Philosophical Studies

In the past ages, the conversion of the Jews was, at least in principle, always welcomed by the Christian side. Yet, ethical awakening after the Holocaust, the new self-critical attitude toward anti-Judaism in Christian theology, and the new perspectives in biblical studies which show that earliest Christianity was an integral part of the first-Century Judaism – all these factors influenced the position of numerous Protestant Churches and the Roman Catholic Church regarding their mission among the Jews. As a result, some Churches (or groups in the Churches) have given up any organized mission to the Jews (for ex. Roman Catholic Church); others defend the priority of dialogue over mission which has to be based on mutual witness to ones own faith; but there are also those who try to convert the Jews with specially designed methods. Although there is some significant agreement regarding the Christian attitude towards the Jews and Judaism in contemporary Western Christianity, the question of mission (and conversion) is one of the most difficult issues in Jewish-Christian relations today. It remains, in important sense, an open question.

Martin Kusch builds his communitarian epistemology on critical engagement with four major programmes in philosophy and sociology: the later Wittgenstein (especially Philosophical Investigation and On Certainty), the genealogy of knowledge (Edward Craig), the “strong programme” in sociology of knowledge (Barry Barnes, David Bloor), and the “historical epistemology” (e.g. Steven Shapin). In the first part of this paper, I will sum up three aspects of Kusch’s epistemology – (1) his use of Craig’s genealogy, (2) the Wittgensteinian idea of “knowledge” as a family-resemblance concept, and (3) the role of testimony in knowledge. In the second part, I will combine these aspects of communitarian epistemology with Janet Soskice’s view of religious language and a broadly Schleiermacherian theology of feeling, and then suggest an account of Christian knowledge of God which combines these three strands of thought.

The present essay is a reflection on philosophical and theological foundations for, and interpretation of, a neglected intercultural dialogue between Protestant Christianity and Animism/Shamanism. David Abram in his book The Spell of the Sensous (1997) develops an ecologically-minded defense of animism on the basis of Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. In his ecological critique of Christianity, Abram makes a case that Christianity has robbed nature of her sacredness and spiritual relevancy, and confined spirituality within the social space of the Church and a narrowly defined orthodox doctrine. Such spirituality entails a flight from our mortal, bodily nature which is intextricable from the rest of nature, claims Abram, and argues that Western destructivity towards the environment and non-human animals is a consequence of the Christian fixation on the written word of its founding text, anthropocentric view of spirituality, and Platonist reification of ideas set in a vertical opposition to the less valued, material/sensual world. While conceding that contemporary Christianity can not but acknowledge the validity of some of the central points of this ecophenomenological critique, there are powerful resources in Christian tradition that can rise to the challenge. One such is Friedrich Schleiermacher's philosophy of 'religious feelings', which I interpret in conversation with Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. Schleiermacher argues that the common feature of religious feelings is a fact that in them, human beings can experience a communion with the universe, or with 'all' – either through/with their social or natural environment. A healthy faith in God is related, for Schleiermacher, to such deep, phenomenologically non-intentional aspects of being-in-the-world. Despite great theological and cultural differences between Christianity and animism, a progressive-Protestant understanding of Christian spirituality shares with animism at least one important wisdom: it is ethically and religiously/spiritually significant that we humans are related to our environment on a depth-phenomenological level.

The article engages with two contemporary understandings of Schleiermacher’s notion of feeling which are in important aspects in conflict: a social understanding (Kevin W. Hector and Christine Helmer) and an existentialmystical understanding (Thandeka). Using the phenomenological category of ‘existential feelings’ drawn from the work of Matthew Ratcliffe, I argue that they can be brought into a coherent overall account that recognizes different aspects of feeling in Schleiermacher’s work. I also suggest that such an interpretation of Schleiermacher’s concept of religious feeling offers a different and better understanding of the role of feelings in religious experience and belief than the contemporary ‘perception-model’ of religious experience.

