The contemporary revival of interest in the Sacred as a category of philosophico-religious reflection here finds a radical reversal of the traditional direction, taking the Sacred as the starting point of the itinerary toward the Divine. The wide variety of essays contained in this volume attempt to ground philosophy of the Sacred and the Divine in phenomenological evidence. Though employing different methodologies, the contributors register by and large the contribution of A-T. Tymieniecka's phenomenology of life in providing a significant 20th century vision for the accomplishment of this task.
Its pursuit finds here expression in philosophical, historical, literary and political explorations leading to construing phenomenology of the Sacred as a prerequisite to the investigation of the Divine. The contributors to this extraordinary collection are: C. Bédard, A. Ales Bello, Gerard Bucher, D. Chidester, D. Conchi, M. Kronegger, S. Laycock, Ph. Liverziani, J.N. Mohanty, E. Moutsopoulos, A.M. Olson, Y. Park, G. Penzo, B. Ross, C. Osowiec Ruoff, Th. Ryba, J. Smith, A-T. Tymieniecka and E. Wyschogrod.

Inhalt

The Theme: The Sacred as the Ground of Religion. Inaugural Study. From the Sacred to the Divine; A-T. Tymieniecka. Part One: The Sacred as a Station to Take Off From ... The Idea of the Sacred in Twentieth Century Thought: Four Views (Otto; Nygren; Schelen; Tymieniecka); T. Ryba. Telic Divinity and its Atelic Ground; S.W. Laycock. Religion and the Sacred; J.N. Mohanty. Laycock, a Phenomenological Whiteheadian? E. Wyschogrod. The Critique of Reason, Creativity, and Mystical Experience; A. Ales Bello. The Communication of the Sacred in Tymieniecka's Three Movements of the Soul; J.S. Smith. A-T. Tymieniecka's Challenges: From a Spiritual Wasteland to Transcendence; M.E. Kronegger. Part Two: The Metaphor of the Sacred and the Origins'. The Metaphor of the Sacred, or the Allegory of Origin; G. Bucher. Phenomenology as the Semiotics of Archaic or Different' Life Experiences -- Toward an Analysis of the Sacred; D.A. Conci, A. Ales Bello. Part Three: The Allegory of the Sacred. Allegorical Voyages: Louis XIII and the Sacred; M.E. Kronegger. L'affleurement allégorique dans l'image du combat: sur le Saint Georges de Cosmé Tura; C. Bédard. Islamic Hermeneutics and Shihabuddin Suhrawardi's Language of the Ants; B. Ross. Le véritable Saint Genest: Creativity and the Movement from the Profane to the Sacred; C. Osowiec Ruoff. Part Four: Sacred Space and Power. The Poetics and Politics of Sacred Space: Toward a Critical Phenomenology of Religion; D. Chidester. The New Dimension of the Sacred as Non-Power;G. Penzo. Part Five: The Sacred, the Divine, Religion. What is Special about Phenomenology of Religion? J.N. Mohanty. Toward a Phenomenology of the Absolute; F. Liverziani. The Destiny of the Soul and the Path of the Tao: Two Philosophical Anthropologies; Y. Park. The Phenomenologist's Anselm; S.W. Laycock. The Magister internus: an Augustinian Proto-Phenomenology of Faith as Desire and Teacher; T. Ryba. Temporal and `Kairic' Categories Applied to Providential History; E.A. Moutsopoulos. Phenomenology, Religious Studies, and Theology; A.M. Olson. Index of Names.