Phenomenology and religion after a century: a provisional balance

Abstract

In this article I intend to propose that the concept of phenomenology applied to the religious field moves between (a) its use in the sciences of religion (what can be called phenomenology of religion in a broad sense) and (b) a more classic. In the first of the expressions, the phenomenology of religion is a discipline different from philosophy and theology that seeks to understand the religious phenomenon; With the second of the expressions, it is sought, rather, to characterize, among others, the essential experience of the divine, either by emphasizing the religious act or in human existence as the essence of religion. I do not intend, in this way, to show that there is an internal articulation of these three moments, but rather, I seek to present three different ways of understanding the relationship between phenomenology and religion.