Philo of Religion (Introduction)

Philosophy of Religion (Philo4)

Michael Jhon M. Tamayao, Ph.L., M.A.  Lecture 1

Inasmuch as this is a “philosophical” study of religion, we are concerned, not with the particulars (different regional religious beliefs), but with the logos, essence, foundational qualities found on all religions. Thus, John Hick posited that philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy, and not religion, that studies the prior phenomena of religious experience and the activities of worship and meditation on which religions or any belief systems rest and out of which they have arisen. And for the same reason, William James was also interested  not in particular religious institutions, rituals, or, even for the most part, religious ideas, but in “the feelings, acts, and experiences wherein men apprehends themselves to stand in relation to  the divine.”

And also for this reason we will venture on the concepts of The Sacred and Mystery, the general root of all religion. William James in “Varieties of Religious Experience” proposed his own philosophico-psychological account about religion. For him, Religious experience is the root of religion, as indicated by one of his chapters. Religious experience for him could further be classified under the “mystical psychological state of consciousness,” the root in turn of all religious experience and as such the inner possibility of religion. Before going into the specific psychological accounts of James regarding this state of consciousness, let us first discuss the more general concepts of the Sacred and the Mystery. After all, Mystical Experience has for its object – intangible that is – the Mysterious or the Sacred.

WHAT IS THE SACRED?

a.       An Overview

For religion to be, it must be sacred. The sense of the sacred is the order of reality in which Religion is inscribed. In order words, the defining sense of religion, more than that of having a deity, is the sense of the sacred. This order or reality, however, is not to be found in the ordinary perceptible world precisely because it is “another” order of reality. Thus, it is hard to find a “determinate something” which lends itself to the identification with the Sacred. It could be “symbolized” but never “objectified.”

b.      Is the sacred based on the subject or on the object?

The Sacred is found in the dialectical tension between subject and object. This means that the subject or the worshipper must be in a certain “attunement”, called the “religious attitude” or the “believing attitude,” which opens himself to the Sacred other. The Object, for its part, may be a natural entity, on institution, or a concrete act in which the sacred is recognized. The sacred then is neither subjective nor objective, but the result of the encounter between subject and object. Religion does not rise from object or from the subject alone but from their dialectic. (Ex. Marx, hardcore atheist)

c.       Sacred vs. Profane

Simply put, the sacred is that which is cut-off from the profane. However, the irruption of the Transcendental sacred happens in the ordinary mundane events and objects of the world. Just as in James’ account, the sense of the sacred/mystical is usually awakened by nature, prayers, and exercises. But although the sacred or the sense of the mystical is awakened by the ordinary mundane objects and activities, it is precisely this that it transcends. Thus, the different objective religious manifestations of the modern day religions does not constitute the true and foundational component of a religion. What is more substantial is that sacred or religious dimension which dawned through them.

d.      The Religious Experience

The root of religion is the religious experience. We will have to remind ourselves that experience is not synonymous with “mere fantasy” or “subjective arbitrariness.” As James specified, “our senses encounter certain states of facts.” Thus epistemologically, it is like any subject-object encounter in the world. However, it has a “noetic” character, meaning the knowledge of the experience could only be known directly. The knowledge acquired therein is non-transferable.

Moreover, just like any epistemological encounter, the experience is a situated subject’s encounter with reality. Thus, in any religious experience, there is a unique blend of the subject’s frame of reference as well as cognitive-affective disposition, on the one hand, and the object, on the other.

There is also, in the religious experience, the irruption of a Superior Reality or Being into man’s field of vision, a Reality or Being uncontrollable by man, and for this reason, awesome. We could connect this to James’ reference to the “ineffability” of the mystical or religious experience and the “passivity” happening in the subject. The subject who experienced the dawn of the Other cannot adequately “define” what has transpired (ineffable). Although we could express them in different theological propositions, symbolisms or icons, as is seen in the present day religions, these attempts are always incomplete inasmuch as there is always something beyond those words or objects which we can utmost only feel. And also because of the awesomeness of what has transpired to him, the subject tends to surrender his will to the superior power.   

e.       Mysterium tremendum et fascinans  

This classic phrase underlies the existential tension that transpires in the subject. This also underlies the psychological tension of the mystic subject found in James’ article. Although the subject finds the Other which has dawned to him as tremendously overwhelming, he still opts to come closer to it. As the Totally Other dawns, the subject sees his essential finitude; that he is a powerless creature in face with the Supreme Reality. The subject is “insecure” of his finite, unclean, and sinful existence. We call this as man’s existential Angst.  In contrast to fear, Angst has no particular object of dread. What one is “anxious about” is the very finitude of his existence and that which he is “anxious to” is the Other Reality/Mystery.    

