Modes and manners of religious and theological knowing.

Hampson, Peter John (2012) Modes and manners of religious and theological knowing. Masters thesis, University of Wales, Trinity St David.

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Abstract

Following a brief introduction, an extended analogy invites the reader to experience vicariously ‘walking in the mountains’ as opposed to the ‘view from the 110th floor’ to allow her to appreciate at first hand the distinctions and interactions between two key modes of (religious and secular) knowing and attending: one, the ‘pre-reflexive’, which is direct, lived, affect laden and ‘participatory’, the other, the ‘reflexive’ or ‘re-presentational’, which is more indirect, detached, dispassionate and analytic. The two modes and their interaction are further examined and illuminated using the scientific and cultural work of polymath Iain McGilchrist, and the spiritual poetic recollections of the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. The modes are then briefly deployed to elucidate key theological distinctions, such as the arguably false dichotomy between the subjective and objective, and to question the apparent wholesale rejection of representational modes of thought by followers of the Radical Orthodoxy school. Instead, it is shown that a fruitful interaction between the two modes is feasible, thereby holding out the possibility of combining the analytic and the narrative (or following Eleanore Stump, the ‘Dominican’ and ‘Franciscan’) theological sensibilities. Next, in a theological move indebted to and informed by the work of Paul Griffiths, two manners of knowing, the ‘curious’ and the ‘studious’, are contrasted and used to position the morally and spiritually more neutral modes already outlined. It is suggested that both the pre-reflexive and reflexive modes can be exhibited in curious or studious manners. Such positioning is offered as an example of a theological ‘grammar’ used architectonically to organise secular scientific and cultural categories. Finally, aspects of the theological anthropology implied by this positioning are used to suggest apologetic principles worthy of consideration and future development.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Additional Information:	Series: Carmarthen / Lampeter Dissertations;10412/280.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Self-knowledge
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
Divisions:	Theses and Dissertations > Masters Dissertations
Related URLs:	Organisation
Depositing User:	John Dalling
Date Deposited:	01 Nov 2014 14:11
Last Modified:	11 Feb 2016 11:37
URI:	https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/407

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