ORIGINAL RESEARCH

 

How 'religious' is religion and how 'natural' is naturalness? On the question of the naturalness of religion

 

 

Daniël P. Veldsman

Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Correspondence

 

 

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ABSTRACT

The problem addressed in this article is twofold: firstly, how can a question be posed (on the naturalness of religion) consisting of two concepts (naturalness and religion) that are both somewhat vague and secondly, what are the implications of the preceding semantic mappings (or labelling) that determine the sense-making process (i.e. the conceptual problems that follows in the wake of the labelling). The aim of the article is to reflect from a historical perspective on the two concepts that make up the question, namely natural andreligion and finally to indicate what is meant by semantic mappings that determine conceptual problems. From this indication it is argued that 'scientific foul play' is the order of the day, that is, that both theology and science are as it were playing 'off-side', thus making the question in the contemporary discourses an emotionally messy endeavour and that, in the author's opinion, the question has therefore to be rephrased.

Keywords: evolutionary epistomology; nature; naturalism; naturalness of religion; religion; supernatural

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Correspondence:
Daniël Veldsman
Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics, University of Pretoria
Pretoria 0002
South Africa
Email: danie.veldsman@up.ac.za

Received: 04 June 2010
Accepted: 28 Sept. 2010
Published: 22 Nov. 2010

 

 

Note: This article is based on a paper delivered at the XIII European Conference on Science and Theology, 7-11 April 2010, Edinburgh, Scotland.