Contemporary trends in the philosophy of religion

Abstract

In his film, The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman, who has been doing with a movie camera what contemporary philosophers of religion are doing in page after page of learned treatises, tells the story of a knight who returns from the Crusades to find his native Denmark scarred by the black plague. He meets 'Death' in human form and engages him in a running game of chess while he searches for the meaning of his life and ponders the existence of God. In seeking to become certain that there is a God, the knight carries on an intellectual discussion with his squire who is just as certain that there is no God. The plague requires both knight and squire to perform various acts of compassion, but it is the squire who acts while the knight is too involved in philosophical speculations. He deviates from this task only very briefly to share a meal of strawberries and milk with their simplicity that he tries to hide them from the sight of death.