‘The hand of God’: hierophany and transcendence through sport

Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 51 (1):1-28 (2024)
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Abstract

The designation of Diego Maradona’s ‘handball’ goal, that it was an intervention by God himself, brings the phenomena of sport and religion into an interrelationship. The basic thesis of this paper is that, despite many of their phenomenal similarities, explicit religion is not, and cannot be, substantially related to sport, as the two manifest themselves in different ways of being. This thesis is supported by arguments from three philosophical areas: 1. The ontological dimension of the manifestation of the sacred in the profane through the process of hierophany in sport does not refer to a specific deity or God, and is therefore not a presentation but an indirect representation of the sacred; 2. The epistemological perspective of the intentional relation of consciousness to religious ritual justifies the necessity of situating them in an overall horizon of references and meanings to the horizon of the lifeworld; 3. The existential and experiential aspects of transformative sport experiences transform the horizon of meanings of empirical reality, but lack the sacramental perspective. Implicit religion as a possibility of transition on a continuum of complementary existential states is a suitable explicative framework for analyzing the phenomenal similarities and essential differences of religion and sport.

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References found in this work

I and thou.Martin Buber - 1970 - New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons 57.
The Idea of the Holy.R. Otto - 1958 - Oxford University Press USA.
The varieties of religious experience. A Study in human Nature.William James - 1902 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 54:516-527.
E-sports are Not Sports.Jim Parry - 2018 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 13 (1):3-18.

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