Dismantaling the Dichotomy Between Secular and Sacred
A Wittgensteinian Way
Keywords:
Awe, Construct, Dichotomy, Form of Life, Human, Language-Game, Sacred, Secular, WorldAbstract
Human attraction toward the sacred and the secular and the consequent tension between the two in daily life are because people do not see their interrelationship in depth. Following the method of Wittgenstein, this paper attempts to understand the question of the sacred and the secular in a deeper way, neither to exclude one over the other nor to endorse a compromise between the two, but to see the meaning of both from the point of view of human person who discovers the meaning in them so that life becomes a ‘lived life in the world’ (NB, 73) in its depth. Wittgenstein has declared his allegiance to his faith neither in the sacred nor in the secular, rather he approached them with keen interest. He cherished the sense of the sacred and lived in the world as if it is a precious life to live. He sought the meaning of life of the world, which he called God. Dissolving the tension by discovering the sense of the sacred and the secular would be an antidote to the otherwise incompatible attitudes of the secular and the religious in the present world.
References
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