RANDALL STUDSTILL a1 a1 Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA 94709
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to clarify some of the areas considered
most problematic in Mircea Eliade's approach to religion. One of its principal goals
is to show that Eliade's method is primarily phenomenological rather than
theological, as some interpreters of his work maintain. In presenting this
phenomenological interpretation of Eliade four areas of his approach are addressed:
(1) the extent to which it incorporates historical method; (2) the meaning of religion
as sui
generis and irreducible; (3) Eliade's use of the term ‘sacred’; and (4) Eliade's
hierarchalizing of religious phenomena. Eliade's departure from phenomenology to
explain the causes of religious experience is also addressed.