But on the other hand, the subject still finds the Holy/Sacred/Mystery admirable.  The religious man is incapable of extricating himself from the Other’s pull. He is enchanted; he is enthralled. Precisely as Totally Other it draws the religious man while keeping him at bay. And for this the statement “Familiarity bridges contempt” applies. Something familiar is no longer mysterious and interesting, but something which does not totally reach out will remain unknown. Thus, the Mystery is always in a perfect balance of detachment and constant reaching out for without the one it cannot be what it is.

The sacred makes its presence felt in the ordinary and the everyday through the mediation of the profane. It manifests its sacrality only by touching the common-place, and yet setting a perimeter of sanctity around it. This tension involved in the manifestation of the Sacred in the profane reflects itself in the psychological ambivalence with which man deals with the Sacred: fascination coupled with dread.   

f.        Taboo and Sacrality

Incontrast to its negative non-technical connotation, taboo is a positive concept in the study of religion. A taboo is the recognition of the plenitude of power/holiness/Being that evokes in religious man the sense of the “dangerous.” This form of recognition is again rooted in man’s dread on the Holy Mystery. It is a recognition that affirms one’s radical fragility and the Other’s overpowering presence. At rock bottom, there is taboo only because there is something sacred.

g.       The Religious Position is Courageous

Religion is always a surrender and response to the Unknown, to the Mysterious, and to the finitude of one’s existence. And it is this surrender that is the most difficult. The intellect always clamors for the unity of what it perceives and so attaches meaning to everything in order to comprehend it. But whenever unbridgeable gaps enter this necessary unity, man resorts to two things; the one cowardly and the other courageous. Imposing what you “want” to understand something is pathetic. It is like making your own ideal illusionary world. This is precisely a cowardly act because one is afraid to face the greater part of reality – the Mystery. One is said to be courageous if he overcomes this “dread” of his finitude. He accepts his finitude and thus highlights the infinity of reality.

“Man is indeed in his greatness when he falls on his knees, before God,” the ultimate expression of the Mystery. (From Blaise Pascal) For by doing this he lives by the Truth of reality. And what truth is that, it is truth that is predominantly untruth. Thus, to explain the Truth of Reality is to accept its Untruth and uncertainties.

It is the sense of mystery that highlights every religion; a mystery which is dreadful but at the same time beckoning. We want to escape from it, but it always charms us back into its grips. Thus the state of religion is always in the state of tension, a tension which is always seen as a paradox.

Religion does not give a rule for safety, but the high hope of adventure.(A.N. Whitehead) We could associate the sense of safety to the everyday comforts of public existence. The comfortable everyday existence exempt man from the adventure of authentic existence. It displaces him from his original state of solitude and responsible existence. True religion is not really a herd-phenomenon but that which brings man face to face with his original solitude, to his dreadful existence. We are not sure what life is to bring us because it is in itself a mystery, but we are responsible for being the captain of our lives – To be the sole agent responsible for controlling and surrendering it to the Mystery of Reality. This is why Whitehead stated “Religion is what man does in his solitude.”

h.        If the religious dimension of reality is a Mystery, will it just occupy an insignificant part of the truth of the Reality?

The question presupposes that we each have our own idea of “truth”. What is truth? For the past two millennia, philosophers ventured on this critical problem and have arrived at different answers. Some proposed a correspondence conception of truth, others, like James, posited a pragmatic one, and still some attributes truth to the all perfect Being. For me the most enlightening account when it comes to religion is the existentialist conception of truth.

Truth for the existentialists is based on the Greek’s rendition of it as alethea (unconcealment). Truth is first and foremost a process, i.e. a process of unconcealment. Truth is an “occurrence” that is not bound by the staticness of propositional truth. This truth grounds all truth inasmuch as this is truth as “openness” to the possibility of the comportment of man and object. As a matter of fact, truth or the process of unconcealment is a mode of man’s existence. In the actualization of possibilities from nothing to something, truth transpires. In its broadest sense, truth is the dynamic happening found in reality; every day is a moment of truth.

But the truth of reality is predominantly untruth. The process of unconcealment presupposes the state of original concealment. Thus, the full essence of truth must also speak of its negativity; “the question of the essence of truth as unhiddenness is itself the question concerning hiddenness.” Inorder words, hiddenness is always and necessarily present at the occurrence of unhiddenness and helps the later come to itself. Truth is the primal strife that could establish itself as unconcealedness only through its original concealedness. “Truth is Untruth.”

