Faith envy

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Faith envy
 
Creator Kroesbergen, Hermen
 
Subject — faith envy; religious language; Ludwig Wittgenstein; Sören Kierkegaard; Simone Weil
Description With this article, I wish to introduce the concept of ‘faith envy’. From time to time, both believers and non-believers envy those who have faith or more faith. People envy, for example, Muslims or Charismatics for the significance and certainty of their convictions in their lives. I propose using ‘faith envy’ as an angle to investigate faith and religious language. This perspective opens up important new questions about faith. If we look at faith from this angle, we see aspects of faith that remain obscure in many debates on religion, aspects beyond historical or factual matters. Firstly, I explore what it is exactly that is envied in faith envy. Secondly, I argue for the use of the concept ‘envy’ rather than ‘jealousy’ or ‘admiration’ in this context. Thirdly, I indicate how using the concept of faith envy may open up new theoretical perspectives on faith and in particular the nature of religious language. I show how the lives and works of Sören Kierkegaard, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Simone Weil are illuminated by looking at them as people who envy faith. I conclude this article by providing some impressions of what novel perspectives using the concept of faith envy may bring to light.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor University of Pretoria
Date 2020-04-20
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v76i4.5811
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 76, No 4 (2020); 8 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5811/14894 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5811/14892 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5811/14893 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5811/14891
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2020 Hermen Kroesbergen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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