Philosophy of Religion 10/10/2022

1. Approaches: monotheism, polytheism, atheism

2. Religion and poetry
3. Mythology as poetry

Methodology:
Problem that Schelling himself approaches in Lecture I: the point of view of the philosophy of
religion himself/herself. As in many other issues in philosophy, we don’t start from a neutral
standpoint, we already have a certain pov. So this is for anyone familiar with hermeneutics, a
familiar problem. We are immersed in our culture, background, tacit assumptions, that somehow
informs at least to a degree what we find obvious, self-evident, strange or remarkable. So, in
dealing with strange and foreign objects such other religions, foreign religions, we have to face
our own prejudice too.

In the tradition we have to very opposed standpoits:

1. Enlightenment philosophy: after enlighting oneself, we leave all prejudice behind and
have a neutral open mind access to the phenomena we deal with.
2. Hermeneutics (Gadamer/Heidegger’s standpoint): we cant get rid of prejudice. Its not
about leaving behind prejudice or presupositions or assumptions, but the business is make
up one’s mind on them and get a clear consciousness, awareness of one’s own tacit
assumptions and background.

Somehow have positive things, but both have problems.

1. Is unrealistic.
2. Messiness makes it difficult to justify one’s claims to someone else. Relativism of the
standpoint: problematic. Gadamer is famous for another metaphor: fusion of horizons. Solution
to the problem: in doing hermeneutics, we encounter foreign ways of thinking, and this somehow
alienates ourselves from our own point of view and we end up having a standpoint that is not our
original one, but a product of the confrontation of both views. Problems: fusion of horizons is an
impossible metaphor. You can’t fuse horizons.

In Schelling’s text, we see something similar going on. He speaks of the necessity to put
ourselves in the shoes of anient people, people we don’t know nor understand, but we have to
make an effort. What we can go back to the first half of the XIX century, we have a need to
reflect about our own approach.

In the 18th century, when philosophy of religion emerged, it was the case that religion becomes a
strange object, an object that is not self-evidently given, but one that needs explanation. Either in
terms of justification or a mixture of justification and criticism. Or you need, as in radical
atheism/material, you have a radical critic of religion, which calls it purely superstition. We need
an expalantion as to why mankind came about with this strange beliefs and practices.

If we look at it more systematically: these approaches say as much of their proponents as of their
objects.
Atheism:
If you come up with the claim that religion is completely strange or one cannot make sense of, or
needs explanation, probably you are an atheist.

- We find a lot of these people in the 19th century (Diderot, D’Alambert, etc.)

- Classic/philosophical monotheistic way of approaching these things in 18 TH century

deism: Voltaire: God as a necessary idea, as thinking beings we eventually end up with
the idea of a perfect being creator of the world, the result of natural theology. Everything
is superstition except that minimal theology. Against Catholicism, trinity, miracles,
saints, etc., the mythology of Christianity and Judaism.

Polytheism:
Standpoint of natural, unaided reason: God as creator of the world plus scriptural revelation.
The idea of a loving god, who cares for us, and who is triune, and the whole history of salvation
and incarnation, etc. There the burning question is: how do people came up with polytheism is
monotheism is obviously true? Pagan non-Christian philosophers had already come up with this
question: why polytheism exist? Why multiply the gods? Why are there other types of
polytheism? Why do different people believe in different sets of gods? Tacitus: they are all the
same gods, but people call them using different names. Jupiter = Thor.

View that Schelling admires very much: Herodotus’ view. There is a history of the gods that
somehow is revealed to the different peoples.

Schelling’s approach:
What can we do with that, with this initial pluralism of possible approaches? Be aware of this, of
course. But we cannot leave it at that. We must deal with it. There is no obvious correct
standpoint to start with. Only available option: test all these options. Look at merits and
shortcomings of all of these approaches. This is what Schelling does: scrutinize each one of them
and highlight the positive and reveal their shortcomings. This must be done in an empirical way.

Schelling’s basic assumption: we don’t argue in the abstract, we assume that we have historical
knowledge available for us, we have empirical documents. However, how do we overcome
historical distance, the distance of mentality? To be continued…

Principle of charity: you make a huge mistake when you simply assume that people are stupid.
When explaining behavior of other people, we must apply this principle. Other people must have
compelling reasons to strongly believe in whatever it is that they believe in. Unless you have
compelling evidence showing otherwise.