Aletheia is not simply removing a cover but it is an unending process of uncovering the concealed. Reality or Life is an unending process of unconcealment. But that which we unconceal is overwhelming, beyond the finitude of our human existence. This portion of truth belittles us and asks us to surrender to its magnitude. No words can express it and no amount of human endeavor can exhaust its full significance. For this reason, this part of truth (untruth), which is the most dominant, is called “Mystery.” The Mystery is therefore the foundation of truth.  

i.         The Mystery

The recognition of the mystery is also the acknowledgement of its superiority, not by way of comparison, but precisely in the intuitive realization that it is beyond all comparison.

The Mystery is “totally other” and its total otherness is what is immediately apparent in its epiphany. It is not a perceptible “object” so that it cannot be categorized. Man, however, always wants to device ways for him to comprehend the Mysterious. He objectifies the sacred in an effort to render the Mystery more approachable and manageable. Although effective, this will not suffice. The Mystery will eternally remain the Totally Other. The Mystery does not simply yield to the way man has organized things, and to his neat patters and categories. But although they are “ineffable”, as James put it, they fill the horizon of man. Its overpowering presence is always full!

Traditional concepts of the Absolutely Transcendental Being/ God/ Divine is rooted in the experience of the intensity of the plenitude that excludes all composition. God is ultimately simple, as Medieval philosophers state. Brahman is SAT – CIT –ANANDA, Pure Being, Consciousness, and Bliss. The Divine / the Mysterious Mystery is pure and beyond expression. All the metaphysical sophistications of religions are means by which man refer to a non-perceptible, non-conceivable “presence” in religious experience.

j.        The Sin that is Man

(Problem of original sin: can a baby, who is still unconscious of his actions, acquire sin? More so, the original sin?)

The Sacred inevitably highlights the imperfect nature of man – that he is and will always be detached from the Holy Mystery. Man is different from the Divine and the difference is highlighted by his finitude and the Other’s infinity. This original gap or innate separation of man and the Mystery is the basic sense of “sin” in philosophy of religion. Primordially, then, sin is not an evil action or infraction of norms but the existential state of man. Man is always guilty!

Although the Holy attracts him, man is always “kept off” because “he is not pure”, “he is not worthy” or “he is guilty.” The tension of attraction-repulsion is the primordial context in which the sense of guilt and sin should be understood. The original sin for example, as other universal myths of separation, is man’s very condition of separation from God. It is first and foremost a state (separation and exile) and not an action.               

k.       Hierophany

One way or the other, the Sacred, though Totally Other, must make its presence felt in intra-mundane reality, a presence that nevertheless leaves intact its otherness and irreducibility. This is exactly the concept of HIEROPHANY: the manifestation of the sacred in the profane. Religion is the ultimate product of this non-combining fusion. Although it makes its presence felt, it is never wholly transparent. It can only present itself through “symbols.”

How does the symbol work? Does it recollect the idea it represent like in any other mundane symbolisms? No. The symbol of the sacred works by way of PRESENTING (= making-present) the Sacred.  It is the “there” of the sacred; the portal or the window to the Other. It is however not the Sacred itself. (ex. The burning bush is not God himself. The bread and wine is not the sacred itself. The Statues are not the Holy themselves, or even more the saints themselves.) Here are different hierophanic objects:

a.       Nature and its different elements as mediations of the divine.

b.      The sacred is present in the history of man.

c.       Hierophaies of a personal type. Maniestation of the Divine “in persona.” Christ, Krishna, etc..

The Hierophanic objects have always been subject to human mutilations. Because man has the natural tendency to remove the vagueness of reality, he simplifies and controls the Mystery by controlling the hierophanic mediations. The return to the unadultered encounter with the mysterious has always been the cry of revolutionists.

l.        Basic Propositions about religion

1.       Religion is a cultural product of man. Yes it is a cultural product of man. But reducing religion to just this view is very antithetical.

2.       There are various elements of various religions which are comparable.

John Hick’s Account of Faith in Freedom

Hick’s account of faith as interpretation (in Faith and Knowledge, 1966) necessarily leads us to a discussion on faith as a voluntary act of interpretation. Because interpretation is limited (unevidenceable-indemonstrable), there must be a “margin of freedom” that lets the subject interpret the object in an uncompelled way. No interpretation, inasmuch as it is finite and open to error, has a dogmatic say about the world. Thus, the world is open to various interpretations, and it is this openness to various choices that characterize what Hick calls “cognitive freedom.” The theistic interpretation is just but one among the various interpretations subsidiary to man’s cognitive freedom.

