Philosophy of reflection and biblical revelation in Paul Ricoeur

The main theme of the following presentation of Ricoeur's philosophical preoccupations with religion is the interrelationship between reflection and revelation. In a first section, Ricoeur's philosophical profile is outlined in order to indicate the tone between sadness and joy, negativity and affirmation, in which religion has its existential and philosophical ambience. The following part discusses the pertinence of Ricoeur's position in light of contemporary debates about divine otherness and kenosis. Finally, a third section examines the antagonism between philosophy of reflection and biblical revelation, which marks the range and limits of Ricoeur's hermeneutic philosophy. The kind of dependency or heteronomy implied in religion, especially in the biblical idea of the absolute as an external truth-event, presents a genuine challenge to both phenomenology and hermeneutics. This problem is addressed in Ricoeur's theories of revelation and testimony.