Ethos of Religion and Forms of Rationality

The article examines the relationship between religion and science (or rational activities as a whole) as two irreducible basic aspects of human existence and two subsystems of culture, constituted by different systems of values and norms. Theories postulating their harmonious coexistence are failures, and we need to understand the profound causes of conflicts. These causes are not in the sphere of particular or general cognitive disagreements, but in fundamental difference of spiritual settings, that stand behind both religion and science. The article distinguishes between the two main types of religious life and ethos - one connected with "faith" and the other with "religious experience". It further distinguishes four basic forms of rationality: hypothetic-deductive (in natural sciences), hermeneutical (in human sciences), philosophical, and theological. Using these typologies helps showing the ways not so much of resolving particular conflicts that inevitably emerge, but rather of creating a mutual recognition in spite of fundamental differences.