Renewing Philosophy of Religion: Exploratory Essays 0198738900, 9780198738909

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Renewing Philosophy of Religion

Renewing Philosophy of Religion Exploratory Essays

EDITED BY

Paul Draper and J. L. Schellenberg

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © the several contributors 2017 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2017 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2017946192 ISBN 978–0–19–873890–9 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

In memory of William L. Rowe exemplar and friend

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Contents List of Contributors

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Introduction

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Part I. Focus 1. Rescuing Religion from Faith

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Sonia Sikka 2. Global Philosophy of Religion and its Challenges

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Yujin Nagasawa 3. Against Ultimacy

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Stephen Maitzen 4. Religion after Naturalism

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Eric Steinhart 5. Renewing our Understanding of Religion: Philosophy of Religion and the Goals of the Spiritual Life

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Mark Wynn 6. On Facing Up to the Question of Religion as Such

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John Bishop 7. The Future of Philosophy of Religion, the Future of the Study of Religion, and (Even) the Future of Religion

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Robert McKim

Part II. Standpoint 8. North American Philosophers of Religion: How They See their Field

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Wesley J. Wildman and David Rohr 9. Continental Philosophy of Religion in a Kenotic Tone

J. Aaron Simmons

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CONTENTS

10. Rationality and Worldview

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Graham Oppy 11. On the Socratic Injunction to Follow the Argument Where It Leads

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Jason Marsh 12. Spinoza’s Philosophy of Religious Life

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Clare Carlisle 13. Protest and Enlightenment in the Book of Job

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Wes Morriston Index

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List of Contributors JOHN BISHOP is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland. CLARE CARLISLE is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology at King’s College London. PAUL DRAPER is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University. STEPHEN MAITZEN is W. G. Clark Professor of Philosophy at Acadia University. JASON MARSH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College. ROBERT MCKIM is Professor of Religion and of Philosophy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. WES MORRISTON is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder. YUJIN NAGASAWA is Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the John Hick Centre for the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham. GRAHAM OPPY is Professor of Philosophy at Monash University and CEO of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. DAVID ROHR is a Ph.D. candidate at Boston University’s Graduate Division of Religious Studies. J. L. SCHELLENBERG is Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint Vincent University. SONIA SIKKA is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. J. AARON SIMMONS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Furman University. ERIC STEINHART is Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University. WESLEY J. WILDMAN is Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics at Boston University. MARK WYNN is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Leeds.

Introduction It was during a meeting of the Society for Philosophy of Religion in Hilton Head, South Carolina, back in 2011, that we began batting around the idea for a collection such as the one you hold in your hands. Both of us thought that philosophy of religion was in need of renewal, and we wondered whether others might agree and explore the idea with us. After writing some emails, it became clear that we were not alone and that there was indeed considerable enthusiasm for the project we had in mind. Of course, not everyone agrees with us. Philosophy of religion, understood as a subdiscipline of philosophy, has grown enormously in the past fifty years, primarily by attracting committed Christians to the study of philosophy. Some take this growth to be a sign of the health of the field and a cause for celebration. We view it, however, as a mixed blessing. One of our concerns is that philosophy of religion has become increasingly theological in its methods, topics, and criteria of evaluation, and strikingly narrow in its focus. Not all of these changes are obviously bad. To the extent that it is appropriate for philosophers of religion to work out and even defend the perspective of a particular religious tradition or worldview, overlap with theology is to be expected. So long as such perspectival work is done with intellectual humility and openness, and in dialogue with other religious and non-religious perspectives, it may be perfectly compatible with the spirit of philosophy. Unfortunately, much work in contemporary philosophy of religion is not done in this way, exhibiting instead symptoms of partisanship, insularity, and bias. Further, even if those problems could be solved (or didn’t exist), the question would still arise whether or not what we have now is all that philosophy of religion can or should be. The subject of renewal therefore seems ripe for exploration. What’s needed is a variety of assessments of what it would be for philosophy of

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religion to truly flourish and reach its potential. We hope that with this volume of essays we are taking a first important step toward satisfying this need. The essays explore a variety of answers to the question of why, exactly, we should not be satisfied with the status quo in philosophy of religion. They also explore a variety of alternatives to that status quo. The goal is to create a crescendo of diverse voices, all calling for change of one sort or another. While this first exploration will no doubt leave much territory uncharted, the hope is that it will spark additional investigation and ultimately lead to new models of inquiry about religion that are philosophical instead of theological, and scientific (in the broadest sense) instead of confessional. The visions for renewal described in this book are diverse, but they overlap in multiple and interesting ways. There is also disagreement, though perhaps less than one might expect. Our aim in this introduction is to identify the main themes, thus facilitating understanding of what is to come. But to this we have added some remarks on how we think those themes interact, on the unified contribution that we think can be extracted from the book, and on areas of contention that seem to us to remain after all is said and done. Thus, we hope to help motivate a fruitful continuing discussion outside the covers of this book, one that builds on or challenges its results, and clears up matters here left open. Seven of the thirteen essays argue for renewal citing issues about focus, maintaining either that philosophy of religion should expand the range of issues it addresses or that it should shift attention from one set of issues to another. Six essays are concerned with the standpoint from which philosophers of religion address the issues they do, arguing primarily for renewal in this domain. Concerns about focus are not new. For decades there have been calls from philosophers of religion such as William J. Wainwright to devote more attention to non-Western religious traditions, at least by seriously studying them if not by writing about them. Some have tried to respond to these calls in a positive way, for example by including a smattering of articles on Eastern religions in the philosophy of religion textbooks they edit. There has, however, been little dialogue between philosophers of (Western) theism and, say, philosophers of Buddhism or Hinduism. Instead, a common approach among the former is to compare theism or even Christian theism to naturalism, as if those two positions exhaust the options worthy of serious consideration.

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Some of the chapters in Part 1 address this problem. None of their authors, however, think that simply increasing the number of philosophers willing to talk about non-Western religions can solve the problem all by itself. According to Sonia Sikka, the problem cannot be solved this way because a narrowness of focus among Western philosophers of religion causes most of them to conflate religion with faith in authority or revelation. This makes them incapable of examining non-Western religions without distortion, since those religions are not “faiths” in the relevant sense. Indeed, such distortion is even present in philosophy of religion readers. In their efforts to be more inclusive or global, they simply add selections on Eastern religions to categories that are inappropriate for non-faith traditions. Also of concern to Sikka is the fact that the false assumption that religion must involve faith in authority or revelation makes it impossible for contemporary philosophy of religion to assist the increasing number of people exploring spiritual possibilities outside of traditional religion. Such people, who are often unfairly dismissed as narcissistic or arrogant because they dare to challenge the authority of established forms of religion, might have expected to find assistance from philosophy of religion in their spiritual searches; instead, they find a discipline that is so narrow in its focus and in how it conceives of its subject matter that it will not even recognize their explorations as proper objects of study. Yujin Nagasawa, for his part, has no problem with Christian philosophy being a part of philosophy of religion, but he thinks, as do a number of other authors in this volume, that those who claim to be philosophers of religion must address more than just a specific form of religion. They must in some way address religion in general. It is not obvious, however, says Nagasawa, how philosophers of religion should go about doing what he recommends. Should they evaluate worldviews as Ninian Smart advocates? Or should they pursue some form of religious pluralism as John Hick did? Nagasawa finds problems with both of these approaches. Smart’s approach, for example, is unlikely to eliminate partisanship and insularity, and Hick’s approach unreasonably requires all philosophers of religion to adopt some form of religious pluralism. Nagasawa proposes instead a “global philosophy of religion” that identifies philosophical problems a variety of religions share and hence that all philosophers of religion—no matter what tradition they “represent”—can work together to clarify or solve. On the one hand, this appears to complement Sikka’s

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moves because, if representatives each mine their own traditions—the ones they understand best—for those clarifications and solutions, then the distortions that concern Sikka might not undermine global philosophy of religion. On the other hand, if those distortions are left in place, then a common view even of the philosophical problems embedded in the religious traditions of the world may prove elusive. The next two chapters are more radical than the first two, with each calling not just for an expanded focus that includes non-Western religions, but also for the focus on traditional religions to be replaced altogether. According to Stephen Maitzen, the problem with traditional religions and, by extension, with the philosophy of such religions is that those religions appeal to ultimate entities, and such entities are not even possibly real, let alone probably real. If he is right, then Sikka’s desire to save traditional religion from faith is like the desire to save a terminal patient from a hangnail, and the philosophical problems that traditional religions share, and which Nagasawa proposes to have us solve, are sidelined by a deeper problem that cannot be solved in their favor. Maitzen seeks to support his claim by distinguishing and carefully arguing against several different forms of ultimacy: ontological, axiological, teleological, and explanatory. It remains to be seen whether Sikka or Nagasawa or someone else could show that other ideas of ultimacy or philosophically interesting non-ultimistic ideas are to be found in the world’s religions. Maitzen, in his chapter, concludes that philosophy itself enjoys three characteristics of religious realities—namely, metaphysical, axiological, and soteriological transcendence—and that little would be lost and much might be gained if both religion and philosophy of religion were replaced by philosophy—that is, by “the attempt to answer a limitless range of questions by means of our most careful reasoning.” For Eric Steinhart, the problem with philosophy of religion’s current focus on traditional religions is not that traditional religions involve ultimate realities, but that they involve the supernatural. He implicitly agrees with Sikka that philosophy of religion has the potential to be of significant social value by helping those who identify as “spiritual but not religious,” but he thinks this only because in his view spirituality is compatible with naturalism. Steinhart is confident that some form of naturalism is the most viable worldview, but he does not believe that this means the end of philosophy of religion. What it means is that philosophy of religion should shift its attention to new naturalistic forms of religion,

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which are best understood as technologies for attaining new and powerful forms of self-expression, self-regulation, self-transcendence, and so on. Such “energy” religions include religions of consciousness, exemplified by Westernized Buddhism; religions of vision, which emphasize the ethical use of entheogens; religions of dance, such as those employing raves; and religions of beauty, such as Burning Man. Steinhart argues that these forms of religiousness, which may loom larger in the future, raise plenty of philosophical problems of their own and that these could replace the present focus of philosophy of religion. Of course, even if replacement were not necessary, it could be that philosophy of religion’s present focus should be widened to include the forms of life Steinhart describes. Further, since he sometimes uses the language of ultimacy in connection with religion, there is a question as to whether Steinhart’s claims are challenged successfully by Maitzen’s arguments against ultimacy, or whether the language of transcendence, which Steinhart also uses, would be sufficient for his purposes. At the same time, it seems to us that Steinhart’s chapter challenges Maitzen’s conclusion about the resolution of religion and philosophy of religion into philosophy, although in order for this challenge to succeed Steinhart would need to be able to show that the human goals achieved by his naturalistic religions exceed any to which philosophizing alone offers widespread access. Like Sikka, Mark Wynn believes that a faulty conception of religion— or of how to evaluate it—is at the root of what is wrong with philosophy of religion’s present focus. According to Wynn, however, the crucial mistake is the assumption that beliefs are fundamental to religion. This false assumption leads philosophers of religion to think that they can evaluate a religion simply by evaluating its core doctrines. They ignore practices on the faulty grounds that the justification of those practices depends solely on the justification of the creedal commitments from which those practices allegedly flow. For Wynn, this is no better than the opposite scenario, that is to say, focusing solely on practices on the faulty grounds that the justification of any creedal commitments allegedly presupposed by those practices depends solely on whether or not those practices are justified. Instead, religious commitment should be treated as an amalgam of belief and practice designed to attain, if not Steinhart’s elevated human ends, then at least certain goods that are distinctively spiritual. Wynn argues that, because of its connection to the “wider economy of human life,” this treatment of religion could aid in

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the development of new forms of religious and spiritual practice. His conclusions, it seems to us, complement those of Sikka and Steinhart and offer a challenge, if not to Maitzen’s detailed arguments about various forms of ultimacy, then to his idea that religion and philosophy of religion are lost without ultimacy. Much like Wynn, John Bishop focuses on axiological questions. But he adds a philosophical rationale for making them central to the work of philosophy of religion. Like Nagasawa and Sikka, Bishop thinks that, by narrowly focusing on Western theism, philosophers of religion have to their detriment shielded themselves from addressing more general questions about religion. Bishop, however, seems implicitly to suggest that one way to pursue Nagasawa’s global philosophy of religion, or a slightly expanded version thereof, is to ask not what philosophical questions various religions happen to have in common, but instead what questions philosophy appropriately has for all religions. Central among questions of this sort, says Bishop, is the normative question of religion as such—that is, the question of whether religion can somehow satisfy philosophy’s need for an overall stance on reality that supports living well. Critiques of specific religious forms of life (whether they are called religious or not) will then flow from one’s answer to that ethical question, instead of being based on the faulty assumption that the primary task of philosophy of religion is to determine whether the truth of any religious belief is probable relative to the evidence of those who hold it. Bishop’s suggestion about how philosophy of religion’s focus ought to be renewed seems to us relevant to Steinhart, as the former’s ethical criterion can presumably be extended to naturalistic forms of religion. And it poses interesting questions about the range of issues philosophy raises for all religion, which, if Maitzen is right, includes concerns about religious ideas of ultimacy. Robert McKim’s chapter argues that the focus of philosophy of religion ought to be expanded in three ways: by attending to more of the world’s rich religious diversity (here he is at one with Sikka and Nagasawa); by contributing more fully to the study of religion by scholars not in philosophy departments (here his points complement those made by others in Part 1); and by exploring how religion might make progress in the future. Exploring avenues of progress in religion receives the most attention. McKim argues that philosophy can help both with progress of understanding and with practical progress. It can do so both by identifying, clarifying, and developing options for future

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religious development and by integrating such abstract reflection with an investigation of how well various forms of religion—including presently existing forms and extensions thereof—fulfill the functions of religion. On the latter matters, his work and that of Bishop and Wynn are, we think, mutually complementary. Concerning what McKim thinks philosophy of religion can offer the study of religion outside its bounds, it seems to us he implicitly addresses the old dispute between academic philosophers who specialize in philosophy of religion and those who specialize in philosophy of religion but have their doctorates in religious studies. The latter claim that work by the former evinces a lack of breadth or depth in knowledge about religion, and the former claim that work by the latter evinces a lack of breadth or depth in knowledge about philosophy. McKim realizes that both sides of this dispute are correct. On the one hand, he suggests that scholars of religion, including those who do not specialize in philosophy of religion, can benefit greatly from training in philosophy. Academic philosophers, on the other hand, need to be less parochial, taking into account research by scholars of religion on the variety of forms that religion can take. This will, among other things, make it possible for them to play an important role in contributing to religious progress. The second half of this volume is concerned primarily with standpoint rather than focus—that is, with how philosophers of religion are placed, in terms of such things as commitments brought to inquiry and assumptions about proper aims and procedures, as they address whatever particular issue becomes their focus. Clearly, there are potentially many interesting points where issues about focus and issues about standpoint will intersect as philosophy of religion is renewed, and indeed the former are not entirely absent from Part 2, but a division nonetheless seems warranted on the basis of primary concern. Part 2 opens with a unique essay by Wesley Wildman and David Rohr. They offer a qualitative analysis of what fifty-one mostly North American philosophers of religion had to say when invited to respond online to a broad question about the nature of their field. Through their analysis and its data, we would like to think they provide an empirical background for at least some of what other chapters in Part 2 discuss. In the Wildman–Rohr study, several datasets were used to seek answers to questions about trends spanning a great variety of issues, including how philosophy of religion is related to each of the following: philosophical

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theology, comparative philosophy or comparative religion, words for ultimate reality, feminism, eco-justice, and many more. On the basis of their results, Wildman and Rohr conclude that “a major fault line” divides philosophers who work at institutions requiring the signing of a statement of faith and belong to the Society for Christian Philosophers or the American Philosophical Association from philosophers who are employed by secular institutions (or religious institutions that do not require the signing of a statement of faith) and are members of the American Academy of Religion. This division, they think, has led to misunderstandings outside the field as to what philosophy of religion is, which might be removed by a sort of “truth in advertising” that makes rather clearer when people are doing philosophical theology or analytical theology, and when they are doing philosophy of religion. Aaron Simmons examines another fault line, one whose challenges would remain even if Wildman and Rohr are mistaken, or if they are right and their advice were fully heeded. This time, the fault line is between those whose home is continental philosophy of religion and those who would place themselves within analytic philosophy of religion. Simmons does not advocate bridging the divide in any sense that would involve abandoning the identities that shape us, but rather explains a somewhat different approach he calls “Mashup Philosophy of Religion.” However, most of his attention is directed to the sort of renewal in continental philosophy of religion—considered on its own—that he thinks philosophy demands and would be required to make the “mashup” work. This renewal, he argues, would involve a metaphorical “dying to oneself” and is especially called for in relation to three things: confession, insularity, and arrogance. The main focus is confession, with Simmons arguing that continental philosophy of religion can be personal—in the sense of having “existential traction” and being shaped by one’s religious (or antireligious) identities and commitments—without being confessional, that is, without taking those commitments to be reliable sources of data for the purpose of doing philosophy of religion. Graham Oppy writes very much as an analytic philosopher, but he is also much concerned about the biased standpoint that leads many analytic philosophers of religion, whether Christians or naturalists, to claim that their own worldviews are uniquely rational (in an internalist sense) and uniquely supported by cogent arguments. He argues against this view by developing several models for comparing the intellectual

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merits of competing worldviews. He then examines procedures for collectively examining “best theories” on subjects that interest us, showing the complexities and difficulties that attend even a scaled-back version of such a project. He argues that, because of prejudice or bias, contemporary philosophy of religion has not even come close to carrying out such a project. In order to make effective pursuit of this project more likely, he recommends that we should learn to highly prize the work of those who are able to make “serious contributions to the advancement of worldviews other than their own.” Oppy clearly has his own ideas— which complement those proposed in Part 1—about how the focus of philosophy of religion might properly be deepened and expanded. But he emphasizes the problems involving standpoint that are preventing such developments and the ways in which our standpoints might be sensitized to these problems. If Simmons is right, then Oppy’s problem may be even more widely exhibited than he supposes. Simmons, moreover, suggests a solution that analytic as well as continental philosophers of religion might consider. Jason Marsh, in his essay, addresses a style of reasoning popular among some analytic philosophers of religion on the narrower side of Wildman and Rohr’s divide, which they might seek to use in response to Oppy’s criticisms of their standpoint. This is religious Mooreanism. Marsh points out how philosophers of religion like Alvin Plantinga explicitly or implicitly appeal to religious Mooreanism when they treat religious claims, not just as starting points for inquiry, but as ending points even when powerful skeptical challenges are not defeated by counter-argument. Distinguishing several versions of religious Mooreanism, Marsh argues that appealing to non-inferential evidence to deflect serious challenges to religious beliefs violates at least the spirit of the Socratic injunction to follow the evidence wherever it leads, especially when those beliefs (unlike, for example, the belief that there is a past or that there is an external world) are controversial and subject to personal doubts. Of course, it is consistent with all of these points that the right way to resolve this tension between Moore and Socrates is to abandon the Socratic injunction, but Marsh argues that to do so would be premature because religious Mooreans have not yet adequately supported their position. It seems to us that there are echoes of Simmons in Marsh, and in particular that the relationships between the Socratic injunction and Simmons’s application of the idea of kenosis invite exploration.

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Clare Carlisle shows how attention to neglected historical figures may help to illuminate the path forward for philosophy of religion. Reflecting on how philosophy might be said to be “of” religion, she finds a model in Spinoza’s work that by her lights improves on views making philosophy either subservient to religion (and thus emphasizing an “insider” perspective) or a judge of its beliefs (by prioritizing an “outsider” perspective). Like Wynn and Bishop in Part 1, Carlisle emphasizes the need for philosophers to focus on religious life as a whole, including its practical and ethical dimensions, instead of just its doctrines and epistemological dimensions. Here religion is made the object of philosophy’s study and so, in a certain sense, an “outsider” standpoint is retained. But, channeling Spinoza, she adds that philosophy’s aspiration of wisdom requires activating not just our cognitive but also our affective, desiring, and imaginative capacities. This means approaching religion with the sensitivity and responsiveness of an insider. As Spinoza’s example demonstrates (and Simmons’s points about “personal philosophy of religion” echo), such a standpoint need not— indeed must not—be confessional, for the primary goal behind adopting it is to understand religion, not to defend it, and attaining such understanding requires freedom from dogmatic constraints. The result is a kind of rational recapitulation of religion, one that, in line with Spinoza’s unifying drive, blurs the distinction between religion and philosophy. Maitzen, recall, reached a very similar conclusion in Part 1, though by a strikingly different path. Wes Morriston, in the final essay of Part 2 and of the book, brings us back to some of the fundamental data for any study in philosophy relevant to the world’s religions as we find them: religious scripture. But he does so in an unusual and ingenious way, bringing to mind the future as much as the past and clarifying a number of problems and possibilities relevant to all the earlier pieces of the book. In his study of the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Job, Morriston seeks to show how even their own scriptures may sometimes challenge the limiting standpoints of traditionalists. In particular, he argues that the author of this scripture was much more of a “heretic” and anti-traditionalist than recent philosophers of religion who have interpreted Job would have us believe. According to Morriston, by opening their minds and letting the voice of authority grow dim in their ears, philosophers can glean both interesting challenges and

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interesting alternatives to traditional ideas about God from religious texts like the Book of Job. * * * We didn’t know, when we sent out the invitations for essays, just what we’d get back. Now we do! We have been pleased, provoked, and occasionally surprised by what these philosophers of religion thought needed to be improved in their field, and even more so by the improvements they proposed to make. Many suggestions are compatible and might be built on by future explorers. Others diverge from this mutually complementary core in interesting and challenging ways. We hope that our remarks in this introduction will help you get a sense of the parts and of the whole and, after you have inspected both for yourself, leave you with a clear sense of how and where productive further discussions might begin. In short, our minds have been opened to new problems and possibilities. We hope that this will be the experience of readers as well, and that because of these essays the engine of renewal in philosophy of religion will be able to shift into a higher gear.

PART I

Focus

1 Rescuing Religion from Faith Sonia Sikka

These are strange times for religion. On the one hand, “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens aggressively press a by now familiar view of religion according to which it represents primitive, confused beliefs and modes of thinking that ought to have already given way before the progress of science and reason. On the other hand, sociologists and political scientists have presented evidence of a worldwide resurgence of religion, or noted that it never did decline in the way that the Enlightenment narrative of progress inherited by the New Atheists would lead us to expect (Stark and Bainbridge 1986; Kepel 1993; Berger 1999). At the same time, researchers have noted a shift in Western patterns of religiosity, with commitment to common institutions, rituals, and beliefs being replaced by forms of “spirituality” tailored to individual needs and tastes. In The Spiritual Revolution (2005), for example, Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead find in the experimental and eclectic character of contemporary New Age spiritualities a reflection of what Charles Taylor describes as the “massive subjective turn of modern culture” (Stark and Bainbridge 1986; Taylor 1991: 26). Benjamin Crowe, commenting critically on this kind of religiosity in an analysis of Heidegger on religion, speaks of “the late modern tendency to transform religion into a marketplace, into an empty system of preference-satisfaction” (Crowe 2008: 2). Surely, though, one reason people turn away from long-established forms of religion and the authorities connected with them is that they have lost confidence in these as reliable sources of truth about religion. In such cases, the issue is not about preference satisfaction or subjective well-being, but an experimental and questioning approach to a range of

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issues due to a genuine lack of certainty. Mistrust of established authority may also be a factor in the popular use of the term “spiritual” as an alternative to “religious.” After all, in the minds of many people, “religion” has come to mean exactly what it means for Dawkins when he advocates its wholesale rejection: namely, “some combination of authority, revelation, tradition and scripture” (Dawkins 1997: 397). Consequently, people who entertain seriously beliefs about reality that either contradict or are not captured by the prevailing model of scientific naturalism, but do so on the basis of their own experiences, intuitions, and reasoning rather than established forms of authority, may well be searching for a term other than “religion” to describe their positions. In this context, one would think that philosophy of religion could play a valuable social role in helping those who have become uncertain to understand and evaluate the enormously varied ideas and worldviews with which they are presented in the globalized culture of late Western modernity. This intellectual discipline should also be eminently suited to exploring future possibilities for “religion” in the critical, questioning, open-ended spirit that defines the philosophical ideal. Yet, I submit, this is precisely what the dominant strains within contemporary philosophy of religion have failed to do, because of a remarkably narrow focus on the creeds and doctrines of Christian theism, along with the assumption of a concept of religion centrally defined by faith in authority and revelation. This assumption is also specific to the history of Christianity, having evolved in the context of an opposition between “faith” and “reason” that the term “faith,” used in religious contexts, cannot escape. To make matters worse, many philosophers of religion accord Christian doctrines a level of plausibility that is not warranted within a genuinely open and unbiased philosophical approach. Thus, while some discourses about religion, both popular and academic, valorize “faith” above and in opposition to “religion,”1 I am arguing for a disidentification of these two

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An important example is Wilfred Cantwell Smith, who rejects what he sees as the modern construct of “religion” where it is defined by a set of beliefs that distinguish one religion from another. By contrast, Smith interprets “faith” as “an inner religious experience or involvement of a particular person; the impingement on him of the transcendent, putative or real” (Smith 1991: 156). I think the concept of faith necessarily involves belief, however, and is inappropriate for some major Asian traditions. Cf. William J. Wainwright’s critique of Smith’s attempt to distinguish faith from belief (Wainwright 1984), though I would question Wainwright’s description of all forms of religious belief as “faith.”