                Epistemic Distance

In the epistemic structure of cognition, the subject is essentially divided from the object. Spatio-temporally, this assertion is evident. The possibility of the subject having an “absolute knowledge” of the object is totally closed off. No amount of human effort could erase this innate dichotomy. But although the subject and the object are essentially divided, they are also essentially related. The subject always thinks of an object and the object is always open for the subject. Thus, the subject is essentially related but is also essentially divided from the object.

The immediate implication of this epistemic distance is the subject’s freedom on how to cognize the object. We must take note however that the freedom implied in here is not absolute. The freedom of cognition must at all times operate within the perimeters of rationality and not simply from one’s caprice. This idea of “cognitive freedom” is a necessary correlate of the primordial distance between the subject and the object in the process of knowing (epistemic distance). For Hick, cognitive freedom and epistemic distance are synonymous concepts.        

Religious Interpretations Presuppose a Margin of Freedom

One of the main points consistently advanced by Hick in his project is the universality of “cognitive freedom” in man’s epistemic proceedings. This insinuates that “cognitive freedom” is not only unique to belief but is also possessed by the other kinds of interpretation.

By “cognitive freedom” or “epistemic distance” Hick means that a subject’s recognition of something significant in a certain situation is not compelled by the force of perception, but is a voluntary act of interpretation. Applying this to the theistic situation, the believer’s recognition of God in his everyday life experiences is not compelled by the force of perception, but is likewise a voluntary act of interpretation. Remember that the believer’s awareness of the divine is “mediated” by his everyday experience of the world. Meaning to say that on the process of interpreting what the cosmos is (recognition) and why it is like that (explanation), the believer does not directly perceive a God who orders the universe but rationalizes out of what he sees – what he “directly sees” mediates what he “truly sees”. It is in contemplating what one “truly sees” from what he “directly sees” that the margin of freedom enters. No one can give an ultimate truth of what he sees or interprets.

The process of religious interpretation is fairly similar to the inductive way of reasoning; it is extrapolating from a common set of data a cogent conclusion which will serve as a guideline for understanding the entire set as well as its individual elements. Religious interpretation is seeing the world as the orderly product of an all-powerful being. It is extrapolating from the common set of everyday worldly data the cogent conclusion that there must be a God who continuously sustains the order of the cosmos. From this context we can have a coherent view of the world as well as its individual elements. Ultimately, like any product of inductive reasoning, the religious standpoint is not absolute; it merely offers a “probable” view of the world. “Choosing” this “probable” stand is rooted in man’s cognitive freedom.  

                   Gradations in Cognitive Freedom

All awareness is interpretative and all interpretation presupposes a margin of freedom. For Hick, the higher the cognitive activity, the greater the freedom of interpretation. In the sensory level, for instance, if a drawn figure comes in contact with our eyes, we will interpret it according to what is perceived by the eyes. The sensory data acquired by the faculty of sight give a “controlled” interpretation of the specific figure. Controlled because there is a constant cognitive exigency on the level of sensation. Freedom of interpretation is limited in this lower level of cognition. But when for example I propose that “the drawn figure is beautiful,” my judgment is clearly uncompelled. Aesthetic judgment after all is a higher level of cognition. “Divorce is immoral” is similarly an interpretation which is freely concocted. It is neither universal nor necessary; like the aesthetic interpretation, it is markedly a free interpretation.

I am free to look at something in this way or that way, but I am also free “not” to look at them in this way or that way. This freedom to willfully refuse that which dawns as significant is also an offshoot of this cognitive freedom. Hick labels this as “willful incognition.” This usually happens in moral situations. Beggars, for example, pose a situation that morally obliges us to help, but more often than not we usually exclude from our mind this unwelcome obligation which dawns in us. Perverse as it may be the possibility of willful moral incognition underscores our cognitive freedom, the distance between occurrence and interpretation.

                Symbols as a Necessary Correlate of Epistemic Distance or Cognitive Freedom   

If there is a subject-object relationship, there is also the subject-subject relationship. Man’s being is not only a being-alongside-entities but also a being-with-other-men. For Hick, there is also an epistemic distance or cognitive freedom in the latter. Although man can have a cognitive and empathetic encounter with the significant other, the encounter still underscores human autonomy and incommunicability. This could further be highlighted by the concept of “Man as a symbolic animal.”

