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The Demarcation Problem of Knowledge and Faith: Questions and Answers from Theology

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Clashes of Knowledge

Part of the book series: Knowledge and Space ((KNAS,volume 1))

This chapter critiques the use of the simple popular duality of “faith and knowledge.” The religious and the academic realms that seem to represent it consist of truth-seeking communities and thus have strong structural similarities, although they are concerned with different subject matters. The typically modern achievement of a type of subjectivist faith, which has tried to fuse cognitive processes in the one realm with those in the other, in order to avoid any “clashes,” has led to a systematic emptying of religious experience and communication. The author argues for a nondefensive understanding of the differences between religious and academic cognitive approaches in terms of their respective subject matters—amid deep similarities that should be acknowledged and appreciated.

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Welker, M. (2008). The Demarcation Problem of Knowledge and Faith: Questions and Answers from Theology. In: Meusburger, P., Welker, M., Wunder, E. (eds) Clashes of Knowledge. Knowledge and Space, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5555-3_8

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