Prospettive di filosofia della religione

The philosophy of religion is not simply a religious philosophy, since it is not based on confessional convictions (therefore it is not 'Christian,' 'Jewish,' 'Islamic' philosophy, etc.), but rather it is that form of questioning philosophy, the object of which is, in fact, religion as a universal dimension. The philosophy of religion is not only about a philosophical theology, because its object is not 'God,' even if it were the 'God of the philosophers.' But, if anything, the 'space' from that figure of a (possibly) inhabited God, or indeed, 'religion in itself'. Under certain systematic conditions, the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology can come together to the point that the philosophy of religion itself becomes a particular field of philosophical theology - as, for example, in Hegel's system. This, however, is an extreme case that cannot erase the difference in principle that exists between a form of philosophical questioning oriented to the idea of God and one oriented to religion. These two objects are different and from them completely different methodological problems also derive for the two disciplines dedicated to them. Thus, for example, the problem of access to the respective object presents itself, for philosophical theology, in a totally different way from the way in which it presents itself for the philosophy of religion - with all the ensuing consequences. In an era in which, especially in the philosophical-analytical climate, the investigation into the rational plausibility of theism, possibly somewhat purified - under the forms of a renewed rational theology or an equally renewed speculative theism - of any confessional reference, seems to encounter a particularly favourable conjuncture and to herald philosophically relevant and promising developments. The philosophy of religion is not a theology, nor is it exhausted in it, insofar as the latter is not perceived as a peculiar form of philosophical questioning, but rather as a scientific explanation and exposition of the texts, of the doctrinal concept, of the history, of the institutional forms and of the cultic practice of a particular and historical religion, codified in dogmas, rites and liturgies. Finally, the philosophy of religion is not merely an empirical science of religions, neither is it intended as a phenomenology of religion, nor as a history of religions, as it differs substantially from them by the very nature of its method: unlike the phenomenology of religion, the philosophy of religion, does not in fact aim at an overall and adequate presentation of the phenomenological framework of the religious. And, unlike the history of religions, neither does it aim at the historiographically consistent description of a religion or, basically, of the totality of religions. The philosophy of religion certainly has the onerous task of taking the knowledge acquired in these ways extremely seriously. However, as a philosophy, it also has the duty to always simultaneously bring out, as an element prior to empirical research, what religion it is, or what its essence is.