By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
Granted that any religion has both a metaphysical and a moral aspect, in that it implies both the truth of certain metaphysical beliefs and the rightness of certain moral actions, the point to note is that religion as such is neither a metaphysics nor a morality. On the contrary, its own formulations of the beliefs it necessarily implies (i.e., its credenda) are always for the sake of one's so understanding oneself as also to perform certain actions instead of others, just as its own specifications of the actions it necessarily implies (i.e., its agenda) are, again, always for the sake of one's so understanding oneself as also to believe certain beliefs instead of others.
In other words, religion—as well as, mutatis mutandis, theology—is concerned, first of all, with self-understanding as the underlying center between properly religious beliefs that in turn imply certain properly metaphysical beliefs, on the one side, and properly religious actions that in turn imply certain properly moral actions, on the other. Exactly in the center between these two sides—of properly religious beliefs implying properly metaphysical beliefs and properly religious actions implying properly moral actions—religion has its proper place, being distinct from both metaphysics and morality even while being related to each: "the necessary and indispensable third" (Schleiermacher).
29 April 1995; rev. 21 September 2002; 10 December 2008
Overview
Content Tools