The paper examines the discussion from the late 1980ies to the present of most influential understandings of, and attitudes towards, non-Christian religions in British Protestant theology. Starting with the liberal-inclusivist and pluralist perspectives of John Macquarrie and John Hick, respectively, influential during 1970s and 1980s, I examine different theological reactions to pluralism. Special attention is given to the evangelical (represented by Leslie Nebwign and Alister McGrath), the postliberal (Rowan Williams, Nicholas Adams), and the radical orthodox (John Milbank) responses to the pluralist paradigm. All three schools of thought enjoy considerable influence in contemporary British theology. Furthermore, among recently developed positions that attempt to move the debate forward and overcome the universalist-particularist dichotomy in Christian theology of religions are the so-called 'postliberal-evangelical-universalist' approach by Tom Greggs, and the (very different) pluralist-syncretist approach of Perry Schmidt-Leukel. In the concluding discussion, I argue that the (over-)emphasis on particularism, characteristic for the evangelical, postliberal and radical orthodox positions, has impoverished Christian theological approaches to non-Christian religions and need to be thoroughly rethought.

Religious Plurality and the Slovenian Military Chaplaincy
Gorazd Andrejč and George R. Wilkes

This study focuses on the the ways in which religious diversity features in and affects the activities, the structure and the attitudes of the military chaplaincy in the Slovenian Armed Forces (SAF). The chaplaincy's future is shaped by the fact that this is a post-Communist state with a historically Catholic majority affected by a vibrant conflict over secular-religious relationships, a conflict evoked in regular debate between the politically dominant parties of the Left and Right. This study illustrates how chaplaincy staff are affected by this polarization, and explores the extent to which their treatment of religious diversity supports their attempts to surmount the constraints placed on chaplaincy by the polarization they experience.


Brief Description of the Book:

Title: Military Chaplaincy in an Era of Religious Pluralism: Military–Religious Nexus in Asia, Europe, and USA. Oxford/New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Edited by Torkel Brekke and Vladimir Tikhonov

Part of Religion and Democracy Series

Present-day militaries are often microcosms of the societies that maintain them. Unsurprising then that the armed forces have to come to terms with the question of religion, a subject that has increasingly become of importance in modern nation states.
At the very heart of these connections between the armed forces, religion, and society is the institution of military chaplaincy. Acting as spiritual guides, military chaplains contribute to war efforts by espousing the legitimacy of state violence and preserving the mental health of soldiers. Their role in performing the last rites of the fallen is also of paramount importance Through cross-cultural analysis and taking into account the diversities of military chaplaincies, this volume examines how they mirror societal attitudes towards the armed forces and also contribute in shaping them. Comparing the varied cultural and political contexts of the USA, India, Slovenia, South Korea, Japan, and many other countries, the book takes a pioneering step towards broadening the horizons of existing scholarship in this field.

About the Editors

Torkel Brekke is Deputy Director and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway. He is the author of several books, among them Faithonomics: Religion and the Free Market (2016) and Fundamentalism: Prophecy and Protest in an Age of Globalization (2012).
Vladimir Tikhonov is Professor at the University of Oslo. Recently, he published Modern Korea and Its Others: Perceptions of the Neighbouring Countries and Korean Modernity (2015) and co-edited (with Torkel Brekke) Buddhism and Violence: Militarism and Buddhism in Modern Asia (2012).

Table of Content:

Introduction: Military Chaplaincy in Comparative Perspective
Torkel Brekke

1. Religious Teachers in the Indian Army
Torkel Brekke
2. Religious Plurality and the Slovenian Military Chaplaincy
Gorazd Andrejč and George R. Wilkes
3. Paths Untrodden in Japanese Buddhist Chaplaincy to the Imperial Military
Micah Auerback
4. ‘Operation Dhamma’: The Sri Lankan Armed Forces as an instrument of Buddhist Nationalism
Iselin Frydenlund
5. Military Rabbis as Community Builders: The Israeli Case
Ori Goldberg
6. The Divine Is in the Details: Managing Religion in Pluralizing Militaries
Kim Philip Hansen
7. Pluralistic Permutations: The Thai Buddhist Military Chaplaincy
Michael Jerryson
8. From Confessional to Concessional: The Adaptation to Religious Pluralism by the Chaplaincy of the Norwegian Armed Forces
Bård Mæland and Nils Terje Lunde
9. Religion in the Sepoy Army of British India
Kaushik Roy
10. Twilight of the Padres: The End of British Military Chaplaincy in India
Michael Snape
11. South Korean Military Chaplaincy in the 1950–70s: Religion as Ideology?
Vladimir Tikhonov

