Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Priority of Questions in Religions

Nathan Eric Dickman (PhD, The University of Iowa) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Ozarks, USA. He researches in hermeneutic phenomenology, philosophy of language, and comparative questions in philosophies of religions, with particular concerns about global social justice issues in ethics and religions. He has taught a breadth of courses, from Critical Thinking to Zen, and Existentialism to Greek & Arabic philosophy. Using Questions to Think (Bloomsbury, 2021) examines the roles questions play in critical thinking and reasoning, and Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Priority of Questions in Religions (Bloomsbury, 2022) examines the roles questions play in religious discourse.

• PrefaceIntroduction: Questions in Divine DiscoursePart I: Elements of a Hermeneutic for Interpreting Divine Questions1. Questioning has Hermeneutic Priority2. Religious Narrative is Literature3. What Is at Risk with Questions in Religious Texts?Part II: Questions in the Direct Discourse of Divine Beings on the Level of Story4. YHWH asks, “Where Are You?”5. Ancestor Ma asks, “Why Are You Seeking Outside?”6. Jesus asks, “Who Do You Say I Am?”Part III: Questions Posed by Texts to Readers on the Level of Discourse7. A Biblical Author asks, “Where Do You Stand?”8. Dharma Heirs ask, “Why Do You Seek Outside?”9. An Evangelist asks, “What Do You Have to Say for Yourself?”Conclusion: Human Response to Divine QuestionsBibliography Index

In this volume, Nathan Eric Dickman rightly and adroitly draws attention to the place that questioning holds in three major forms of religious discourse. Dickman’s careful consideration of the implications of the central role that skillful questioning plays in these traditions’ processes of meaning-creation is impressive.