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categories in order to highlight possibilities of religion that have advantages over faith. The philosophy of religion can play an important role in investigating these possibilities, I suggest, thereby helping to rescue religion from faith—but only if it does not itself begin with faith.

1.1 Philosophy of Religion and Christian Theology An important impetus for my own critical engagement with this topic is a long-standing frustration over available teaching materials for philosophy of religion courses. For many years I have searched in vain for a satisfactory textbook or anthology to use in the undergraduate philosophy of religion course that I first taught as a graduate student and have been teaching regularly ever since. Books on the subject designed for university classroom use naturally reflect the approaches and contents of academic scholarship in the field, and the problem, from my perspective, is that most of this scholarship is rooted in Christian theology. I do not mean that it assumes the correctness of Christian doctrine. Philosophy of religion is not confessional theology; it advances and assesses rational arguments for the religious tenets it examines. Those tenets, however, which form the traditional topics of the discipline, are inherited from the history of Christian theology. This is true of the classical arguments for the existence of God, the problem of reconciling the attributes of this God with the fact of evil, the possibility of resurrection, the status of faith, and the entire faith/reason dichotomy. Granted, the evolution of Christian theology is heavily influenced by appropriations of Greek philosophy, as in Aquinas’s appropriation of Aristotelian arguments in his “five ways” of demonstrating the existence of God, versions of which continue to be debated. Granted also that some of these themes can be generalized without radical modification to the other Abrahamic religious traditions, Judaism and Islam. It remains the case that the selection and design of these topics do not fit the character of many other major religious traditions: Asian ones, for instance, which ought to be properly represented in a subject that calls itself philosophy of religion, not philosophy of the Christian religion. One cannot, moreover, simply insert ideas found in these other traditions—their conceptions of God or the ultimate character of reality,

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their views of the afterlife—into the categorial slots that Western philosophy of religion provides, with the aim of being more inclusive. For the slots themselves, being a product of reflections and contestations within the history of Christian theology, are a poor fit for some other patterns of religious thought and likely to distort them. Consider, for example, conceptions of reality within Advaita Vedanta, or the Buddhist ideal of nirvana as the ultimate goal of life. Critical questions about the existence of God and about the reality of evil can be posed in relation to Advaitic monism, too, but they must be formulated in a different manner than they are in relation to Christian theism, as this is a radically different metaphysical view. In relation to Buddhism, there is no God to be held responsible for what is wrong with the world. Rather, questions need to be posed (as they have been in the Indian context where Buddhism originated) about, for instance, whether karma is a coherent doctrine in the absence of a divine agent who connects moral wrong with retribution, or whether the complete extinction of the self is a genuinely desirable goal of life. Even more important than these divergent contents, however, is the fact that the approach to what is held to be true is so very different in these Indian traditions than in the versions of Christianity toward which philosophy of religion is primarily oriented. It is significant that Advaita Vedanta and Indian Buddhism can be described both as philosophical and as religious systems, the former being considered a branch of Hinduism and the latter being divided into a variety of contrasting positions. These traditions involve ways of life, practices, and aims that are foreign to Western philosophy, especially its modern incarnations, and warrant being classified as religion. At the same time, even though Advaitic thinkers formally respect the authority of the Vedas, their views, and certainly those of Buddhist thinkers, are based on arguments about the ultimate nature of reality rather than on prophetic or divine revelation, or the teachings of a church. These arguments employ a combination of experience, inference, and speculation whose methodological elements are in some respects more akin to Western definitions of philosophy than of religion.2 2 It is often observed that philosophy is part of religion in India, or that the distinction simply cannot be applied to the Indian context. I discuss this point at greater length in Sikka 2016.

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Although there exists a long and venerable European tradition of natural theology, and although the history of Western philosophy includes metaphysical views with parallels in Asian thought, religion in Western discourses has rarely been defined in terms of such options. Rather, the modern Western concept of religion, having evolved through the historical binary of faith and reason, tends to take a specific mode of belief as essential to religion, and to understand this mode as oriented particularly toward texts having a special status (“scriptures”), supported by institutions claiming to represent and implement what is revealed in these texts. Accordingly, what we call “philosophy of religion” does not proceed by asking what can be known and what conclusions we should reach about the ultimately real as a result, or by surveying the range of answers that have been given to such questions. Within the Western philosophical landscape, that kind of free questioning is the province of epistemology and metaphysics. What philosophy of religion does, by contrast, is to examine rationally what “religion” holds on faith, where the operative idea of religion is derived from Christianity.3 In short, “philosophy of religion” is by and large an evaluation of the articles of Christian faith, including the notion of faith itself. I have already alluded to the centrality of certain topics demonstrating this fact. They include arguments for the existence of God, which take as their object the God of classical Christian theism; debates about evil, concerning whether the suffering and injustice we witness in the world can be reconciled with the existence of such a God; questions about immortality, which are almost always focused on the survival of personal identity after death and the possible resurrection of the body; as well as an enormous corpus of writings on the nature and warrantability of “religious” belief. Non-Western traditions, when they are considered at all, tend to be subsidiary additions to these predetermined topics. “Belief in” reincarnation may be considered alongside belief in resurrection, for instance, or some mention may be made of non-theistic and atheistic forms of religion. Rarely, however, are these ideas examined in detail 3 Some have argued that the concept of religion assumed in contemporary Western academic discourses is actually even narrower than this, being modeled on a specific form of Christianity. Cf. Brent Nongbri: “Because of the pervasive use of the word ‘religion’ in the cultures of the modern Western world (the ‘we’ here), we already intuitively know what ‘religion’ is before we even try to define it: religion is anything that sufficiently resembles modern Protestant Christianity” (Nongbri 2013: 18).

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within the context of their own traditions. Even more rarely is it noted that these traditions may not endorse “belief in” at all, requiring us to rethink our understanding of religion, and of the divide between religion and philosophy.4 Such detailed examination is necessary if Asian traditions are to be treated appropriately and accurately in scholarly discussions of other major philosophy of religion topics, such as religious experience, religious pluralism, and the relation between religion and science. What I am questioning here is the conception of religion as defined by a particular mode of belief, thought to be specific to this category and serving to differentiate it from other domains of culture and inquiry. Certainly, Asian religious traditions, and all forms of religion, involve beliefs, as well as a living by those beliefs. That “living by” can involve trusting devotion to God, in the case of theistic beliefs, or it can mean trust in the words of a teaching or a teacher when undertaking disciplinary practices said to further the goal of liberation or enlightenment. However, philosophical schools such as Stoicism, and metaphysical positions such as materialism, also involve beliefs and a living in accordance with them. When religion is defined as “faith,” on the other hand, the beliefs it involves, and the forms of trust connected with them, are, I contend, always implicitly conceived as based on grounds that are fundamentally different from the grounds that support “rational” forms of human thought and activity. The very fact that so much discussion within philosophy of religion focuses on “faith” testifies to this point. Examples include debates about the conditions of warranted religious belief, as I have already noted, the distinction between “belief in” and “belief that,” and discussions regarding non-doxastic models of faith. These discussions are often relevant to modes of “holding-for-true” generally, and to the justifications for them, but they tend to position religion as intrinsically a special mode of believing. Most of the time, what is believed is taken as given, the options being defined in terms of the basic doctrines of one or another religion, those doctrines that “religious believers”—the followers of a given religion—have “belief in.” Such a framework distorts the actual character

4 An important exception to my assertions here is the journal Sophia, but it is the exception that proves the rule. For evidence, one might peruse the contents of any major philosophy of religion journal or anthology, or consider the entries in Luke Muehlhauser’s online list of “200 + Living Philosophers of Religion and their Best Work” (Muehlhauser 2009).

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of some existing and historical forms of religion. It also does not encourage, or even acknowledge, varieties of religious inquiry that involve an open form of seeking not antecedently committed to the tenets of a given religion, or to choosing between “religions” as systems of faith. Asian religions do figure significantly in analyses of religious or “mystical” experience, and of course have to be taken into account in considering the feasibility and coherence of religious pluralism. Yet on these themes, too, the Christian lens, with its conception of religion as rooted in some special mode of revelation and corresponding belief, dominates the field in both overt and subtle ways. Analyses of religious experience, for example, while they certainly do distinguish between various types of experience, nonetheless approach the question as if it were about investigating the status and extraordinary truth claims of some special form of non-rational revelation. One cannot, however, treat the experience of sunyata (emptiness) in Buddhist thought, or of the unity of atman and brahman in Vedantic thought, on the same model as a sense of the presence of Christ or a divine being. These phenomena involve no special “revelation”; they are the experiential corollary of metaphysical positions for which philosophical arguments are given and debated among rival schools. Divorcing analyses of these so-called “mystical” experiences from engagement with those debates is distorting. Likewise, and for the same reason, the rival views in which these experiences are situated are not well approached through the lens of “religious pluralism,” with inclusivism and exclusivism positioned as competing options. This frame of reference is taken from Christian theological considerations about who may enter Heaven, and specifically whether those who do not accept or never received the Christian revelation may nonetheless be saved. That is a very different kind of question than the question about the relative merits of, for instance, Vedantic monism v. Buddhist denials of self and substantiality. It is true that Indian schools also legitimately counted as religions—such as “Hinduism,” “Buddhism,” and “Jainism”—developed positions regarding plural perspectives and pathways, which have in turn influenced the development of pluralist positions in Western philosophy of religion. Wellknown examples include the positions of Diana Eck and the late John Hick, who draws on the Jain notion of anekantavada, multifaceted truth, combined with modern reflections on culture, in formulating his own argument for religious pluralism. This Jain doctrine does not, however,

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express a view about “religions” understood as faiths. Anekantavada is an epistemological and metaphysical position developed through reflective, critical engagement with the Vedantic and Buddhist schools I have been adducing as examples. It proposes, among other things, that the starkly opposed positions on the self and reality among these schools could both be right in some sense. Judging whether this is true is not in principle different from asking whether it could be possible to reconcile the views of Parmenides and Heraclitus, for example, and what should be our stance toward metaphysical systems generally. It requires philosophical analysis of the concepts of self, substance, and unity, as well as reasoning about the character and limitations of human understanding in relation to metaphysics. In teaching “religious pluralism” within philosophy of religion classes, I have struggled (not always successfully) to communicate this point to students who assume we are discussing the status of different “faiths,” a perception encouraged by the way the topic is framed in their textbooks. This perception misconstrues the nature of the beliefs with which we are dealing in the case of such traditions, assimilating them to creeds defining distinct faiths rather than understanding them as including epistemological and metaphysical positions arrived at in reasoned debate with alternative views. The positions are then seen as involving beliefs of a special type that philosophy of religion philosophizes about, rather than as truth claims to be evaluated by the ordinary norms of philosophical methodology, even though they support practices and ways of life that in terms of Western categories do count as religion. Conventional framings of the relation between religion and science within philosophy of religion are equally ill suited to the context of Asian traditions, and again the association of religion with a special kind of trust, usually in a God whose character and commandments are revealed in scripture, is the central problem. Ideas held within Asian religious traditions may conflict with the premises and findings of modern natural science, but this conflict is not conceptualized appropriately as a tension between faith and reason, nor should it be addressed as a question of how or whether religious statements may be reconciled with scientific ones. Taoism, for example (acknowledging that the “-ism” is already problematic), involves claims about nature and reality, not God, and these claims are not authorized by any appeal to special revelation. The evaluation of these claims may require comparison with the latest conclusions of modern

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physics, biology, or psychology, due care being taken to distinguish metaphysical, ethical, and empirical statements, or to ask whether these can be distinguished in Taoist discourses. But there is no clear distinction—and certainly no opposition—here between “religion” and “science” as spheres distinguished by different concerns, methodologies, or modes of beliefs. Consequently, debates about the relation between religion and science formulated in Western contexts, such as those surrounding Stephen Jay Gould’s proposal that these be considered “non-overlapping magisteria” (Gould 1997), do not fit this context. The framework of these debates is rooted in a particular cultural history, and its mapping of dichotomies like religion and science, along with faith and reason, is the product of a specific set of intellectual, ecclesiastical, and political contestations. This conceptual structure is even less suited to address new religious movements, including the wide array of sensibilities, practices, and beliefs that may be classed as “spirituality,” whether through selfdescription or labeling by others. The increasingly popular “green” forms of religiosity provide an example. These draw on a variety of sources, including indigenous and Asian ones, and are usually characterized by a strong sense of the sacred within nature, intimately connected to views about what we are and how we should live (Taylor 2010; Vaughan-Lee 2013). These and other forms of contemporary spirituality that do not fit preformed religious boxes have been extensively studied by sociologists, but philosophers of religion have little to say about them. This is unfortunate, given that these are socially significant movements that raise genuinely interesting philosophical questions: about the sources and grounds for competing views of nature, for instance; the character of experiences of the sacred in relation to nature; and the status of appeals to such perceptions in justifying ethical claims. Religion, after all, has always evolved and changed. Why, then, rule out consideration of novel and emerging varieties of it? Why not examine and assess the experiences, sensibilities, beliefs, practices, and form of reasoning that constitute these varieties? What is the rationale for limiting one’s idea of religion to faith in a creed whose essential elements have long since been determined to define one or another of the so-called “world religions,” with Christianity positioned as the exemplar of religion itself? I can think of no reason, except that the shape and scope of philosophy of religion, as currently practiced in Western academic discourses, is determined by a definite theological and cultural bias.

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1.2 The Problem with Faith That bias, I have been suggesting, strongly prioritizes Christian faith in a number of ways. J. L. Schellenberg has drawn attention to the dominance of conservative Christian theology in philosophy of religion, exemplified by figures such as Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga, arguing that “what Plantinga and Co. are doing is not really philosophy at all . . . but rather theology or theological apologetics, on behalf of the Christian community as they understand it, using the tools of philosophy” (Schellenberg 2009: 100). We should be troubled by this reduction of philosophy of religion to Christian apologetics, Schellenberg observes, and “by the fact that many, such as Plantinga, who are called philosophers of religion simply take some traditional form of religion as a point of departure, rarely thinking about what religion is or about what is included in forms of religion other than ones with which they are familiar” (102). It is not that there are no critical voices in philosophy of religion, I would add. There are many, and the kinds of claims that Plantinga and others defend are disputed in the field. However, not only are these claims granted an unjustifiably high level of initial plausibility by their defenders, but they set the agenda for the subject: its topics, its methodology, and its conception of religion. I have been arguing that the notion of faith is central to this conception, that in fact not all forms of religion and religiosity are based on faith, and that we should in any case question the assumption that the task of philosophy of religion is only to evaluate the content of faith. Another approach could involve taking into account a wider range of actual existing religious phenomena and belief, and in addition reflecting independently on the subjects toward which religion is directed. These overlap with the concerns of philosophy itself: God, nature, reality, consciousness, death, happiness, suffering, injustice, morality, transcendence, and so forth. At the same time, we should not forget that there is also natural theology, which is not “faith seeking understanding” (Schellenberg 2009: 102)—the definition of revealed theology within the Christian paradigm—but independent reasoning and reflection on matters connected with theos, the divine, as opposed to an approach that starts with a given set of beliefs whose validity it sets out to examine. In a critique of Schellenberg, William Sweet defends the model of philosophy of religion I am challenging, but he does so by mischaracterizing

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the nature of the options. “One approach to the philosophy of religion,” he writes, “is that of ‘speculative’ philosophers, who want to ask, for example, what religion or God or reality is ‘as such,’ ” whereas another approach, which Sweet himself favors, “would be that one starts with what is given (the statements and practices of religious believers), and proceeds from there” (Sweet 2009: 86). What counts, however, as “the statements and practices of religious believers”? And does not this very formulation, with its appeal to a certain notion of “belief,” already beg the question about what kinds of “statements and practices” count as religious? At the present moment, uncertainty, questioning, experiment, and syncretism are significant features of the religious landscape in Western countries, as are forms of spirituality that position themselves ambiguously in relation to what their spokespersons understand as religion. There is, then, a much broader range of views and practices to be studied by philosophers of religion if they adopt the second approach Sweet identifies. Moreover, many of these views and practices might be properly identified as religious and yet misidentified when understood as the properties of “religious believers.” Such an understanding assumes we are dealing with a special way of relating to the truth about the matters at issue, sharply distinct in kind from philosophical inquiries about “what religion or God or reality is ‘as such.’ ” In other words, it assumes that religious beliefs are held on fundamentally different grounds, and held in a fashion that involves a greater degree of trust and less need for justification, than are, for instance, metaphysical beliefs within philosophy. That is not always the case, and we need more subtle and nuanced analyses of different possible approaches to religious and theological questions. Sweet’s dichotomy between “speculative” philosophers and religious “believers” is misleading in this regard, positing the false alternatives of philosophers who reason in a manner wholly divorced from experience, emotion, and practice, and believers who do not reason beyond the boundaries of a given creed. Sweet draws this dichotomy in the course of an interpretation of the history behind the current state of the philosophy of religion, the state that Schellenberg criticizes. On Sweet’s analysis, the subject arrived at this state through an understandable and healthy reaction against the positions of Hegel and those under his influence, who offered a “decidedly non-creedal and nondogmatic Absolute idealism concerning matters temporal and divine

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that was not only remote from the faith and practice of most believers, but was parodied and eviscerated by figures like A. J. Ayer in the 1930s” (Sweet 2009: 84). People saw—and Sweet agrees—that philosophical reflection on religion should “have a relation to the beliefs and practices of people who claimed to be religious,” rather than being “merely a series of vague and speculative propositions about the ultimate or the Absolute” (84). However, even German idealism, the origin and prototype for the kind of “speculative” philosophy Sweet has in mind, was never that abstract, and the Neoplatonic tradition from which it stems has influenced a considerable number of “people who claimed to be religious” before Hegel, such as Augustine of Hippo and Meister Eckhart. In any case, German idealism hardly exhausts the possibilities for approaches to “religion or God or reality” that do not start with faith. Nor are such approaches peculiarly modern. Zhuangzi, Dogen, and Nagarjuna cannot appropriately be described as “religious believers,” though they can be described as religious thinkers as well as philosophers. They do have beliefs on which they act, of course, but so do Marxists and Spinozists and Keynesians and modern atheists. My point is that their beliefs do not rest on a means of knowing or form of holdingfor-true that is peculiar to religion, in contrast with philosophy or science or our ordinary familiarity with the world. They do not appeal to the authority of a scripture, or the proclamations of an ecclesiastical body, or even the words of enlightened seers that cannot be confirmed by independent experience and reasoning. Zhuangzi and Dogen do point to forms of insight that are non-discursive in character, but these are insights to which individuals are directed and which they can themselves be expected to attain, not ones they are supposed to hold indefinitely on trust.5 Nagarjuna makes philosophical arguments for his position, and rejects the authority of the Vedas as an independent and non-verifiable means of knowing. That is what distinguishes Buddhist thinkers like Nagarjuna from “orthodox Hindu” thinkers, as they have come to be called, such as Sankara, 5 Bret Davis points out that in Buddhist traditions, “faith” in the sense of trust in a teacher is required only at the beginning stages of practice, the expectation being that what is first held on trust will eventually be confirmed through the experiences to which the practice leads (Davis 2006: 7–8). In relation to Indian traditions, Krishna Sharma notes the untenability of the Western separation of religion and philosophy, which positions religion as “a matter of faith and emotion and not of knowledge and reason” (Sharma 1987: 9). See Sikka 2016 for a lengthier discussion of this topic.

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who does claim that some matters, particularly the ultimate nature of reality, can be known only from the Vedas (although in fact he also gives arguments for them). But Sankara and Nagarjuna are all equally “religious” thinkers—or not. What I mean is that, given the nature of their beliefs and accompanying forms of life, it would make little sense to consider Sankara “religious” and Nagarjuna not so. Thus, the kinds of distinctions Sweet draws between “non-creedal and non-dogmatic” forms of metaphysics as opposed to the beliefs and practices of people who are actually religious are inappropriate to this context. The fact is that Sweet—and the variety of philosophy of religion he defends—works with an idea of religion that presumes the centrality of faith. This idea, I am arguing, is specific to Christianity, and bound up with the history of Western contestations between faith and reason. I would insist as well that the task of philosophers of religion is not only to explicate and assess what “religious” people allegedly believe, but also to ascertain what any of us is justified in believing. That may and should include independent reasoning about metaphysical and theological questions. All thought, including philosophical reasoning, begins somewhere, and by “independent” I do not mean reasoning that engages with no traditions or pretends to take its point of departure from a priori or universally self-evident truths. If there are such truths, they are highly limited in scope, and not of much use, in my view, for reasoning about whether there is a God, or whether human existence has an ultimate purpose, or whether what we know as death is the ultimate end of our stories. However, engaging critically with traditions and contemporary interlocutors is one thing; limiting oneself to the doctrinal formulations of a given religion is quite another. Not only does the former approach draw on a wider range of past and present possibilities, but it is capable of generating new ones, including ones that may not fit within our current cultural categories. This is already happening outside the disciplinary parameters of philosophy of religion, in both intellectual discourses and popular practices. The rise of discourses and practices appealing to spirituality is a case in point, and a striking example is the organization of “atheist churches” (Kuruvilla 2014). Also noteworthy is the proliferation of “x without y” discourses, represented in the titles of publications like Religion without God (Dworkin 2013), Christianity without God (Geering 2002), “Spirituality without Faith” (Clark 2001), “Faith without God” (Goldfarb 2014), Keeping the Faith without a Religion (Housedon 2014),

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and Waking up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion (Harris 2014). Works like these articulate conclusions that are precisely the product of independent reflection, threading complicated paths between positional categories like theism, atheism, naturalism, faith, and religion. Among the pilgrims walking these paths of questioning are many academic philosophers: Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos is notable in this respect (Nagel 2012), and Schellenberg is an uncommon example within philosophy of religion. Schellenberg’s analysis is focused on Anglo-American philosophy of religion, but much of the continental tradition also works with culturally parochial and exclusively Christian conceptions of what religion is and may be,6 and here too faith tends to be the defining characteristic of religion. Heidegger’s lecture course, The Phenomenology of Religious Life (Heidegger 2004), for instance, is exclusively an analysis of what he elsewhere describes as “the world of Christian experience, i.e. of faith” (Heidegger 1987: 7), and he always maintains a sharp distinction between faith and philosophy.7 Heidegger never considers the possibility that there could be forms of religion that are established outside of faith, in the sense that they do not involve a prior and non-negotiable commitment to a set of core beliefs or the acceptance of authoritative revelation. If in certain respects Heidegger himself belongs within the “x without y” stream, and I believe he does, that is not because of what he says about religion. It is because of his own philosophical reflections on being and the holy, which draw on Greek thought as well as on unorthodox figures within Western theology such as Meister Eckhart, and are also influenced by Asian sources. These reflections are, according to Heidegger’s selfconception, the result of a path of thoughtful questioning, which he distinguishes from the life of faith that he identifies with religion.

6

See Knepper 2013: Ch. 3. In An Introduction to Metaphysics, for instance, Heidegger rejects the possibility of a “Christian philosophy” on the following grounds: 7

Anyone for whom the Bible is divine revelation and truth has the answer to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” even before it is asked: everything that is, except God himself, has been created by Him. God himself, the increate creator, “is.” One who holds to such faith can in a way participate in the asking of our question, but he cannot really question without ceasing to be a believer and taking all the consequences of such a step. (Heidegger 1987: 6–7)

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There is a parallel with Hegel in this dual relation to the topics of religion and theology. On the one hand, Hegel’s own metaphysics has been construed as a form of natural theology, positing a God who becomes. On the other hand, Hegel analyzes religion as a stage within this process of becoming, a stage where human beings grasp reality through feeling and express what they grasp in the form of symbol and myth. The latter analysis is what Hegel understood as his “philosophy of religion,” judging by his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (Hegel 1990), and while he discusses other religions in these lectures, the highest religion—and Hegel’s paradigm for the category—is “the revealed religion,” Christianity. One should note, too, that although Hegel gives denigrating portraits of Asian thought generally, in line with his profound Eurocentrism (perhaps better described as Eurosupremacism), it is the content and methodology of his metaphysics rather than his philosophy of religion that most closely resemble Asian traditions such as Vedanta.8 As a final example from continental philosophy, note the recent work of Jürgen Habermas, another thinker seeking a way “between naturalism and religion”—the title of a collection of Habermas’s essays published in English translation in 2008. For all their differences, Habermas’s conception of the relation between religion and philosophy is strikingly similar to Heidegger’s. Approaching the subject from his political concerns about the place of religion within public life, Habermas claims that “religiously rooted existential convictions, by dint of their if necessary rationally justified reference to the dogmatic authority of an inviolable core of infallible revealed truths, evade that kind of unreserved discursive examination to which other ethical orientations and worldviews, i.e. secular ‘conceptions of the good,’ are exposed” (Habermas 2008: 129). Again, the concept of religion is wedded to that of faith. Habermas’s understanding of “Eastern religions,” moreover—which he describes as “unlike the monotheistic world-views” in that they “are based not on the acting person but on the impersonal consciousness of an entirely indeterminate Something” (Habermas 2002: 148)—parallels Hegel’s shallow Orientalism on the same subject, to which it may be indebted. At 8 It is therefore unsurprising that Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan drew so heavily on Hegel in formulating his reinterpretation of Advaita Vedanta. See, for example, Radhakrishnan 1916.