The question of the relation between religious experience and Christian belief in God is addressed in radically different ways within contemporary theology and philosophy of religion. In order to develop an answer which avoids the pitfalls of the ‘analytic perception model’ (Alston, Yandell, Swinburne) and the ‘overlinguistic’ model for interpreting Christian religious experience (Lindbeck), this thesis offers an approach which combines a phenomenological study of feelings, conceptual investigation of Christian God-talk and ‘belief’-talk, as well as theological, sociological and anthropological perspectives. At the centre of the interpretation developed here is the phenomenological category ‘existential feelings’ which should be seen, it is suggested, as a theologically and philosophically central aspect of Christian religious experiencing. Using this contemporary concept, a novel reading of F. Schleiermacher’s concept of ‘feeling’ is proposed and several kinds of Christian experiencing interpreted (like the experiences of ‘awe’, ‘miracle of existence’, ‘wretchedness’, and ‘redeemed community’). By way of a philosophical understanding of Christian believing in God, this study offers a critical interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘religious belief’, combining Wittgensteinian insights with Paul Tillich’s notion of ‘dynamic faith’ and arguing against Wittgensteinian ‘grammaticalist’ and ‘expressivist’ accounts. Christian beliefs about God are normally life-guiding but nevertheless dubitable. The nature of Christian God-talk is interpreted, again, by combining the later Wittgenstein’s insights into the grammatical and expressive roles of God-talk with Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on linguistic innovation and Roman Jakobson’s perspective on the functions of language. Finally, the claim which connects phenomenological, conceptual and theological strands of this study is a recognition of a ‘religious belief-inviting pull’ of the relevant experience. Christian religious belief-formation and concept-formation can be seen as stemming from ‘extraordinary’ existential feelings, where the resulting beliefs about God are largely but not completely bound by traditional meanings.

Introduction
1. Phenomenology of Existential Feelings Within a
Broader Philosophical Context
2. Schleiermacher’s ‘Gefühl’ as Existential Feeling
3. Wittgenstein, Belief-Attitudes, and ‘Hinge-
Certainty’
4. Beyond the Wittgensteinian Grammaticalist View
of Religious Belief
5. The Expressive Among the Functions of Language
6. God-talk, Feelings and Beliefs
Conclusion

Online: https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/10262

Mystical experience can be interpreted as experience in which existential feelings have a prominent role - unintentional, all-encompassing, affective states which open (or close) the world of possibilities of being for one and enable intentionality (beliefs, emotional feelings, etc.) in the first place (Heidegger, Ratcliffe). What is the relationship between relevant existential feelings and Christian religious language? In this essay I am asking this question with the help of a phenomenological understanding of existential feelings, late-Wittgensteinian understanding of religious language, and a protestant (Schleiermacher-Tillichian) mystical theology. The result is a somewhat counter-intuitive "late-Wittgensteinian phenomenology of mystical experience", which is possible, however, because Wittgenstein's critique of (Jamesian) religious experience is not a complete rejection, i.e. anti-experientialist, but aimed at a particular model of the mind in which an 'inner person' supposedly looks at an 'internal screen of consciousness'. Once such picture of religiously significant, felt experience is abandoned, a late-Wittgensteinian phenomenology of feelings is enabled which, I argue, is a promising framework for understanding the relationship between certain kinds of existential feelings and religious language.

