Ana-Elena Ilinca
Cluj-Napoca, Limes, 2001
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Issued at the end of the year 2001(Limes printing house), the volume Philosophy and Religion _ A Multidisciplinary Approach (coordinated by Sandu Frunza) puts together the essays of several thinkers from Cluj on the relation between philosophy and religon. The book may be situated in the field of the interdisciplinary dialogue that takes shape between love for wisdom,on the one hand and love for God, on the other hand. The work under discussion has a three-part thematic. The first part forms a multiperspective analysis of the relation between philosophy and religion, lying emphasis on philosophy. The second part is defined by the relation between philosophy and christian thinking, in which important theologists and philosophers from Cluj comment upon this relation. In the tird part of the book, the relation between philosophy and Jewish thinking is brougt to our attention. Mr. Frateanu's study On God opens the first part of this volume. According to him, God by beloging to the sphere of the « supersensitive » is the very concern of metaphysics which is undestood as an ontotheology. The author discusses the forms of the « theological » thinking on God from an ontological viewpoint. These hold in common the idea that "God is, he exists, he is being?". The God of Moses who is a individual being _ Moses speaks to him "face to face" _ is identified with the philosophical concept according to which God is a defined supreme being. Starting from the premiss of the existence of God who is as opposed to the chaos which is not, God, in his nature of the supreme being, is the creator of all the otherbeings. It is this that makes possible all forms of knowledge of the divine, be those of "pre-knowledge?" type which are mediated by the soul (the privilege of divinity), of pure reflexive act type, or of judgement type. All these foms, as already pointed out, relay on the original belief that God exists. Thus, Mr. Frateanu reached the conclusion that the role of philosophy is that of "making God cognoscible". Certainty and doubt, conepts encountered both in the field of philosophy and in that of religon, define the argument of Mr. Acad. Camil Muresanu's study _ Between Certainty and Doubt. Mr. Muresanu explains the emergence of these concepts out of the need of man to refer to the world he lives in, to "self-maintain" life, to gain certainty. Faith _ associated with religion _ provides the model of knowing the world through certainty, whereas doubt _ associated with philosophy _ provides the model of knowing the world through reason. JSRI • No. 1/Spring 2002 p. 146 Observing the same distinction between philosophy and religion, the study: An Analytical Perspective upon the Relation of Scientific Knowledge/Religious Knowledge of Mr. M. S. Bodea analyses various aspects of this theme. Thus, there are explained in here the approaches of knowing: the scientific approach uses cognition, while the religious one uses experience. Science stands for a way of "knowing", religion stands for a distinctive way of "being". The differences between the two are researhced at language level, life experience, initiation, all those leading to the conclusion of the in-compatibility of those approaches.
In The Epistemic Metaphor _ A Means for Rendering Sensitive
the Homogenous Artistic Environment by Mr. St. Angi, it is argued
the way in which the epistems? like Foucault described them, provide the
explanation of how knowledge may be gained on the basis of longer previous
experiences, as well as the explanation of how these may be interpretated
for the future. Mr. Angi chooses to exemplify this by presenting the changes
occurred in the medieval beauty canon with thinkers as: Augustin, Albert
Magnus, Thomas d'Aquino, Bonaventura. The second part of the volume begins with the study of Pr. St. Iloaie, For a Christian Philosophy. It is arged that both Christianity _ as historical and cultural reality _ and philosophy have influenced each other. Moreover, faith does not excludes that reality may be known by other means. Christian philosophy may be defined not as experiecing the faith, but as wording its truths into concepts in order to achieve a better understanding of its meaning. In The Philosophy of Ecclesiastes, Mr. V. Boari presents how philosophy can be succesfully integrated in a religious work. "The Ecclesiastes" is ascribed to Solomon, the philosopher _ king. As the author remarks, the writing is characterised by a marked dramatism, yet, this does not prevent the praise of wisdom (seen as a divine gift) to come through. Mr. Boari also identifies philosophical themes as the eternal return, the problem of knowledge, the human condition, the relation Creator _ creation. JSRI • No. 1/Spring 2002 p. 147 With reference to The Ecclesiastes, the author's conclusion is that it "invites us to meditate upon our earthly condition as well as upon our relation with an almighty God". Pr. Prof. I. V. Leb's