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the same time, Habermas has little to say about “any of the new, de-institutionalized and de-differentiated forms of religiosity,” beyond admitting that he has not studied them and that it is possible that “not everything on the market is Californian claptrap or neopaganism” (Habermas 2002: 151–2). These continental examples are especially helpful in illustrating the reasons for my own choice among “x without y” options for the philosophy of religion—my reasons, that is, for rejecting faith as defining religion while retaining religion as the topic of this area of academic inquiry. While some scholars have claimed that the category of religion names no coherent set, or is so specifically modeled on Christianity that it only falsifies the other cultural formations to which it is applied, I believe this position is too extreme.9 There are family resemblances that warrant identifying a certain range of beliefs, practices, and topics as “religious,” even if in places the borders between these and other cultural categories are fuzzy. A category of religion not defined in terms of faith will include more of this range within the world’s many and evolving traditions, serving as a better model for a philosophy of religion that aims to be more than philosophy of Christianity. It can also question the supposition that being religious necessarily means being committed to a “faith,” understood as one or another preconstituted bundle of beliefs. I propose that such a commitment exhausts neither the past nor the present, let alone the future, of religion.

References Berger, Peter (ed.) (1999), The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Centre). Clark, Tom (2001), “Spirituality without Faith,” Naturalism.org [website], July 2001 accessed August 25, 2015. Crowe, Benjamin D. (2008), Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religion: Realism and Cultural Criticism (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). Davis, Bret W. (2006), “Rethinking Religion, Faith and Practice: On the Buddhist Background of the Kyoto School,” Studies in the Philosophy of Religion 23, 1–12.

9

I argue this point in Sikka 2015.

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Dawkins, Richard (1997), “Obscurantism to the Rescue,” Quarterly Review of Biology 72, 397–9. Dworkin, Ronald (2013), Religion without God (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Geering, Lloyd George (2002), Christianity without God (Wellington: Bridet Williams Books). Goldfarb, Michael (2014), “Faith without God” [documentary series], BBC Radio 3, February 2014 accessed August 25, 2015. Gould, S. J. (1997), “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” Natural History 106, 16–22. Habermas, Jürgen (2002), Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity, ed. Eduardo Mendieta (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Habermas, Jürgen (2008), Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press). Harris, Sam (2014), Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion (New York: Simon & Schuster). Heelas, Paul, and Woodhead, Linda (2005), The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality (Malden, MA: Blackwell). Hegel, G. W. F. (1990), Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Heidegger, Martin (1987), An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Mannheim (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Heidegger, Martin (2004), The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). Housedon, Roger (2014), Keeping the Faith without a Religion (Louisville, CO: Sounds True). Kepel, Gilles (1993), The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World, trans. Alan Braley (Malden, MA: Polity Press). Knepper, Tim (2013), The Ends of Philosophy of Religion: Terminus and Telos (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Kuruvilla, Carol (2014), “The Number of Sunday Assemblies, or ‘Atheist Churches,’ More Than Doubled over One Weekend,” Huffington Post, October 1, 2014 accessed August 25, 2015. Muehlhauser, Luke (2009), “200+ Living Philosophers of Religion and their Best Work,” Common Sense Atheism [website], April 25, 2009 accessed August 25, 2015. Nagel, Thomas (2012), Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Nongbri, Brent (2013), Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli (1916), “The Vedantic Approach to Reality,” The Monist 26/2, 200–31. Schellenberg, J. L. (2009), “Philosophy of Religion: A State of the Subject Report,” Toronto Journal of Theology 25/1, 95–110. Sharma, K. (1987), Bhakti and the Bhakti Movement: A New Perspective (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal). Sikka, Sonia (2015), “What Is Indian ‘Religion’? How Should It Be Taught?” in Lori Beaman and Leo van Arragon (eds.), Whose Religion? Education about Religion in Public Schools (Leiden: Brill), 107–25. Sikka, Sonia (2016), “The Role of Philosophy in the Academic Study of Religion in India,” Academic Study of Religion in Asia, special issue of Argument: Biannual Philosophical Journal 26/1, 55–79. Smith, W. C. (1991), The Meaning and End of Religion (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press). Stark, Rodney, and Bainbridge, William Sims (1986), The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult-Formation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). Sweet, William (2009), “Schellenberg and the State of the Philosophy of Religion Today,” Toronto Journal of Theology 25/1, 83–91. Taylor, Bron (2010), Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). Taylor, Charles (1991), The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Vaughan-Lee, Llewellyn (2013), Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth (Point Reyes, CA: The Golden Sufi Center). Wainwright, William J. (1984), “Wilfred Cantwell Smith on Faith and Belief,” Religious Studies 20/3, 353–66.

2 Global Philosophy of Religion and its Challenges Yujin Nagasawa

2.1 Introduction The philosophy of religion addresses a variety of issues that are of interest to many people regardless of their religious beliefs—or lack thereof. Yet the focus of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion (henceforth simply ‘the philosophy of religion’) has been decidedly narrow. The discipline has been led mainly by Christian philosophers in English-speaking countries whose ultimate goal is to defend Christian theism through reason and argument.1 The central topics have been arguments for and against the existence of God or the justification of belief in God, with much energy devoted to deriving the metaphysical and epistemological implications of these arguments within the Christian tradition. Even atheist and agnostic philosophers of religion have spent most of their time assessing arguments developed by Christian theists. It is not my wish to reject Christian philosophy altogether. In fact, many of my own works have focused on issues concerning Christian theism and I believe that Christian philosophy should remain a subarea of a larger field with appropriate adjustments. I argue, however, that if the philosophy of religion takes religion seriously, it has to transform Throughout this essay, when I use the terms ‘Christian philosophers’, ‘Hindu philosophers’, etc., I mean philosophers of religion in the Christian tradition, philosophers of religion in the Hindu tradition, etc. This caveat is necessary because there are philosophers who are Christians who do not work in the philosophy of religion, philosophers who are Hindus who do not work in the philosophy of religion, etc. 1

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itself into what I call the ‘global philosophy of religion’, which addresses philosophical problems concerning religion from global, multi-religious perspectives.2 My aim in this essay is to outline the global philosophy of religion by assessing existing attempts to globalize the discipline. Given limited space, my focus has to be on the globalization of the philosophy of religion in terms of how to incorporate multi-religious perspectives into the conceptual framework of the discipline. I set aside more pragmatic issues such as making the discipline more diverse in terms of gender, race, language, or geographical location. This essay has the following structure. In Section 2.2, I offer an overview of the current state of the philosophy of religion. Although I advocate for the global philosophy of religion, I argue that we cannot make significant philosophical progress merely by incorporating interreligious dialogue into current discourse. In Sections 2.3 and 2.4, I critically discuss renowned attempts to globalize the philosophy of religion by two pioneers: Ninian Smart and John Hick. In particular, in Section 2.3, I discuss Smart’s proposal to transform the philosophy of religion into what he calls ‘the philosophy of worldviews’. Smart makes specific suggestions about how philosophical progress can be made within a global framework. I argue, however, that his proposal seems counterproductive because it could promote the isolation of religious and non-religious traditions, or, worse, exacerbate tensions between them. In Section 2.4, I discuss Hick’s proposals for ‘religious pluralism’ and ‘global theology’ as further attempts to globalize the discipline. Hick’s approach seems to overcome the difficulty of Smart’s philosophy of worldviews because he develops religious pluralism as a way to resolve tensions between religious traditions. I argue, however, that Hick’s approach cannot be accepted by many because religious pluralism is a contentious meta-theory which the majority of philosophers of religion reject. His proposal for global theology, on the other hand, seems more promising because it is more general than religious pluralism. Yet I argue that it is unclear what global theology is meant to do when it is divorced from religious pluralism. In Section 2.5, I introduce my own proposal for the global philosophy of religion, explaining how it can overcome the 2 The term ‘global philosophy of religion’ is notably used in Joseph Runzo’s textbook Global Philosophy of Religion: A Short Introduction (2001), but the view I defend in this essay is distinct from Runzo’s.

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difficulties of Hick’s and Smart’s proposals. I explain that the global philosophy of religion emphasizes problems which scholars in distinct traditions can tackle collaboratively. This approach allows for the globalization of the discipline without compromising the autonomy of distinct traditions. The final section concludes.

2.2 The Current State of the Philosophy of Religion In the current philosophy of religion, scholars work within their own traditions and rarely interact with those in other traditions. Virtually the only time they interact with others is when they defend their views from critics. For example, Christian philosophers focus on the traditional Christian concept of God, according to which God is an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving creator of the universe. Drawing upon this conception, they discuss such issues as the nature and existence of God, the justification of religious belief, the problem of evil, the afterlife, miracles, and religious language. They rarely express strong interest in other traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Shinto, and Sikhism, even though they occasionally interact with Judaism. Their main interest is to defend the validity of Christian theism, or Judeo-Christian theism more broadly, by addressing internal and external criticisms. That is why the philosophy of religion is often accused of being Christian apologetics in disguise. Having said this, I hasten to add that Christian philosophers are not solely responsible for the current state of the discipline. Indeed, we see hardly any interaction between non-Christian philosophers in other distinct traditions either. For example, we almost never see interaction between Hindu philosophers and Islamic philosophers, or between Buddhist philosophers and Jewish philosophers.3

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Sophisticated ontological and epistemic theses are found in some of the non-Western religious traditions, just as they are in the Western religious traditions. However, a question arises as to whether there is a Buddhist philosophy, a Hindu philosophy, etc., in the Western sense of philosophy, which addresses fundamental issues through logic and reason. If philosophy in this sense is not present in the non-Western traditions, it may not be straightforward to incorporate non-Western religious traditions into debates in the philosophy of religion. There is also a further question as to whether the concept of religion itself is a Western product. I set these large issues aside in this essay.

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Some recognize the current state of affairs as a problem and try to incorporate so-called interreligious dialogue into the philosophy of religion. Interreligious dialogue is an attempt to promote constructive and forward-looking interaction between distinct religious traditions to achieve better understanding of religious beliefs and practices in other traditions. Notice that interreligious dialogue does not purport to create a ‘world religion’ which synthesizes distinct religious traditions. Interreligious dialogue affirms the differences between distinct traditions and does not try to change anyone’s religious beliefs. Instead it promotes a conversation between religious traditions so that people can appreciate commonalities and differences. Religious conflicts are widespread and they often arise from misunderstanding one another’s beliefs or failing to appreciate the diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Religious dialogue therefore seems to be valuable in a global society in which people living in multiple religious traditions coexist. Yet it is far from clear exactly how the introduction of interreligious dialogue can contribute to philosophical progress. It is fascinating to see similarities and differences of beliefs and doctrines between distinct traditions. However, merely comparing religious beliefs and doctrines does not help us advance philosophical debates. Globalizing the philosophy of religion is not fruitful if it is achieved merely as a polite gesture made to express interest in other people’s beliefs. Interreligious dialogue is certainly an important step towards globalizing the discipline, but it is only a means to an end, not an end in itself.

2.3 Smart’s Philosophy of Worldviews In this and the next section I address the work of two pioneers who contributed to the globalization of the philosophy of religion: Ninian Smart and John Hick. Both philosophers held posts at the University of Birmingham, where I am currently based. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to meet Smart in person as he passed away in 2001, before I moved to Birmingham, but his work has influenced me immensely. I was fortunate enough to meet Hick regularly and discuss many philosophical issues with him over six years, until he passed away in 2012. Smart and Hick were ahead of their time and we can learn a lot from them. Nevertheless, in what follows, I argue that their approaches to globalizing the philosophy of religion suffer from certain limitations.

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Smart’s interest in world religions originated in the 1940s, when he studied the Chinese language through Confucian texts at his post with the British Army Intelligence Corps. He subsequently completed what he described as ‘the first dissertation in Oxford on philosophy of religion after World War II’ and taught at the University of Wales, Yale University, and the University of London (Smart 2000: 21). He moved to the University of Birmingham in 1961 to take up the H. G. Wood Chair, contributing to the expansion of the research programme in the theology department. In 1967 he launched the first religious studies department in the United Kingdom at the University of Lancaster. Smart’s work tends to be overlooked in philosophy because he is better known as a scholar of world religions. Yet he certainly was a philosopher of religion. (It is interesting to note that J. J. C. Smart, one of the most influential analytic philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, was his brother.) Smart’s main concern in his work is that the scope of the current philosophy of religion is too narrow. He writes: ‘[B]asically the agenda has been Western theism . . . The tradition remains dominated, from the rear, by the idea of natural theology, or by something called theism, or more particularly Christian (sometimes Jewish) theism’ (Smart 1995a: 17). Smart makes a radical proposal to transform the philosophy of religion into a new, global discipline, the ‘philosophy of worldviews’. He is frustrated by the fact that contemporary philosophy addresses only a narrow range of worldviews and that many philosophy departments in the English-speaking world are themselves committed to particular worldviews, such as secular humanism. Smart calls the new discipline ‘the philosophy of worldviews’ because it is no longer confined to discussing only religious traditions. He says that we should consider non-religious traditions such as Marxism and scientific humanism as well, because they all belong to the same sphere of human life and have created struggles involving people from across the world. He illustrates this point with examples: In Cambodia the life struggle was between Buddhism, Marxism and Khmer Rouge ideology; in Vietnam, between Buddhism, Catholicism and Vietnamese Marxism; in Sweden between Lutheranism and forms of scientific humanism. The actual choices of people cross the boundary between religious and nonreligious ideologies. (Smart 1997: 3)

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Since the distinction between religious and non-religious views is not always clear-cut, Smart contends, it is conceptually and pragmatically necessary to transform the philosophy of religion into a broader field that he characterizes as the philosophy of worldviews. Smart’s philosophy of worldviews goes further than interreligious dialogue by specifying exactly what scholars should do to make philosophical progress. According to Smart, ‘the philosophy of worldviews is concerned with examining the criteria for evaluating worldviews, and connectedly discovering the coherence or otherwise of worldviews as formulated’ (Smart 1997: 5). The following is my summary of eight items which he suggests philosophers of worldviews should address (Smart 1997: 24–9): (1) Internal consistency: A worldview might contain contradictions and hence may turn out to be internally inconsistent. It is unlikely that such contradictions will be very obvious, but some may be implicit. One might argue, for example, that the doctrine of the Trinity in Christianity is contradictory. Although a rich, complex religious tradition is likely to generate a certain degree of tension, other things being equal, the less tension the better. (2) Consistency with received beliefs and values: Even if a worldview is internally consistent, it might be inconsistent with beliefs or values that lie outside the worldview. One might argue, for example, that evolutionary biology is inconsistent with a conservative Christian worldview or with Stalinist Marxism. If they are indeed inconsistent, one of them has to be relinquished, or at least revised. (3) Epistemic consistency: A worldview can be inconsistent with a received epistemic system. One might argue, for example, that the epistemic system on which a certain religious worldview is based is inconsistent with the epistemic system on which science is based. This is perhaps because the religious worldview relies on revelation or the experience of enlightenment, whereas science does not. (4) Priority and emphasis: Certain issues are prioritized in one worldview but not necessarily in others. For example, the Holocaust has a special place in Jewish theology as an event of great significance for Jews. As sympathetic to the suffering of the Jews as Buddhism

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may be, it is unlikely to treat this specific historical event in the same way as Judaism. Similarly, how much weight we should place upon specific epistemic aspects of religion, such as prophetic, mystical, shamanistic, psychedelic, and conversional aspects, needs to be considered when we address consistency between distinct worldviews. Value of religious experience: Whether any religious experience is taken seriously depends on the worldview in question. If the possibility of the transcendent is not entertained in a certain worldview, then within that worldview religious experience is ruled out as a valid avenue to the truth. Ethics: The ethical—or more generally, the social—outcomes of differing systems also need to be considered. These are not necessarily positive; there can be negative ones too. Choosing a faith is comparable to choosing a place to live, so here we would want to weigh up the various positive and negative outcomes of distinct worldviews. Anthropology: Worldviews include beliefs and feelings about the nature of human beings. They may concern whether human beings are intrinsically good or bad, whether their troubles originate from sin or ignorance, where they stand in the universe, and so on. Theories about others: Every tradition needs to have a theory about other worldviews. Some traditions might hold that other traditions are equally valid, while others might hold that the alternatives are blasphemous or delusional. We have to test the degree of plausibility of such theories.

Smart’s approach is certainly helpful for understanding relationships between distinct religious and non-religious traditions and their links with, and implications for, metaphysical, epistemic, social, ethical, and anthropological issues. Yet I argue that his proposal is unlikely to contribute to significant progress in the philosophy of religion because his main emphasis is on evaluating worldviews in terms of their internal coherence and mutual consistency. He says that the task of philosophers of worldviews is to ‘clarify the criteria for determining the truth as between worldviews’ (Smart 1995b: 1). While Smart does talk about the importance of empathy in understanding traditions other than

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one’s own, he also refers to the philosophy of worldviews as a tool for ‘choosing and judging worldviews’ (Smart 1995b: 1). In a new global, pluralistic, and consumer-oriented world, according to Smart, choosing a faith is a realistic option (Smart 1995b: 1). I mentioned earlier that the philosophy of religion is often accused of amounting to Christian apologetics in disguise because the main focus of the discipline has been on defending Christian theism from criticisms. Smart’s philosophy of worldviews would certainly bring non-Christian perspectives into the discipline, but putting the greatest emphasis on internal coherence within and consistency between worldviews could result in a discipline in which philosophers merely offer apologetics for their own traditions in defending their worldviews against others. If that were the case, the philosophy of worldviews could turn out to be what might be deemed global, interreligious apologetics. This is not ideal because it could, ironically, exacerbate tensions between philosophers of religion in distinct traditions. Such tensions might be avoided if philosophers of worldviews were to focus on the coherence of their own worldviews or the consistency of the latter with theses not directly related to other worldviews, such as general scientific or moral theories. In such a case, however, the philosophy of worldviews is back to square one: Christian philosophers pay attention only to the Christian tradition, Buddhist philosophers pay attention only to the Buddhist tradition, and so on. That would be a failure of the globalization of the philosophy of religion. In the following section, I assess John Hick’s alternative approach to globalizing the philosophy of religion, which can be construed as in part an attempt to overcome the difficulties that Smart’s approach faces.

2.4 Hick’s Religious Pluralism and Global Theology Hick was an evangelical Christian when he was young but he gradually developed a multi-faith approach to the philosophy of religion. He was particularly influenced by the cultural and religious diversity of Birmingham, to which he moved in 1967 to succeed Smart as the holder of the H. G. Wood Chair. He spent time in mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras, temples, and churches and came to think that while all religious traditions look different externally, their essences are the same.

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Hick developed this thought into the view he characterizes as religious pluralism, according to which all the world’s great religions are valid responses to transcendental reality. Hick believes that Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and all the other major religions are equally sound approaches to ultimate reality. Religious pluralism contrasts with religious exclusivism and religious inclusivism. Religious pluralism almost diametrically opposes religious exclusivism, according to which only one religion is the true approach to transcendental reality. Religious pluralism is more sympathetic to religious inclusivism, which holds that although a specific religion may be superior to other religions, the latter may also offer paths to ultimate reality. However, religious pluralism disagrees with religious inclusivism about the superiority of one religion over others. In defending religious pluralism, Hick needs to explain why distinct religions often make conflicting claims even though there is only a single transcendental reality. For example, some religions follow monotheism, saying that there is only one god, while others follow polytheism, saying that there are multiple gods. Yet others postulate no god at all. To explain this fact, Hick appeals to the notion of ‘the Real’, which, unlike the notion of ‘God’, is religiously neutral (Hick 2004: 236). While he acknowledges the diversity of the world’s religions, Hick construes all of them as human responses to the Real, which is ‘the postulated ground of the different forms of religious experience’ (Hick 2004: 236). He distinguishes ‘the Real in itself ’ and ‘the Real as humanly experienced (or manifested within the intellectual and experiential purview of a certain tradition)’. He says that the Real in itself is transcategorial or ineffable. That is, our limited human language and thought cannot grasp its true nature. The Real is neither a person nor a thing, but people from divergent religious or cultural traditions perceive it differently—some see it as a person, others see it as a non-personal entity. That is why, according to Hick, there is religious diversity in the world even though there is only a single transcendental reality, the Real. Hick’s religious pluralism can be construed as an attempt to overcome the limits of Smart’s philosophy of worldviews because it seems to offer a way to eliminate tensions between, or the isolation of, religious traditions by resolving apparent inconsistencies between them. I submit, however, that religious pluralism cannot be a requirement for, or a basis of, the global philosophy of religion. Religious pluralism, along

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with religious inclusivism and religious exclusivism, is only one of many contentious meta-theories that purport to explain the compatibility or incompatibility of religious traditions. As the philosophy of religion addresses all philosophical views concerning religion, a commitment to a theory as specific as religious pluralism cannot be a requirement for participating in a global approach to the discipline. Conversely, if the commitment to religious pluralism were a requirement for participating in a global approach, it would exclude the majority of philosophers of religion because religious pluralism, whether or not it ultimately succeeds, is not a widely accepted view. Along with religious pluralism, Hick also develops the idea of ‘global theology’, a future form of the philosophy of religion that seems conceptually more neutral than religious pluralism. According to Marilyn Adams’s interpretation of Hick, global theology is distinct from religious pluralism because global theology is a change-of-content move, whereas religious pluralism is a change-of-status move (Adams 2012: 34). Religious pluralism does not try to modify or amend the contents of beliefs held in the world’s great religions. It changes only their statuses and relationships by making what Hick calls the ‘Copernican shift’, a shift of focus from individual religious traditions to the Real itself. Religious pluralism keeps all the religious beliefs fixed but maintains that they all represent limited human responses to the Real. On the other hand, global theology, according to Adams, does try to change the contents of religious beliefs by comparing and contrasting them or testing them against empirical and conceptual observations. Adams suggests that Hick tries to do this so that he can reach ‘a stripped-down content (and perhaps praxis) that could be substituted for what the world’s great faiths offer’ (Adams 2012: 34). Replacing the contents of the world’s great faiths with a stripped-down content sounds like an attempt to create a world religion, but that is clearly not what Hick intends to do. In fact, as Hick explicitly says, ‘while there cannot be a world religion, there can be approaches to a world theology’ (Hick 1980: 21). He also writes: ‘[I]t is because religious myth and the practice of piety are phenomena of human culture that a global religion will never come about so long as there is—as let us hope there will always be—a wide variety of different styles of human existence . . . We are not concerned here, then, with the possibility of a global religion but with the possibility of a global theology’ (Hick 1976: 29–30). Hick outlines global theology as follows:

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[I]f awareness of the transcendent reality that we call God is not confined to the Christian tradition, the possibility opens up of what might be called (for want of a better term) a global theology. Christian theology consists in a body of theories or hypotheses designed to interpret the data of Christian experience. Analogously, a global theology would consist of theories or hypotheses designed to interpret the religious experience of mankind as it occurs not only within Christianity but also within the other great streams of religious life, particularly the nontheistic traditions, including large sections of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, and also with the great nonreligious faiths of Marxism, Maoism, and Humanism. The project of a global theology is obviously vast, requiring the cooperative labors of many individuals and groups over a period of several generations. The increasing dialogue of world religions is basic to this work. Out of this there may be expected increasingly to come comparative and constructive studies both of particular areas of belief and larger systems of belief. (Hick 1980: 21–2)

Thus, Hick’s aim is not to create a global religion first and then to develop global theology as a discipline which addresses such a religion. His aim is rather to develop a discipline which addresses hypotheses and data in a variety of religious and non-religious traditions. As an example of ‘comparative and constructive studies both of particular areas of belief and larger systems of belief ’, Hick refers to his book Death and Eternal Life (1976). In that book, which discusses the concepts of death and eternal life in multiple religious traditions, he describes his methodology as follows: The project of global theology will then be the attempt to use these different affirmations, and the modes of religious experience on which they are based, as data for the construction of comprehensive religious theories. Such a theology would consist in a body of hypotheses about the nature of reality, expressing the basic common ground of the world religions, and receiving mythic expression and devotional content in different ways within different historical traditions. (Hick 1976: 30)

The crucial question here is what exactly Hick means by ‘comprehensive religious theories’ in global theology. Unfortunately, at this point, he merely returns to his defence of religious pluralism: ‘The analogous Copernican revolution in theology is a shift from the picture of the religious life of mankind as centring upon and culminating in one’s own religion, to a view of the religions as different responses to variously overlapping aspects of the same Ultimate Reality’ (Hick 1976: 31). Again, no matter how plausible religious pluralism is, commitment to it cannot be a requirement for the globalization of the philosophy of

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religion because it is only one of many meta-theories concerning the compatibility or incompatibility of religious traditions. Global theology cannot succeed if it requires its participants to accept such a specific theory. And it is unclear what global theology is meant to do when it is detached from religious pluralism.

