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THE PRAYING ANIMAL
Author(s) -
Jenson Robert W.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1983.tb00517.x
Subject(s) - embodied cognition , humanity , prayer , metaphor , aesthetics , complement (music) , philosophy , heaven , root (linguistics) , epistemology , sociology , theology , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , complementation , gene , phenotype
. Ritual cannot be interpreted by a root metaphor of evolution, without reducing ritual's necessary intention. We must rather understand ritual as humanizing revolution. We have therefore two questions. First, What part does ritual have in human reckoning with reality? Second, What part does ritual have in the step to the specifically human? To the first question, the answer is proposed: ritual is that embodiment of our discourse with God and one another, by which we are made available and vulnerable to reality. To the second question, the answer is proposed: as embodied prayer, ritual is the complement to that address of God which posits our ontologically specific humanity, Parodying Aristotle, we may say that we are the sacrificing animals.