Good refers to the intrinsic value or telos (purpose) of religion. The author starts with the claim that religion keeps alive, in thinking, the awareness of ultimate meaning (“truth”); in actions, the focus on human dignity and the common good, and, in the heart of man, the longing for fulfilling happiness, peace of heart, and love. The author analyses three mediating processes of resilience that promote the possibility of synthesis: the recognition of contingency, the experience of fulfilling happiness, and the wonder of possibility (new beginnings). Finally, the author links resilience to the concept of God as a creator.Hermans, C.A.M.. (2023). Resilient religion: What good is religion for?. Acta Theologica. 43. 54-71. 10.38140/at.v43i2.7788.
There is no awareness of infinite happiness in life without realising the limits of our joy, and vice versa. The synthesis is fragile because human beings experience a fulfilling happiness in the joy of some particular event. Time will go by and something can happen that will make us feel disconnected from this unlimited happiness.
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6. PROCESSES OF RESILIENCE What processes of resilience help people deal with heartbreaking adversity? If situations of heartbreaking misery are characterised by the absence of a synthesis between the self as limited and the self as open towards unlimitedness, the processes of resilience need to foster the synthesis between the self as finite and the self as open towards infinity. The answer to the question What is religion good for? concerns processes of the self as spirit. In its practices and stories, in its language and rituals, in prophetic protest and in helping people in need, religion must foster processes that unleash the power of the spirit. In other words, these processes must focus on experiencing the good in and of events (concrete and particular facts) in our life with and for others. 61
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In the book Resilient religion (Hermans 2022b), I distinguish four processes of resilience: recognition of contingency; transcendental openness; experience of unlimited happiness, and the work of mourning in tragic situations. In this article, I focus on the process of recognition of contingency, and the experience of unlimited happiness. I add a fifth process, namely the wonder of possibilisation or new beginnings that relates to human acting. In reflecting on the processes of resilience (Hermans 2019), I realised that I missed a process of resilience focused on acting. In this article, I want to fill that gap. 6.1 Recognition of contingency Heartbreaking adversity presupposes the recognition that the good is not experienced as a reality in our life. I could just as good be dead There is no happiness in my life There is nobody who is near to me (Hermans 2022c).
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The synthesis between the limited self and the self that resonates to the unlimited is a risk and not a necessity. If the synthesis were a necessity, it would be impossible for human beings to experience a heartbreaking adversity. Contingency refers to the unpredictability and uncertainty of the event in which this synthesis emerges. We could describe contingency as [w]hat is not, from the possibility to be, and what is, from the possibility not to be (Van der Heiden 2014:260). Contingency is a marker of our human condition (ontology). We experience things that happen in our life as contingent: unexpectedly, what is is no longer there, and what is not unexpectedly appears as a possibility. The (non-)appearance of the possibility of a synthesis is contingent. The essence of this (non-)appearance is that it is unexpected, by definition new, and different to what we had thought.
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