Philosophy of religion in Ukrainian and Western science

Abstract

Philosophy of religion is one of the most popular philosophical disciplines at Western and American universities. The concept “philosophy of religion” is also presented in Ukrainian educational system. Nevertheless the essence of the concept in Ukrainian and Western scientific environment is not identical. The exploration of the differences constitutes the relevance of the issue. The main research method is comparative analysis: the work is based on textbooks’ analysis from philosophy of religion written in the West in comparison to the national works of religious studies. The main pioneering result reached in the issue is to highlight the conceptual differences of “philosophy of religion” in Ukrainian and Western scientific traditions. In Ukraine philosophy of religion is a philosophic discipline that studies a phenomenon of religion, as in Western and American scientific environment the subject of philosophy of religion is God. The presented difference in approaches depends on the difference of ideological bases. Soviet science of religious studies which dominated in Ukraine for the decades and has still remained impact on the most part of scientific environment was built on Marxist atheism and considered religion not according to human interrelationships with the Highest Being, but as a result of social relationships. In other words religion is a social phenomenon for Marxist religious studies, namely social generated reality. In the West, where philosophy of religion has never been in service to totalitarian ideology, God has remained a subject of the discipline. Western philosophy of religion is close to theology owing to the subject of study which is also explores God. The difference between them is in the research method: philosophy of religion explores God via intelligence, and theology via revelation. Western challenges of philosophy of religion are to explore God via human intelligence. The European tradition endeavors to separate knowledge about God that can be explored by human mind from the knowledge which is presented to human via revelation.