Faith and Place : An Essay in Embodied Religious Epistemology

Faith and Place takes knowledge of place as a basis for thinking about the relationship between religious belief and our embodied life. Recent epistemology of religion has appealed to various secular analogues for religious belief - especially analogues drawn from sense perception and scientific theory construction. These approaches tend to overlook the close connection between religious belief and our moral, aesthetic and otherwise engaged relationship to the material world. By taking knowledge of place as a starting point for religious epistemology, Mark Wynn aims to throw into clearer focus the embodied, action-orienting, perception-structuring, and affect-infused character of religious understanding. This innovative study understands the religious significance of a site in terms of i. its capacity to stand for some encompassing truth about human life; ii. its conservation of historical meanings, where these meanings make a practical claim upon those located at the place at later times; and iii. its directing of the believer's attention to a sacred meaning, through enacted appropriation of the site. Wynn proposes that the notion of 'God' functions like the notion of a 'genius loci', where the relevant locus is the sum of material reality. He argues that knowledge of God consists in part in a storied and sensuous appreciation of the significance of particular places. This book considers some of the ways in which particular places can acquire special religious significance, as sites for prayer or other kinds of devotional activity, and how knowledge of place provides a key to understanding the nature of religious knowledge. There are two main arguments in the book. The first proposes that there is a deep-seated analogy between knowledge of God and knowledge of place, and that knowledge of God consists partly in an integrative knowledge of the significance of particular places. This strand of the book contrasts with recent discussion in the epistemology of religion, which has tended to privilege, for instance, scientific or ordinary perceptual kinds of knowledge as analogous to religious knowledge. Taking knowledge of place as a route into the question of the nature of religious knowledge provides a way of foregrounding the practical and engaged character of religious knowledge, and its connection to our moral and aesthetic commitments. The second central strand of the book uses these findings to consider some of the ways in which particular places can acquire special religious significance. By contrast with approaches which postulate a sharp distinction between "sacred" and "profane" spaces, and by contrast with the idea that the differentiated religious significance of space reflects some merely psychological truth, the book proposes that the religious import of a place is a function of its microcosmic significance (its capacity to represent some larger truth about the condition of human beings), its ability to conserve historical meanings (where these meanings exercise an enduring ethical claim upon those who are present at the site at later times), and its facilitation of a kind of embodied reference to God (where a person's thought is anchored in God by virtue of what they do at the site)
Faith and Place takes knowledge of place as a basis for thinking about the relationship between religious belief and our embodied life.

Recent epistemology of religion has appealed to various secular analogues for religious belief - especially analogues drawn from sense perception and scientific theory construction. These approaches tend to overlook the close connection between religious belief and our moral, aesthetic and otherwise engaged relationship to the material world. By taking knowledge of place as a starting point for religious epistemology, Mark Wynn aims to throw into clearer focus the embodied, action-orienting, perception-structuring, and affect-infused character of religious understanding.

This innovative study understands the religious significance of a site in terms of i. its capacity to stand for some encompassing truth about human life; ii. its conservation of historical meanings, where these meanings make a practical claim upon those located at the place at later times; and iii. its directing of the believer's attention to a sacred meaning, through enacted appropriation of the site.

Wynn proposes that the notion of 'God' functions like the notion of a 'genius loci', where the relevant locus is the sum of material reality. He argues that knowledge of God consists in part in a storied and sensuous appreciation of the significance of particular places.

Faith and Place takes knowledge of place as a basis for thinking about the relationship between religious belief and our embodied life. Early 21st century epistemology of religion has appealed to various secular analogues for religious belief - especially analogues drawn from sense perception and scientific theory construction. These approaches tend to overlook the close connection between religious belief and our moral, aesthetic and otherwise engaged relationship to the material world. By taking knowledge of place as a starting point for religious epistemology, Mark Wynn aims to throw into focus the embodied, action-orienting, perception-structuring, and affect-infused character of religious understanding. This study understands the religious significance of a site in terms of: its capacity to stand for some encompassing truth about human life; its conservation of historical meanings, where these meanings make a practical claim upon those located at the place at later times; and its directing of the believer's attention to a sacred meaning, through enacted appropriation of the site. Wynn proposes that the notion of 'God' functions like the notion of a 'genius loci', where the relevant locus is the sum of material reality. He argues that knowledge of God consists in part in a storied and sensuous appreciation of the significance of particular places. --From publisher's description Contents......Page 14 1. The Differentiated Religious Significance of Space and Some Secular Analogues for Religious Knowledge......Page 16 2. Friendship and Relationship to Place......Page 32 3. The Supra-individuality of God and Place......Page 59 4. The Grounding of Human Agency and Identity in God and Place......Page 86 5. Knowledge of Place......Page 116 6. Pilgrimage and the Differentiated Religious Significance of Space......Page 152 7. The Religious Significance of Some Built and Natural Environments......Page 188 8. Knowledge of Place and the Aesthetic Dimension of Religious Understanding......Page 221 9. Some Concluding Thoughts......Page 242 References......Page 268 G......Page 278 P......Page 279 Z......Page 280 'Faith and Place' considers how places come to acquire special religious significance, as sites for prayer or other kinds of devotional activity. It examines the ways in which sacred sites function, and the ways in which sites which have no explicitly religious import may come to bear a religious meaning