Abstract

In the Western tradition, the relationship between philosophy and theology has been characterized by alternating modulations ranging from mutual distinction to equally hostile exclusion, from mutual correlation to instrumental subordination, from sympathetic and convergent encounter to divergent and controversial conflict. On several occasions and in ever new and differentiated ways, in the various historical and cultural contexts, it is possible to record a continuous rise of interest in the relationships between philosophy and theology that focuses on questioning the traditional boundaries of competence, the relative absolutizations and relationships, and, consequently, of mutual distrust and indifference, of mutual connections and correspondences. Obviously, the different modulations of the relationship depend on the reference to specific theoretical and historical figures of philosophy and theology, both of which decline certain forms of knowledge, which, having now acquired a tradition of comprehensive practices that allow them to confront and dialogue, without excluding the contribution of the other in advance allows us to identify, on the one hand, the origin and meaning of the conflict, and on the other, the possibility of a relationship. Among the authors who, in the twentieth century, tried to instruct the relationship between philosophy and theology, placing themselves at the point of intersection «between» the two knowledge and paying particular attention to the fruitfulness of the notion of analogia entis, identifying its epistemic vis and the related theoretical, hermeneutical and methodological implications, Erich Przywara is certainly the one who grasps the «rhythm» of continuous modulation, in a reciprocating reciprocity, between philosophy and theology. Referring to the reflective proposal of this author, to be considered as a valid interlocutor and a sure point of reference for a «sagittal» and prospective gaze on the Western philosophical-theological tradition, can be particularly significant for grasping the different modulations and changes that contemporary are recorded about the relationship between philosophy and theology and to identify possible lines of internal and external legitimacy to both forms of knowledge, on the basis of the common hermeneutic of the human, which is in constant search for the truth of himself.