종교와 명상에 있어서의 주관성과 객관성의 문제

A Study on Subjectivity and Objectivity of Religion and Meditation

This article discusses the problem of subjectivity and objectivity involved in the religion and meditation. To identify the difference between the two is a crucial task in the religious-meditative endeavor. Is the truth in the domains of religion and meditation actually the subjective truth or objective truth? If it is subjective, it would exist as many; if objective, it should be only one. If the truth claimed by different religious-meditative traditions really the objective truth, which of them represents the “true” one? To answer this question, the present discussion use the concept of collective subjectivity - a certain subjective stance that members of a group hold in common. Members of any religious group have a belief that their religion might represent the “absolute” objective truth. Yet this is exactly a delusion produced by the collective subjectivity. Such a delusion tends to appear particularly severe in the exclusive, monotheistic type of religious group. John Hick in his rather liberalistic Religious Pluralism suggested that the truth pursued by all the great religion might be one and same truth but when expressed in the words and forms it could be vulnerable to the subjectivity of particular culture. This is the good attempt to differentiate the collective subjective truth from the objective truth in the religion. Such a view can be directly applied to domain of meditation. Thus, the manifested forms may vary in meditation under the influence of collective subjectivity, but you may say that the enlightenment itself might represent the absolute objective truth. For enlightenment involves experiencing the ultimate reality beyond words and forms. This article, however, dispute that it cannot be an absolute objective truth, either. I propose that even in the most transcendental and highest cognitive state, the absolute objective reality - with complete exclusion of subjectivity, either individual or collective - can never be experienced.