All cultures engage their geography, their weather, and their positions in various historical situations, and devise symbol systems, social organizations, and personal habits to do so. Nor is this a strictly functionalist approach that understands religion as a function of something else, such as social cohesiveness (Durkheim) or psychological need (Freud), although these obviously are involved also. So this is not a highly subjectivist approach that understands religion mainly as the function of human behavior and experience, although those obviously are involved.
But the focus of this paper is on what things are ultimate such that engaging them with virtuosity makes people religious geniuses.Īt the outset it should be pointed out that this approach construes religion as the engagement of something in the real world, namely, ultimacy, or ultimate realities, or ultimate dimensions of things. Many other factors are involved in the public recognition of them as religious geniuses, including being in the right place at the right time and having a public that grasps something of what makes them special. Their virtuosity is what sets them apart from others as geniuses. The engagement with ultimacy is what makes their genius religious as opposed to some other kind. Of the many ways to understand religious geniuses, one of the most basic is to see them as virtuosi in engaging ultimate reality and ultimate dimensions of experience.
Boston University, draft of January 7, 2013
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