Truth of Broken Symbols

Robert Cummings Neville is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University where he is also Dean of the School of Theology. He is past president of the American Academy of Religion, the Metaphysical Society of America, and the International Society for Chinese Philosophy. Neville has also written Behind the Masks of God: An Essay Toward Comparative Theology; New Essays in Metaphysics; The Puritan Smile: A Look Toward Moral Reflection; The Tao and the Daimon; Eternity and Time's Flow; God the Creator: On the Transcendence and Presence of God; The Highroad Around Modernism; Reconstruction of Thinking; Recovery of the Measure: Interpretation and Nature; A Theology Primer; Normative Cultures; and The Cosmology of Freedom, all published by SUNY Press.

"It is a comprehensive, intricately argued, original treatment of a topic that is of central importance in both theology and philosophy of religion. Its inclusion of the referential element in symbols distinguishes it in a sensible and needed way from much of the current discussion." — John. B. Cobb, Jr., Claremont Graduate School"I was engaged by the careful theological and theoretical treatment of spiritual issues. The burgeoning field of spirituality needs this kind of discussion. It is a distinctive development of the pragmatic tradition." — Anne Carr, University of Chicago Divinity School

• Preface 1. What Religious Symbols Do 1.1. Symbols in Religion1.2. Symbols and Salvation1.3. Symbols and Community1.4. Symbols and Representation 2. Symbols Break on the Infinite 2.1. Reference, Meaning, and Interpretation2.2. Imagination as Religious2.3. Imagination as Engagement2.4. Religious Symbolic Reference 3. Finite Meaning Infinite 3.1. A Complex Meaning: The Eucharist3.2. The Structure of Symbols3.3. Network Meaning and Content Meaning3.4. Meaning the Infinite 4. Taking Symbols in Context 4.1. Interpretation and Intentional Contexts4.2. Theology4.3. Cultic Life4.4. Public Life, Ordinary Life, and Extraordinary Life 5. Symbols for Transformation 5.1. Devotional Life as Transformation5.2. Devotional Systems5.3. Creating a Transformative World5.4. Representation and Fiction in Devotional Symbols 6. Judging Religious Symbols by Consequences 6.1. From Interpretation to Consequences: Divine Child Abuse?6.2. Religion Among the Dimensions of Life6.3. Religion Judged by Other Dimensions6.4. The Truth and Relativity of Religious Hermeneutics 7. Truth in Religious Symbols 7.1. Truth in Religious Practice7.2. Truth in Religious Devotion7.3. Truth in Theology7.4. Truth in Religion: Broken Symbols Bibliography Index