2.5 My Proposal: The Global Philosophy of Religion Our discussion thus far can be summarized by the following points. First, a mere introduction of interreligious dialogue into the current state of the philosophy of religion is not helpful, because philosophical progress cannot be made merely by comparing views in distinct religious traditions. Second, Smart’s proposal of the philosophy of worldviews is useful in this respect because he specifies exactly what philosophers should do in a new, global framework. In particular, he says that the aim of the philosophy of worldviews is to evaluate worldviews by considering their internal coherence and mutual consistency with reference to the eight items summarized above. However, the philosophy of worldviews could also be counterproductive because it primarily emphasizes choosing and judging worldviews, which could exacerbate tensions between religious and non-religious traditions or promote isolation. And third, Hick’s proposal of religious pluralism can be construed as an attempt to overcome the difficulties entailed by Smart’s philosophy of worldviews, because it proposes a way to resolve apparent tensions between religious traditions. However, religious pluralism cannot be a requirement for the globalization of the philosophy of religion because it is only one of many meta-theories that need to be addressed within the discipline. Hick’s global theology, on the other hand, initially appears to be a better candidate for replacing the current philosophy of religion because it is more general than religious pluralism. However, it is not clear what it is meant to do once it is detached from religious pluralism. Again, the current philosophy of religion is often accused of being Christian apologetics in disguise. This is because Christian philosophers, who dominate the philosophy of religion, have spent a lot of time defending Christian theism from criticisms by atheists, without paying much attention to other traditions. The tension between two worldviews— Christian theism and atheism—thus forms the basis of the current

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philosophy of religion. Smart and Hick try to address this issue by incorporating interreligious perspectives. Yet it seems that they are still trapped in the dogma which underlies the current philosophy of religion. This dogma consists in the implicit assumption that the main goal of the philosophy of religion should be to determine the validity of particular worldviews or traditions. Smart highlights the tensions between worldviews by analysing their consistency with one another on a global scale. He maintains that evaluating and choosing worldviews should be primary activities of philosophers of religion. Unlike Smart, Hick purports to resolve rather than highlight the tensions, although the question of how to address these tensions remains one of his central concerns. His interest lies in explaining the source of tensions and removing that source by appealing to religious pluralism. In this sense, Smart and Hick still concentrate on the same old problem. I argue that in order to globalize the philosophy of religion productively, we should recognize that the main focus of the field need not be on tensions between religious traditions and that more attention can be paid to common problems which philosophers of religion in distinct traditions can address together. As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the philosophy of religion addresses a variety of fundamental philosophical issues that are not restricted to specific traditions. Each tradition (or at least each of the world’s great religions and the naturalist tradition) has theoretical and practical resources that have been developed over centuries. It would be fruitful if philosophers from distinct traditions were to share their resources and tackle the common problems together. Of course, it is not assumed here that they are likely to reach the same conclusions concerning the problems. The pursuit of truth is the central task of philosophers, so sometimes we cannot avoid highlighting disagreements between distinct traditions. In this sense, global, interreligious apologetics might be unavoidable. Nevertheless, there is much to be learned by exploring shared problems collaboratively and analysing them from viewpoints that others take. In fact, this is what philosophers do all the time; the point of doing philosophy is to exchange and learn a diversity of ideas so that we can advance our knowledge of fundamental issues. Such an open-minded spirit seems to be missing in the current philosophy of religion. What I have said does not of course assume that all issues in the global philosophy of religion are relevant to multiple traditions. There are issues that are specific to only one tradition, such as particular doctrines or

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theories that belong solely to that tradition. The existence of such issues does not undermine the global philosophy of religion. I mentioned above that although I advocate the global philosophy of religion, Christian philosophy should remain, with appropriate adjustments, a subarea of a larger field. I believe equally that Buddhist philosophy, Islamic philosophy, and so on should remain as subareas too. Interaction and collaboration between distinct traditions are promoted in the global philosophy of religion, but the autonomy of distinct traditions is also respected. The problem of evil and suffering is perhaps a good example of an issue which can be tackled collaboratively by scholars in distinct traditions. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are Abrahamic religions, so there is some degree of overlap in their views about what constitutes evil and suffering, and how we should respond to them. They typically consider the existence of evil and suffering in relation to God. However, nonAbrahamic religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, consider evil and suffering rather differently. Buddhism categorizes suffering, or dukkha, into four main types: birth, sickness, ageing, and death. Life is full of suffering but Buddhism does not normally regard suffering as evil or a consequence of evil caused or permitted by a supernatural being. Instead of trying to explain away evil and suffering, Buddhism teaches its adherents how to overcome them spiritually. Hinduism, to take another example, places evil in karma, the fundamental law of cause and effect. It situates evil and suffering for atman, the permanent self, in samsara, the continuous cycle of birth, life, and death. Hinduism provides a supernaturalistic account of evil and suffering and their roles, one which radically differs from explanations that the Abrahamic traditions provide. Confucianism, like Buddhism, develops a naturalistic approach to evil. It recognizes concepts relevant to evil, particularly moral evil, such as ren (humanness), yi (justice), and xin (integrity), and teaches that suffering and evil are inevitable but that they can promote human growth. I do not have sufficient space to discuss in detail what each tradition can learn about evil and suffering from other traditions. Yet we can reasonably expect that each tradition can benefit from the resources of other traditions that have also been addressing the same problem for centuries. The same can be said about many other topics in the philosophy of religion, such as religious and mystical experiences, miracles and the laws of nature, the meaning of life, faith and belief, and death and immortality.

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2.6 Conclusion Globalizing the philosophy of religion initially sounds a good idea to most people, but it is not easy to explain exactly what is good about it for the progress of the discipline. In this essay, I have outlined the global philosophy of religion, which moves beyond interreligious dialogue and yet, unlike Smart’s and Hick’s respective proposals, does not collapse into a debate on the tension between distinct religious traditions. The global philosophy of religion promotes collaborative work among philosophers in distinct religious traditions while respecting their autonomy. It also does not require one to commit to a controversial meta-theory, such as religious pluralism or religious inclusivism, which concerns the compatibility or incompatibility of distinct religious traditions.4

References Adams, Marilyn McCord (2012), ‘Which Is It? Religious Pluralism or Global Theology?’ in Sharada Sugirtharajah (ed.), Religious Pluralism and the Modern World: An Ongoing Engagement with John Hick (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 34–45. Hick, John (1976), Death and Eternal Life (San Francisco: Harper and Row). Hick, John (1980), God Has Many Names (Philadelphia: Westminster Press). Hick, John (2004), An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent, 2nd edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Runzo, Joseph (2001), Global Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oneworld). Smart, Ninian (1995a), ‘The Philosophy of Worldviews, or the Philosophy of Religion Transformed’, in Thomas Dean (ed.), Religious Pluralism and the Truth: Essays on Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (Albany: State University of New York Press), 17–31. Smart, Ninian (1995b), Choosing a Faith (London: Boyards/Bowerdean). Smart, Ninian (1997), ‘Does the Philosophy of Religion Rest on Two Mistakes?’, Sophia 36/1, 1–10. Smart, Ninian (2000), ‘Methods in my Life’, in Jon R. Stone (ed.), The Craft of Religious Studies (New York: Palgrave), 18–35.

4 I would like to thank Andrei Buckareff, David Cheetham, John Hick, Eric Steinhart, and Nick Trakakis for helpful, enjoyable discussions on the topic of this essay over the last few years. I am particularly grateful to Paul Draper and John Schellenberg for written comments on an earlier version.

3 Against Ultimacy Stephen Maitzen

3.1 Introduction Much religion, as well as much philosophy of religion (including but not limited to perfect-being theology), concerns itself with what its practitioners take to be ultimate in one or more senses. Indeed, J. L. Schellenberg has prominently argued that, especially in light of our relative immaturity as a philosophizing species and the familiar problems that beset traditional theism, religion ought to concern itself more broadly with the ultimate rather than more narrowly with the God or gods of specific religious traditions.1 If Schellenberg is right about the proper concern of religion, then philosophy of religion should likewise concern itself with the ultimate if it wants to maintain contact with what is most central to religion. Even if Schellenberg is wrong about religion in general, it’s clear that many religious adherents and philosophers of religion do in fact see themselves as concerned with what they take to be ultimate. The kind of concern with the ultimate characteristic of religion presupposes that the ultimate is possible: to adopt a characteristically religious concern with the ultimate is at least tacitly to assume that the ultimate is possibly instantiated. I will argue, however, that ultimacy in each of the following three senses is impossible: ontological (ultimate reality); axiological (ultimate value); and teleological (ultimate purpose).2 1

See, for example, Schellenberg 2007 and 2013. Schellenberg discusses the worry that “an ultimate reality [might be] so far out of our league as to be, in the details of its nature, eternally incomprehensible to us in any possible world in which we humans exist” (2007: 64). Elliott (2015: 12) worries that we would be unable to know that we’re experiencing an ultimate reality even if we did experience it. 2

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If I am right, then any religion concerning itself with the ultimate in any of these senses rests on a false presupposition, as does any philosophy of religion that endorses such a concern. Schellenberg (2016: 166) identifies three senses of ultimacy by name as the proper and essential focus of “religion in the twenty-first century”: axiological; metaphysical (which I refer to below, more specifically, as “ontological”); and soteriological (to which my criticisms of axiological and teleological ultimacy are germane). If Schellenberg is correct about what a religious concern with the ultimate requires, and if I’m correct about the kinds of ultimacy I discuss herein, then religion and philosophy of religion should take the pursuit of the ultimate no more seriously than mathematics and philosophy of mathematics take the pursuit of the “ultimate integer.” I will conclude by asking what religion and philosophy of religion ought to become if my criticisms are correct.

3.2 The Ultimate Seduction There’s something undeniably seductive about the concept of the ultimate such-and-such, a concept we often try to form by taking this or that good or useful thing and extrapolating its virtues as far as our minds can see. Commercial advertisers know well this seductive appeal: the registered trademark of BMW is “The Ultimate Driving Experience,” to take just one of countless examples of the use of “ultimate” in marketing. Marketers of other kinds also exploit the appeal of “ultimate.” The Christian apologist William Lane Craig, for example, peppers his writings with forms of the word, claiming repeatedly that unless (Christian) theism is true, nothing we do makes any “ultimate difference,” our lives are “ultimately meaningless,” nothing is “ultimately right or wrong,” and so on.3 To my knowledge, Craig never defines any of the phrases of his I just quoted, perhaps because he presumes that his readers will find frightening enough the prospect of sacrificing the ultimate this or that, whether defined for them or not. Mathematics, however, reminds us that we ought to resist the seduction of the ultimate. Mathematics routinely deals in sets of items that I intend to raise the very different worry that, for reasons we can easily comprehend, an ultimate reality is impossible. 3

See, among many examples, Craig 2008 and 2009. For criticism of Craig, see Hubin 2009 and Maitzen 2011.

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come in degrees, or admit of comparisons such as “larger than,” yet lack values that are ultimate in any sense. These sets include the integers, the prime numbers, the real numbers more generally, and even the transfinite numbers (which are ever increasing orders of infinity). Mathematics teaches us that these sets and many others not only lack but couldn’t possibly have a largest, final, or ultimate member. To take an example that recently received coverage in the popular press: while it remains an open question whether the set of “twin primes”—pairs of prime numbers that differ by exactly 2—has a largest pair, a recent breakthrough by a formerly obscure number theorist, together with further work inspired by his breakthrough, provides important evidence against the existence of such an “ultimate” pair of primes.4 In what follows, I will defend a similarly skeptical attitude toward the religiously significant kinds of ultimacy mentioned above.

3.3 Ontological Ultimacy As the label suggests, anything ontologically ultimate possesses being, or existence, to the ultimate or highest possible degree. But it’s doubtful whether the notion of “degrees of being” even makes sense. How can two things, both of which exist, exist to different degrees? How can one existent be literally more real than another? In order not to saddle proponents of ontological ultimacy with the problematic doctrine of degrees of being, I’ll assume that anything ontologically ultimate must enjoy complete ontological independence from other things. Now, according to Platonism, at least some abstract entities exist as a matter of metaphysical necessity and therefore possess the highest possible degree of ontological independence from other entities, namely, existing under all possible circumstances.5 These abstract objects include pure mathematical objects such as the empty set. But it’s hard to see how an abstract object, lacking by its very nature any agency or causal power, could count as ontologically ultimate in any sense relevant to widely held 4

Chang 2013; Klarreich 2013. I say “at least some abstract entities” because although all sets are abstract objects, any set exists contingently if it contains a member that exists contingently. The identity of any set depends solely on the identity of its members. So, for example, the set {Mars} exists only because Mars exists, and Mars could have failed to exist. 5

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religious concerns. Only the zaniest adherent of Pythagorean mysticism could believe that the empty set is the ontological holy grail. Instead, if it exists, the ontologically ultimate will be concrete yet independent of everything else. Independent in which way? As Schellenberg explains (using the term “metaphysical” where I’ve been using “ontological”), the kind of independence at issue here is explanatory independence: Metaphysical ultimacy . . . involves the property of fundamentally determining what exists and . . . that it exists as it does—a property that . . . will be relevant explanatorily. Something is metaphysically ultimate . . . just in case its existence is the ultimate or most fundamental fact about the nature of things, in relation to which any other fact about what things exist and how they exist would have to be understood in a correct and comprehensive account of things. (Schellenberg 2016: 168)

There’s good reason, however, to deny that any concrete being could count as explanatorily ultimate. On the contrary, the very desire that makes sense of the intellectual quest for the ontologically ultimate—namely, the desire to explain the existence of every concrete being—gives one reason to accept the principle (call it “LSE”) that every concrete being has a logically sufficient explanation of its existence in terms of one or more other concrete beings and hence fails to be explanatorily independent of the latter. For consider: if LSE is false, then some concrete being either (a) exists as a matter of brute fact, lacking any logically sufficient reason for its existence; (b) provides a logically sufficient reason for its own existence; or (c) has a logically sufficient reason for its existence solely in terms of one or more abstract beings. As I’ll explain, none of those options is tenable for anyone seeking the ontologically ultimate. To accept (a) is to give up the motivation for seeking the ontologically ultimate in the first place, for to accept (a) is to concede that the desire to explain every concrete being’s existence is bound to be frustrated, in which case it makes no principled difference whether the desire is frustrated just once or more than once. Indeed, it is to accept that the desire itself is fundamentally mistaken. To put it another way, there being an explanation of X’s existence isn’t a defect in X in contrast to which there being no explanation of X’s existence is a virtue in X. So the quest for the ontologically ultimate cannot sensibly be the quest for some special X possessing that virtue. Nor can it sensibly be the quest for a brutely existing concrete X as such, for we couldn’t ever be sure that our

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quest had succeeded: we couldn’t be sure that there isn’t a logically sufficient explanation of X’s existence that simply eludes us. Instead, what makes sense of the quest is the conviction that an explanation exists for every concrete being’s existence, which (a) simply denies. By contrast, if LSE is true then every concrete being’s existence has an explanation. One might object that LSE demands the impossible, namely, a logically sufficient explanation of the existence not just of each individual concrete being but of the entire series of concrete beings in terms of some concrete being(s) not belonging to the series. This objection misfires, however, for the simple reason that no series of concrete beings is itself a concrete being, just as no set of such beings is itself concrete: series and sets are abstract objects.6 Alternatively, one might object that LSE isn’t demanding enough: because LSE allows us to invoke concrete beings at every stage of explanation, fulfilling the terms of LSE still leaves unexplained why there are any concrete beings at all. But this objection is also misguided. It stems from a genuine criterion of correct explanation, namely, that in order to explain why a kind K has instances at all, one must invoke something not belonging to K. As William L. Rowe puts it, using man as the kind in question, “If all we know is that there always have been men and that every man’s existence is explained by the causal efficacy of some other man, we do not know why there always have been men rather than none at all.”7 But the objection misapplies the criterion because it mistakenly assumes that “concrete being,” like “man,” names a kind of being.8 Option (b) fails because nothing, and in particular nothing concrete, is literally self-explanatory.9 It’s widely recognized that nothing that exists contingently is the explanation of its own existence, but neither is anything that exists noncontingently (i.e., necessarily). Let N be any

6

Merriam-Webster.com gives eleven definitions of series, ten of them in terms of other abstract-object words, namely, number, set, sum, group, succession, division, and arrangement. The remaining definition, “the coins or currency of a particular country and period,” is peculiar to numismatics and arguably also defines an abstract object. 7 Rowe 1998: 154–5. I construe Rowe’s use of “man” as synonymous with “human being,” rather than as a term applicable only during some arbitrarily defined phase in the life of a male human being. 8 For details, see Maitzen 2013: 260–5. Mistakes of this sort are a source of confusion in various ontological debates, as Thomasson 2009 points out. 9 As I argue in Maitzen 2013: 256. See also Morreall 1980 (especially 210–12), and Wielenberg 2009: 29–30.

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necessarily existing being. Why does N exist? Even if we answer that question by appealing to the fact that N must exist, that fact about N isn’t identical to N itself, as it would need to be were N literally selfexplanatory. The same holds even if the explanation of N’s existence derives from N’s own nature or essence: “It’s in the nature of N to exist” and “To exist is part of N’s essence” are no better than “N exists necessarily” as an explanation of why N exists, and again none of those explanations makes N self-explanatory. According to option (c), some concrete being—call it “G”—explains the existence of every other concrete being but doesn’t explain its own existence. On this proposal, G’s own existence isn’t a brute fact, however, because G’s own existence is explained by the fact that G exists necessarily. Now, assuming that there’s such a thing as the fact that G exists necessarily, that fact itself is abstract rather than concrete: facts in general, and in particular the modal fact that G exists necessarily, belong to the category of causally inert things that includes propositions. Three problems therefore arise for this proposal. First, it’s hard to see how an abstract object can explain why a concrete object exists. Arguably it can work in the opposite direction: the existence of the concrete object Mars may well explain why the abstract object {Mars} exists, assuming that the latter does exist. But no one would be tempted to say that Mars exists because {Mars} does. Second, it seems like special pleading to say that the explanation of every other concrete being requires the concrete being G, whereas the explanation of G itself resides in an abstract object: if an abstract object ever explains the existence of a concrete object, then there is no independent reason to hold that it never happens more than once. Third, if the explanation of G’s existence requires invoking some abstract object, then that abstract object has a better claim than G does to be regarded as explanatorily and hence ontologically ultimate, which is the Platonistic view we rejected earlier when we concluded that the ontologically ultimate must be concrete. I needn’t hold that no concrete being can exist necessarily, only that even if it does, its existence isn’t explained by the fact that it exists necessarily. Option (c) therefore fails, closing off the last way of rejecting LSE. But if LSE is true, then the ontologically ultimate, in the sense of explanatorily ultimate, does not exist.10 10 If we assume that explaining the existence of any concrete being requires invoking the existence of some pre-existing concrete being(s), then LSE rules out an earliest concrete

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3.4 Axiological Ultimacy The axiological ultimate would be or would possess unsurpassable—the maximum possible degree of—value or goodness.11 But why is there any more reason to countenance a maximum possible degree of value or goodness than to countenance a maximum possible integer? Famously, Anselm’s Ontological Argument infers the existence of an unsurpassably great (or greatest conceivable) being. But the standard versions of the argument rely on either (d) the confused notion that two things can differ only with respect to whether each of those things exists in reality, or else (e) the premise that an unsurpassably great being is at least logically possible, which begs precisely the question at issue in this context, namely, whether unsurpassable greatness is indeed possible.12 The fourth of Aquinas’s Five Ways, the Argument from Gradation, infers the existence of a highest possible good from the observation that mundane things vary in their degree of goodness. But Aquinas’s argument relies on the highly suspect doctrine, mentioned earlier, that two existing things can vary in their “degree of being,” i.e., in the degree to which they are real. Furthermore, Aquinas’s own presentation of the argument relies on a defective analogy: just as one thing is hotter than another thing because the former “approaches nearer the greatest heat,” he says, one thing is better than another because it more nearly approaches the highest good (Summa Theologiae 1.2). Aquinas held the then standard view that fire, misclassified as an element, possesses the greatest heat possible, not recognizing that the temperatures of various kinds of fire themselves vary considerably. It is scientifically controversial whether the actual laws of nature imply a maximum possible temperature (and, if so, which temperature), but even if they do it’s clear that metaphysical considerations by themselves imply no being. That consequence, however, doesn’t imply that time stretches infinitely into the past, as Smith 2007 explains. Nevertheless, I find the claim that past time is infinite more plausible than the claim that past time is merely finite. It’s important to see, moreover, that Big Bang cosmology doesn’t establish that past time is finite; rather, it says nothing about times, if any, that preceded the Big Bang. By the same token, Newton’s theory of universal gravitation says nothing about why gravity exists, which of course doesn’t imply that gravity has no explanation, including the explanation later discovered by Einstein. 11 According to Schellenberg, “axiological ultimacy is completely unsurpassable splendor and excellence” (2016: 169, emphasis in original). 12 See Malcolm 1960 and Plantinga 1974.

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such maximum. For all metaphysics says, there’s no such thing as the hottest possible temperature. Aquinas’s analogy fails, and in any case there are counterexamples to the principle that any comparative concept, such as better, presupposes a superlative concept, such as best. There are infinitely many cases in which one integer is larger than another, despite the impossibility of a largest integer. Kant’s influential moral philosophy asserts that our moral striving makes sense only if we postulate the existence of the highest possible good. Kant’s assertion seems to derive whatever plausibility it has from his prior assertion that all of us have a moral duty to promote the highest possible good, which Kant characterizes as the state of affairs in which everyone’s degree of happiness arises from and is perfectly proportioned to his or her degree of virtue. But even here Kant seems not to have specified a highest possible good, for if it’s good that happiness and virtue stand in that relation with respect to each of the n persons who actually exist, then it would be even better if happiness and virtue stood in that relation with respect to each of the 2n or 3n, etc., persons who would inhabit a more populous universe. Because, necessarily, those coefficients of n have no upper limit, no state of affairs represents a highest possible, or unsurpassable, level of goodness. I hasten to add that this state of affairs— i.e., the impossibility of a logical upper limit to goodness—doesn’t itself count as a case of ultimate or unsurpassable value, any more than the impossibility of a largest integer being itself a largest integer. Moreover, it’s far from clear that we have a moral duty in the first place to promote the highest possible good rather than simply a duty to promote the higher good, i.e., to promote the better over the worse. But even if we have a duty to promote the highest possible good, we don’t thereby have a duty to achieve it. A duty to achieve it implies its attainability, on the Kantian principle that “ought” implies “can,” but a duty merely to promote—i.e., to strive for—the highest possible good has no such implication. A golfer can strive to shoot the perfect round of golf, treating the perfect round as a regulative ideal, without any expectation that the perfect round is attainable.13 So even a Kantian duty to strive for

13 Except perhaps in the case of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, who was reported by his country’s official news agency to have shot a round of 38 under par on a 7,700-yard, par-72 golf course, in his first and only attempt at the game, including 11 holes where he required just one shot.

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the highest possible good would not imply the existence of the highest possible good. Furthermore, why must there be a maximum possible degree of value or goodness if there is no maximum possible degree of disvalue or badness? Why the asymmetry?14 One might try to support an asymmetry as follows: maximum possible goodness is achieved by whatever lacks any moral defects at all, whereas maximum possible badness would require having every possible defect, and to any collection of defects we could always add one more. That reasoning fails, however, because the absence of moral defects is only necessary for maximum possible goodness, not sufficient for it: the number 2 lacks any moral defects without thereby counting as the best possible thing. Consider a final reason for doubting that axiological ultimacy is possible. It seems obvious that goodness comes in more than one type, including aesthetic, instrumental, and moral. Even within the context of moral goodness, there’s likely more than one relevant value (despite what simplistic hedonism may claim) and more than one relevant virtue (despite what Plato may claim in some of his dialogues). Furthermore, these values and virtues seem incommensurable: the questions “How much virtue is worth a given amount of pleasure?”, “How much prudence is worth a given amount of fortitude?”, and “How much beauty is worth a given amount of pain?” sound like bad jokes. If these values and virtues are incommensurable, then there will be no such quantity as the total goodness of any state of affairs and therefore no such thing as a logical upper limit to that quantity.

3.5 Teleological Ultimacy A teleologically ultimate entity would be an entity whose purposes (goals, aims, ends) are ultimate. Alternatively, the label “teleologically

14 One answer to this question relies on the medieval doctrine that being and goodness are identical, which implies that nothing completely lacking goodness can even exist (see Stump and Kretzmann 1991). Suffice it to say that this doctrine is even more doubtful than the doctrine that being comes in degrees (which I criticized earlier, and which it presupposes) and at least as questionable as the axiological asymmetry that the doctrine is being invoked to defend.