Characteristically symbols have a revealing and concealing principle. Being so, symbols are the cognitive safeguard of human autonomy and incommunicability. Although men can open his self through symbols, he simultaneously distances his self from others. Man’s subjectivity is intersubjectivity, but in intersubjectivity he maintains his identity. Thus by means of language, which is composed of variegated symbols, man is able to reveal at the same time conceal himself. Communication uses symbols with shared meanings through which men are able to commune with one another. The smile for example can be the shared symbol of friendship. However, it can also conceal spite but be pathetically interpreted in goodwill. The recognition of cognitive freedom has then led us to appreciating the crucial role of symbol. It is man as symbolic and symbolizing who can truly enjoy the attributes philosophy has traditionally ascribed him: freedom, autonomy, individuality and incommunicability. Symbol then is a necessary correlate of epistemic distance or cognitive freedom.

                Theistic Interpretation is an Act of Surrender

When the religious man believes, he situates his world, his concerns, even himself within the greater situation of God’s purposes and designs. Every theistic interpretation of reality is concomitantly an act of abdication on the part of man who must yield a position of centrality in the sphere of things to God. In the history of human thinking however, some did not surrender their centrality in the scheme of things. Feuerbach, Marx, and Sartre for example were men who did not accept their subordination to a still more comprehensive scheme of things. For them, non-subordination to a higher reality is the ultimate manifestation of freedom.

But for Hick, the act of surrendering in theistic interpretations is itself a free act. The act of faith is a free human act, for God never compels belief. He communicates himself in symbols. On man’s part this is what we called “mediated awareness,” i.e., in and through the awareness of his physical and human environments, man becomes aware of the presence of God. But a symbol is a proposal. God proposes; man disposes! In a very real sense, even God is helpless before man. Intelligence and freedom were the Creator’s risks.

                Natural Tendencies of Interpretation

More than solipsism and atheism, man has the innate tendency to interpret “realistically” and “theistically.” Solipsists are a rare breed and believing in their arguments is itself debunking them. It is however safe to say that most of us have no doubts about each other’s veridical existence, for if we do there is no reason for reading this paper. Almost all of us, too, recognize moral obligations, although we may not always agree on what these exactly are. There is therefore also a natural propensity to interpret social experiences as ethically significant. Man, finally, is homo religiosus because we find in him a propensity for interpreting the physical as well as the social environment as divinely significant. Religion, after all, is quite a universal occurrence, and atheism has always been the exception to the rule. However just as a person can be willfully insensitive to ethical demands, one can also be oblivious to the possibility of religious interpretation, or suppress it.  

                Faith in Freedom

Using John Wisdom’s allegory of the “invisible” gardener, we could vivify how faith is a product of freedom. The allegory is well-known and does not need of repeating. The point seems to be that theistic language is a different language-game and is used not to convey new information – “all the facts are in” – but alters our apprehension of things. It sets an object or a situation in new light which reveals it as a different object or situation. In summary, a theist (one who insists that an invisible gardener is at work) feels about the world differently from one who does not recognize God.

Faith is manifested in the subject’s free act of interpreting the world theistically. If faith is such, could we say that religious interpretations are merely expressions of a religious man’s subjective disposition? Yes, religious interpretations are expressions of a subject’s disposition but so are other interpretations. Moreover, they are not merely expressions of a subject’s disposition but they are assertions of an ontological fact. It is an assertion about one’s experience of the physical and human environments. Needless to say, what the theist talks about (everyday experience) is the same as that of the atheist’s only that their interpretations differ.

The key idea of the allegory is not that God really exists but that a theistic interpretation is not merely an expression of subjective disposition but the assertion of an ontological fact, an experience, Hick would say, mediated by one’s experience of the physical and human environments.

Conclusion

For Hick, if faith is an interpretative act, it must necessarily be a voluntary act. In the context of John Wisdom’s parable, Faith is “choosing” the believer’s standpoint that there is an “invisible gardener.” There is an act of “choosing” because of epistemic distance or cognitive freedom. There will eternally be a gap between the knower and the known so that variegated interpretations about the object are continually generated. In faith, the believer “chooses” to interpret the world as the product of a Divine Being (invisible gardener). It is at the same time “choosing” to surrender to that higher Being.

