Also presented as the author's thesis (doctoral) - MF Norwegian School of Theology, 2011.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Introduction. Problems in the philosophy of religious language ; From pragmatic philosophy of language through continental hermeneutics and phenomenology to deep-metaphysics ; The pragmatic, semantic and ontological structures of religious discourses ; Systematic reconstruction -- A journey in ontology from pragmatics through hermeneutics. The pragmatic dimension of religious discourses as explicated by D.Z. Phillips; "Don't think, but look!"; Religions as practices; Religious language as practices; Religious practices in forms of life; The concept of God structured as praxis; Realism vs. non-realism : a confused dichotomy? ; The phenomenological, hermeneutic and ontological structure of religious discourses as explicated by Paul Ricoeur; Ontology within the framework of a hermeneutics of subjectivity; The polysemy of sensibility; Being at the frontiers of sense: The semantic, hermeneutic and ontological dimension of metaphorization: Ricoeur's theory of metaphorical reference : towards a tensional ontology; Temporal being: Time and narrative as a hermeneutic spiral : Mimesis1 : Mimesis2 : Mimesis3: Reference or refiguration?; Towards a hermeneutic-ontological framework for understanding religious discourse ; Pragmatics and hermeneutic ontology in philosophy of religion; Ontology : reduction, enrichment, refinement?; Ontology in between pragmatics, hermeneutics and phenomenology: Language-games, forms of life and lifeworlds: Ricoeur and Phillips on referential relations and ontology: Sameness and otherness in the context of religion; Summary and outlook : ontological enquiries within the frameworks of pragmatics, hermeneutics and phenomenology -- Towards deep-metaphysics. Ontology and the two orders of religious discourse; Religious discourses : clarifying an ambiguous concept; The quest for the ontological dimension of religious discourses; Ontology and different orders of religious discourse ; Ontology and first-order religious discourses; The methodological Status of Phillips' Wittgensteinian concepts; Situations, contexts, forms of life, and lifeworlds as theoretical determinations of how being discloses itself religiously; Language-games as a heuristic conceptual device to determine how being discloses itself religiously; A critical explication of the pragmatic, semantic, and ontological structures of lifeworlds: The lifeworld as the dimension of actual and possible praxis : The semantic-ontological dimension of figurative discourse : A reconstructed ontology of possibility; Religious experience and religious praxis further explicated in relation to the notions of expressibility and practicability; Human living as experiencing flesh/body; The dialectic of Sameness and otherness as the hermeneutic structure of how being discloses itself in first-order religious discourses; Referential relations and ontology in religious discourses ; Ontology and second-order religious discourses; Hermeneutic reflection and contemplative description; From lifeworldly and linguistic-pragmatic determination to a semantics of action; Contemplative hermeneutics, theories of being, and the relativity of theoretical frameworks; The origin, mode, and scope of human thinking; The ethical orientation of ontological thinking ; Summary and concluding remarks -- Bibliography -- Index of names -- Subject index.

Chapter I. Introduction -- Chapter II. The pragmatic dimension of religious discourses as explicated by D.Z. Phillips -- Chapter III. The phenomenological, hermeneutic and ontological structure of religious discourses as explilcated by Paul Ricoeur -- Chapter IV. Pragmatics and hermeneutics ontology in philosophy of religion -- Chapter V. Ontology and the two orders of religious discourse -- Chapter VI. Ontology and the two orders of religious discourse -- Chapter VII. Ontology and second-order religious discourses -- Chapter VIII. Summary and concluding remarks.