4　地球公共的霊性の哲学的展望――『文明の衝突』を超えるために

抄録

There exist in the world today conflicts among religions, especially those between religious fundamentalisms, lying at the root of the ‘clash of civilizations’ following 9.11. The concept of ‘global spirituality’ would be proposed as one key for the resolution of this problem. It is necessary to cultivate a sense of global identity of individuals as human beings on the Earth by introducing the idea of global spirituality in order to attain the planetary objectives such as global peace, welfare, and environmental sustainability. This article would examine Robert Bellah’s theory of religious evolution and John Hick’s theory of religious pluralism, and try to combine their insights. As a result, the prospect for ‘glocal’ religions or spirituality would be presented from the point of view of a pluralistic theory of civilizations.

The conceptualization of such spirituality philosophically requires a holistic theory of multi-layered pluralism: this enables us to mediate the historical conflicts between monotheism and polytheism. Some theologists argue for ‘one world faith’, but it is almost impossible to realize the dream. It is really important to make an endeavor to achieve the dream, but it is necessary to be conscious of the ultimate impossibility:there can be only the perpetual and unattainable aspiration towards a ‘global religion’ from the perspective of a neo-dialectical philosophy, which takes the finiteness of human being seriously.The concept of religion is not necessarily an appropriate form for a global spirituality because the concept is closely linked to the historical forms, such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, which were born in the Axial age. Thus, the global form might be called a global supra-religion or spirituality, and four requirements will be enumerated for this: the existence of transcendent reality, spiritual growth, global public orientation, and holistic theory of multi-layered pluralism.