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ultimate” might apply not to the entity whose purposes those are but to the purposes themselves. Either way, I’ll argue, ultimate purpose is an incoherent notion. Aristotle points out that there are some purposes we aim to fulfill only as a means of fulfilling other purposes. For instance, I flip the switch on my reading lamp not merely in order to turn on the lamp but because I need the lamp on in order to read the newspaper, and I want to read the newspaper not for its own sake but because I want to learn news about events in my community. It’s easy to see how some purposes (goals, aims, ends) fail to be ultimate by instead being intermediate, that is to say, by being purposes whose fulfillment is necessary for achieving some other goal. Yet a purpose doesn’t count as ultimate in any philosophically interesting sense just by failing to be intermediate. Suppose that I want to learn news about events in my community but not for any further reason, such as my wanting to be a more engaged citizen: I want merely to learn about events in my community, i.e., to satisfy my curiosity on that topic. That purpose, let’s suppose, is the “end of the line” in any purposive explanation of why I flipped the switch on the lamp. But it doesn’t thereby count as “teleologically ultimate” in the sense relevant to those who say that our religious focus should be on what’s ultimate. Instead, in the case I described, my wanting to learn news about my community is a brute purpose, a purpose whose fulfillment has, as a matter of contingent fact, no further purpose. By contrast, an ultimate purpose must be a purpose whose fulfillment not only lacks but couldn’t possibly have any further purpose or justification. In Aristotle’s phrase, an ultimate purpose must be “that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else” (Nicomachean Ethics 1097a). In the case of both brute and ultimate purposes, the question “Why seek to fulfill that purpose?” has the same answer: “No reason.” But an ultimate purpose differs from a brute purpose in not only eliciting that answer but in making the very question itself somehow senseless or ill posed. Again, a purpose counts as ultimate only when fulfilling that purpose couldn’t possibly have any further purpose, and in that sense therefore the question “Why seek to fulfill that purpose?” is not well posed. Therein, however, lies the problem for teleological ultimacy, because the question “Why seek to fulfill that purpose?” is always well

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posed.15 With regard to any purpose, it’s never senseless to ask (even if it might be hard to answer) why one ought to seek to fulfill it.16 It would be wrong to think that Aristotle solves this problem when he observes that happiness is something (indeed, he says, the only thing) that we desire always purely for its own sake. For it’s clear that Aristotle uses “happiness” in this context merely as a placeholder, an item of shorthand having no more content than “whatever it is (if anything) that we always desire purely for its own sake.” Granted, it can seem confused to ask why we ought to seek “whatever it is (if anything) that we always desire purely for its own sake” if we interpret the quoted phrase de dicto. But if we interpret the phrase de re, focusing on whichever thing the phrase purports to denote, then the question is far from confused. Aristotle’s own candidate for filling in the placeholder is eudaimonia, a complicated mixture of wise and virtuous living, and it’s eminently sensible to ask why one ought to seek that way of life over any other; philosophers have disagreed with Aristotle without thereby evincing conceptual confusion. Teleological ultimacy requires having, or being, a “purpose to end all purposes,” a purpose for which it would make no sense to demand an explanation or a justification. Given the very nature of purposes, there is no reason to think that such a thing is even possible.17 My criticisms of axiological and of teleological ultimacy also bear on what Schellenberg calls “soteriological” ultimacy, which he identifies as the third of the three senses of “ultimate” that are central to religious

15

Thomas Nagel (1971: 721) makes this point with regard to the following purposes, at least some of which are commonly regarded as ultimate: “[T]he progress of human history, or of science, or the success of a society, or the kingdom, power, and glory of God.” 16 In his comments on an earlier version of this chapter, Paul Draper suggested that an ultimate purpose might be one that “couldn’t possibly need a justification in terms of some other purpose even if it could have such a justification.” However, because the question “Why seek to fulfill that purpose?” is always well posed and would generate the need for a justification if it were posed, no purpose could count as ultimate in Draper’s sense either. 17 For elaboration and defense of this claim, see Maitzen 2011. In response to the claim, William Lane Craig repeats a standard theistic line: “There can be nothing greater than knowing the greatest Good!” (Craig 2012). Presumably, “knowing the greatest Good” is knowledge by acquaintance rather than (solely) propositional knowledge. What is it like to know the greatest Good by acquaintance? Why can there be nothing greater than that? The more specific one gets in reply to the first question, the less convincing one’s answer to the second question will be. Why is my knowing the greatest Good by acquaintance greater than, for instance, my experiencing ever more intense states of pleasure, without end?

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concern. According to Schellenberg (2016: 170), “a reality is soteriologically ultimate just in case in relation to it an ultimate good can be attained.” Clearly, then, any doubts that axiological ultimacy—an ultimate good—exists, or any doubts that it is attainable even if it does exist, transfer to soteriological ultimacy. The impossibility of teleological ultimacy matters here as well, if we assume that the ultimate good for an agent bears some relation to his or her ultimate purpose for living.18 No purpose for living can be ultimate in the sense of being immune to further rational questioning—which, as I argued earlier, is the only sense in which any purpose could count as ultimate rather than simply brute.

3.6 Consequences for Religion and Philosophy of Religion I’m no anthropologist, but it strikes me that Schellenberg makes a plausible anthropological point when he identifies the concern with, and the search for, an ultimate reality as central to the religious impulse felt by many people, especially as our species continues to mature intellectually. Intellectually mature human beings don’t need the jumble of minor deities that their pre-Axial ancestors invented in a vain but understandable attempt to explain and control an unpredictable, dangerous world. Increasingly, they no longer need any of the versions of the creator God later concocted during the Axial age either. Schellenberg gives them reasons to continue in this direction—to get beyond, or grow out of, their parochial inheritance and seek instead an ultimate reality unencumbered by the constricting cultural accretions that have characterized all religions to date. I’m offering them, in turn, reasons to go even further—to get beyond the preoccupation with an ultimate reality. If, as Schellenberg has argued,19 traditional theism is false, then the admittedly seductive notion of a Cosmic Father turns out to be illusory. I’ve been arguing that the admittedly seductive notion of an Ultimate Reality is likewise an illusion, something it’s also time we humans outgrew. Any religion that seeks an 18 If someone who devotes his life to collecting string says that questing after string is ultimately good for him, our doubt that he’s correct stems from our doubt that collecting string is an appropriate purpose for living. 19 See, e.g., Schellenberg 1993 and 2004.

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Ultimate Reality seeks a chimera no less than any religion that seeks a Cosmic Father. Where, then, should religion for a maturing human species go next? Surely not back to the parochialism of the Axial age, let alone back to the primitive animism that came before it. Perhaps, as some have recently suggested, religion for a mature humanity ought to focus on the very minimal idea that “there is merely something transcendental worth committing ourselves to religiously” (Elliott 2015: 1). If that suggestion is right, and if “religiously” means “devotedly” or “earnestly” (as in “She follows the Cubs religiously”), then we can already identify a superb candidate for the object of such commitment: philosophy, using our most careful reasoning to pursue wisdom, broadly construed. Arguably philosophy can provide the three types of transcendence— although not, of course, the three types of ultimacy—that Schellenberg describes as distinctive of religiosity: metaphysical, axiological, and soteriological. Schellenberg (2016: 167) defines “transcendence” as going beyond or beneath the “mundane reality” that we encounter in our everyday, unreflective (and therefore unphilosophical) activity. Philosophy certainly achieves such transcendence with regard to metaphysics and axiology by digging below the superficial commerce of life and trying to answer the most basic questions we can ask about the nature of reality and the nature of value. It has also been known to bestow a salutary, even salvific, effect on those who engage in it seriously, thereby transcending mundane reality in a soteriological way as well. If religion requires something more than I’ve just described, does philosophy count as sufficiently religious? It shouldn’t matter. Unlike, say, the term “rational,” the term “religious” has no positive normative heft: being religious, as such, isn’t a virtue. It follows that even if “a religious way of life, on some useful and interesting construal, can add value to the human experience,”20 it will not do so in virtue of being religious. By contrast, being to at least some degree earnest, thoughtful, and reflective is a virtue, one that philosophy encourages and rewards. On this view, the philosophy of religion becomes the philosophy of philosophy, which is just to say: philosophy.

20

I owe this suggestion to correspondence from J. L. Schellenberg. I thank him and Paul Draper for generous and helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

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References Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross accessed July 20, 2016. Chang, K. (2013), “Solving a Riddle of Primes,” The New York Times, May 21, 2013, D8. Craig, W. L. (2008), “The Absurdity of Life without God,” in Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd edn (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books), 65–90. Craig, W. L. (2009), “The Kurtz/Craig Debate: Is Goodness without God Good Enough?” in R. K. Garcia and N. L. King (eds.), Is Goodness without God Good Enough? A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 25–46. Craig, W. L. (2012), “Is Life Absurd without God?” in “Q&A with William Lane Craig #250,” Reasonable Faith with William Lane Craig [website], January 30, 2012 accessed April 20, 2016. Elliott, J. (2015), “The Power of Humility in Sceptical Religion: Why Ietsism is Preferable to J. L. Schellenberg’s Ultimism,” Religious Studies 53/1, 97–116. doi:10.1017/S0034412515000475. Hubin, D. C. (2009), “Empty and Ultimately Meaningless Gestures?” in R. K. Garcia and N. L. King (eds.), Is Goodness without God Good Enough? A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 133–50. Klarreich, E. (2013), “Together and Alone, Closing the Prime Gap,” Quanta Magazine, November 19, 2013 accessed April 20, 2016. Maitzen, S. (2011), “On God and Our Ultimate Purpose,” Free Inquiry 31/2, 35–7. Maitzen, S. (2013), “Questioning the Question,” in T. Goldschmidt (ed.), The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? (New York: Routledge), 252–71. Malcolm, N. (1960), “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments,” The Philosophical Review 69, 41–62. Morreall, J. (1980), “God as Self-Explanatory,” The Philosophical Quarterly 30, 206–14. Nagel, T. (1971), “The Absurd,” The Journal of Philosophy 68, 716–27. Plantinga, A. (1974), “God and Necessity,” in The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 197–221. Rowe, W. L. (1998), The Cosmological Argument (New York: Fordham University Press). Schellenberg, J. L. (1993), Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

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Schellenberg, J. L. (2004), “The Atheist’s Free Will Offence,” The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 56, 1–15. Schellenberg, J. L. (2007), The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Schellenberg, J. L. (2013), Evolutionary Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Schellenberg, J. L. (2016), “God for All Time: From Theism to Ultimism,” in A. Buckareff and Y. Nagasawa (eds.), Alternative Concepts of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 164–77. Smith, Q. (2007), “Kalam Cosmological Arguments for Atheism,” in M. Martin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (New York: Cambridge University Press), 182–98. Stump, E., and Kretzmann, N. (1991), “Being and Goodness,” in S. A. MacDonald (ed.), Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 98–128. Thomasson, A. L. (2009), “Answerable and Unanswerable Questions,” in D. J. Chalmers et al. (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology (New York: Oxford University Press), 444–71. Wielenberg, E. J. (2009), “In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism,” Faith and Philosophy 26, 23–41.

4 Religion after Naturalism Eric Steinhart

4.1 Nontheistic Religions Most religions involve some objects of ultimate interest. As the term is used here, to say a religion is theistic means that its ultimate objects are persons who somehow transcend nature. Whatever the term natural may mean, these ultimate persons are not natural; on the contrary, they are supernatural. For example, the Abrahamic God is an ultimate person who transcends nature. Of course, the theistic religions raise many philosophical problems. Protheistic philosophy aims to resolve those problems in favor of theism. It focuses intensely on the defense of the Abrahamic God. Although protheistic philosophy is currently a thriving enterprise, it has threats. One threat to protheistic philosophy appears to come from naturalism. As the term is used here, a naturalist rejects all supernatural objects (especially supernatural persons, such as the Abrahamic God). Alvin Plantinga even defines naturalism as the rejection of the theistic God (2011: ix). Thus naturalism motivates antitheistic philosophy, which aims to refute theism. The naturalistic attack on theism has been forcefully articulated by the New Atheists (Harris 2005; Dennett 2006; Hitchens 2007; Dawkins 2008). They argue that the theistic religions are not merely false, but cause real harm. Assuming these definitions of theism and naturalism, many philosophers of religion will be familiar with the following unsettling argument. (1) Once the heliocentric theory of the solar system was known to be true, debates about the geocentric theory died out; once the oxygen theory of combustion was known to be true, debates about phlogiston died out; likewise, once naturalism is known to be true, debates about God will die out. (2) If naturalism is known to be true, then both

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protheistic and antitheistic philosophy will die out. (3) If they die, then philosophy of religion dies. (4) Therefore, if naturalism is known to be true, then philosophy of religion is over. There is no philosophy of religion after naturalism. Thus John Loftus has called for an end to the teaching of philosophy of religion in secular universities (2016). And Keith Parsons has declared that he will no longer teach philosophy of religion (Galef 2011). Some may object to the first step of the unsettling argument. After all, some people still advocate geocentrism. But geocentrism no longer thrives; if it is discussed in the academy, it belongs to history. And some may wish to challenge the second step. They will insist that naturalism and theism can be rendered compatible. Perhaps they are right. Maybe the definition of theistic religion given here is too narrow. Maybe it can grow to include more naturalistic concepts of God. Many Americans say God is an impersonal force (Pew Forum 2008: 5). Some religious naturalists argue that God is the creativity in nature (Peters 2002; Stone 2008). Maybe protheistic philosophy can expand to include pantheism (Harrison 1999), panentheism (Johnston 2009), or even the idea that God is an infinite quantum computer (Tipler 1995). Still, it has been argued that these more naturalistic theories of God play almost no role in lived religious practice (Dawkins 2008: Ch. 1). So the second step may be stronger than it seems. Others may object to the third step. Accordingly, even if debates about God die out, philosophy of religion will still flourish. Many surveys report that people no longer regard theism as the only religious option in the West (Lambert 2006; Pew Forum 2015). The nontheistic religions are growing. As defined here, a nontheistic religion does not involve any kind of God (Crosby 2002). So, if some victorious naturalism were to wipe out theistic religion, then the philosophy of religion would focus on the nontheistic religions. But what if there are no philosophically interesting nontheistic religions? To defeat the third step, it is necessary to show that there are indeed some philosophically interesting nontheistic religions. And these religions cannot be merely theoretical constructs. They must be practiced by living communities.

4.2 Some Older Energetic Religions Many nontheistic religions regard energy as religiously ultimate. An energetic religion begins with some ultimate power or force. This ultimate power, this primal energy, is impersonal and non-mental. It is immanent

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and it flows through all things. All things are manifestations or expressions of the primal energy. All things participate in the primal energy, and therefore all things are interconnected and united. The primal energy cannot be worshiped. But the primal energy can be aroused, invoked, directed, and shaped. Thus energetic religions are also technical religions. They include tools and techniques for the application of the primal energy to the self. Many older religions involve primal energy. In Taoism, the primal energy is qi. It is said that qi flows through certain channels in the body, known as meridians. When the flow of qi becomes blocked, the body becomes sick. To heal the body, small needles are inserted into the meridians to release the qi. This is the basis for acupuncture. Acupuncture is a technology for the regulation of primal energy in the self. Although Hinduism is highly theistic, involving many deities, it also has energetic aspects. In some forms of Hinduism, the primal energy is prana. It flows through channels in the body known as nadis. The nadis pass through regulatory centers known as chakras. The chakras are kept in balance by the practice of yoga. Yoga is a technology for the regulation of the primal energy in the self. The ancient Greek and Roman pagan religions involved primal energy. Although these religions were theistic, involving many gods and goddesses, they often based their theologies on Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas. The Platonic Form of the Good and the Neoplatonic One are impersonal powers. Many pagan theologians argued that these powers brought the deities into existence. For example, in his treatise On the Gods and the World, the Roman theologian Sallustius argued that the Olympic deities were brought into being by the primal energy of the impersonal One. He further argued that these deities were to be thought of as specialized powers of goodness, which were always trying to pour out their beneficence into human lives. By performing temple rituals, humans made themselves similar to those deities; by making themselves similar, the powers of those deities flowed out more intensely into human lives. Thus humans gained benefits. More recently, the New Thought religions involve primal energy. These include the Unity Church (Cady 1919) and Religious Science (Holmes 1938). These New Thought religions regard God as an impersonal power in the depths of all things, including all humans. This conception of God has roots in both the immanent One of Neoplatonism and the cosmic fire of the Stoics. While this divine power perpetually

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tries to pour out its goodness into your life, its outflow can be blocked by erroneous thought patterns, which harden into bad habits. So you need to open yourself to receive this power by purifying your thought. And you need to learn techniques for controlling this power flux, so that you can channel it into the production of health and wealth. These techniques include denials, affirmations, self-hypnosis, visualizations, and meditations. The beliefs and practices inspired by New Thought have been enormously popular and influential in American spirituality. New Thought produced best-sellers like Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich and Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. New Thought stands behind the prosperity gospel and the Word of Faith movement. The energetic ideas in New Thought have inspired much New Age religion (Albanese 1999). They have partly motivated the human potential movement and other self-help movements. They inspired the Silva Method, Erhard Seminars Training (est), and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. And the energetic ideas in New Thought are found in the magical practices of Neopagan religions like Wicca. The religions of energy are gaining adherents in the West. According to a recent Pew Forum survey (2009), Eastern and New Age beliefs associated with energy are widespread in American religious life. One quarter of Americans affirm that spiritual energy flows through physical things (Pew 2009: 3). Beliefs and practices involving energy are closely associated with the growing number of people who identify as spiritual but not religious (Ammerman 2013). According to one recent survey (Kosmin and Keysar 2013), one third of American college students reject both theism and secularism in favor of spirituality. Thus Peter Clarke, the editor of the Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements, says he sees “emerging in the West a new cognitive style of being religious, which contrasts with theistic religions” (2005: x).

4.3 Toward Naturalistic Energy Religions A naturalist demands evidence for claims about physical things in our universe, such as human bodies. There is no evidence for most of the claims made in the older energy religions. A naturalist will therefore correctly say that qi does not flow through your meridians and that prana does not flow through your chakras. There is no evidence for the energies

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behind the New Thought, New Age, or Neopagan religions. These older energy religions often display extreme irrationality. They distort science and pervert medicine. By offering ineffective cures, they cause real harm. The older energetic religions violate scientific rationality. Since they violate scientific rationality, some naturalists may wish to declare that, like the theistic religions, the old energy religions are false and harmful. However, those religions are open to scientific improvement. Serious scientific and medical researchers study their practices; they are investigating acupuncture, yoga, and meditation. The old energy religions are like alchemy: just as alchemy pointed toward chemistry, so the old and non-natural energy religions point toward newer and more natural energy religions. The old energy religions can be thought of as proto-sciences that support proto-technologies. Those proto-sciences and proto-technologies are open to further rational development. So, rejecting meridians and qi, you study the ways that acupuncture stimulates the release of neurologically and immunologically active molecules. Energy religions can be naturalistic. At one extreme, the primal energy is just physical energy, released in the Big Bang. Nevertheless, naturalism does not require that the primal energy be physical. For Armstrong (1978), naturalism means that only our physical universe exists. But other versions of naturalism are possible (see Quine 1990). Naturalism is hardly identical to materialism or physicalism; neither is it identical to positivism or scientism. Scientific rationality supports a vast ecosystem of divergent metaphysical systems (see Salmon 1975). Naturalists can be mathematical, modal, and moral realists. And they can be religious. They can affirm that nature has axiological depths (Wildman 2011: 262). They can study the “value structures and flows in the depths of nature” (Wildman 2011: 248). These are the flows of an ultimate natural primal power that is deeper than physical. A naturalist can affirm that all physical and biological energies are local manifestations of that power. And the older energy religions are becoming more naturalistic. They are turning into disciplines for the positive application of natural biological energies to the self. They are becoming technologies of the self (Foucault 1988). As such they involve techniques for self-empowerment. These include psychological techniques for self-regulation. But they also include material techniques for self-enhancement (such as medical technologies). And they include material practices for self-definition, self-construction, self-expression, and self-transcendence. All these techniques are associated

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with ideas about ultimacy that indicate they are more than merely hedonistic. They are spiritual techniques, spiritual practices, spiritual disciplines. All natural biological energies are expressions of primal energy. But the advocates of these techniques are pragmatists. They are interested in scientifically verifiable effectiveness. On the basis of these ideas, it is clear that naturalism does not bring philosophy of religion to an end. Philosophers of religion can study the naturalistic energy religions. To encourage such study, four naturalistic energy religions are briefly discussed here. They involve techniques and technologies for the application of power to the self. The first type includes the religions of consciousness (e.g., the New Stoicism, Westernized Buddhism). The second type includes the religions of vision (naturalized versions of religions that use entheogens). The third includes the religions of dance (e.g., religious raves). The fourth includes the religions of beauty (e.g., Burning Man). These religions are not merely theoretical; they are practiced by living communities.

4.4 Religions of Consciousness At present there are two main religions of consciousness in the West. They emerge in the territory opened by New Thought. The first is the New Stoicism. Many old Stoic practices have found a modern following (Irvine 2009). Hadot (1995) calls these ancient practices spiritual exercises. These tend to be divorced from old Stoic cosmology and theology. The second is Westernized Buddhism. It involves mindfulness meditation and related techniques (Flanagan 2013; Harris 2014). These are mostly divorced from old Buddhist cosmology and metaphysics. Both the New Stoics and Westernized Buddhists appear to treat religion as a kind of psycho-spiritual technology. The religions of consciousness tend to be explicitly atheistic. And they show that the ideas of New Thought can be developed in nontheistic directions. It is not difficult to trace a line through Cady, Hill, and Peale to Harris. This line is progressively more naturalistic. The religions of consciousness tend to dismiss old religious metaphysics (e.g., mind– body dualism). They tend to regard human persons as strictly material. They aim to stay grounded in the empirical sciences (whose methods they apply to the self). Thus our universe is animated by ordinary physical energy, but this energy has naturally concentrated itself ever

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more intensely in increasingly complex forms. It has evolved here on earth to make human animals with self-conscious brains. But human animals, conscious of their suffering, are consumed with existential anxiety and dread. As our minds have evolved the capacity for anxiety and dread, so they have also evolved the capacity for selfsalvation. Since our brains are self-conscious, they can learn to act on themselves to save themselves from suffering. On this view, the human body contains both a saving power and the rational self-awareness to learn how to apply that power to itself. It can activate this power in itself through therapeutic exercises (through self-discipline, askesis). Salvation is the cleansing or clearing of the mind through meditation and related techniques. Of course, these ideas harken back to New Thought. But God is irrelevant; the saving power at work in the body is merely the visceral expression of a power that is ultimate, optimizing, natural, and impersonal. So these ideas run back to the all-powerful goodness of Plotinus and Plato. Once purified, the mind ceases to crave and suffer; it becomes free from its attachment to its own ego. You transcend yourself by rising from the particularity of your ego to the perspective of anonymous sentience, the enlightened perspective of the pure Buddha-mind. As you transcend your ego-bondage, you become compassionate; you care for all sentient beings. When you reach enlightenment, you become a sage. Ancient theories of the sage were developed by Epicureans, Stoics, and Neoplatonists. But those ancient theories are updated by these modern techniques. Finally, with sufficient practice, you can learn to face death mindfully. You can face it with serene acceptance. Of course, ancient Buddhists affirmed both rebirth and karma. Theravadic Buddhism offered highly naturalistic theories of rebirth and karma (Rahula 1974). Those old Theravadic theories can be naturalized (Steinhart 2014). The religious naturalist Jerome Stone writes that “since patterns of information can outlast their original physical substratum, just as music can outlive its composer, immortality is not definitively foreclosed in a naturalistic framework” (2008: 228). A naturalistic Buddhist can affirm that the great cosmic cycle generates a sequence of universes. Karmic laws transform the lives in each previous universe onto the lives in the next universe. So your earthly life will be reborn into your next life in the next cosmic cycle. Your life is like a series of notes in the cosmic symphony; it can be karmically transformed into a similar

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series of notes to be played in the next iteration of the cosmic symphony. There are many ideas here crying out for further exploration, so that much new work in philosophy of religion can be inspired by the religions of consciousness.

4.5 Religions of Vision An entheogen is a drug taken to induce a religious experience (Richards 2014). As Wildman puts it, taking entheogens is a long-established “technology of religious and spiritual experience” (2011: 227). Several entheogenic religions currently exist (e.g., Santo Daime, União de Vegetal, the Native American Church). But these suffer too much from old religious problems. New and naturalistic research programs have emerged that are studying the spiritual uses of entheogens. The religions of vision regard entheogens as tools for positive self-transformation. Many new research programs are studying the religious and spiritual effects of psilocybin. Taking psilocybin produces religious experiences (Richards 2008). These experiences can produce profound long-term personal transformations, so that those who take psilocybin seem to achieve the kind of enlightenment sought by meditators (Griffiths et al. 2011). Psilocybin has been administered to patients suffering from terminal cancer, and it appears to relieve anxiety concerning death (Grob et al. 2011). If the careful use of psilocybin can relieve fear of death, it may replace old-fashioned religious consolation. That could lead to a new psilocybin religion. Future spiritual technicians may use advanced neuroscience, including entheogens, to design religious experiences to help people overcome the negativities of life (Wildman 2011: Ch. 7). Many who take psilocybin report having a mystical experience of the connection and unity of all things (Griffiths et al. 2006). A naturalist can appeal to an evolutionary metaphysics to account for the content of this experience. At the beginning of all things, there exists an absolutely simple object. This initial object exists necessarily. But the initial object is not God. Dawkins says it is “the simple basis for a selfbootstrapping crane which eventually raised the world as we know it into its present complex existence” (2008: 184–5). By virtue of its simplicity, the initial object instantiates only the deepest universal: being-itself. But being-itself is an immanent universal; it is the power of being in the thing. Following the Neoplatonists, being-itself is the

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good; it is active goodness. As such, it drives the initial simple object to surpass itself. The initial simple object surpasses itself by producing its successors, which are more complex versions of itself. During this production, the primal energy flows from the initial object into its successors. This logic now repeats, so that the successors of the initial object produce their own more complex successors. Energy flows from every thing into its successors. This iterated production of successors is a rhythmic and cyclical process. Through further iteration, there exists an endlessly ramified tree of ever more complex objects. Energy courses through all the branches of this tree. The growth of this tree is an evolutionary process. The nodes of this tree are universes. Each universe in the tree reflects the evolutionary logic of the tree itself. More complex universes contain more complex internal evolutionary processes. As universes beget their successors in the great cosmic cycle, they become progressively more finely tuned for the evolution of life. They become optimized for the flourishing of rational moral agents. The energy flows through every universe and every thing in every universe. All things are unified by their participation in the energy. It is the power of being, the deepest universal, being-itself, in each thing. All things in all universes are joined by their shared instantiation of beingitself. And all things are connected by their common descent from the initial simple object. Thus all things in all universes are ontological cousins. The class of descendents of the initial simple object forms a domain for modal quantification. To say that all things are unified does not imply that they are identical; on the contrary, it implies that all things are counterparts of the initial simple object. On this metaphysics, when someone on psilocybin experiences the interconnection of all things, they see the descent of all things from their common ancestor, the initial simple object. They see that all things are ontological cousins. When they experience the unity of all things, they see that all things participate in being-itself. They experience the universal participation of all things in the primal energy. But that energy is pure goodness; it is positively oriented. Consequently, when properly managed, these mystical experiences can be radically therapeutic. The primal energy is trustworthy. You can believe in it and place your faith in it. This positive orientation is the basis for hope for the future and gratitude toward the past (Bishop 2010).

