Religiously We Dwell: Heidegger's Later Contribution to Philosophy of Religion

The Enlightenment has bequeathed to us the notion that religion can be treated as an object of theoretical inquiry, giving rise to the “secular” concept of religion as a field of meaning or truth‐content that is (ideally) isolable from the particular practices that constitute religious worship. I argue that the later Heidegger's “poetic” thought disrupts the paradigm underlying the secular concept of religion and points us toward an alternative understanding of religion as tantamount to being‐in‐the‐world. Heidegger thus opens the way for post‐secular reflection on the transformative potential of religion in human culture.