LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION General Editor: John Hick, Danforth Professor, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California This series of books explores contemporary religious understandings of humanity and the universe. The books contribute to various aspects of the continuing dialogues between religion and philosophy, between scepticism and faith, and between the different religions and ideologies. The authors represent a correspondingly wide range of viewpoints. Some of the books in the series are written for the general educated public and others for a more specialised philosophical or theological readership. Selected Titles Masao Abe ZEN AND WESTERN THOUGHT William H. Austin THE RELEVANCE OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO THEOLOGY Paul Badham CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH Paul and Linda Badham IMMORTALITY OR EXTINCTION? Daniel E. Bassuk INCARNATION IN HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY Patrick Burke THE FRAGILE UNIVERSE Margaret Chatterjee GANDHI'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Dan Cohn-Sherbok ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM Dan Cohn-Sherbok (editor) ISLAM IN A WORLD OF DIVERSE FAITHS William Lane Craig THE KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FROM PLATO TO LEIBNIZ Stephen T. Davis LOGIC AND THE NATURE OF GOD Stephen T. Davis (editor) DEATH AND AFTERLIFE Clement Dore GOD, SUFFERING AND SOLIPSISM MORAL SCEPTICISM Lynn A. de Silva THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF IN BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY Padmasiri de Silva AN INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY (2nd edition) Ramchandra Gandhi THE AVAILABILITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS J.C.A. Gaskin HUME'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Brian Haymes THE CONCEPT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD Harold Hewitt (editor) PROBLEMS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION John Hick and Edmund Meltzer (editors) THREE FAITHS - ONE GOD H.A. Hodges GOD BEYOND KNOWLEDGE Christopher Ives ZEN AWAKENING AND SOCIETY J. Kellenberger THE COGNITIVITY OF RELIGION GOD RELATIONSHIPS WITH AND WITHOUT GOD Jonathan L. Kvanvig THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ALL-KNOWING GOD Hywel D. Lewis PERSONS AND LIFE AFTER DEATH Julius L. Lipner THE FACE OF TRUTH Eric Lott VEDANTIC APPROACHES TO GOD Geddes MacGregor REINCARNATION AS A CHRISTIAN HOPE Hugo A. Meynell AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERNARD LONERGAN (2nd Edition) F.CT. Moore THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF MORALITY Dennis Nineham THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE BIBLE Carl Olson THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF ELIADE: A SEARCH FOR THE CENTRE Alan G. Padgett GOD, ETERNITY AND THE NATURE OF TIME Martin Prozesky RELIGION AND ULTIMATE WELL-BEING D.Z. Phillips BELIEF, CHANGE AND FORMS OF LIFE Bernard M.G. Reardon HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION KANT AS PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN Bruce R. Reichenbach THE LAW OF KARMA: A PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY Joseph Runzo REASON, RELATIVISM AND GOD Arvind Sharma A HINDU PERSPECTIVE ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Patrick Sherry RELIGION, TRUTH AND LANGUAGE GAMES SPIRIT, SAINTS AND IMMORTALITY Ninian Smart CONCEPT AND EMPATHY RELIGION AND THE WESTERN MIND Wilfred Cantwell Smith TOWARDS A WORLD THEOLOGY Norman Solomon JUDAISM AND WORLD RELIGION Jonathan Sutton THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV Michael Stoeber EVIL AND THE MYSTICS' GOD Roger Teichmann ABSTRACT ENTITIES Linda J. Tessier (editor) CONCEPTS OF THE ULTIMATE Shivesh Chandra Thakur RELIGION AND RATIONAL CHOICE Robert Young FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND GOD Series Standing Order If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they are published, you can make use of our standing order facility. To place a standing order please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address and the name of the series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your standing order. (If you live outside the United Kingdom we may not have the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your order to the publisher concerned.) Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 2XS, England. The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade A Search for the Centre Carl Olson Associate Professor of Religious Studies Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania M MACMILLAN © Carl Olson 1992 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1992 Published by MACMILLAN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Printed in Hong Kong ISBN 0-333-54976-7 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This work is dedicated to the memory of Hy and his wonderful sense of humour and to Lucy for introducing me to books. Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements xiii 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Review of Eliade's Life Eliade's Critics 2 REL1GIONSWISSENSCHAFT 14 Eliade's Critics Philosophers on Science Eliade and Religionswissenschaft Concluding Remarks 3 THE FORE-STRUCTURE OF HERMENEUTICS 27 Sacred Language Situation and Horizon Total Hermeneutics Concluding Remarks 4 THEOLOGY OF NOSTALGIA 45 Human Situation Deus Otiosus Cosmic Christianity Nostalgia for Paradise Concluding Traces 5 DIALOGUE AND THE OTHER 62 Nature of Dialogue Dialogue and the Other Dialogue and Understanding Concluding Remarks 6 SACRED LANGUAGE AND SOTERIOLOGY 80 Sign and Symbol Postcard and Myth vn Myth as Soteriology Concluding Remarks 7 ONTOLOGY AND THE SACRED 101 Two Modes of Being Ontology and Language Ontology and Initiatory Patterns Non-being and Nostalgia Concluding Remarks 8 THE PHENOMENON OF POWER 122 The Nature of Power Power, Space and Time Power, Symbol and Myth Possessors of Power Concluding Reflections 9 TIME AND NOSTALGIA 139 Two Kinds of Time Terror of History Abolition of Time Time and Nostalgia Concluding Remarks 10 SEEKING THE CENTRE 157 The Fallenness of Life Seeking the Centre Being At the Centre Nostalgia for the Centre Nostalgia for Synthesis Notes 174 Bibliography 202 Index 213 vin Preface Previously-published books on the contributions of Mircea Eliade to the history of religions have tended to emphasize his methodology. Although the present work shares this methodological concern, its focus is much wider and tries to indicate the many facets and implications of Eliade's scholarship as a historian of religions. In other words, the intention is to view Eliade from a variety of perspectives. The overall purpose of this study is to look at his work as a historian of religions, a theologian, a philosopher, a novelist, and as someone engaged in cross-cultural dialogue. In a few of the chapters, we will place Eliade within his historical context with relation to the possibility of a science of religion and his theory of myth. Those unfamiliar with the works of Eliade might find the subtitle of this manuscript a little odd. It is my contention that one cannot separate the scholarly work of Eliade from his own personal quest for meaning in life. Not only does the symbolism of the centre play an important role in his scholarly studies, it also assumes a personal existential importance for his own quest for a centre of existence. Thus Eliade's scholarship can be interpreted as both an attempt to understand religious phenomena and as a personal pilgrimage to the meaningful centre of existence, a theme that runs throughout his works and one that concludes this book. After a brief review of Eliade's life and examples of the types of criticism levelled against him, he is set within the context of the develop ment of Religionswissenschaft in order to clarify the distinction between Geisteswissenschaft from Naturwissenschaft and to reexamine the possibil ity of a science of religion in Eliade's works and in the scholarly study of religion in general. Besides briefly reviewing some criticism of Eliade's method for its alleged lack of scientific rigour, the second chapter will show that Eliade's critics embrace a positivistic model of science that is fallacious when compared to some contemporary philosophers of science and what they perceive to be the actual way the scientific method is practised. By reviewing Eliade's own comprehension of science and its relationship to his scholarly discipline, we will discover that he comprehends his discipline as Geisteswissenschaft and not Naturwissenschaft and that religious pheno mena themselves demand an imaginative and intuitive approach. Since the problem of hermeneutics is central to Eliade's work, most critics have focused their attention on the shortcomings of his approach, but few have considered the fore-structure of his hermeneutics. Rather than systematically explaining his hermeneutics, the third chapter will take a cue IX