Array
(
    [fullTitle] => Religious Protest and Religious Loyalty
    [abstract] => 
In the accepted view, the basic disposition of believers is one of absolute obedience, humility, and lack of critique, doubt, or, indeed, defiance of God. Only through such a disposition do believers convey their absolute faith and establish the appropriate hierarchy between God and humans. This article challenges this view and argues that, in mainstream rabbinic tradition, the believer is not required to renounce his or her moral autonomy and certainly not his or her understanding of God and the world. Indeed, faith rests on such understanding; moreover, human autonomy is the mechanism through which humans convey God’s goodness and perfection. Their questions and criticism are part of a persistent effort to close the evident gap between their assumptions about God’s goodness and the flawed imperfect reality. The analysis focuses on rabbinic tradition but its implications go beyond it, presenting a model of a life of faith that compels subjects, as believers, to preserve their constitutive foundations as rational autonomous creatures.

    [authors] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [givenName] => Avi
                    [affiliation] => Bar-Ilan University
                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [givenName] => Nir
                    [affiliation] => Kiryat Ono College
                )

        )

    [keywords] => Array
        (
        )

    [doi] => 10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.3337
    [datePublished] => 2020-06-30
    [pdf] => https://www.philosophy-of-religion.eu/menuscript/index.php/ejpr/article/view/3337/version/740/2666
)
"Loading..."

Religious Protest and Religious Loyalty

Avi
Bar-Ilan University

Nir
Kiryat Ono College

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.3337

Abstract

In the accepted view, the basic disposition of believers is one of absolute obedience, humility, and lack of critique, doubt, or, indeed, defiance of God. Only through such a disposition do believers convey their absolute faith and establish the appropriate hierarchy between God and humans. This article challenges this view and argues that, in mainstream rabbinic tradition, the believer is not required to renounce his or her moral autonomy and certainly not his or her understanding of God and the world. Indeed, faith rests on such understanding; moreover, human autonomy is the mechanism through which humans convey God’s goodness and perfection. Their questions and criticism are part of a persistent effort to close the evident gap between their assumptions about God’s goodness and the flawed imperfect reality. The analysis focuses on rabbinic tradition but its implications go beyond it, presenting a model of a life of faith that compels subjects, as believers, to preserve their constitutive foundations as rational autonomous creatures.

Keywords:

Download PDF