Observations with respect to the future of religion prefigured by R. Rorty and G. Vattimo

• Author: Daniela Sorea
• Position: Sociology-Philosophy Department, Transilvania University Of Brasov.
• Pages: 237-242

Page 237

1. Introduction

The shift of the philosophical interest in the field of language and of its relation with the being has affected the philosophers' options of reference to religion and religiosity. Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo agree in founding in liberty and charity the future religious attitude of humanity. The present paper sets out to signal the argumentative frailty of this basis.

2. Hermeneutics, Postmodernism and Religion at G Vattimo

The history of metaphysics is comprised in the history of social institutions, G. Vattimo shows [5]. There is a history of the being and there is a fracture of history: before and after Christ. Atheism is possible in the history of revelation, salvation and dissolution of the being. In contemporaneity, the being must be constructed as event of the logos. The being is the result of the human dialogue.

The dialogue occurs in the political life. The future of religion is connected to the one of the church, with its structure, discipline and norms. Christianity is born by the church.

Heidegger presented his enunciations as answers to the situations in which he was involved, the Italian philosopher shows. Knowledge is always interpretation, Heidegger shows, and interpretation is the only fact we may talk about. Any tentative of surprising the authenticity of the interpretation unveils its historical character and even the thought that there are no facts, only interpretations has to be related to a determined historical context. Heidegger's ideas naturally place themselves in the epoch, resounding with the end of euro-centrism, with the psychoanalytical dethronement of the conscience and with the plurality of the sources of information, Vattimo deems.

'Christianity introduces within the world the principle of interiority, on whose basisPage 238objective reality gradually loses its determinant importance." [5, p. 61], Vattimo shows. Hermeneutics is, from this perspective, development and maturation of the Christian message. The presupposition of the objectivity of the religion truth pushed religion in the deadlock of assuming as true the scientifically disputable enunciations in the Bible. The same presuppositions impede, Vattimo show, overcoming the inter- confessional

misunderstandings in Christianity and of Christianity with other great religions. The solution comes, of course, from the renunciation of the objectivity pretensions. The only truth developed by the Scripture is 'the truth of love, of caritas" [5, p. 66]. For Vattimo, postmodern nihilism, as dissolution of the concept of truth, is the truth of Christianity. The ideas of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Rorty are tributary to the biblical message founding the civilization in which they are formulated. Due to Christianity, the contemporary Westerners live the truth as experience and interpretation. Vattimo proposes the explicit undertaking of the Christian historicity and deems charity the only chance for the survival of the West.

3. Hermeneutics, Secularization and Law of Love at R Rorty

To go out of the metaphysical logos means to declare your incapacity, contenting yourself with charity, R. Rorty shows [5]. The Christians' shift towards the illuminist ideals signal the passage from God adored with strength to God adored with love. The passage from the metaphysical logos to the post- metaphysical reasoning and from strength to charity indicates at the same time the human's inclination to stake on oneself rather than on an infinite power beyond oneself.

The decisive event, the fracture moment in the history of the being is not, as for Vattimo, Jesus' birth, but the French revolution simultaneous to Romanticism. The contemporaries' duty is directed towards the fellow citizens and civic responsibility may exist independently of the reason or of the religious belief.

Hermeneutics is for the intellectual world what democracy is in politics: a manner of taking over the Christian message about love as the only law.

Vattimo, Rorty shows, uses his philosophical strength in order to support the return to the religiousness from his youth. His theology, liberating religion from truth and sin forgiveness, is addressed to the lukewarm in faith. The embodiment is the sacrifice of the divine strength, of the divine authority and of the divine alterity. In embodiment...