Using the ‘journey metaphor’ to restructure philosophy of religion

This essay forwards a new orientation and point of origin for philosophy of religion—an orientation that does not privilege theism, and a point of origin that does not begin with the attributes and proofs of God (and thereby privilege theism). To do so, it turns to the metaphor theory of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, specifically their analysis of the metaphor life is a journey. It draws on the internal structure of the journey metaphor to identify its core, constituent parts: journeys have a point of origin and destination, a route that is planned, obstacles and sights that are encountered along the way, and a traveler who is accompanied by and encounters other travelers. It then uses these core, constituent parts to generate five philosophical questions about the “journey” of the self and five philosophical questions about the “journey” of the cosmos: (1) Who am I (as traveler)?; (2) Where do I come from?; (3) Where am I going?; (4) How do I get there?; (5) What obstacles lie in my way?; (6) What is the cosmos?; (7) Where does the cosmos come from?; (8) Where is the cosmos going?; (9) How does the cosmos get there?; (10) What obstacles lie in the cosmos’ way? The majority of the essay then shows how each of these questions generates topics for global philosophy of religion and embraces content from a diversity of religious philosophies. Thus, this essay concludes that the journey metaphor is able to offer a new orientation and point of origin for philosophy of religion that is inclusive of a global diversity of religious traditions.