Gadamer and the Question of the Divine

Book excerpt: Gadamer and the Question of the Divine uncovers a neglected side of Gadamer's thought, namely his life-long concern with the question of the divine. Not only is this an issue of fundamental importance to philosophical hermeneutics, but it also contributes to what Gadamer considered to be the most urgent task of our time - a conceptual dialogue among religions. New grounds for toleration among communities must be found and Gadamer's study of the divine provides both a model and a starting-place for doing so. In setting forth a conceptual narrative for global dialogue about religious transcendence, Gadamer is the pre-eminent twentieth-century philosopher of the divine. Gadamer's study of the divine is an application of philosophical hermeneutics and phenomenological in its descriptions of temporality and the experience of art. Walter Lammi shows how Gadamer provides us with a richly textured study of the divine that finds its bearings in Heidegger and the Greeks and suggests a path to questions of cosmology, temporality and religious experience.