Afterword Returning to Cosmology—Thoughts on the Positioning of Belief

• Published in: Social analysis Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 181 - 195
• Main Author: Handelman, Don
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Berghahn Journals 01-04-2008; Berghahn Books; Berghahn Books, Inc
• Subjects: Analysis; Anthropology; Anthropology of religion; Astronomical objects; Beliefs; Boundaries; Comparative analysis; Cosmology; Divinity; English language; Field study; Gods; Hebrew language; Humans; Ideology; Judaism; Latour, Bruno; Monotheism; Paradoxes; Phenomenology; Religion; Religiosity; Religious beliefs; Religious rituals; Rituals; Shamans; United States; New York; United States > US; boundaries; paradox; cosmology; monotheism; phenomenality; representation
• ISSN: 0155-977X; 1558-5727
• DOI: 10.3167/sa.2008.520111

Cosmology may be helpful in positioning belief. I suggest, through discussing the contributions to this collection, that belief, especially propositional belief, is integral to monotheistic cosmoses that are constituted through gigantic fractures (like that between God and human being). Such fractures distinguish between cosmic interior and cosmic exterior. The fracture as boundary is absolute, paradoxical, not to be breached. Thus, the infinite Hebrew God integrates His finite cosmos by holding it together from its outside. The absolute boundary signifies cosmic discontinuity. Here belief in the unfathomable may be central to overcoming such discontinuity and, so, to integrating cosmos. By contrast, an organic cosmos is held together within itself, is more continuous within itself, is more holistic, and, in flowing through itself, obviates any centrality of belief.