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  • Belief (Donald Lopez JR)

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    Matheus Costa
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    Belief (Donald Lopez Jr)

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    323 visualizações18 páginas

    Belief (Donald Lopez JR)

    Enviado por

    Matheus Costa

    Direitos autorais:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Baixe no formato PDF ou leia online no Scribd
    Sinalizar o conteúdo como inadequado
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    eee ste a eye se Weg STUDIES Edited by MARK C. TA YLOR Jeminal. It is a precondition for any ‘ense, Critical Terms for Religious K rudies offers not the final word, f rs nd departure, Its multidisciplinary eee en ere) nusual pushes at the boundaries of Cer rekon e done under the name of religious ee ety td Peering coc f religion and contemporar sulture—even or especially for Reeetecrs tok) Mi ceca y's gathered here.” Remi mua) Dae ee eco field of study when it pauses to look critically at the vocabulary it uses to talk about its subject. Critical Terms for Religious Studies examines two [dozen terms that give shape to the discourse of the study of religion erperen ere cca y and in the present moment. An Aer nrir Peer one kaccaad serious student of religion.” Pre ean rom headlines about political t cs urmoil in the Middle East to pop music and vide it is impossible to escape the et ape the pivotal role religious beliefs and practice : ractices play in shaping selves, societies, and cult teal dl : es today. Critical Terms for Religious Studies provides a richly tex- suze voc a with which this bewildering religious diversity can be effectively described and responsibly disc oe work in various tra cl. Leading scholars who ons explore the historieal asstimptions and concepts implications of most basic terms for understanding religion, Bach essay provides a concise history of critical term, explores the issues it raises, and. puts the term to use in an analysis ofa religio work, practice, or event. Moving across ite Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and. Native American and Mayan religions, ae tops ékplore terms raébing from experience, grritory, and imige, to God, sacrifice, and transgressiGn: ‘The resi isan essential erence afi cea the Held g@Slgiots suudicg eat sySoMtorm the apt whist feligion is unde Stood by sch6lits frofall-d@tiplines, includ anthpapaloay ab Coles peychology, cultural sepics gpitler attics gil literary studies Naka’ tayhoh%S professor of religion and chait ofthe Department of Religion at Cabinbia University. Among hismany % books are Erring: A Postmodern A A/theology; Altarity, Disfiguring: Ar Archilectire, Relefon. Mystic Bonen. and, most recently, After God, ell published by the University of Chicago Press. ISBN-13:978-0.296 ISBN-10 0226 79157-2 10 A 70226791579" 90000 Inn 9) Bis LUNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE JUIZ DE FORA 2320010819996 The Univesity of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press Ltd, London © 1998 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1998, Printed in the United States of America 8 41312 oO 4 ISBN-13:978-0.226-79156-2 (loth) ISBN-13:978-0-226-79157-9 (paper) ISBN-10; 0.226-79156-4 (lors) ISBN-10; 0.226,79187-2 (papct) 6789 Library of Congnp§? Cataloging in-Pultaion Data (Ctcal phe Yor reli ous sui edited by Mark C. Taylor Beem, ThcudesbibliogejiialreReies and inde, ISBN 0.226,99156-4 alk. paper). — ISRNI226, 29159. 2 (Pbk. alls pee) 1s Religion Terminology. L.cT3 lor, Make, 19a BESI.C75 “1098 2132 9282357 cr © The paper sed in ths publication cts te mini requirements of te American Nai Standard for Information Scioneco—Permancnesof Par z a of Paper for Printed Librmry Materin ANSI 230.48-1992. ONE Belief Donald S. Lopez, Jr. ‘Moroni (1529/3078) entitled “Martirio di San Pietro da Verona.” It de- picts @ key moment in the martyrdom of Peter of Verona, better known as Peter Martyr, the Dominican saint sometimes depicted in Italian Renaissance painting with a bloody wound in the crown of his shaven monk’s pate, some- times with the cleaver that made the wound still embedded in his skull. In the painting, one blow has already been delivered by Peter's persccutor, for he has been felled to his knees. His head bears the wound of the first blow and the ‘executioner stands poised with raised cleaver, ready to deliver the fatal blow— the blow that will deliver Peter into sanctity, for aboye\the scene fly two cherubs, ‘one bearing a crown, the other a lly. ‘The viewer'Seye is drawn fronithe wound in Peter’s head to his finger, with which he has just performed his final act. On the ground he has written in his own blood (and in perfect block letters) a single word, CREDO, “I believe.” ‘This statement, so simplé)ahd so familiar, 184 long,and complicated history in Christian theologyy in philosophy, and?in writiig about religion. The accu- mulated weight 6f this discourse has resulted it the generally anquestioned as- sumption that aiherents of given religion, any religionsuinderstand that adher~ cence in terms of belief. Indeed, belief (rather than eitual, for example) Seems to have been the pivorsiround which Christians have told-sheir own history, And with the dominanice of Christian Europe in the nineteenth Century, Christians have also described what came to békniown,as the “world religions” from the perspective of belief. Scholars of rligion ant! anthropologists have almost invari- ably defined religion in,téewis of belief orcpethaps, beliefs and practices, those deeds motivated by'Wélief. And through complicated patterns of influence, the representatives OF non-Christian religions tiave come to speak of themselves in terms of