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The religions of vision include but extend the religions of consciousness. The religions of vision agree that the mind contains a saving power that it can learn to apply to itself. However, many minds are too weak to directly apply it. They need to use tools to arouse this power, to amplify it, or to more precisely use it to solve their problems. Entheogenic molecules are tools for working with this power. Their use, however, raises additional issues for philosophers of religion to explore.

4.6 Religions of Dance The religions of dance include raves. A rave is a dance festival in which electronic music plays a central role. Raves also typically involve computer-generated imagery. These stimuli are scientifically designed to facilitate specific experiences. Some ravers also use entheogens such as MDMA or LSD. However, the self-administration of these drugs can be dangerous, unethical, and illegal (Parrott 2004). Many raves have been explicitly organized as religious events, involving altars, opening and closing ceremonies, and so on (Sylvan 2005; St John 2009). But most ravers have no interest in the old religions; raving is its own religion, which tends to be atheistic and technophilic. Ravers use electronic and molecular technologies for religious ends. Raving has inspired the techno cosmic mass (Shannon 2001: 204–8) and yoga raves. As they dance, ravers enter hyper-arousal trances, in which they often have intense spiritual or mystical experiences. During their ecstatic trances, ravers often experience a profound energy flowing through their bodies. Their ego-boundaries dissolve; they see that all things are connected and unified; they feel that this same energy flows through all things (Sylvan 2005: Ch. 3). These experiences resemble the mystical experiences induced by psilocybin. They are interpreted here as experiences of the primal energy. They are experiences of the universal power of being-itself. But being-itself is the good. Hence it is not surprising that along with their experiences of unity and connection, ravers often report pronoia, the feeling that reality is out to help you. Arousing this universal energy produces positive personal changes. It is therapeutic (Hutson 2000). It helps you overcome anxiety and depression. It helps you overcome destructive behaviors. It makes you compassionate. It gives you hope, confidence, and courage. Arousing this universal energy orients you toward positive social values, expressed in the rave ethic of

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PLUR (Peace Love Unity Respect). Arousing this universal energy thus motivates an ethics grounded in compassion. The sounds and images used in raves are often algorithmically generated. The algorithms have spiritual significance. According to the evolutionary theory of nature, nature begins with an absolutely simple object, animated by the primal energy. At the initial object, the primal energy itself is simple. But the primal energy drives the initial object to surpass itself. It drives it to produce its successors, which are more complex. As those successors grow more complex, the primal energy itself grows more complex. As the primal energy evolves, it gives itself structure. It is self-complexifying and self-optimizing. It produces a logos within itself. Along any chain of successors, the growth of the primal energy resembles an evolving stream of musical chords. Each universe is like a symphony. Our universe is an extremely complex symphony. The complexity of the sounds and images used in raves represents the aesthetic complexity of our universe. But this aesthetic complexity is highly mathematical; our universe is an algorithmic symphony. The religions of dance include but extend the religions of consciousness and vision. The religions of dance agree with those religions that say the mind is rooted in a saving power that it can apply to itself. And they agree with the religions of vision that many minds are too weak to directly use that power. The religions of dance may include the use of molecular tools to arouse and focus that power. But dancing is an additional spiritual technique. And machines for producing sounds and images are additional systems of tools. So the religions of dance are technical religions. The religions of dance, like those of consciousness and vision, raise many philosophically interesting issues.

4.7 Religions of Beauty At present the main religion of beauty involves a religious interpretation of the Burning Man festivals. The main Burning Man festival takes place in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for a week at the end of August (Doherty 2004). The Black Rock Desert is an extremely harsh environment; temperatures in August can vary from 120 F to 40 F; the desert playa sees high winds and violent dust storms. Burning Man involves about 50,000 participants, who build a temporary town, known as Black Rock City, in the desert wilderness. Living in Black Rock City requires

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the use of many technologies for survival as well as the Emersonian virtues of self-reliance. Burning Man is an arts festival. During the year, burners construct individual or group art installations. But they also build the Man and the Temple. They take these out to the playa, where they are assembled. The Man is a large wooden structure that outlines an indefinite male figure. The Temple is an elaborate wooden structure, whose form is taken from sacred architecture worldwide. The Temple serves a special ceremonial purpose: burners decorate the Temple with inscriptions, texts, photos, or other mementos. These are expressions of grief, loss, or triumph over adversity (Pike 2005). After a festival of many days, the arms of the Man are raised and he is set alight. Burning the Man is accompanied by shouting. On the last night of the festival, the Temple is set alight and burned in silence. Burners have built and burned Temples around the globe. They have been burned for peace and reconciliation in Derry, Ireland. But Burning Man is not just an arts festival. It has clear religious interpretations (Pike 2001; Gilmore 2010). As a fire festival, in which an effigy is burned, it has precedents in pagan events like Vinotok and the Wicker Man (Bell 1978). And Burning Man can be thought of as a religion of energy. To see this, consider that Black Rock City is an oasis of art and beauty in a vast hostile landscape. It is analogous to the earth, a pale blue dot in endless inhospitable space. The beauty gathered in the desert is precious, fragile, and rare; it is like life itself, and human life especially. So the pilgrimage to the Black Rock resembles the evolutionary production of rare oases of sacred value in a vast desert of valuelessness. The Man is both personal and indefinite; he is faceless. He has no identity; he symbolizes the rationality inherent in nature; he is the logos made visible. He is the full self-realization of the ultimate power of nature (or at least the fullest we can grasp). He is both human and transhuman; he is the anonymous god. He is the Hegelian Spirit, fully self-actualized, rendered concrete in the desert. And Burning Man involves moral beauty as well as aesthetic beauty. Burning Man is founded on a gift economy. Gifting plays a central role in religions of energy (Steinhart 2016). The Man has often been lit by a fire that is kindled from the sun. So the sun refers to the ultimate natural energy, to being-itself. And the sun freely gives this power away. This freely given power, in an endless process of self-surpassing, both creates value

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and destroys it. The Man is a phoenix; he is a dying-and-rising god. But he has no face, and so is both all and none of the dying-and-rising gods of the past. When he burns, he dies; but he will be born again next year. When he burns, the Man’s arms are raised in victory. He will be victorious over death; he will rise in the next annual cycle. The wheel of the year, in which the sun turns around the earth and the desert, symbolizes the vast cycle in which universes are created, destroyed, and recreated. It is the Buddhist cosmic cycle, the Stoic ekpyrosis, the universal rebirth. The construction of the Man during the year symbolizes the evolutionary process in which holy power concentrates itself into sacred beauty. During this self-concentration, much value is destroyed; the emerging Man has accumulated many errors and sins; he has overcome many obstacles. These are recorded in the Temple. The Temple is burned after the Man. Thus his spirit is cleansed. But we all participate in this: the spirits of all burners are ritually cleansed. They are purified, to begin the cycle again. The religion of beauty, illustrated by Burning Man, includes elements of the religions of consciousness. Burning Man involves many meditation events. And the entire festival involves self-purification. Burning Man includes elements of the religions of vision and dance. It has deep roots in rave culture. Black Rock City is a self-sufficient technological system and a work of fine art. But art itself can be thought of as technology set free from utilitarian constraints.

4.8 Conclusion The energy religions suggest a new definition of religion itself: religions are technologies aimed at achieving ultimate human ends. If the old religions were proto-technologies based on proto-sciences, then these new religions aspire to be genuine technologies based on mature science. Once religions are thought of as technologies, that is, as rationally designed artifacts, philosophers can become actively involved in designing new religions. On this view, the philosophy of religion itself becomes a spiritual discipline. But philosophers can also remain actively involved in critiquing these religions. The new energy religions, after all, will raise problems of their own. So, after naturalism, there is still plenty of work for philosophers of religion to do.

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accessed June 11, 2016. Gilmore, L. (2010), Theatre in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). Griffiths, R. et al. (2006), “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance,” Psychopharmacology 187, 268–83. Griffiths, R. et al. (2011), “Psilocybin Occasioned Mystical-Type Experiences: Immediate and Persisting Dose-Related Effects,” Psychopharmacology 218/4, 649–65. Grob, C. et al. (2011), “Pilot Study of Psilocybin Treatment for Anxiety in Patients with Advanced-Stage Cancer,” Archives for General Psychiatry 68/1, 71–8. Hadot, P. (1995), Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. M. Chase, ed. A. Davidson (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell).

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Harris, S. (2005), The End of Faith (New York: W. W. Norton). Harris, S. (2014), Waking Up (New York: Simon & Schuster). Harrison, P. (1999), Pantheism: Understanding the Divinity in Nature and the Universe (Boston, MA: Element Books). Hitchens, C. (2007), God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Hachette Book Group). Holmes, E. (1938), The Science of Mind (New York: Dodd Mead). Hutson, S. (2000), “The Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subculture,” Anthropological Quarterly 73/1, 35–49. Irvine, W. (2009), A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (New York: Oxford University Press). Johnston, M. (2009), Saving God (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Kosmin, B., and Keysar, A. (2013), “Religious, Spiritual, and Secular: The Emergence of Three Distinct Worldviews among American College Students. A Report Based on the ARIS 2013 National College Student Survey,” (Hartford, CT: Trinity College). Lambert, Y. (2006), “Trends in Religious Feeling in Europe and Russia,” trans. A. Jacobs, Revue française de sociologie 47, 99–129. Loftus, J. (2016), Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing). Parrott, A. (2004), “MDMA (3, 4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) or Ecstasy: The Neuropsychobiological Implications of Taking It at Dances and Raves,” Neuropsychobiology 50, 329–35. Peters, K. (2002), Dancing with the Sacred: Evolution, Ecology, and God (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International). Pew Forum (2008), U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Beliefs and Practices (Washington, DC: The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life). Pew Forum (2009), Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths: Eastern, New Age Beliefs Widespread (Washington, DC: The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life). Pew Forum (2015), America’s Changing Religious Landscape (Washington, DC: The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life). Pike, S. (2001), “Desert Goddesses and Apocalyptic Art,” in E. Mazur and K. McCarthy (eds.), God in the Details (New York: Routledge), 155–76. Pike, S. (2005), “No Novenas for the Dead: Ritual Action and Communal Memory at the Temple of Tears,” in L. Gilmore and M. Van Proyen (eds.), AfterBurn: Reflections on Burning Man (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press), 195–214. Plantinga, A. (2011), Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (New York: Oxford University Press). Quine, W. (1990), “Naturalism; Or, Living within One’s Means,” Dialectica 49, 251–61.

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Rahula, W. (1974), What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove/Atlantic). Richards, W. (2008), “The Phenomenology and Potential Religious Import of States of Consciousness Facilitated by Psilocybin,” Archive for the Psychology of Religion 30, 189–99. Richards, W. (2014), “Here and Now: Discovering the Sacred with Entheogens,” Zygon 49/3, 652–65. Salmon, W. C. (1975), “Verifiability and Logic,” in M. Diamond and T. Litzenburg (eds.), The Logic of God: Theology and Verification (Indianapolis, IN: BobbsMerrill), 456–79. Shannon, M. (2001), The Way We Pray (Berkeley, CA: Conari Press). St John, G. (2009), Rave Culture and Religion (New York: Routledge). Steinhart, E. (2014), Your Digital Afterlives: Computational Theories of Life after Death (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Steinhart, E. (2016), “Religious Naturalism,” in A. Buckareff and Y. Nagasawa (eds.), Alternative Concepts of God (New York: Oxford University Press), 274–94. Stone, J. (2008), Religious Naturalism Today (Albany, NY: SUNY Press). Sylvan, R. (2005), Trance Formation (New York: Routledge). Tipler, F. (1995), The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead (New York: Anchor Books). Wildman, W. (2011), Religious and Spiritual Experiences (New York: Cambridge University Press).

5 Renewing our Understanding of Religion Philosophy of Religion and the Goals of the Spiritual Life Mark Wynn

5.1 Introduction On one familiar picture, religious commitment is founded upon religious belief, which generates the various practices we associate with religious traditions. This picture has a ready appeal. It may be urged, for example, that it makes no sense for a person to engage in the practice of worship if they do not first of all believe that there is a God. Both as philosophers and potential practitioners of religion, should we not start, then, with the question of whether there is a God, or whether the Sacred otherwise understood exists, and only then consider which religious practices, if any, are appropriate? A broad swathe of work in the philosophy of religion on themes such as the proofs and disproofs of the existence of God, and the epistemic significance of religious experience, could be understood in these terms. Here, philosophers are trying to settle, in large part independently of reference to religious practice, the question of whether there is a God or a transcendent domain of some other kind. Of course, a philosopher of religion could be interested in these matters without being committed to the view that belief belongs at the foundation of religious commitment. But to the extent that the philosophy of religion literature has tended to concentrate on proofs and disproofs, and kindred questions concerning

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the epistemic rationality of religious belief, that might plausibly be explained, I suggest, by supposing that many philosophers of religion subscribe to what I shall call the belief-plus-practice model of religious commitment, where it is religious belief that properly comes first, and that provides the rationale for religious practice. On this view, if only we can settle questions of belief, then we can settle relatively straightforwardly the question of which forms of religious practice, if any, are appropriate. So here we are concerned with epistemically justified belief, and its role in grounding religious practice. Of course, there is in the literature another approach, also influential, which has tended to work in the opposite direction. Here, we are to begin with our moral or other practical commitments, and move from there to an account of what the world must be like if those commitments are to make sense. Indeed, Pierre Hadot has argued that in the ancient world, Epicureans, Stoics, and the members of the other philosophical schools were all of the view that philosophical enquiry should have this structure. On this account, philosophical reflection should begin with a commitment to a certain way of life, and only then adopt a ‘philosophical discourse’, or representation of the nature of things, whose role is to enable the philosopher to enact that ideal of life.1 A similar style of argument is evident in more recent discussion. To mention just two examples, George Mavrodes has argued that the phenomena of moral obligation are in some deep way, both motivationally and ontologically, tied to a theistic metaphysics, and John Cottingham has proposed that some familiar conceptions of the good life, notably those that count humility and gratitude as virtues, point in the direction of a theistic ‘background of significance’.2 And there are, of course, various antecedents for these strategies, in addition to those that Hadot proposes, perhaps most obviously Kant’s account of the existence of God as a postulate of the moral life.3 Again, as a reading of religious commitment, this general approach makes some sense: here, we are invited to recognize that we are all of us already immersed in the flow of life, and to ask what must be true of the world if our established practical commitments are to count as appropriate, or are to be more fully motivated. For ease of reference, I shall call this 1 2 3

Hadot 1995: Ch. 11. See Mavrodes 2011: Part IX, Ch. 4, and Cottingham 2009: 154. Kant 1991.

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perspective the practice-plus-belief model, while recognizing that this is to use the notion of ‘belief ’ in a somewhat specialized sense, though one that is familiar, I think, from religious contexts. Here, the fundamental role of ‘belief ’ is to support practice rather than to track the truth. Thus, on some such approaches, the ‘belief ’ that p need not involve the judgement that p is more probable than not, or more probable than relevant alternatives. Here we are concerned, then, with pragmatically justified belief. I am not proposing that either of these accounts (beginning with belief and moving from there to practice, or vice versa) should be abandoned. The renewal in the philosophy of religion that I am envisaging turns not so much upon giving up enquiries of these kinds as upon adding to them a further kind of enquiry, one that does not privilege belief over practice, or vice versa, but instead understands the religious life as, from the outset, a commitment to an amalgam of belief (or ‘belief ’) and practice. In the course of the discussion, I shall give some reasons for supposing that this general approach is to be preferred to those which privilege belief or practice. However, my primary goal is not to defend any such ranking, but instead to advocate an expansion in the concerns of the philosophy of religion, one that will follow from this extension in our conception of the ways in which a religious life may be structured. The proposal I am developing is intended fundamentally as a recommendation for philosophers of religion: when as philosophers of religion we consider a given religious or spiritual tradition, we can assess, and perhaps develop, the beliefs and practices that comprise the tradition using the belief-with-practice model. At the same time, I believe that this model, while not much in evidence in recent philosophy of religion, has deep roots in religious traditions. The model thus conforms, I think, to the self-understanding of many reflective religious practitioners, and this is a further reason for taking an interest in it. My suggestion, then, is that we can renew the practice of philosophy of religion in our time by retrieving an older conception of religion, one that has largely receded from view. I will begin by setting out the conception of the religious and spiritual life that is apparent in the work of Thomas Aquinas. It would be possible to proceed more directly, by simply introducing the claims with which I shall be concerned, rather than trying at the same time to associate those claims with the work of a historical figure. However, there is good

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reason to take this indirect approach. The belief-with-practice model that I am proposing to defend will be of deeper interest, I think, if it evidently concerns not just a theoretical possibility—a form of religious or spiritual commitment that a person might in principle adopt—but also a possibility that has in fact been enacted in the mainstream of at least one important religious tradition. In this case, the renewal in the philosophy of religion that we are considering will throw new light on religion as it has been practised—and that would be a result of some importance in ethical terms, because it would bring into new focus the significance that attaches to the lives of many of our forebears. Moreover, I shall also be concerned with the question of whether the philosophy of religion might help to broaden our conception of the range of humanly accessible spiritual goods, and contribute thereby to spiritual practice. And the discipline will most plausibly be able to play that role if it builds on an established and long-enacted understanding of the structure of the spiritual life. Otherwise, there is a risk that any proposals it has to make, whatever their interest in theoretical terms, will not be humanly practicable.4 For these purposes, Thomas Aquinas makes an apt interlocutor because of his standing as a spiritual as well as intellectual authority for one central strand of the Christian tradition. And while I shall not defend the claim here, it seems to me that, in structural terms, his account of the religious and spiritual life can be applied very readily to all the major faith traditions. For this reason, too, his approach is of some importance.

5.2 Thomas Aquinas on the Religious Life Aquinas’s account of the religious life turns on his not often remarked distinction between the ‘acquired’ and ‘infused’ moral virtues. To explain this typology, he distinguishes between the kind of good that is relative to our human nature, and the kind that is relative to our ‘supernatural’ 4 We can distinguish between the content and the structure of the spiritual life, so that innovations with respect to content—for instance, new conceptions of which beliefs and practices should be integral to the spiritual life—can conform to an established model of structure—say, the belief-with-practice model. My proposal is that if innovations with respect to content adhere to an established structure, then, to that extent, we will have rather more reason for thinking of them as practicable—because in this case, we will have a record of human beings actually ordering their lives in accordance with the structure.

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calling to share in the life of God in the beatific vision. For present purposes, I am interested simply in the structure of this account, in so far as it involves a distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘more-than-natural’ ends. And I invite the reader who finds the details of Aquinas’s proposal implausible or for some other reason unattractive to attend simply to its structure in this respect. To see more exactly how Aquinas understands the acquired and infused virtues, let us consider his treatment of an example. In the following passage, he is discussing the acquired and infused virtues of ‘temperance’, with particular reference to the regulation of our appetite for food: It is evident the measure of desires appointed by a rule of human reason is different from that appointed by a divine rule. For instance, in eating, the measure fixed by human reason is that food should not harm the health of the body, nor hinder the use of reason; whereas [the] divine rule requires that a man should chastise his body and bring it into subjection [1 Cor 9:27], by abstinence in food, drink and the like. (Summa Theologiae 1-2.63.4)5

Here Aquinas introduces, first of all, the good that is realized in so far as our habits of eating are appropriate relative to our human nature. For the identification of this sort of good, we can rely simply on the relevant rule of ‘reason’. This account seems straightforward enough: allowing for variations between human beings, there is indeed a habit of eating that is appropriate for creatures of our nature, one that would not be appropriate for, say, a porpoise or a tortoise, and if we want to determine which patterns of consumption are appropriate for us as human beings, then we can refer to the relevant empirical investigation. The second kind of good Aquinas mentions consists, by contrast, in the alignment between our habits of eating and our theological context, and accordingly this kind of good cannot be known—or at least its fundamental nature cannot be known—independently of reference to that context. So on this picture, the virtues of acquired and infused temperance can be distinguished by reference both to their goals and their epistemology. For Aquinas, each has in addition a distinctive aetiology, since the acquired form of the virtue derives, in the normal case, from a process of habituation (here he

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Unless otherwise indicated, translations of the Summa Theologiae have been taken from Aquinas: 1964–74. Hereafter, I use the abbreviation ST.

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is following Aristotle, of course), while the infused form cannot be produced by any amount of human effort, but depends directly on the initiative of God. We can refine this account of the infused moral virtues, and get a readier understanding of their importance for the spiritual life, by noting Aquinas’s distinction between these virtues and the theological virtues, which are also, of course, both God-directed and infused. Aquinas explains the difference in these terms: The theological virtues are enough to shape us to our supernatural end as a start, that is, to God himself immediately and to none other. Yet the soul needs also to be equipped by infused virtues in regard to created things, though as subordinate to God. (ST 1-2.63.3 ad 2)

The infused moral virtues and the theological virtues are thus both directed to the goal of flourishing in relation to God, but whereas the theological virtues aim directly or immediately at that goal, the infused moral virtues remain ‘moral’ in the sense of being concerned, in the first instance, with the person’s relationship to the material order. We can therefore think of the goods that are the object of the infused moral virtues as having a hybrid character. By contrast with the goods that are the object of the acquired moral virtues, which concern simply our wellbeing in relation to the material order, and by contrast also with the goods that are the object of the theological virtues, which concern simply our well-being in relation to God, the goods that are the object of the infused moral virtues concern our well-being in relation to the created order, but ‘as subordinate to God’ (to use the phrase of Aquinas’s translator cited above). In sum, these goods are concerned with the appropriateness of a person’s relations to the material order, where the measure of appropriateness is provided not by their human nature, but by theological context. Very briefly, I want to note two further features of Aquinas’s account, before considering the implications of this picture of the structure and goals of the religious life for the philosophy of religion. First of all, we need to clarify, at least a little, the nature of the ‘appropriateness’ to which I have just alluded. Aquinas touches on this matter when discussing the rationale for neighbour love. For Christians, of course, neighbour love is the cardinal moral virtue, and, on Aquinas’s understanding, it is an infused virtue. In the following passage, he is considering whether the

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angels are properly the objects of neighbour love—a theme that might seem somewhat far removed from the question of how the philosophy of religion is to be renewed in our time! However, what Aquinas says on this point is representative of what he says more generally when examining the scope of neighbour love—and whether it extends to our enemies, or to ‘irrational’ creatures, or to our own bodies, and so on. Here again, what matters fundamentally for our purposes is the structure of his account. He writes: [T]he friendship of charity is founded upon the fellowship of everlasting happiness, in which men share in common with the angels. For it is written (Mt. 22:30) that ‘in the resurrection . . . men shall be as the angels of God in heaven.’ It is therefore evident that the friendship of charity extends also to the angels. (ST 2-2.25.10)6

Aquinas seeks to ground the appropriateness of love of the angels, here and now, in a claim about our eschatological future: it is because we will one day share with the angels in the fundamental good of the beatific vision that we ought to love them here and now. We are all familiar with the idea that the history of our relationship to another person can make a difference to the quality of our moral relations to them in the present. If I have wronged someone, then, of course, that truth can exercise a moral claim upon me in the present; it might then be appropriate for me to offer an apology, for example. Here, Aquinas appears to be extending this kind of reasoning, by supposing that we can move from claims about our future (and eschatological) relations to other human beings (and the angels) to a conclusion about our moral relations to them in the present. The good that is realized in neighbour love is, evidently, a hybrid good: it consists in the alignment between the person’s relationship to the material order here and now (specifically, their relationship to other human beings) and some feature of their theological context (specifically, the fact that they will one day share with others in a relationship of fellowship in the beatific vision). Aquinas’s handling of this example indicates that the ‘alignment’—or appropriateness—relevant here is not to be understood fundamentally in causal terms: it is not that I ought to extend neighbour love to others in order to improve my chances of

6

Here I am following the translation provided in Aquinas (1947–8). The ellipsis is in the original.

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attaining the beatific vision. Instead, he is suggesting, this way of living is appropriate for me as a fitting acknowledgement of an already established truth concerning my relationship to others in our shared eschatological future. So here, we could say, the alignment is more existential than causal. There is one final question we need to address, if we are to appreciate the overall structure of Aquinas’s account of the religious and spiritual life, and its relevance for the project of renewing the philosophy of religion. The picture I have been sketching turns on the idea that there are distinctively spiritual goods, which are realized when our relations to the material order are properly ordered relative to our theological context. And we need to know: what moves the Christian to affirm a given account of our theological context, for instance, the idea that there is a beatific vision? On the basis of what I have said so far, the reader might well have surmised that Aquinas is an advocate of what I earlier called the (epistemically justified) belief-plus-practice model of religious commitment. He seems to be suggesting, after all, that once we have established that there is a beatific vision with a certain shared, social character, then we can simply read off the implications of that commitment for our relations to others, and in this way determine the practical dimension of the religious or spiritual life. But that is not his position. At the very beginning of the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas notes that ‘God destines us for an end beyond the grasp of reason’ (ST 1.1.1). On this account, the end that God intends for us, a central component of which is of course the beatific vision, cannot be established by means of any purely philosophical enquiry, not even, I take it, as a matter of probability. Instead, for Aquinas, truths concerning our theological context are to be affirmed in ‘faith’, which is not founded on the weight of the evidence or on ‘signs’ but is, rather, voluntary.7 And what is it that elicits this voluntary assent? Aquinas comments: [I]t is clear that faith’s act is pointed as to its end towards the will’s object, i.e. the good. This good, the end of faith’s act, is the divine good, the proper object of charity. (ST 2-2.4.3)

7 See Aquinas’s comment that ‘the act of faith is belief, an act of mind fixed on one alternative by reason of the will’s command’ (ST 2-2.4.1). For the point that genuine, or ‘formed’ faith, is not produced by signs, see Aquinas’s discussion of the faith of the devils in ST 2-2.5.5 ad 3.

