Ferdinand Ebner and the Paradox of Solitude

Abstract

The text raises the issue of dialogue as a religion experience in the expression of an Austrian thinker, Ferdinand Ebner. Religious experience as an escape from a declining culture is characterized as a subjectively experienced encounter with the Word of God and the word of the other. That experience is then confronted with dialogue as it is understood by the liberal-democratic state. Thanks to that confrontation a tension between maximalist and minimalist approaches to dialogue has been enhanced. The whole of the analyzes shows the paradox of solitude emerging from Ebner’s thought and at the same time leads to ask important questions regarding the shape of religious education in contemporary society.