Poetics and religious language in Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to outline how, in Paul Ricœur's thought, narration and its specificity of religious language permeates an event in illo tempore that gives the human being a temporal orientation that carries a past event to a future that, in a sense, is filled by hope and, with it, crowning the effort of the human being's existence. The article is mainly based on the works of Ricœur, like for: The conflict of the interpretations, The biblical hermeneutics, Manifestation et Proclamation and Du texte à l'action. Essais d'herméneutique II. The issue is discussed, in Ricœur, that religious language offers the guarantee of receiving revelation as an inaccessible word and, therefore, makes the human being decide for it as a gratuitous gift. It redefines reality. A process performed through metaphoric and symbolic language. In this sense, the symbol has a meaning that can be reappropriated by those who interpret it. Finally, it is stated that in Ricœur the sacred text, specifically the biblical text, is an open window, a possibility both of the ethical process of naming God and of the openness and poetic complexity of the construction of the text.