Med sinne och smak för det oändliga. Om att återge religionen dess rätta plats

Abstract

In 1799 Friedrich Schleiermacher famously argued that, ultimately, religion is about having ‘sensibility and taste for the infinite’. He thereby directed focus away from prevalent attempts at reducing religion either to the domain of rational knowledge or to morality. The present article, based on the author’s inauguration lecture as Professor of Systematic Theology in Lund, argues that the contemporary discourse on religion would do well to reconsider Schleiermacher’s characterisation of religion as belonging essentially to the domain of aesthetics. As an example of what such a renewed and enriched discourse on religion might look like today, the author turns her gaze to the compound novels and thoughtful essays of the American author Marilynne Robinson. At a time when religion is largely seen as getting on people’s nerves, associated solely with bestial violence or moral narrow-mindedness, Robinson has a rare capacity to show another side to religion. She rarely writes about religion in an abstract or conceptual sense, focussing instead on the profundity encapsulated in religion at its best.