From Philosophy of Religion to Philosophy of Religious Experience: On New Tendencies in French Phenomenology of Religion

• Published in: Religions (Basel, Switzerland ) Vol. 15; no. 1; p. 120
• Main Author: Zgórecki, Przemysław
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2024
• Subjects: Analysis; Christianity; Christians; Clothing industry; Consciousness; Exegesis & hermeneutics; Experience (Religion); Hypotheses; Phenomenology; phenomenology of religion; Philosophy; Philosophy and religion; Philosophy of religion; Realism; Religion; Religious aspects; Religious experience; Spirituality; theological phenomenology; Theology; France; Italy
• ISSN: 2077-1444; 2077-1444
• DOI: 10.3390/rel15010120

Contemporary thinking on religion is confronted with the challenge of shifting from a ‘philosophy of religion’ to a ‘philosophy of religious experience’. This challenge, on which the common future of philosophy and theology depends, is not to draw a line between the two, but rather to cross that very line. Crossing the boundary between philosophy and theology, which is what is being discussed here, means transcending its naive geometric understanding in order to take up the old task of thinking in a new way. This is a challenge to both philosophy and theology because it is an existential, or rather an experiential, task. It is about a specific experience and a specific way of life that emerges from it, which must be described in philosophy and at the same time elaborated in theology. This is perhaps the greatest challenge to religious thought. The most representative recent attempts to meet this challenge will be traced below. As we shall see, the best method for both philosophical and theological description of religious experience seems to be phenomenology. The latter allows a free exploration of this experience, while avoiding the trap of falling into the limitations set by either philosophy or theology unduly separated by the boundaries set by a conventional academic rigor. The problem of this article is the quest of exploring religious experience itself: the possibility of such an undertaking, its method, and its future. The considerations presented beneath will lead us to conclude that religious thought, to survive and develop further, needs a specifically understood conversion: its future lies, namely, in converting to experience.