Wpływ apologetyki totalnej na badania religioznawcze

Abstract

The application of the “total” method in the comparative apologetics of religions depends on previous statement of the mutual relations between the apologetics and other religious sciences. The “total” method in this respect consists in taking in account all three main psychological factors, namely the intellectual, the voluntary and the emotional one, in religious experience studies. The religious reality, that is, the experience of divinity, is analysed in such aspects by the psychology-, sociology- and history of religions. The comparative apologetics is one of the religious sciences and has its own material and formal object, which is the critical analysis of the psychological-, sociological- and historical genesis of any world great religious system in respect of its self defendene and accreditation. The specific method of comparative apologetics, namely the ’’total” method, enables getting acquainted with the genesis and development of any religious system which was created by concrete historical founder, religious leader or prophet. The successive stages of the “total” method of comparative apologetics are as follows: the critical analysis of historical (literary) sources concerning the genesis of searched religious system, then the study of the life, deeds and self defense of the founder or leader of given religious system, and at last the critical analysis of main arguments of his own accreditation system. This method is possible chiefly in studies of those religious systems, where previously the exsistence of such a religious founder or leader had been confirmed in history. The first attempt and experiment of application of the ’’total” method in comparative apologetics has been undertaken in studies of the genesis of Christian religion (The Religious Conscience of Jesus of Nazareth), the next one – in study of the Muhammadan religion, the Islam, both in the „Apologetical School" of the Theological Faculties in the University and Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw, Poland.