Philosophy and Religion with Clerical Writter Lactantius points out the decisive contribution brought by the Church Fathers in building a bridge between Antiquity and Christian era, empasis being laid on Lactantius. He is described as "the first christian writer of latin language who attempts a frontal, sincere, and detailed confrontation with heathen philosophy". Philosophy is understood as a quest for wisdom and not the very wisdom which Lactantius considers as the attribute of the divinity and as existing from the beginning. He suggested a fusion between philosophy and religion in order to achieve an ideal philosophy _ the only capable of ensuring eternity. The study The Meaning of Coexistence and the Coexistence of Meanings. A Perspective of the Catholic Theological Ethics by C. Saplacan suggests the dialogue from an ethical viewpoint as a way of bringing closer the religious and the philosophical tradition. This dialogue takes place in the sphere of the humane, and requires the experience of the other that comes to enrich the horizon of our own existence, that is "the perspective of the meeting and recognition of the other through dialogue". Under the Sign of Harmony and the Beauty of Reason (the Philosophic Discourse of D. D. Rosca and the Sphere of the Eternal Values) is a study by which Pr. Prof. I. Chirila brings forth the philosopher D. D. Rosca and the theologist Isidor Todoran by showing the interdependence of their discourses in the field of re-setting authentic values in the framework of the human existence. "Yet, all these are possible there and only there, where man is not defined by his world, but he is the one defining it beginning with its divine reasons". In On the Gnosticism of "Folk Christianity" of the Romanians, Mr. A. Codoban suggests us a re-definition of the expression "the Romanian people was born christian". He argues that this expression is the very feature of an oral religion as a consequence of the absence of the institutions due to settle its status. Within the Romanian Christianity, one may find non-differentiation of the sacred from the profane, the cosmic dimension, the cult of the healer saints, apocalyptical believes, elements that are opposed to the theological Christianity founded on the Book and on the doctrine system. Furthermore, the believes in the equipotent presence of evil make the author state that the expression should be read "the Romanian people was born gnostic". In the third part of the book, the accent is laid on Jewish philosophy and thinkig. Thus, by his study The Relational Principle in M. Buber's and E. Lévinas' philosophy, Mr. S. Frunza underlines the way in which the interdependence of the philosophical element and the Jewish one can be possible in the thinking of the two philosophers. The Sinaitic revelation engenders a dialogical situation between the unique God and the chosen people. Thus, one may notice the emergence of a relational paradigm translated by a two-folded outlook of the world: "I _ Thou" and "I _ It" _ with Buber, and the sphere of love from a sharing in being viewpoint _ with Lévinas. Analyzing the relational principle of the two thinkers, the writer concludes that "we are in front of two systems of Jewish philosophy which JSRI • No. 1/Spring 2002 p. 148 constitute themselves by the meeting of the two traditions: the philosophical and the religious one". Another aspect of the relation between philosophy and religion is discussed in the study Imagination and Prophecy by Mrs. M. Frunza. The writer points out the original combination between Aristotelian philosophy and the Jewish thinking, which is remarkablly illustrated in Maimonide's "The Guide of the Perplexed". Special attention is paid to imagination _ prophecy, and the conclusion the author reaches is that "the theory of imagination shaped by Maimonide is of Aristotelian origin, thus, philosophical (…) this philosophical theory is further used in order to set the very axiom of Jewish religion: prophecy". The last study of the book _ From Theology to the Awareness of Posibility. The Existentialist Turnover in Philosophy and Judaism _ belongs to Mr. A. Marga. He emphasizes the change of paradigm that has occurred in philosophy due to an existentialist approach of Judaism. Rosenzweig is brought to our attention as being one of the first promoters of this idea. He is the one that forges a pathway towards a new interaction between philosophy and religion by enclosing religion in his philosophical system, and thus, "ushering a new era in the spiritual culture of Europe". As one can see within this volume, the reader encounters a various number of approaches of what the relation between Philosophy and Religion could mean. The diversity of the viewpoints does not engender the obstruction of the dialogue between these fields , rather an evolution towards a new level in the sphere of this dialogue. JSRI • No. 1/Spring 2002 p. 149 JSRI • No. 1/Spring 2002
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