Nature's Religion

by Robert S. Corrington, Robert Neville (Foreword)

In the wake of both the semiotic and the psychoanalytic revolutions, how is it possible to describe the object of religious worship in realist terms? Semioticians argue that each object is known only insofar as it gives birth to a series of signs and interpretants (new signs). From the psychoanalytic side, religious beliefs are seen to belong to transference energies and projections that contaminate the religious object with all-too-human complexes. In Nature's Religion, distinguished theologian and philosopher Robert S. Corrington weaves together the concept of infinite semiosis with that of the transference to show that the self does have access to something in nature that is intrinsically religious. Corrington argues that signs and our various transference fields can and do connect us with fully natural religious powers that are not of our own making, thereby opening up a path past the Western monotheisms to a capacious religion of nature. With a foreword by Robert C. Neville, Nature's Religion is essential reading for philosophers of religion, scholars of the psychology of religion, and theologians.

212 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 1997

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps the densest text on Earth-Centered Spirituality I have ever tried to read. If you don't have a degree in philosophy or theology, you will want to avoid this book. What little I was able to parse out of the text - I generally agreed with, but it seemed like an inordinant amount of work for relatively little payoff.
I've briefly met the author a couple of times at UU conferences. Perhaps someday, I'll get to sit down with him and ask him what the hell he was trying to say here.....