The feeling of faith : a Thomistic account of religious emotions.

Religion;Emotion

John K. Dryden, 1976-

University:University of Louisville

Department:Humanities

关键词: Religion;    Emotion;   

Others  :  https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1372&context=etd

美国|英语

来源: The Universite of Louisville's Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of religious emotions. It draws uponThomas Aquinas’s theory of the passions to build and apply a framework for thinkingabout religious emotions and their role in the spiritual life. The first two chapters arededicated to building the theoretical framework. Chapter one outlines Aquinas’s theoryof emotions in a very general way and compares this account to recent versions ofcognitivism. By placing Aquinas in conversation with contemporary accounts, I showthat his theory is able to capture the central insights of this mainstream philosophicalview. According to the Thomistic account that emerges in this chapter, emotions arepsychosomatic forms of concern. In the second chapter, I begin to outline what makes anemotion a religious emotion. Drawing on Robert Neville’s theory of religious symbols, Isuggest that religious emotions are emotions that have religious symbols interpreted in adevotional context1 as their object. With this account of religious emotions in hand, thenext two chapters are dedicated to illustrating and applying this framework in aphenomenological and comparative mode. In chapter three, I apply the framework toillustrate its promise in highlighting common emotional patterns across religious traditions. In chapter four, I show how this account can also illuminate the diversity ofemotional religious life both across and within religious traditions. In the final chapter, Iuse this model to explore the role of religious emotions in the religious life, particularlythe relationship among religious emotion, cognition, and practice.