Horizonality Under Pressure: A Limit Phenomenology of Religion

The authors propose that religious and mystical appearances arise when finite experiences resist closure and are cast in maximal, unconditioned, or unsurpassable forms, which they call limit-forms. They argue these are Husserlian horizonality under existential pressure: ordinary experience always exceeds the given, but some horizons become absolute-seeming and claim the whole subject. The key phenomenological hinge is claim—limit-pressure becomes religiously salient when finite non-closure is lived as a summons to reorientation. The account is practice-first: religious practices stabilize limit-appearances as sacred and authoritative while training finite life.

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Abstract

One recurrent source of religious and mystical appearance lies in the way finite motifs resist finite closure and come to be inhabited under maximal, unconditioned, or unsurpassable forms. We call these forms limit-forms and argue that they are Husserlian horizonality under existential pressure: ordinary experience always exceeds what is presently given, but some horizons become absolute-seeming, claim the subject as a whole, and become religiously inhabitable. The phenomenological hinge is claim: limit-pressure becomes religiously salient when finite non-closure is lived not merely as lack, but as a summons to reorientation. The account is practice-first and formative. Religious practices do not merely express private experiences; they stabilize limit-appearances as ultimate or sacred, practically inhabitable, and transformatively authoritative, while training finite life to encounter later motifs under particular limit-forms. We develop the argument through three focal transformations---dependence as absolute ground, guilt as unconditional forgiveness, and desire as infinite love---and then test its range through gratitude, wonder, fragmentation, finitude, negative limit-appearances, confession, and non-theistic release. The account is bridge-neutral: it explains why religious appearances arise and become durable without deciding whether they disclose God, ultimate reality, or finite life under a limit-form. It culminates in a limit-orientation test that asks whether a practice preserves the finite motif it transforms, clarifies its practical pole of orientation, and returns finite life to repair, responsibility, gratitude, compassion, or release.