Abstract

This paper will show the following: the distinctions among belief, religious belief, religion, and theology as religious instruction in belief; an explication of the concept of religious conflicts; the (im)possibility of realizing the ideals of theological epistemology; and the view of religious conflicts as a clash of epistemologies. As a proposition that is presumed to be true so that it could be used in explaining certain facts or as a presumption based on facts, a hypothesis is reflected in the assumption that religious conflicts are realized as a clash of epistemologies if we move from the area of the phenomena with which religions generally operate onto the area of principles on the basis of which these phenomena are realized as such. Thus, religious conflicts will be observed on the basis of the question of theological epistemologies, which can be differentiated into three basic ones: theologia fundamentalis, which has a Revelation or a Sacred text as the source of faith; theologia rationalis, which has reason as the source of faith; and theologia spiritualis, which has a personal maturation or revelation as the source of faith. Although the topic of this paper is the concept of religious conflicts as a clash of epistemologies, there will also be given, as it turns out, a necessary consideration of specific religious phenomena, which are given as such on the basis of one of the theological epistemologies, in accordance with the necessity of understanding the phenomenal area in which religious conflicts are realized. Nevertheless, the main tendency of this paper remains the idea of a clash among theological epistemologies as the explication of religious conflicts.