For Ricoeur, religion is the other of philosophy, the non-philosophical par excellence. He did not write a systematic philosophy of religion, but he wrote extensively about religion as a meeting place for language and conviction. The essays in this volume, written between 1953 and 2003, attest to the coherence, richness, and variety of Ricoeur's secular and philosophical approach towards religion. They range over the problem of guilt, the legitimacy or otherwise of Freudian, Marxist, and other critiques of religion, the relation between experience and language in religious discourse, the study of biblical hermeneutics, the nature of religious belief, and reflections on sacrifice, gifts, and debt. Ricoeur draws on religion to think, while not neglecting the analysis of religion itself.

These texts by one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century will be of interest to students and scholars of philosophy and theology and to anyone concerned with the enduring role of religion in the modern world.