Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers

morny joy

various philosophies that have informed western culture. He regards
these now as “fragmented and dissociated,” and thus difficult to
reconcile, let alone amalgamate. He expresses his reservations on this
matter:

There is no thought that can combine all of these because we have

already two domains split up in themselves, and for a stronger reason,

because they intersect. This is what I’ve learned from hermeneutic

thought, it is a fact that we always aim at totality and unity as a horizon,

but that our thought always remains fragmentary. This means that we

cannot transform this horizon into a possession.^62

In many ways, Ricoeur’s invocation of the gift of creation by God
would seem to be a theological reference. Yet Ricoeur will still regard
all such discussions as remaining on an epistemological level, even if
the terms of discussion range freely on the notion of God. It remains
an inquiry into possible interchanges and enrichment. Ricoeur is quite
adamant about this in his interview with Raynova:

I continue to protect the autonomy of philosophy, firstly because the

founding texts of philosophy in no way have the canonical character of

a religious or denominational confession. They are open to everybody;

there is no Church around a philosophical text. And secondly, they con-

stitute a language of communication between believer and un believer.^63

Finally, Ricoeur seems to issue a kind of warning about the problems
of trying to combine philosophy and religion:

The last attempt was that of Hegel, who is the only one who has

attempted totally to combine religious philosophy and philosophy of

are different approaches to religious texts: “kerygmatic interpretations are also
multiple, always partial (in both senses of the word), varying according to the
expectations of the public, itself shaped by a cultural environment bearing the
imprint of the epoch” (Ricoeur in Azouvi and de Launay, Critique and Conviction,
144). He also states, as if in support of his position: “It is within the kerygmatic
readings — or, if you wish, with the theologies of professions of faith — that the
opposition between Jerusalem and Athens is the sharpest” (144).

62. Ricoeur in Raynova, “All that Give Us to Think,” 686. Ricoeur in Raynova, “All that Give Us to Think,” 686.


63. Ibid., 683. Ibid., 683.