Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers

On Immensity

marcia sá cavalcante schuback

All things swept sole away

This — is immensity^1

Emily Dickinson

1. Introduction

The relation between phenomenology and religion can be discussed
following different paths and in distinct manners. Considering the
history of the “phenomenological movement” grounded by Edmund
Husserl, one may refer to various attempts to develop a phenomenology
of religion, in which the principal aim is to investigate in its transparency
the phenomenon of religion or religion’s phenomenality, beyond pure
subjective and objective views, beyond empirical and intellectualist
positions, beyond psychological and logical prejudices. Such attempts
aim to liberate religion from philosophical and theological views in
order to recover the meaning of religiosity as lived experience. Another
way of approaching this relation is to discuss phenomenology and
religion by considering them as two realms of human experience
where one can clarify and offer critical views towards the other. In this
sense, the title “phenomenology and religion” would represent a
renewed debate about the relation between reason and faith on the
basis of the phenomenological critique of modern rationality and its
naïve ontological basis. Both directions of investigation are important
and necessary considering the historical conditions of our contemporary
claim for such a questioning. However, it seems to me that whichever
position we may take when discussing this relation, it is necessary to

1. Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems, ed. Thomas H. Johnson, Boston/Toronto:
   Little, Brown and Company, 1960, poem1512, 635.