Two Philosophy of Religion Questions and the Relation of Humanity to the Religious Ideal

Rembrandt, Balaam and the Ass, 1626

Two questions of Philosophy of Religion are how does humanity attempt to relate to a believed supernatural world and does that supernatural world relate to humanity?   One response to both of these is the existence of religious literature.  Religion as religo or the "tying together" or of the binding between the natural world and the supernatural is my approach to this.  Thus, religious literature fits this as both a human response to the supposed supernatural world and, as inspired revelation, as the supernatural response to human questions.

Because it is in human language and form, the forms take on the appearance of various cultural artifacts from the literary imagination of those individuals.  The various cultural artifacts present communication as folklore, legend, myth, records and genealogies, ritual instruction, and wisdom literature which all play a part in these connections.  

Alan Dundes wrote about this nearly 20 years ago in his book Holy Writ as Oral Writ: The Bible as Folklore, https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2732&context=auss.  Dundes used the term "folklore" since his concern is the transition from oral teaching to written document, https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/3-9-1999.html.

This is significant, however, as he provided a means to understand religious literature by demonstrating how both fundamentalists and biblical critics may be asking the wrong questions about the biblical literature, and I would apply that to all religious literature.  The relation to the religious ideal, or of the religious ideal to the person, becomes a journey of the reader through the story and instruction.  

I think that many religious people are mythologists, but in actuality a lucky few live out the heroic myth.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Jefferson's Blend of Natural Rights and Natural Law

“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” is Thomas Jefferson’s triad he took from Natural Rights and from Natural Law.  

The Natural Rights of life and liberty he appropriated from John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, leaving out Locke’s third element of “property.”  Looking to the Natural Law aspect of political philosophy, he inserted “The Pursuit of Happiness.” There are two sources for this short and misunderstood phrase; one source is that of the Swiss jurist Emerich de Vattel and his work The Law of Nations and the other is that of John Locke’s Concerning Human Understanding.

As to the notion of Natural Law, Jefferson noted de Vattel’s work The Law of Nations and was familiar with the idea that happiness was promoted as the people were active in forming a good government.  That is, a pursuit of happiness was a work towards the civic good.  See The Laws of Nations in chapter 1.3.28 – 29, it’s worth reading.  It’s online too at http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/vattel/vatt-103.htm.   De Vattel taught that a good constitution is the foundation of a nation’s “preservation, safety, perfection, and happiness.”

From Locke he knew of the passage in Concerning Human Understanding 21.52, another section worth reading at http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/johnlocke/BOOKIIChapterXXI.html.

Locke tried to show how “true happiness” is the foundation of liberty, provided one is able to “suspend the satisfaction of … desires in particular cases.”  That is, as he noted in a later section, the need of the governance of one’s passions.

Much has been written about this wonderful blend of Natural Rights and Natural Law, and for that you might want to begin here, http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/46460, and see where the reading takes you.

Living the Good Life

Gordon Graham's Living the Good Life: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy is a fine presentation to Ethics that presents six projects on the subject.  For those who desire a hard-copy textbook then this is what I would use for an Ethics course.  The body of the text is less 200 pages and he offers chapters on Egoism, Hedonism, Existentialism, Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Divine Command.    It is out of print and while the author contemplates revising it, you may find it at many online sellers such as Addall books and Alibris at a very low price.