Why Religious Symbols? Accounting for an Unfashionable Approach

In “Why Religious Symbols? Accounting for an Unfashionable Approach,” Petruschka Schaafsma poses a question concerning why Ricoeur chose to work with religious texts but did not bother to provide a solid methodological underpinning of this choice. As a result, it leaves open the question of whether religious symbols are essential to the work or whether they could be replaced by nonreligious symbols. Thus it leaves open the question of how we should understand the specific character of Ricoeur’s reflection on evil. Schaafsma argues that the religious character of the symbols discussed in 'The Symbolism of Evil' are indeed essential to the meaning of the work and cannot be excluded without changing the meaning of the work. She goes on to suggest that this turns out to have a fundamental significance not only for the argument itself but also for constructive applications of Ricoeur’s work today.