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So the believer affirms the beatific vision, along with the other articles of faith, because of the good that is involved in their truth. It would require some exegetical subtlety to draw out the full sense of Aquinas’s treatment of these questions, but to put the point briefly, his view seems to be that the Christian is moved to affirm the beatific vision and kindred claims, and to act accordingly, because of the prospect of realizing thereby a particularly significant hybrid good, which will obtain if there is indeed a beatific vision, and if our relations to the material world here and now are properly ordered relative to that truth. Now, finally, let us turn to consider the implications of this account of the structure of the religious life for the practice of the philosophy of religion.

5.3 Religious Commitment as Belief-with-Practice The reader has been patient in allowing me to expound these central features of Aquinas’s account of the religious life. On this view, the basic truth of that life, so far as it concerns our relations to the material order, is that it is ultimately aimed not at natural goods—of the kind that can be identified by reference to the relevant rule of reason—but at hybrid goods, which arise in so far as our relations to the material order are properly aligned with our theological context. And for Aquinas, when we aim at these hybrid goods, we do not start from a belief (such as the belief in the beatific vision) and move from there to a set of practices that can be derived from the belief (such as the practice of neighbour love). We cannot proceed in this way, he would say, because it is not possible to establish the truth of the relevant beliefs simply by ‘reason’. Contrast the case of dietary practices, where they are aimed at the natural good of bodily health: here, we can start from various truths concerning the body and its needs, which have been identified by means of the relevant empirical enquiry, and then read off the implications of those truths for our conduct.8 8 On this account, the religious practitioner will hold a belief about which goods can be realized if the relevant doctrinal claims hold good—and that belief will need to be epistemically justified, I take it. But the creedal claims themselves do not need to be so justified, and that is a reason for distinguishing this approach from the belief-plus-practice approach.

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But when we consider practices such as those that define neighbour love, neither can we simply start with the recognition that these practices are good, and only then affirm a worldview of the kind that will, in some relevant way, support them. Why? Because these practices have as their rationale the realization of hybrid goods, and accordingly they can be seen to be good, or worth undertaking, in the relevant respect, only once we have introduced the appropriate theological context, alignment with which is the goal of the practice. So on this point, Aquinas’s approach also differs from what we earlier dubbed the practice-plus-belief model. It is an implication, then, of Aquinas’s account of the structure of the religious life that rather than starting with belief, or with practice, we should instead begin with various belief-and-practice pairs, such as the belief in the beatific vision and the practice of neighbour love. The commitment of faith, on this view, is like other practically rational commitments to this extent: in faith, the person aims at a great good, under conditions of uncertainty, where the good is great enough to make the venture worthwhile, notwithstanding the uncertainty of success. This venture is distinctively spiritual in so far as it is aimed at hybrid goods, and is, therefore, different from conventional secular practical commitments. It also differs from a venture such as that described in Pascal’s Wager, since it is focused upon goods that are realized here and now (and not simply the good of a life with God post-mortem), and is motivated not by the prospect of bringing about some future state of affairs (such as the person’s participation in the beatific vision), but by the prospect of living in a way that is fitting relative to some future eschatological truth that is taken to be already established. Here in the form of a thumbnail sketch is a distinctive view of the structure of a human life, where that life is neither merely ‘natural’ in its orientation, nor merely ‘supernatural’. Let us turn now to a consideration of how the philosophy of religion can be renewed if we take this account of the structure of the religious life as our starting point.

5.4 Renewing the Philosophy of Religion The picture I have drawn from Aquinas invites us to suppose that much religious practice depends not on mere theism, or some equivalent for the Sacred otherwise understood, but on a relatively fine-grained account

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of our theological context. (The practices we have discussed, of abstinence and neighbour love, evidently depend, for Aquinas, on a particular conception of our shared eschatological future.)9 If that is so, then we might suppose that much of the religious life, as it has been practised, and as it might realistically be practised, cannot plausibly be understood in the terms provided by the belief-plus-practice model. Why? Because even if bare theism can be established with a degree of probability on the basis of philosophical considerations alone (and Aquinas will of course grant that it can be), it seems unlikely that the details of a religious worldview can be shown to be probable on this basis, and it appears to be such details that motivate central features of the religious life. This is not to deny that much religious practice might turn out to be irrational. It may be, for example, that much religious practice is founded on the belief-plus-practice model, and that the relevant creedal commitments are epistemically unjustified. But here is a way of reading such practice more charitably, and this reading is readily available, I have been suggesting, in the thought of religious practitioners themselves.10 Aquinas’s account also gives us some reason to suppose that the practice-plus-belief model invites, at least, elaboration. As formulated by Hadot, this model depends on the thought that we can recognize that ‘tranquillity of mind’, along with the other mental qualities which were spiritually important for the Epicureans and Stoics, constitutes an appropriate ideal of life, before we consider the fundamental nature of things. But that may be doubted. Assuming that we are dealing with a substantive conception of the ideal life, rather than one which is specified in terms of a very thin evaluative vocabulary (as when we say that the ideal 9 No doubt there are practices that can be motivated simply on the basis of theism. But it is notable that Aquinas typically appeals to finer-grained conceptions of our theological context, which involve specifically Christian affirmations, and he is right to do this, since bare theism would not generate the practical commitments that he is concerned to defend. 10 This is not to say that, on this reading, epistemic considerations are simply irrelevant. For instance, if we deem the probability of a given worldview to be zero, then there will be (absent other considerations) no point in pursuing a hybrid good that can be realized only if the worldview holds true. I would suggest that in practice, religious practitioners, in their pursuit of a given set of hybrid goods, will assign the worldview that is presupposed a probability that is significant, without necessarily exceeding 0.5. And they may well suppose that there is no very precise way of estimating the relevant probabilities. On Aquinas’s account, a fine-grained worldview of the kind that is relevant to standard hybrid goods will need to be revealed—and there are not too many contenders, I take it, for the status of truly revealed worldview. So for these purposes, some worldviews will be especially salient.

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life is one that is ‘good’), then we should suppose that the attractiveness of a given ideal of life, even an ideal as unspecific as ‘tranquillity of mind’, will typically be evident only when we have introduced various assumptions about the nature of things. Why? Because the goodness of that life will depend in large part on its appropriateness relative to context, and therefore upon its capacity to realize hybrid goods, that is, goods that will be realized only if the relevant worldview obtains. A more thorough investigation of these questions will form part of the renewal in the philosophy of religion that I am envisaging here. Needless to say, my own hunch is that this sort of enquiry will lead philosophers to take a livelier interest in the belief-with-practice account of the nature of religious commitment.11 If they do so, then we can anticipate some further transformations in the central concerns of the discipline. Given Aquinas’s picture of the structure of the religious life, it is natural to ask about the relationship between natural and hybrid goods, or, as we could equally put it, about the relationship between the acquired and infused moral virtues. What difference will be made to a person’s life, from a practical point of view, once they take their choices to be answerable to a theological context? The examples I have taken from Aquinas already point to some relevant distinctions. Abstinence that conforms to a ‘divine rule’ is unlikely to strike a non-believer as wrong. (On standard accounts, religiously motivated abstinence does not, after all, involve any harm to the body.) But from the non-believer’s perspective, this practice is likely to seem under-motivated. Why? Because the practice does not appear to do any more to promote the natural goods of bodily health than do less stringent dietary practices. So here the introduction of a theological context has the effect of changing the status of an action that would otherwise have been permissible but lacking in point, so that it is now (if we follow Aquinas’s account of the matter) obligatory. Neighbour love also seems to involve a relatively demanding conception of our responsibilities to others when compared with the requirements of 11 Some Wittgensteinian philosophers have given an account of religious commitment that is rather like what I have been calling the belief-with-practice approach. See, for instance, Peter Winch’s claim that ceasing to pray is best considered not as a ‘consequence’ but as an ‘aspect’ of ceasing to believe (Winch 1977: 207–8). However, the approach I have been taking does not share what I take to be the metaphysical reserve of the Wittgensteinian tradition.

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the corresponding ‘rule of reason’.12 But viewed from the vantage point of such a rule, neighbour love will appear to be, I suggest, not so much undermotivated as praiseworthy and indeed supererogatory. If that is so, then, in this case, the introduction of a theological context has the effect of constituting as obligatory an action that would otherwise have been supererogatory. In other cases, we might suppose that the consequence of introducing a theological context will be not so much an adjustment in our understanding of whether a given action is to be classified as simply permissible, or supererogatory, or obligatory, as a challenge to this whole way of thinking. Those forms of the religious life—and there are many— that invite us to think of our relations with others by analogy with familial relations tend to have this implication: they suggest that within a properly ordered community, moral categories will fall away, to be replaced by the kind of unconditional regard that we associate with ideals of family life. In these and other ways, a renewed philosophy of religion can begin to think about the difference that the introduction of a theological context may make to our conception of the good human life, and in turn about the place of religious commitment within the larger economy of human life. Having asked what difference is made by the introduction of a theological context, relative to the case where there is no such context, it is natural to next ask what difference will be made by the introduction of one theological context rather than another. This question can be explored both within a tradition and across traditions. If we address the issue from within, say, the Christian tradition, then we can ask about how varying understandings of the afterlife (all of them consistent with Christian teaching) may generate varying understandings of what constitutes an ‘appropriate’ human life here and now, or about how differing conceptions of the doctrine of the Trinity may make for varying conceptions 12 It is pragmatically implied in Aquinas’s discussion that the requirements of neighbour love are more demanding than those of the corresponding rule of reason—if the case were otherwise, then he would have little reason to consider neighbour love independently of the acquired moral virtues, and God would have little reason to reveal those truths that Aquinas takes to ground the appropriateness of neighbour love. However, on other approaches, for instance, act utilitarianism, the rule of reason that applies in this domain may be very demanding. However, just because of its stringency, act utilitarianism is, famously, hard to reconcile with many of our established moral intuitions. This suggests that a conventional conception of the relevant rule of reason may be closer to Aquinas’s view of the matter than to the act utilitarian’s.

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of the properly ‘aligned’ human life here and now, and so on for other features of the Christian worldview. And generalizing to other religions, we can begin to move towards an account of the nature, range, and significance of the goods that would be realized by the practices of various religious and spiritual traditions, were their worldviews to be true. This sort of exercise is of some importance, I think, if we are to understand the motivational structure of the major faith traditions and to see how that structure has informed the lives and self-understanding of so many of our forebears. On this same basis, though more controversially, we could think about ranking different faith traditions. Perhaps the practices of some traditions will enable a relatively wide range of hybrid goods, or will enable hybrid goods of relatively deep significance, granted the truth of the relevant worldview. And in turn, therefore, we could ask about the relative practical reasonableness of different traditions: if the worldviews of two traditions are of similar epistemic standing, then their relative practical rationality will depend, in large measure, upon the range and significance of the hybrid goods that can be realized in the practices of those traditions, should their picture of the nature of things prove to be true. The renewed philosophy of religion that I am envisaging will not be concerned fundamentally with the development of new forms of religious apologetic, with one tradition vying with another to establish its superiority in these terms. But it will seek to place axiological questions at the heart of our conception of the religious life; it will consider how varying assumptions about our theological context generate varying understandings of the nature and range of the spiritual goods that are accessible to us in our relations to the material world here and now. At its core, then, the discipline will involve the study of values, and specifically the values that are realized in hybrid goods. As an extension of this same enquiry, a renewed philosophy of religion will also be concerned with the variety of dimensions along which a human life can contribute to the realization of hybrid goods. Aquinas does not spell out the point, but his example of neighbour love implies that our feelings and attitudes, along with our thoughts and bodily demeanour, and I would add our habits of perception of the everyday sensory world, can all be assessed for adequacy relative to theological context, and all are capable therefore, in principle, of realizing hybrid goods. In this way, we can tell a variety of stories about the nature of growth in the spiritual

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life, depending upon whether our focus is upon how experience, or thought, or behaviour, or some other dimension of our lives can be drawn into closer alignment with our theological context. A renewed philosophy of religion will examine these different vantage points on what a given tradition will take to be one and the same track of spiritual development, and ask how they are to be related to one another. Finally, as well as considering the difference that is made to our conception of a worthwhile human life by the introduction of a theological context, relative to the case where there is no such context, and the difference that is made by the introduction of one theological context rather than another, where both contexts have been propounded by established faith traditions, a renewed philosophy of religion will also seek to develop new and creative ways of conceiving of our religious or spiritual context, and to identify, thereby, new kinds of spiritual good that can in principle be realized in our lives here and now. In this way, the renewed philosopher of religion will be open to the possibility not only of studying the spiritual life, but of contributing to its further development.13

References Aquinas, T. (1947–8), Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers) accessed 11 November 2016. Aquinas, T. (1964–74), Summa Theologiae, ed. T. Gilby (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode). Cottingham, C. (2009), Why Believe? (London: Continuum). Hadot, P. (1995), Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. M. Chase (Oxford: Blackwell). Kant, I. (1991), The Moral Law: Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (London: Routledge). Mavrodes, G. (2011), ‘Religion and the Queerness of Morality’, in L. Pojman (ed.), Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary, 6th edn (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth), Part IX, Ch. 4. Winch, P. (1977), ‘Meaning and Religious Language’, in S. Brown (ed.), Reason and Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 193–221. 13

I would like to thank the editors for their detailed and very helpful comments on a draft of this chapter.

6 On Facing Up to the Question of Religion as Such John Bishop

6.1 Introduction: Examining Presuppositions It is characteristic of philosophy to uncover and examine the presuppositions of the forms of living and thinking on which it reflects. Since Socrates, this method has been easily caricatured as a ‘head in the clouds’ stance that falsely imagines itself free from presuppositions of its own. In truth, however, philosophy is, and must be, intensely self-reflective, and it does not restrict its method of revealing and critiquing presuppositions from being applied to philosophical inquiry itself. Philosophy of religion investigates what is presupposed in religious practice and belief. And it does so, not merely descriptively (as empirical, anthropological studies of religion do), but with the essential philosophical interest in the question of truth. That is an interest it shares with theology, of course, but philosophy proceeds with relatively thinner presuppositions than theology, which treats as given God’s existence and ‘his’ revelation in specific historical events and inspired writings. Nevertheless—and this is my opening point—philosophy of religion is not itself free of presuppositions, and these presuppositions, though thinner than those of theology, may be decidedly thick enough. A good place to start, then, in considering the renewal of philosophy of religion is by uncovering its prevailing presuppositions.

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6.2 ‘Epistemic’ and ‘Content’ Presuppositions of the Philosophy of Religion Within anglophone ‘analytical’ philosophy of religion, there are two presuppositions to which I wish to draw attention. The first is the ‘Epistemic’ presupposition. It assumes that the main task for philosophy of religion is inquiry into whether religious belief is epistemically justified, where epistemic justification is usually assumed to turn on whether such belief is adequately supported by the believer’s available evidence. Second, there is the ‘Content’ presupposition, which takes core religious belief to be belief in God, and further assumes the standard ‘personal omniGod’ conception, under which God is a supernatural immaterial person with the ‘omniproperties’ (omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence, or moral perfection), who creates ex nihilo all else that exists.1

6.3 Limitations of the Content Presupposition The Content presupposition obviously fails with respect to non-theist religions such as classical Buddhism that do not employ any concept of God. Philosophers have often been unabashed about this limitation, however, admitting that they work within a tradition for which the historically salient religions are the Abrahamic monotheist ones. It might thus seem that, apart from false advertising under the banner of ‘philosophy of religion’ (when ‘philosophy of theist religion’ might better disclose its content), there is nothing wrong with philosophical inquiry that restricts itself to the theist traditions. This response to the challenge that the Content presupposition is too narrow may seem sensible. But it dodges a vital question. It assumes that 1 Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga are examples of respected and influential philosophers of religion who make the Content presupposition. See, for example, Swinburne 1993: 1 and 101, and Plantinga 2000: vii. Both philosophers also take the epistemic status of religious belief to be of central importance. Swinburne, for example, argues that ‘reason can reach a fairly well-justified conclusion about the existence of God’, though our available evidence yields ‘only a probable conclusion, not an indubitable one’ (Swinburne 2004: 2). Plantinga rejects the claim that rational religious belief requires adequate inferential evidence, but argues that Christian belief can count as ‘warranted’ and thus be epistemically rational, with believers making no ‘leap’ beyond what the evidence available to them shows to be true (Plantinga 2000: 263).

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the beliefs and practices of different religions each constitute different subject matter for philosophical inquiry. It implicitly sets aside the idea that there may be ineliminable philosophical questions that are irreducibly about religion and the place of the religious in human existence, where ‘religion’ has some deeper unified sense despite its varied expressions. It is the defence of this idea—of philosophy of religion as essential to philosophy itself—that is the main burden of my present discussion. In effect I am arguing, not simply for a certain kind of renewal in the philosophy of religion, but, more accurately, for a renewal (or rediscovery) of philosophy itself as committed to aims that essentially concern religion in a single unified sense. My argument will be, then, that philosophy must face up to the question of religion as such.

6.4 The ‘Question of Religion’ as a Normative Question In its descriptive use ‘religion’ may be a ‘family resemblance’ universal: there need be no essence in virtue of which traditions, institutions, practices, and beliefs aptly described as religious count as such. It does not follow, however, that there cannot be a unified normative notion of religion. If it is correct to claim that philosophy as such needs an account of religion, the needed account will be a normative one, against which particular religious forms of life may be assessed. Let me explain. Ethics is clearly at the core of philosophy. Indeed, the question ‘How should we live?’ may arguably be the ultimately motivating philosophical question. Now, the question of religion with which—I am saying—philosophy needs to engage is an ethical question: is there something properly described as ‘religion’ that ideally contributes to human lives lived well, individually and collectively, either as an advantageous addition to what is strictly needed for flourishing in accordance with virtue, or else as something essential to it? And, if so, how do particular forms of religious life, whether actual or envisaged, compare with this ideal? If an acceptable normative ethical account of religion can be given, then some practices and beliefs which are described aptly enough as religious may fail to meet the standards for ideal or authentic religion, while other practices and beliefs that we do not normally think of as religious may turn out to qualify. But what could be at the heart of

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religion understood as a human good? How might there be a role for ideal religion in a developed ethics?

6.5 Limitations of the Epistemic Presupposition Before I sketch a reply to these questions, let me make a connection with the other presupposition identified above. If philosophy’s question about religion is fundamentally ethical, there may be something limiting about the Epistemic presupposition. Under that presupposition, the focus is on religious beliefs and whether those beliefs count as epistemically worthy—that is, worth having just from the perspective of the epistemic goal of grasping what is true and avoiding what is false. The epistemic status of a belief is not an ethical issue as such, however. It follows that if, as I am claiming, the fundamental question of religion is an ethical one, it must be a question that focuses on something that clearly is ethically assessable. The idea that there can be an ethics of belief is, of course, well established. For this idea to make sense, however, a link must be made between belief-states and something under a believer’s direct, or at least indirect, control—an action, habit, or disposition of character, or way of relating. Some such links relate actions and dispositions to beliefformation: for example, people may have an ethical duty to seek out and properly attend to evidence relating to beliefs on which they act, at least when the potential consequences of their actions are themselves ethically significant. Another important way to link the ethical with the epistemic is to hold that people are morally justified in practically committing themselves to the truth of a believed proposition only if they are epistemically justified in holding that belief. According to moral evidentialists, this principle implies that people are morally justified in acting on their morally significant beliefs only when the truth of those beliefs is adequately supported by the total evidence available to them.2 The Epistemic presupposition might then appear to remain essentially

2 Note that moral evidentialism as here defined should be distinguished from evidentialism understood as the ‘internalist’ claim that the epistemic worth of a belief-state is solely a matter of its fit with the available evidence the believer has for its truth.

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intact.3 However, some philosophers hold that, in their faith-ventures, people may be morally justified in practical commitment to the truth of beliefs held beyond adequate evidential support, and they therefore reject moral evidentialism as universally applicable.4 On this view, it will no longer follow that philosophy’s core business with respect to religion is confined to investigating whether our total available evidence adequately supports the truth of religious claims. And if, furthermore, one thinks it possible that religious practical commitment could, or even should, occur without actual belief that the proposition concerned is true,5 the Epistemic presupposition will seem to mistake the target of the ‘justifiability’ question about religious commitment.

6.6 Faith as Practical Commitment, and its Justifiability as Fundamentally Ethical Even though faith typically has a doxastic element to it, faith is never, at its core, a matter of being in the state of believing some foundational faith-propositions. The nub of faith is the person’s practical commitment to the truth of such propositions—to taking those propositions to be true in practical reasoning, to acting on their truth. Furthermore, a faithproposition would not count as religious unless practical commitment to its truth made a significant difference to a person’s behaviour and way of life in relation to others and the wider environment. On this account of faith, then, the key ‘justifiability’ question about religious faith is the question of the ethical or moral justifiability of the practical commitment at its core. Questions of epistemic justifiability may arise, but only because there may be some link between the moral justifiability of a 3 The Epistemic presupposition will remain intact if it may be assumed that adequate evidential justification is sufficient as well as necessary for commitment to the truth of the relevant claim to be morally permissible. This sufficiency assumption seems to apply to religious claims: if one had clearly adequate evidence for the existence of the theist God, for example, what could then prevent it from being morally justifiable to commit to that truth in one’s actions and way of life? 4 It is evidently important for the debate over moral evidentialism and its application to religious truth-commitments to try to settle the criteria for the ‘adequacy’ of evidential grounds for such commitments. I will indicate below a traditional evidentialist view on this question (see note 16). 5 For examples of those who hold that faith need not or could not be doxastic, see Swinburne 2005: 147–8, Buckareff 2005, and Schellenberg 2005: 138–9.

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faith-commitment and the epistemic status of its cognitive content—and that link may turn out not to validate the straightforward evidentialist equation of morally justifiable commitment with adequately evidentially based belief. I am arguing, then, that there is a question whether religious commitment may be ethically permissible, or even perhaps obligatory, and, if so, what the acceptable content (or range of contents) of religion might then be. And I am suggesting that philosophy’s interest in religion should be understood as focused on these related ethical questions. The question of the proper content of ideal religion is thus left open, rather than being closed by unreflectively taking a particular interpretation of its (mono) theist content as given. And the question of religion is also seen to be central to philosophy itself, rather than yielding merely peripheral exercises in applied epistemology and esoteric metaphysics, of interest only to the ‘God-botherers’ and those bothered by them.

6.7 The Normative Role of Religion To support my claim that there is this normative ‘question of religion as such’ for philosophy to face up to, something must be said about what the normative role of religion may be. It is easily assumed that normative ethics solely concerns identifying and systematizing ideals: what is right action, virtuous character, just relationship? Religion might then be seen as playing a supporting role in encouraging adherence to ethical ideals, harnessing to useful purpose our natural human superstitious tendencies to believe in invisible supernatural agents.6 Religion may, however, be understood as more intrinsically related to ethics. Humanity cannot live by right ideals alone. We must also be able to have the faith that reality is ‘favourable’ to these ideals, in the sense that there is real point to hopeful steadfast ethical commitment, despite the vulnerability it often enough entails. If ethics is to give a full answer to the question of how we should live, it must therefore be concerned with metaphysical posits to the effect that reality is favourable in this sense. If we cannot take reality to be such that there are grounds 6 Evolutionary psychologists of religion have suggested that belief in supernatural agents arises as a side effect of our ‘hypersensitive agency detection device’. See Boyer 2001 and Atran 2002.

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for the hope that fulfilment may be achieved through living in accordance with virtue, and that it is possible for us to be ‘saved’ from whatever—within ourselves and without—threatens to undermine our fulfilment, virtuous ideals may be experienced as no more than a noble fantasy which no one with a proper grip on reality could rationally adopt as overriding. It seems, however, to be the business of religion to provide, through claimed revelation or its functional equivalent,7 metaphysical posits of the sort required, together with associated conceptions of what authentic human fulfilment consists in, and how it may be achieved through salvation from all that limits or opposes it. I am arguing, then, that philosophy needs to recognize a question central to its ethical concern about what overall orientation to reality humans ought to have (if any) in order to live well. A religion supplies substantive material for such an overall orientation, with its cognitive content providing a ‘total interpretation’ of reality and our experience of it, to use a term of John Hick’s (1966: 154). Philosophy therefore needs to consider how, if at all, religion may perform this normative role well. A theoretical basis will thus be needed for making judgements about actual religious traditions and interpretations of them as serving this role. This is what I mean by facing up to ‘the question of religion as such’. Philosophy may therefore reasonably adopt a normative definition of a religion’s cognitive content as positing a total interpretation of reality—‘worldview’ is another apt term—that makes hopeful and steadfast commitment to the ethical ideals ultimately meaningful, even under conditions of adversity. Non-theist religions will certainly be admitted under this definition, as too, perhaps, may some humanist versions of naturalism/atheism, even though their proponents may not think of themselves as in any way religious.8 Other naturalist/atheist worldviews, though they offer total interpretations—for example, identifying reality with our best, or ideally completed, scientific theoretical descriptions—do 7 ‘Revelation’ may refer generally to the process of coming to understand or recognize something not previously understood or recognized, and need not always carry the connotation that this happens through divine or supernatural intervention. Revelation in this broader sense is arguably needed to provide the substantive content for a worldview that properly counts as ‘religious’. Since to say such content is ‘revealed’ is to imply that it is true—‘reveal’ is a ‘success’ verb—we need to speak of putative or supposed revelations if we wish to leave open the question of their truth. 8 Annette Baier’s secular ‘faith in the human community and its evolving procedures’ may be a case in point (1980: 133).

