ABSTRACT
In recent writings, Roger Scruton argues forcefully for a sacred dimension to human life, taking us beyond the purely physical or biological. He sees this dimension – which arises particularly in our dealings with other people and in our attitude to works of art – in terms of a cognitive dualism: the same reality being seen in two different ways, the scientific and the human-personal. Scruton locates the need for religion in the human-personal side of this dualism. But he seems unwilling to see anything in this dualism that might take us actually beyond this world. Scruton thus seems to be advocating what Erich Heller terms a religio intransitiva. In considering some of the work of Rilke, Wagner and Gerard Manley Hopkins we question the adequacy of a cognitive dualism that does not also lead to a genuine ontological dualism. Is Scruton’s understanding of the sacred enough, or, if we accept the reality of a sacred dimension to our lives in this world, are we not led ineluctably to consider the possibility of a transcendence of this world?