2 ways of interpreting this principle:

1. Davidson: interpreting someone else charitable is ascribing the other person as much
believes as I myself hold. This is nice, but ultimately means that your own views can
never be falsified. You are always correct; the other person is correct only as he or she
agree with you.
 2. 2. Gadamer: couldn’t it be that the other guy is right and I am wrong? It could be a
possibility. This is what he calls “the authority of the other.” It’s a fallible authority. That
is a challenge we face here. Schelling would agree with Gadamer. Basically, we need an
open mind here.

If you are a Christian, and Schelling is, then you are inclined to say that polytheism is wrong and
Christian monotheism is right. But as philosophers we must not do this (epoché).

Point 2. Religion and poetry:

This keeps Schelling busy for quite a while. When you read his philosophy of art, 40 years
earlier to this book, there Schelling himself holds the view that ultimately the religion of the
ancients is poetry. He specially praises the Greeks for poetic imagination and the whole Olympus
of the Greek gods is one big work of poetry.

But saying this, even in the philosophy of art, doesn’t suggest that ultimately is just fiction, but
it’s rather the view that there is a poetic worldview: the way poets look at the world, seeing a
system of unity and multiplicity (abstract, Platonic doctrine of the ideas: one to multiplicity), but
this also appears in myths. There are very sharp ways of putting things sometimes.

Greek Gods are ideas, personifications of Platonic ideas. He identifies mythology of the Greeks
with Plato’s ideas. This also explains why there are many Gods rather than one. Somehow the
many Gods emerge from the unity of the one.

FIRST PRESENTATION ON LECTURE 1:

Intro: Methodology of Schelling’s Philosophy of Religion
1. Old Science vs new science (p. 7)
2. Course of development and sublation
3. Pure matter of Neoplatonists

2.
- Provides his own critique of modes of interpretation.
- Can’t poetically invent something without a basis; evidence of everyday life in them.
- Question 1: Do you think this is true? Is it possible to compose anything without a
basis?
- Question 2: Can you think of any other truth that can be found in mythology expect
what Schelling mentions?
3.
As if Schelling is saying that in order for mythologies to be there in form of poetry there needs to
be a background from which they have emerged.
- P. 15: poetic way of interpreting mythology forces us to believe in it (?)
- Homer, Hesiod: Gods of being of a religious and doctrinal nature; input-output framework:
- Input: religious system.
- Output: poetry.
- Crisis of consciousness as creative driver of poetry production.
- Poems are never something first or original; there is a necessary prior condition that had to be
overcome in order for these myths to be produced.
- Schelling draws sharp distinction between philosophical and historical inquiry – whether it
could really be distinguished and separated.
- How would we respond to people nowadays who treat mythology in such a manner?

“Teaching/Lesson/Doctrine of the Gods” and not “system of the Gods”. Check translation.

SCHELLING’S PHILOSOPHY OF MYTHOLOGY

LECTURE 1

Herodotus
- In his analysis of Herodotus (referring to Homer and Hesiod), Schelling uses a subtle dialectic.

- Aristotle: philosophers are lovers of myths. Example: The presocratic philosophers.

- Schelling says that they should check what Herodotus says. He doesn’t hold Aristotle’s
position.
Homer and Hesiod don’t think they are creating fiction, but that they are receiving a story from
their social and religious context and give poetic form to stories that pre-existed them, into which
they were born.

- Herodotus: There is poetry, but it’s poetry of a material that is already there. Since it is sacred
material, it’s not something that Homer and Hesiod can simply manipulate, turn around and twist
at their own will. They are handed down to them and treat them as authority. They are not
authorities themselves, Homer/Hesiod, but are regarded as authorities given that they transmitted
this stories in verse/poetically from their sources.

- They learn from the poets that the gods have a history, not that the gods exist. There was a time
when Zeus was not there or in power. They used to not exist. This is handed down to them, as
Herodotus says, by these two poets who learned it elsewhere. The history of Greek theology to
non-Greek theology. Relates the Greek goods to near-eastern Gods/societies from which this
Greek mythology comes from.

- Excursus: It is not obvious that Philosophy is needed in this study of mythology. Philosophy is
about meaning, not about facts. However, the facts have to taken into account. So, there must be
a positive and negative aspect to philosophical research. Rational and empirical. We cannot turn
our backs from the world, the vital experiences.

- We need the right approach, the right understanding of mythology and polytheism.