Religion is not a delusion but a quest for 'home'. Let's locate this here on earth, says Peter Thompson

I keep meaning to post a link to this Face to faith column from 2007 by Peter Thompson in which he introduces Ernst Bloch and now have finally got round to doing it. Here it is:

Religion is not a delusion but a quest for 'home'. Let's locate this here on earth, says Peter Thompson

Peter Thompson has recently written an excellent introduction to a reprint of Bloch's Atheism in Christianity.

The picture  is of a sculpture called Endlose Treppe by Max Bill, and is dedicated to the Principle of Hope by Bloch.

Comments

Robin Edgar said…
"Religion is not a delusion but a quest for 'home'. Let's locate this here on earth, says Peter Thompson"

Where else would we locate it?
Dear Robin,

The reference to locating religion on earth is part of Bloch's overall desire to "transcend without transcendence" - to "root" religion explicitly in this world rather than in a transcendent realm of God. That's harder to do than I ever imagined and this blog has become a record of my own struggles to do that in a way appropriate to my own time and place.
Yewtree said…
A concept that I found useful is the difference between epistemological transcendence (the "here-on-earth" variety, for example the transcendence of individuality by immersion in community, or in the Divine) and ontological transcendence (the idea that the Divine is outside the universe).