 Although the act of faith is an expression of one’s subjective disposition, it is also an objective interpretation, for that which the believer and non-believer interpret is the same. How then can an atheist acquire the stance of the believer if both the theistic and atheistic stances are equally tenable? Well the obvious answer is through the free act of faith, or as Kierkegaard puts it, the subject’s “leap of faith.” Unless the atheist is not open to the theistic stance then he or she will never appreciate and acknowledge the other’s rationality.   

Lecture Note on Philo of Religion

Philosophy of Religion

Michael Jhon M. Tamayao, Ph.L., M.A.  Lecture 1 (September 13 & 17, 2007) 

Inasmuch as this is a “philosophical” study of religion, we are concerned, not with the particulars (different regional religious beliefs), but with the logos, essence, foundational qualities found on all religions. Thus, John Hick posited that philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy, and not religion, that studies the prior phenomena of religious experience and the activities of worship and meditation on which religions or any belief systems rest and out of which they have arisen. And for the same reason, William James was also interested  not in particular religious institutions, rituals, or, even for the most part, religious ideas, but in “the feelings, acts, and experiences wherein men apprehends themselves to stand in relation to  the divine.”

And also for this reason we will venture on the concepts of The Sacred and Mystery, the general root of all religion. William James in “Varieties of Religious Experience” proposed his own philosophico-psychological account about religion. For him, Religious experience is the root of religion, as indicated by one of his chapters. Religious experience for him could further be classified under the “mystical psychological state of consciousness,” the root in turn of all religious experience and as such the inner possibility of religion. Before going into the specific psychological accounts of James regarding this state of consciousness, let us first discuss the more general concepts of the Sacred and the Mystery. After all, Mystical Experience has for its object – intangible that is – the Mysterious or the Sacred.

WHAT IS THE SACRED?a.       An Overview

For religion to be, it must be sacred. The sense of the sacred is the order of reality in which Religion is inscribed. In order words, the defining sense of religion, more than that of having a deity, is the sense of the sacred. This order or reality, however, is not to be found in the ordinary perceptible world precisely because it is “another” order of reality. Thus, it is hard to find a “determinate something” which lends itself to the identification with the Sacred. It could be “symbolized” but never “objectified.”

b.      Is the sacred based on the subject or on the object?

The Sacred is found in the dialectical tension between subject and object. This means that the subject or the worshipper must be in a certain “attunement”, called the “religious attitude” or the “believing attitude,” which opens himself to the Sacred other. The Object, for its part, may be a natural entity, on institution, or a concrete act in which the sacred is recognized. The sacred then is neither subjective nor objective, but the result of the encounter between subject and object. Religion does not rise from object or from the subject alone but from their dialectic. (Ex. Marx, hardcore atheist)

c.       Sacred vs. Profane

Simply put, the sacred is that which is cut-off from the profane. However, the irruption of the Transcendental sacred happens in the ordinary mundane events and objects of the world. Just as in James’ account, the sense of the sacred/mystical is usually awakened by nature, prayers, and exercises. But although the sacred or the sense of the mystical is awakened by the ordinary mundane objects and activities, it is precisely this that it transcends. Thus, the different objective religious manifestations of the modern day religions does not constitute the true and foundational component of a religion. What is more substantial is that sacred or religious dimension which dawned through them.

d.      The Religious Experience

The root of religion is the religious experience. We will have to remind ourselves that experience is not synonymous with “mere fantasy” or “subjective arbitrariness.” As James specified, “our senses encounter certain states of facts.” Thus epistemologically, it is like any subject-object encounter in the world. However, it has a “noetic” character, meaning the knowledge of the experience could only be known directly. The knowledge acquired therein is non-transferable.

Moreover, just like any epistemological encounter, the experience is a situated subject’s encounter with reality. Thus, in any religious experience, there is a unique blend of the subject’s frame of reference as well as cognitive-affective disposition, on the one hand, and the object, on the other.

There is also, in the religious experience, the irruption of a Superior Reality or Being into man’s field of vision, a Reality or Being uncontrollable by man, and for this reason, awesome. We could connect this to James’ reference to the “ineffability” of the mystical or religious experience and the “passivity” happening in the subject. The subject who experienced the dawn of the Other cannot adequately “define” what has transpired (ineffable). Although we could express them in different theological propositions, symbolisms or icons, as is seen in the present day religions, these attempts are always incomplete inasmuch as there is always something beyond those words or objects which we can utmost only feel. And also because of the awesomeness of what has transpired to him, the subject tends to surrender his will to the superior power.   

e.       Mysterium tremendum et fascinans  

This classic phrase underlies the existential tension that transpires in the subject. This also underlies the psychological tension of the mystic subject found in James’ article. Although the subject finds the Other which has dawned to him as tremendously overwhelming, he still opts to come closer to it. As the Totally Other dawns, the subject sees his essential finitude; that he is a powerless creature in face with the Supreme Reality. The subject is “insecure” of his finite, unclean, and sinful existence. We call this as man’s existential Angst.  In contrast to fear, Angst has no particular object of dread. What one is “anxious about” is the very finitude of his existence and that which he is “anxious to” is the Other Reality/Mystery.    

