Lecture 6: Phenomenology of Religious Symbols

LOSS OF SENSE OF SYMBOL: “One of the gravest problems of our day is the lack of commitment to common symbols… Ritual has become a bad word signifying empty conformity. We are witnessing a revolt against formalism, even against form… Shades of Luther! Shades of Reformation and its complaint against meaningless rituals, mechanical religion, Latin as the language of cult, mindless recitation of litanies. We find ourselves, here and now, reliving a worldwide revolt against ritualism.” M. Douglas,1970/2003, Natural symbols. London: Routledge Classics, p.1.

WHAT IS A SYMBOL?

•A Symbol is something that stands for something else.

•Some authors make a distinction between sign and symbol; others understand sign is representational (eg. green = go) and symbol is presentational (eg. the cross = suffering).

•Signs are arbitrary and functional, symbols are part of reality, evoke emotions, and are archetypal.

Eliade: Functions of Symbols

1.Symbols are capable of revealing a modality of the real or a condition of the World which is not evident on the plane of immediate experience.

2.Symbols are always religious, since they point either to something real (numen) or a World-pattern.

3.An essential characteristic of religious symbolism is its multivalence = its capacity to express simultaneously several meanings.

4. The symbol (even in its multitude of meaning) is capable of revealing a perspective in which diverse realities can be fitted together or even integrated into a ‘system’.

5. The symbol is capable of expressing paradoxical situations or certain patterns of ultimate reality that can be expressed in no other way.

6. Existential value of religious symbols – a symbol always points to a reality or a situation concerning human existence – which we are part of.

DOWNLOAD LECTURE NOTES IN PDF: 6 Phenomenology of Religious Symbols