Prof Keith Ward - Religion and Spirituality in the Modern World

In this recording of his erudite 2020 webinar Keith Ward takes us through his philosophy of a justification for holding a spiritual world view in our time. Keith will review the contribution of perennial philosophy in relation to the views of radical theologians and consider the rise of pluralism, diversity and interfaith dialogue in creating a climate of tolerance in the face of religious extremism and fundamentalism.

Speaker content (c) 2020 Scientific and Medical Network

Music attribution: Richard Irwin

[metacomputics]

Professor Keith Ward is now my favourite speaker in SMN network, although I only discovered him relatively recently. His talks are always thoughtful, intelligent, penetrating and insightful. This talk is no exception.

Here are my footnotes on some of the philosophical theologians Keith discussed.

Kant was ahead of his time and his view is becoming relevant to today’s world where authorities are less and less trusted by people and decentralisation of approach to spirituality has become a major trend. Rationality is set to prevail and displace revelation to access truth in the modern world.

The study of religion should take account of all different spiritual traditions and attempt to find the common denominator among them. This would help avoid the situation “The Clash of civilizations” predicted.

Hegel’s potentiality/actuality binary could be a potential common denominator. The binary has been expressed in different spiritual traditions, such as Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman in Hindu, emptiness/substantiality in Buddhism, Yin and Yang in

Aquinas, Calvin and Luther’s view that God is beyond space and time and unchanging does not contradict Hegel’s absolute spirit. Potentiality is content less and formless and therefore is not subject to change. But actuality can emanate from potentiality, just like thought can pop up in our mind from a state of no thought.

Rudolf Bultmann’s suggestion for demythologization of religion is a necessary next step if religion is to survive in the modern world. Due to the huge success of science and technology and scientific education, humanity as a whole as not likely to accept myth as a serious proposition.

[waynemcmillan]

It would be interesting to know what Keith thinks about the philosophy of Bernardo Kastrup.

[metacomputics]

What would be the binary in Abrahamic tradition? Is it Darkness/Light, or Godhead/God?

[williamvarney]

The 'true' morality is tied to the Christian/Jewish paradigm. There is a binary-nature to this. It is either/or, A or ~(A) in terms of the true basis of Scriptural morality.