But on the other hand, the subject still finds the Holy/Sacred/Mystery admirable.  The religious man is incapable of extricating himself from the Other’s pull. He is enchanted; he is enthralled. Precisely as Totally Other it draws the religious man while keeping him at bay. And for this the statement “Familiarity bridges contempt” applies. Something familiar is no longer mysterious and interesting, but something which does not totally reach out will remain unknown. Thus, the Mystery is always in a perfect balance of detachment and constant reaching out for without the one it cannot be what it is.

The sacred makes its presence felt in the ordinary and the everyday through the mediation of the profane. It manifests its sacrality only by touching the common-place, and yet setting a perimeter of sanctity around it. This tension involved in the manifestation of the Sacred in the profane reflects itself in the psychological ambivalence with which man deals with the Sacred: fascination coupled with dread.   

f.        Taboo and Sacrality

Incontrast to its negative non-technical connotation, taboo is a positive concept in the study of religion. A taboo is the recognition of the plenitude of power/holiness/Being that evokes in religious man the sense of the “dangerous.” This form of recognition is again rooted in man’s dread on the Holy Mystery. It is a recognition that affirms one’s radical fragility and the Other’s overpowering presence. At rock bottom, there is taboo only because there is something sacred.

g.       The Religious Position is Courageous

Religion is always a surrender and response to the Unknown, to the Mysterious, and to the finitude of one’s existence. And it is this surrender that is the most difficult. The intellect always clamors for the unity of what it perceives and so attaches meaning to everything in order to comprehend it. But whenever unbridgeable gaps enter this necessary unity, man resorts to two things; the one cowardly and the other courageous. Imposing what you “want” to understand something is pathetic. It is like making your own ideal illusionary world. This is precisely a cowardly act because one is afraid to face the greater part of reality – the Mystery. One is said to be courageous if he overcomes this “dread” of his finitude. He accepts his finitude and thus highlights the infinity of reality.

“Man is indeed in his greatness when he falls on his knees, before God,” the ultimate expression of the Mystery. (From Blaise Pascal) For by doing this he lives by the Truth of reality. And what truth is that, it is truth that is predominantly untruth. Thus, to explain the Truth of Reality is to accept its Untruth and uncertainties.

It is the sense of mystery that highlights every religion; a mystery which is dreadful but at the same time beckoning. We want to escape from it, but it always charms us back into its grips. Thus the state of religion is always in the state of tension, a tension which is always seen as a paradox.

Religion does not give a rule for safety, but the high hope of adventure.(A.N. Whitehead) We could associate the sense of safety to the everyday comforts of public existence. The comfortable everyday existence exempt man from the adventure of authentic existence. It displaces him from his original state of solitude and responsible existence. True religion is not really a herd-phenomenon but that which brings man face to face with his original solitude, to his dreadful existence. We are not sure what life is to bring us because it is in itself a mystery, but we are responsible for being the captain of our lives – To be the sole agent responsible for controlling and surrendering it to the Mystery of Reality. This is why Whitehead stated “Religion is what man does in his solitude.”

h.        If the religious dimension of reality is a Mystery, will it just occupy an insignificant part of the truth of the Reality?

The question presupposes that we each have our own idea of “truth”. What is truth? For the past two millennia, philosophers ventured on this critical problem and have arrived at different answers. Some proposed a correspondence conception of truth, others, like James, posited a pragmatic one, and still some attributes truth to the all perfect Being. For me the most enlightening account when it comes to religion is the existentialist conception of truth.

Truth for the existentialists is based on the Greek’s rendition of it as alethea (unconcealment). Truth is first and foremost a process, i.e. a process of unconcealment. Truth is an “occurrence” that is not bound by the staticness of propositional truth. This truth grounds all truth inasmuch as this is truth as “openness” to the possibility of the comportment of man and object. As a matter of fact, truth or the process of unconcealment is a mode of man’s existence. In the actualization of possibilities from nothing to something, truth transpires. In its broadest sense, truth is the dynamic happening found in reality; every day is a moment of truth.

