm a culture that values human life, the relationship between science and religion continues to be of import. Some, like Edward O. Wilson, think that naturalistic science will eventually account for all phenomena, even religious experience itself. This essay considers Wilson's hypothesis by surveying three classic explanations of universal religious belief: Sigmund Freud's projection theory, Charles Darwin's evolutionarry paradigm, and John Calvin's sensus divinitatis. Both Freud's and Darwin's views suffer from self-referential and evidential problems. In contrast, Calvin's model handles well major objections of religious pluralism and atheism. Of these three, Calvin's view is superior. Religion may not be reducible to a naturalistic explanation, and those who wish to promote a culture of life ought to view the relations between science and religion in a non-Wilsonian fashion, eschewing reductionism.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Stephan Kigensan Licha

Abstract This paper explores the role of Hara Tanzan 原坦山 (1819–1892) in the transformation of Buddhism into an “experiential religion” during the Meiji period. Scholars such as Sharf have argued that this transformation is due to Western influence on figures such as DT Suzuki. Japanese language scholarship has instead shown that in the early 1900s, the notion of Buddhism as experiential religion was already widespread, considering Tanzan as a predecessor of this discourse. I argue that Tanzan was among the first to discover the importance of “experience” in the confrontation with science, yet interpreted it as an empirical standard for both religious and scientific knowledge. However, Tanzan did not yet establish the separation of science and religion characteristic of the modern understanding of both terms. I conclude that Tanzan was one starting point in a dialectic that is integral to the indigenous genealogy of “religious experience” in Japan.


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