The phenomenon called religion: Reflecting on the essence of religion from man's viewpoint

• Main Author: Joaquin, Jeremiah Joven B.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2007
• Subjects: Religion
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/7150
• Institution: De La Salle University

The primary thesis that this essay would like to stress is John Caputo's claim that religion can exist without religion. It would not be the intention of this paper to solicit the whole argument presented by Caputo in his book On Religion; rather, it would focus mainly on the theme of capturing the essence of religion from the perspective of man's experience of it.1 The task now being set would procure several arguments that would be presented as supplements to the said thesis. By this I mean that some clarifications with regard to the notion of religion. would be given due credence. Two senses of the term 'religion' are highlighted. On the one hand, religion is viewed as a faith-based phenomenon that yearns for a being on which this faith would be anchored This sense of religion could be seen in several sectors of Christianity, Islam, and the like. How, ever, one could push with certain counter arguments against this sense of religion. On the other hand, religion is the com­munion of men who are bound together by a common belief. Need it be of a strong or a weak notion of 'bound', it would not matter. Religion in this sense becomes a more proper object of any science that deals with the phenomenon called 'religion'. Thereby, the main objective of this essay is to present how it is possible to have a sense of religion even without any sense of the object to which some religions are resting upon. As I have said above, this marks a more proper sense of dealing with religion from the perspective of man.