In this paper I examine possibilities and limitations of interpreting Wittgenstein’s understanding of religious belief with the help of Paul Tillich’s notion of dynamic faith. It has been claimed that Tillich’s method in theology is incompatible with Wittgenstein’s anti-metaphysical stance toward religion in general (D.Z. Phillips). While this may be the case in relation to some aspects of Wittgenstein’s approach and Tillich’s approach respectively, I will argue that, on the question of the nature of religious belief, Tillich’s notion of existential doubt as a positive and constantly present (if not always actualized) aspect of faith can provide a theoretically fruitful counterbalance to Wittgenstein’s strong emphasis of religious faith as unquestioning certainty. The “collaboration” is possible because the later Wittgenstein, contrary to an influential interpretation (recently, G. Shoenbaumsfeld, M. Kober), does in fact leave room for doubt as a live possibility in genuine religious believing, and (contra Lindbeck) doesn’t deny certain kinds of felt experiencing an important role in religious language- and belief-formation. However, this collaboration between a Wittgensteinian and a Tillichian understanding of religious belief-cum-doubt cannot be stretched too far. The reason is the following: Tillich’s understanding (in Systematic Theology I) of the way in which religious/existential beliefs can be “tested” – i.e. the way he frames the possibility of “experiential verification” of belief in God – remains irreconcilably at odds with Wittgenstein’s rejection of any genuine verification of religious beliefs. For, despite some openness to the role of doubt in religious believing, any kind of verification can only be inextricably tied together with the “evidence-giving game” for Wittgenstein, where evidence-giving makes sense only for “ordinary” and not for “extraordinary” (religious) beliefs. Finally, I will compare my reading of Wittgenstein through Tillich with a similar, liberal-theological interpretation of Wittgenstein advocated recently by Klaus von Stosch, presenting both parallels and some differences between his interpretation and mine.

Wittgenstein's work is especially relevant for understanding ‘hard’ kinds of dialogue: intercultural, interfaith and religious-secular dialogue, i.e. dialogues between individuals or groups with different overall perspectives on reality as a whole, and orientations in life. Wittgenstein emphasized the fact that different world-pictures – and hence, we can extrapolate, different religions and cultures – are often characterized by different depth-grammars. But he also affirmed important ‘connecting links’ between these: in his later work he repeatedly writes that a persistent grammatical investigation reveals that the roots of most language games are not in intellectual reasoning but in instinctive reactions. While these are not necessarily 'good', they comprise 'non-intellectual grounds' that enable - especially if dialogue partners persist in joint, cross-worldpicture grammatical investigation for some time - significant degree of interfaith and intercultural (literal) communication.

In this paper, I explore the possibility of reading Wittgenstein’s understanding of religious belief with Tillich’s concept of existential/religious doubt, especially as developed in his Dynamics of Faith. I will argue, first, that Wittgenstein’s understanding of religious belief as a deep certainty of a grammatical remark is not the same as his understanding of hinge-certainty of “hinge propositions”, and that the relevant difference is that Wittgenstein leaves room for the possibility of doubt in the former but not in the latter. I then argue that Tillich’s concept of dynamic faith by which Tillich explicates the role of doubt internal to religious believing can significantly enrich the Wittgensteinian conception of religious belief. Despite the notable differences between Wittgenstein’s thoughts and Tillich’s overall system of theology, Tillich’s treatment of the concept of “faith” signals a possibility of a more positive way of relating Wittgenstein’s grammatical investigation and Tillich’s mature understanding of philosophical theology. At the end of the essay, responding to D.Z. Phillips’ negative assessment of Tillich’s theology in the name of Wittgenstein, I will suggest what that more positive way of relating the two might look like.

This article presents some of the challenges that face the young people and interfaith activists in Bosnia-Herzegovina today. Significant degree of ethno-religious segregation, poorly functioning state institutions, and ongoing economic hardships for many, offer little encouragement and many obstacles to effective youth interfaith dialogue in the country. Activists testify that the knowledge of the religious ‘other’ among young people in Bosnia-Herzegovina today is notably low. On a more positive note, a level of awareness in society over the importance of younger generations' involvement in reconciliation is high and, despite the aforementioned obstacles, several exemplary projects are going on and bearing fruit among increasing circles of the youth of Bosnia-Herzegovina.