Religious Philosophy

In trying to explain the Medieval Ashkenazic community's self-image of piety, Dr. Haym Soloveitchik ("Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example" in AJS Review Fall 1987) lists as one source for this attitude their simplicity of beliefs. As an explanation of this, he writes (p. 213):

[R]eligious philosophy is an act of justification. It seeks to make the beliefs and practices of a religion comprehensible in the terms of another system. Implicit in the act of translation is the assumption that the categories of the other system are the dominant ones. They are the notions which yield comprehension and bestow value. Otherwise why translate?

One could respond that the act of translation itself provides an opportunity for greater clarification. When we have to restate our beliefs in different words, we deepen our own understanding and crystallize the underlying convictions that form our religious world. Then again, who says that we cannot do this without having to translate our religion into the language of philosophy?

I have a feeling that many religious Jews who dabble (or more) in philosophy believe that philosophy is superior and that we must, as intelligent people, define ourselves in the terms of the Western philosophical tradition. Emotionally, I sympathize with that view even though I believe it to be mistaken.