belief. “Belief” is,.F has beebme, perhaps the most common term we use to describe religion‘to one\aiiother, despite Max Milller’s observation of a century ago, “[T]hat the idea of believing, as different from seeing, knowing, denying, or doubting, was not so easily elaborated, is best shown by the fact that wwe look for it in vain in the dictionaries of many uncivilized races” (Milller 1897, 2:448).. ‘After a very brief survey of some of the philosophical questions surrounding the term, this essay will focus on two histotical cases, one in medieval Europe, ‘one in colonial Sri Lanka, in which the term “belief” has figured prominently. In the first case, belief served asa substitute, an elusive interior state that masked. a host of far more material circumstances. In the second case, belief served as I ni the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, there is a painting by Giovanni Battista 2 Dowaup S. Lorn, JR 4 coneave mirror placed rather forcibly before an Asian subject, enlarging the ee raced oe rcp ean be taced back to the Old High German gi- Ibe een to hold dear, cherish trust in. The Germanic laub is related to deere urocan loubh, meaning, love or desire: hence, the English “lbidi- aces owe t believe”; the Latin Auber (he is pleased by); the Italian Hibito (wil, desire) the German lich (dear), lien (00 love) Ibe (0 esis), glen {to believe) (sce Needham 1972, 41-3). The multivalence oft 3 0 pethape acceded only by the multivalence of the term derived from it, belief. Tt seems possible, for example, to believe what one knows to be untrue (“I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.”) and not to believe what one knows to be true (“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”)- In the discussions that preceded the choice of terms for this volume, one of the editors argued for the inclusion of the small words that nonetheless prove the most problematic: the “and” of “Religion and Nature” or “Religion and Literature”; the “of” of “Philosophy of Religion” or “Psychology of Religion.” ‘To that list one might add the “in” that occurs in such disparate Statements as “believe in you,” spoken as encouragemient; “I do believe in spooks,” spoken by the Cowardly Lion in the film version of The Wiatd of Os; and “I believe in ‘one God the Father almighty, maker of heaven agdearth, of all things visible and invisible,” spoken at the beginning of the Nicene Creed. Tn the philosophicat and religious European traditions, beliefhas rarely been discussed alone but is most oftem-paired with another term,t0 which it stands in 2 relationship of weakness of strength. When one lagks up, belief in the Ency- clopedia of Philosophy, one is directed to “Knowledge and? Belicf.” When one looks up belict in the Eneyélépedia of Religion, one Sinds the instruction: “See Doubt.” Incother resources, belie is regarded-fercly.as @ weak synonym for a more potent term; for example, ander “Belie!™ in The Ne’ Catholic Encyclope- diay Onc is advised to “see Faith.” Hume, who pondered belief perhaps iibre thafi&ny philosopher prior to the present century, déscribedkit in 1739 as “arie of the greatest mysteries of phi: Josophy: tho ‘no one has so much as‘suspected, that there is any difficulry in explaining it” (1967, 628); In philosophical literature, belief has often been por- trayed as a méntal state of assent to a proposition already contained in the mind, although the nature ofthis assent has been much debated. For Hume, belief is “nothing but a more vivid and intense conception of any idea” (119-20). Belief is often portrayed as weaker than knowledge, since one may believe somethin, that is either factually true or false, whereas knowledge only knows what is tru In Kant’s terms in the Critique of Pure Reason, belief is a judgment that is sub- jectively sufficient but objectively insufficient (1968, 648-50). Thus, knowledge has sometimes been defined as “justified true belief,” a view challenged by Plato in the Tbeaetetus, Philosophers have also considered the relation, ifany, between, belief and action. 2 In Christian theology, belief has generally been discussed in relation to ques~ tions of the existence of God and of miracles, notably the Resurrection. ‘There have, of course, been many attempts to demonstrate that the existence of God can be philosophically proven, or if not proven, that belief in God is at least reasonable, The most famous instance of the latter is Pascal's “wager” (1962, 200-208), in which he argues that if God exists, his existence is incomprehen- sible; itis impossible to know with certainty whether or not God exists. If God does exist, the consequences of belief and disbelief are profound, both for the present and for cternity. To believe that God exists therefore, isthe prudent and reasonable course, in which nothing is lost and everything may be gained. Accepting Pascal's premise that God is ultimately unknowable, some philos- ophers and theologians have argued that religious belicfis qualitatively different from other forms of belief because it is an assent to that which can never be justified by conventional means. Religious belief is, furthermore, often resistant to contrary evidence and oblivious to negative consequences. Tertullian’s para- dox is Credo quia absurdum, “I believe because itis absurd.” Aquinas argued that belief (or faith) is superior to reason because itis an assent to a transcendent truth, and that by definition, to believe, (credeve) is to believe jn’ what is truc; if its object is not true, it cannot be faith) (fides) (see Smith63). ‘Scholars of religion have aly6-¢onsidered the casa! relation, if any, between belief and knowledge ofthe’ trath. Some, see-belicf:as a preliminary stage of knowledge that undef the proper circumistances)

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