But the truth of reality is predominantly untruth. The process of unconcealment presupposes the state of original concealment. Thus, the full essence of truth must also speak of its negativity; “the question of the essence of truth as unhiddenness is itself the question concerning hiddenness.” Inorder words, hiddenness is always and necessarily present at the occurrence of unhiddenness and helps the later come to itself. Truth is the primal strife that could establish itself as unconcealedness only through its original concealedness. “Truth is Untruth.”

Aletheia is not simply removing a cover but it is an unending process of uncovering the concealed. Reality or Life is an unending process of unconcealment. But that which we unconceal is overwhelming, beyond the finitude of our human existence. This portion of truth belittles us and asks us to surrender to its magnitude. No words can express it and no amount of human endeavor can exhaust its full significance. For this reason, this part of truth (untruth), which is the most dominant, is called “Mystery.” The Mystery is therefore the foundation of truth.  

i.         The Mystery

The recognition of the mystery is also the acknowledgement of its superiority, not by way of comparison, but precisely in the intuitive realization that it is beyond all comparison.

The Mystery is “totally other” and its total otherness is what is immediately apparent in its epiphany. It is not a perceptible “object” so that it cannot be categorized. Man, however, always wants to device ways for him to comprehend the Mysterious. He objectifies the sacred in an effort to render the Mystery more approachable and manageable. Although effective, this will not suffice. The Mystery will eternally remain the Totally Other. The Mystery does not simply yield to the way man has organized things, and to his neat patters and categories. But although they are “ineffable”, as James put it, they fill the horizon of man. Its overpowering presence is always full!

Traditional concepts of the Absolutely Transcendental Being/ God/ Divine is rooted in the experience of the intensity of the plenitude that excludes all composition. God is ultimately simple, as Medieval philosophers state. Brahman is SAT – CIT –ANANDA, Pure Being, Consciousness, and Bliss. The Divine / the Mysterious Mystery is pure and beyond expression. All the metaphysical sophistications of religions are means by which man refer to a non-perceptible, non-conceivable “presence” in religious experience.

j.        The Sin that is Man

(Problem of original sin: can a baby, who is still unconscious of his actions, acquire sin? More so, the original sin?)

The Sacred inevitably highlights the imperfect nature of man – that he is and will always be detached from the Holy Mystery. Man is different from the Divine and the difference is highlighted by his finitude and the Other’s infinity. This original gap or innate separation of man and the Mystery is the basic sense of “sin” in philosophy of religion. Primordially, then, sin is not an evil action or infraction of norms but the existential state of man. Man is always guilty!

Although the Holy attracts him, man is always “kept off” because “he is not pure”, “he is not worthy” or “he is guilty.” The tension of attraction-repulsion is the primordial context in which the sense of guilt and sin should be understood. The original sin for example, as other universal myths of separation, is man’s very condition of separation from God. It is first and foremost a state (separation and exile) and not an action.               

k.       Hierophany

One way or the other, the Sacred, though Totally Other, must make its presence felt in intra-mundane reality, a presence that nevertheless leaves intact its otherness and irreducibility. This is exactly the concept of HIEROPHANY: the manifestation of the sacred in the profane. Religion is the ultimate product of this non-combining fusion. Although it makes its presence felt, it is never wholly transparent. It can only present itself through “symbols.”

How does the symbol work? Does it recollect the idea it represent like in any other mundane symbolisms? No. The symbol of the sacred works by way of PRESENTING (= making-present) the Sacred.  It is the “there” of the sacred; the portal or the window to the Other. It is however not the Sacred itself. (ex. The burning bush is not God himself. The bread and wine is not the sacred itself. The Statues are not the Holy themselves, or even more the saints themselves.) Here are different hierophanic objects:

a.       Nature and its different elements as mediations of the divine.

b.      The sacred is present in the history of man.

c.       Hierophaies of a personal type. Maniestation of the Divine “in persona.” Christ, Krishna, etc..

The Hierophanic objects have always been subject to human mutilations. Because man has the natural tendency to remove the vagueness of reality, he simplifies and controls the Mystery by controlling the hierophanic mediations. The return to the unadultered encounter with the mysterious has always been the cry of revolutionists.

l.        Basic Propositions about religion

1.       Religion is a cultural product of man. Yes it is a cultural product of man. But reducing religion to just this view is very antithetical.

2.       There are various elements of various religions which are comparable.