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not make the grade as religious, since they offer no justificatory grounds for unconditionally hopeful commitment to virtuous living, treating the ways people respond under adversity—whether virtuous or vicious, hopeful or despairing—simply as a range of naturally possible outcomes.

6.8 Assessing Religious ‘Total Interpretations’ of Reality How may the philosophical assessment of religious worldviews proceed? If it is correct to understand religious worldviews as offering total interpretations of reality and our experience of it, then commitment to the truth of such a worldview is not the outcome of a process of weighing evidence and finding oneself rationally persuaded. Rather, this kind of commitment is to overall ‘framing principles’ in the light of whose assumed truth all our experience is interpreted.9 Arguably, then, the core propositions of religious worldviews necessarily cannot have their truth settled by appeal to a body of independent evidence. To be viable as total interpretations, however, religious worldviews must succeed in making coherent sense of all our evidence. This is a significant constraint, and one which arises from the evidence our experience actually presents to us (religious commitments are evidentially constrained, then, even if they may not be evidentially justified from some commonly held external standpoint). A notable implication of this coherence constraint is that a viable religious worldview must offer an understanding of what is scientifically known which is consistent with the posited truths it holds to be specially revealed. Now, it is possible for ‘evidential ambiguity’ to obtain between two distinct and mutually incompatible religious worldviews when they equally well meet the need for overall coherence. Indeed, given the plurality of available religious stances, it is plausible to hold that the 9

The claim is that foundational religious truth-commitments function similarly to basic universally assumed truth-commitments such as to the existence of other minds and an external world, even though religious commitments differ significantly in being both various and a matter of choice. Their similar function, however, excludes religious truthcommitments from non-circular evidential justification, just as much as is the case for our unavoidable truth-commitments to other minds and an external world. For more discussion of the suggestion that foundational religious propositions consist in what I refer to as ‘highest-order’ framing principles, see Bishop 2007: 142–4.

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question whether to commit to the truth of any religious worldview which meets the coherence constraint is subject to evidential ambiguity.10 If this is correct, it follows that commitment to the truth of a particular religious worldview can be permissible only if an exception to moral evidentialism may be made in this kind of case, since, under evidential ambiguity, neither external nor internal evidential considerations can settle whether or not to commit to the worldview concerned. The ‘justification of faith’ that William James proposes in his (misleadingly titled) 1896 lecture ‘The Will to Believe’ makes a case against absolutist evidentialism, allowing that practical commitment to truth claims, such as those foundational to the cognitive content of religion, may be permissible in settling ‘genuine’ options that cannot ‘of their nature’ be decided intellectually by appeal to independent evidence (James 1956: 11). While James might be interpreted as claiming that the assessment of religious worldviews is to be made purely on pragmatic grounds (‘adopt whatever works’), in fact commitment to a worldview can ‘work’ only for those who, in their practice, take it to be true. Epistemic concern about the truth of worldviews may not, therefore, simply be set aside. But it must then be explained how epistemic concern may be met when commitment is made to the truth of a worldview beyond any possible evidence-based rational certification. Defenders of religious commitment ‘by faith’ must satisfy themselves that they have a good response to the allegation—recently expressed in the popular writings of the so-called ‘New Atheists’—that it is a serious ethical risk to commit oneself to any ‘totalizing’ worldview of the kind offered in religion, a risk that will be avoided if only we stand firm in our epistemic duty never to believe without sufficient evidence.

6.9 Defending Religious Believing ‘By Faith’, and the Epistemology of Revelation A defence of commitment to the truth of a religious worldview beyond the evidence will therefore require a theory of the conditions under which such faith-commitments are permissible. Opponents of absolutist 10 For discussion of the view that our total available evidence is equally coherently interpreted under theist and naturalist/atheist worldviews, see, for example, Hick 1966 and 1989, Davis 1978, and McKim 2001.

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evidentialism should not, of course, approve an ‘anything goes’ attitude to faith-ventures, since there patently can be faith-ventures that are ethically dubious. Ethically acceptable faith might, indeed, turn out to be rather rare, even after obviously vicious fanaticism and rigid ideological commitment have been discounted. What form may the required theory take? I have already noted that a necessary condition is likely to be coherence with our best scientific understanding of the workings of the natural universe. Two further remarks are in order. First, a successful theory of permissible faith-commitment to the metaphysical posits of a religious worldview will need to place considerable importance on the ethical evaluation of the cognitive content of those posits. I have suggested that a key function of these metaphysical posits is to ground the meaningfulness of hopeful and steadfast commitment to ethical ideals. If that is correct, the overall account of reality posited must obviously be consistent with those ideals. For a simple example, one couldn’t approve a faith-commitment to the existence of an ultimately vengeful God from an ethical stance that allows no place for revenge. This ethical requirement on the intentional content of permissible faith-ventures turns out to be a powerful tool. Indeed, in my view it may be used to reject the permissibility of commitment to the existence of the personal omniGod, on the grounds that a supremely powerful agent who allows horrendous sufferings would fail to ensure that his relationship with those sufferers was perfectly good, even if he does ultimately compensate the sufferers in everlasting life with him.11 The upshot is not outright atheism, however, but, rather, the need to provide a viable alternative metaphysical understanding of the core cognitive content of theism. Atheism will follow only if no such viable alternative can be found.12 Second, since the contents of the metaphysical posits of religious traditions are supposedly revealed (at least in the broad sense mentioned earlier),13 a theory of permissible commitment to the truth of such posits will, on that supposition, be a theory of permissible acceptance of truths

11

For further argument along these lines, see Bishop and Perszyk 2011. Jeanine Diller’s (2016) distinction between ‘global’ and ‘local’ atheisms is helpful here. For a suggested ‘euteleological’ alternative to the personal omniGod conception of divinity, see Bishop and Perszyk 2014. 13 See note 7 above. 12

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as revealed. There will then be the need for an epistemology of revelation—or, more accurately, an epistemology of special revelation, since religious truths are held to be revealed always in specific historical contexts to a particular people.14 Most epistemologists would hesitate to entertain revelation as a possible route to epistemically worthwhile states. They might reflect, however, that, from a theistic perspective, ‘basic’ belief-states that are universally accepted in practice as passing epistemic muster while lacking inferential support—such as basic logical and mathematical intuitions, the deliverances of sensory perception ‘under normal conditions’, overall framing principles such as the existence of an external world and other minds, and foundational value intuitions—are attributable to general revelation. Theists will think, then, that revelation must clearly be an acceptable category in any epistemology that resists extreme scepticism, so that its extension to religiously crucial cases of (alleged) special revelation will not seem to them to require any revolution in epistemological thinking. Epistemologists may agree that truths may be justifiably accepted as ‘generally revealed’ (as the theologians want to put it). But they will urge that such acceptance depends essentially on wide, publicly ascertainable agreement, or, at least (in the case of particular perceptual beliefs), the in principle possibility of their being checked by anyone in the kind of situation that generates them. But the truth of the putatively revealed content of religious worldviews enjoys shared agreement—or intersubjective ‘checkability’—only within a relatively local collective, rather than within a global one as in the other cases. The question for the epistemology of revelation thus becomes the question whether local agreement and checkability, limited to a particular religious cultural community, can suffice for it to be permissible to commit to the truth of what is held to be specially revealed. And this question, of course, is equivalent to the question whether people may justifiably commit themselves to the truth of religiously posited metaphysical propositions in the absence of the kind of evidence that would be accepted ‘at the tribunal of mankind as a whole’, and thus make the truth of the claims in question rationally persuasive for all.

14

Though a given revelation may be believed to come through an individual prophet or even incarnate deity, its acceptance as such is necessarily collective.

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In my own view, a systematic answer to this question may be given by developing the approach taken by William James in his earlier mentioned ‘Will to Believe’ lecture. Because this Jamesian theory licenses, though only under quite restrictive conditions, commitment to claims as true beyond adequate evidence, the theory may be described as ‘fideist’, rehabilitating a wider use of the term than the now prevalent pejorative sense that connotes setting aside rational epistemic concern altogether.15 It is important to note that ‘commitment beyond adequate evidence’ does not here imply that those who make such commitment make a leap without any evidence at all. Indeed, the situation of faith-venturers will sometimes be one in which they find the truth on which they act to be supported by evidence that is, for them, subjectively compelling. Rather, the venture is beyond evidence of a kind sufficient to make the truth adopted generally rationally persuasive.16 On the Jamesian account, then, it remains an open possibility that distinct and mutually incompatible religious truth claims may morally—and epistemically—properly receive full practical commitment by different individuals and communities.

6.10 Presupposing a Developing, Widely Shared Ethical Perspective I have argued that philosophy should recognize an important ethical role for religion in positing ‘revealed’ worldviews that make rational a 15 I develop and seek to defend a Jamesian theory in Bishop 2007. The ‘Reformed epistemology’ of Alvin Plantinga (2000) and others is another—recently more influential— approach to the epistemology of religious commitment to putatively revealed truths. Given that Plantinga’s epistemologically externalist, ‘A/C’ model of faith supports only the conditional claim that if it is true that God exists it is likely that ‘basic’ belief in God has ‘warrant’, it may be argued that his Reformed epistemology stands in need of completion by the addition of something like the Jamesian theory of permissible commitment to religious truth claims (see Bishop and Aijaz 2004). 16 The moral evidentialist tradition (of which James, in ‘The Will to Believe’, takes W. K. Clifford (1879) to be a leading representative) clearly ruled out purely subjectively compelling evidence as adequate for religious commitment, requiring for adequacy evidence that would pass muster as generally persuasive, ideally ‘at the tribunal of mankind as a whole’. Faith-venturers, as I’m here describing them, go beyond evidence that is ‘adequate’ in that relatively strong sense, but not necessarily in weaker senses that might arguably be epistemologically defensible and might render religious commitment acceptable under a correspondingly broader moral evidentialism. Prospects thereby open up for some irenic reconciliation between modest Jamesian fideists and moral evidentialists who make relatively weaker requirements for adequacy of evidential support.

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steadfast commitment to ethical ideals, conjoined with the hope that true human fulfilment is thereby possible. Questions of religious epistemic integrity remain important, but—I have suggested—they arise in the context of the primary issue of the moral integrity of practical religious commitment. I am claiming, then, that it is philosophy’s business to develop a theory of the conditions (if any) under which religious commitment is ethically permissible. I believe that, if it is to vindicate any religious commitments, such a theory will have to show how commitments to existentially significant truth claims can be justifiable when made on the basis of ‘evidence’ that does not—and, plausibly, could not—count as adequate for general rational persuasion. In distinguishing permissible from impermissible faith-ventures, this theory will need, I have argued, to make ethical evaluations of the metaphysical posits of religiously ‘revealed’ worldviews. The process of making such ethical evaluations confronts a circularity problem, however. While commitment to certain fundamental ethical truths may be virtually universal, other basic intuitions about how we should live vary and conflict across different historical and cultural contexts. And religion plays another normative role in this variation— namely, that of supposedly revealing more fully what the ethical ideals are. Ethical evaluation of a religion’s metaphysical posits, therefore, will not provide an independent mode of assessment if it appeals just to ethical ideals as supposedly revealed within that religion’s own tradition. To return to my earlier simple example: if a (perverse) religion were to teach as revealed the ideal of revenge, its positing a vengeful God would be perfectly consistent. We will be able to weed out such a metaphysical posit only from an ethical perspective that carries greater general sway than that internal to the religion we are here imagining. It follows that my suggested core agenda for philosophy in its proper concern with religion presupposes a vital development that may reasonably be thought to be taking place in ethics, at least from a robustly realist meta-ethical perspective. Just as scientific realists may reasonably hold that the natural sciences produce developing understandings of how the natural world operates which are a common human possession, so, too, may the meta-ethical realist view a common ethical understanding (‘our best ethical theory’) as developing across differences in culture and religion. Caution is needed, of course, to ensure that emerging common ethical understanding does indeed enjoy genuinely ‘wide reflective equilibrium’.

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A proper desire to avoid cultural domination overshoots the mark, however, if it leads to meta-ethical cultural relativism, since it is actually a realist, and fallibilist, position that underwrites properly engaged mutual tolerance of significant cultural moral disagreement. In any case, for the envisaged critique of ‘revelatory’ metaphysical posits to be possible, ethical evaluations will have to rest on values agreed to belong to our commonly held ‘best ethical theory’. To the extent that there is disagreement over whether an implicated value does indeed belong to our best theory, there will also, of course, be disagreement over whether the particular religious worldview being evaluated is open to permissible commitment. For example, as mentioned earlier, Ken Perszyk and I have argued that the posit of a personal omniGod who first allows horrifying suffering and then (supposedly) wonderfully redeems the sufferers in an eternity of bliss fails to meet the highest values of our best theory of ethically sound interpersonal relationship (Bishop and Perszyk 2011). But that same posit might reasonably be approved by someone whose view of our best account of right relationship differs in relevant respects from the one Perszyk and I are inclined to endorse. Our inability always to settle ethical questions about religious posits does not, however, undermine the enterprise altogether, as would have been the case had there been no possibility of ethically evaluating religious posits other than against their own internal putatively revealed values.

6.11 Ideal Religion, Metaphysics, and Religious Pluralism Religions make metaphysical posits, offering them as revealed ‘total interpretations’, apt for adoption as a framework for all we think and do. I have been arguing that philosophy has a core interest in assessing these metaphysical posits, in order to develop an important aspect of our understanding of how we should live—an aspect often overlooked when philosophers see themselves just as ‘doing ethics’. If we can develop our common knowledge of the ideals by which we should live, we should surely also be able to develop our common knowledge of what (if any) overall practical orientations towards reality (including their cognitive elements) are aptly implicated in our living well.

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Am I suggesting, then, that it is the business of philosophy to attempt to develop a substantive ideal religion? Not exactly. Philosophy’s concern is with the content of religious worldviews—content that depicts reality as having features which make reasonable the hope that living in accordance with virtue brings fulfilment to human beings. A religion arrays such content in rich clothing, with rituals, disciplines, and inspirational myths and stories, yielding an entire way of life. Philosophy cannot emulate religion here, so cannot have the construction of an ideal religion as a legitimate aim. Nevertheless, I have in effect been suggesting that philosophy should at least develop our understanding of ideal cognitive content for religion—though I wish to issue two caveats concerning the pursuit of this legitimate and important philosophical goal. My first and minor caveat is that our current situation of religious pluralism may persist even at advanced stages of religious evolution, not merely with respect to the ‘rich clothing’, but also with respect to the content of worldviews.17 Our search for developing understanding of the metaphysical posits of religion should not, then, make the assumption that such understanding can be adequate only when it achieves convergence on a single worldview. My second and major caveat is that we should not understand philosophy as taking over a key function of religion, with the prospect of doing a better job. Some, I expect, will have construed my talk of philosophy’s ‘facing up to the question of religion as such’ as an appeal for philosophy to do the heavy metaphysical lifting that is its proper province. Since religions propose science-transcending knowledge of fundamental reality, their posits are grist to the metaphysician’s mill, with their ontologies needing clarification and assessment under metaphysical discipline. I fear, however, that purely metaphysical inquiry into the cognitive content of religion may be prone to miss two related features emphasized in my discussion—the ethical role that religiously

17 Each generation tends unreflectively to think of itself as belonging to the ‘end times’, but as John Schellenberg helpfully reminds us, ‘intelligence and spiritual sensitivity on our planet may still be at a very early stage of their development’ (2013b: 148). Both the caveats I mention here are relevant to the assessment of Schellenberg’s own view that, if any form of evolved religion turns out to be justified, it will be a ‘sceptical ultimistic faith’ (see Schellenberg 2013a).

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posited metaphysical worldviews play, and the need for an ethical as well as a metaphysical evaluation of commitment to the truth of such worldviews. Furthermore, metaphysics cannot construct what can only be disclosed. Metaphysical discipline has a role in assessing the coherence of putatively revealed worldviews, but a substantive metaphysics that plays the identified ethical role seems to me to be achievable only by drawing on resources that come from the religious traditions. That judgement is, of course, empirical and falsifiable. But I do not recommend trying to falsify it! I recommend, rather, that philosophers interested in metaphysics in its practical function as supporting commitment to ethical ideals should engage with religious traditions—and do so from the committed insider’s perspective, graspable by outsiders through empathic effort, which insiders may facilitate by being open in describing their lives as believers. Philosophers who are themselves religiously committed do have an advantage with respect to their own tradition: they can live out the fides quaerens intellectum approach I am here recommending. But there are certain traps they must strive to avoid. They should not, for example, take the resources of their own tradition to define all that can properly be considered, nor should they allow their commitment to philosophy and its ideals to become purely subsidiary to their own particular religious commitment.

6.12 Conclusion: Philosophy’s Interest in Religion I have argued that philosophy has a normative interest in religion, and that there is an important ethical role played by religious worldviews which should be the focus of this interest. No doubt I have overemphasized some matters (the ones I have worked on myself!) and neglected others that rightly belong in a balanced view. I am convinced, however, that philosophy should not be confined to a purely apologetic role in relation to religion, nor to the anti-religious ‘shadow side’ of this role. Rather, the central importance of religion from the perspective of our basic motivations for engaging in philosophical inquiry needs to be understood. Perhaps, too, we need to understand better the religious aspects present in those basic motivations themselves.

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JOHN BISHOP

References Atran, S. (2002), In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press). Baier, A. (1980), ‘Secular Faith’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10/1, 131–48. Bishop, J. (2007), Believing by Faith: An Essay in the Epistemology and Ethics of Religious Belief (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Bishop, J., and Aijaz, I. (2004), ‘How to Answer the De Jure Question about Christian Belief ’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 56/2–3, 109–29. Bishop, J., and Perszyk, K. (2011), ‘The Normatively Relativised Logical Argument from Evil’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 70/2, 109–26. Bishop, J., and Perszyk, K. (2014), ‘Divine Action Beyond the Personal OmniGod’, in J. Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion: Volume 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1–21. Boyer, P. (2001), Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origin of Religious Thought (New York: Basic Books). Buckareff, A. (2005), ‘Can Faith Be a Doxastic Venture?’, Religious Studies 41/4, 435–45. Clifford, W. (1879), ‘The Ethics of Belief ’, in L. Stephen and F. Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays of the Late William Kingdon Clifford, 2 vols (London: Macmillan), ii, 177–211. Davis, S. (1978), Faith, Skepticism, and Evidence: An Essay in Religious Epistemology (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press). Diller, J. (2016), ‘Global and Local Atheisms’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 79/1, 7–18. Hick, J. (1966), Faith and Knowledge, 2nd edn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Hick, J. (1989), An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). James, W. (1956), The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality (New York: Dover). McKim, R. (2001), Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Plantinga, A. (2000), Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Schellenberg, J. (2005), Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Schellenberg, J. (2013a), Evolutionary Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Schellenberg, J. (2013b), ‘My Stance in Philosophy of Religion’, Religious Studies 49/2, 143–50. Swinburne, R. (1993), The Coherence of Theism, rev. edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Swinburne, R. (2004), The Existence of God, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Swinburne, R. (2005), Faith and Reason, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

7 The Future of Philosophy of Religion, the Future of the Study of Religion, and (Even) the Future of Religion Robert McKim

7.1 The Future of Philosophy of Religion 7.1.1 Philosophy of my religion Philosophy of religion often carries on almost as if there were only one religion. Philosophy of religion, you could say, more or less reduces itself to “philosophy of my religion,” where “my religion” includes within its scope both the case in which I belong to the religion in question, and the case in which this is not so but a particular religion is of special interest to me, or is what I think about most when I think about religion. Naturally, philosophy of my religion has a place in philosophy of religion. My religion is, after all, a religion. And philosophical reflection about my religion, whatever it may be, is an entirely respectable endeavor. It is entirely appropriate for people to dig deeply into their own religious perspective, or the perspective with which they are most familiar, or that is of most interest to them. And it is entirely appropriate for them to, say, explore the historical trajectory that issued in the current formulation of the ideas associated with their religious perspective, to set out to clarify those ideas, and to probe how they can best be articulated. It is also appropriate to provide philosophical arguments in defense of one’s perspective when those arguments are thought to be

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convincing, or for that matter to advance philosophical objections to its tenets, using philosophical tools in the process. If a hundred flowers are to blossom—and let us hope that a hundred and more will blossom—this flower certainly should be among them. Philosophy of my religion, so understood, has a place in philosophy of religion. But what is not satisfactory is assuming that any particular religion should occupy all or most of the available space so that philosophy of religion, as a field, is reduced to philosophical reflection about a single religion. To make that assumption is akin to thinking that the study of history should be the study of our history, whoever we may be, just as it is akin to thinking that the study of literature should be the study of our literature. Unsatisfactory too is the thought that reflection pertaining to us (be it about our history or our literature or our architecture or our religion) is more important, more worthy of pursuit, than reflection pertaining to others. On the face of it and in the absence of further discussion, the thought that philosophical reflection about religion should be limited to philosophical reflection about my religion—about any particular religion— seems both parochial and absurd. Why would an academic field limit itself in that way? What would we think if, say, psychological or anthropological reflection about religion limited itself in such a fashion? What would we think if philosophical reflection about, say, artistic expression were to focus solely on the art of one culture or continent or historical epoch?

7.1.2 Philosophy of religion and pursuit of the truth The more attractive alternative is philosophical reflection about religion that is less parochial, richer, broader, less about ourselves, and that attends to the variety of forms that religion has assumed, and even forms it could assume. In reflecting on what this broader philosophy of religion might look like, and what reasons there are for pursuing it, a good place to begin is by asking this simple question: what do philosophers of religion do? An adequate answer to this question should first mention the following: probing, articulating, interpreting, clarifying, and systematizing religious beliefs, claims, ideas, concepts, and the like. Second, it should mention spelling out and assessing arguments for and against various substantive religious positions: for and against the existence of God, for

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and against the view that we have souls, for and against various pluralistic proposals according to which many religions are equally true, and so on. With regard to matters of religious significance, much attention is paid to what is plausible, what it is reasonable to believe, what conclusions it is reasonable to come to, and so on. And these two endeavors—roughly speaking, clarifying on the one hand, and assessing arguments and substantive positions on the other—are intimately connected with each other in ways that cannot be pursued here, just as the extent to which philosophy of religion consists in the combination of these endeavors cannot be pursued. Another simple question. Why do philosophers go to all of this trouble? What are they trying to accomplish? An adequate answer to this question needs to include the observation that part of the point of the endeavor is pursuit of the truth, whether we are thinking of philosophy of religion in its clarificatory mode or in its “argument” mode—whether the aim is, say, to provide the deepest and richest account of divine omnipotence or what it is to be a person, or, say, to argue against disembodied survival of death. However, it is out of the question that philosophy (either philosophy of religion or any other area of philosophy) is a reliable method for pursuing the truth, at least in the short term. Almost everything in philosophy is contested and philosophers disagree about the most fundamental issues in their field. This certainly applies to philosophy of religion. Given the diversity of results, it seems that the mechanisms for arriving at the truth deployed in the field must be very imperfect, at least insofar as the matter of arriving at the truth in the short term is concerned. Nevertheless, the pursuit of truth in philosophy of religion is likely to go even less well—with things likely being much worse in this regard than they need to be—if entire religious alternatives are ignored in the course of philosophical reflection about religion. This is especially the case if many or most religious alternatives are ignored. Even if the mechanism is faulty, it behooves us to deploy it as best we can.

7.1.3 A broader philosophy of my religion Some Sufis have thought that the Prophet Muhammad was a perfect man and hence an ideal link between God and human beings. And this idea that the Prophet Muhammad was a perfect man has been associated with the idea of mystical union with the Prophet, which was seen by some as

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necessary for mystical union with God. The idea that all human beings are capable of perfection has also been entertained by some Sufis (for discussion of these ideas, see Hoffman 1999). There is much to understand about the evolution and historical significance of such ideas. And to understand these areas, we need the help of scholars of Islam with relevant expertise. But suppose our interest is in philosophical study of such an idea— where our concern is with, say, the deepest and most insightful way to articulate the Sufi idea of a perfect person, or with whether this idea is one that we should endorse. In this case, it might be very profitable to probe the similarities and differences between this idea and, say, the Wesleyan idea of Christian perfection or the Buddhist notion of a bodhisattva. And if our focus is on the idea of a suitable intermediary between the divine and the human, reflection about the notion of a Messiah or the notion of an avatar, for example, might be a source of insights. Such extramural reflection might help to deepen philosophical exploration of these ideas and of what is either appealing or unappealing about them. If broader work in the field will illuminate concepts, themes, beliefs, and so on, then “philosophy of my religion,” as defined in my opening paragraphs, will be unnecessarily impoverished if it pays attention only to the home tradition. This is a reason for individual philosophers of religion to ensure that the scope of their inquiries is broad.

7.1.4 A broader and more comprehensive philosophy of religion There is no reason to think that one religion’s beliefs, claims, ideas, and so on are more deserving of clarification, or in general of philosophical reflection, than those of other religions. From the point of view of the field, and how it conducts itself, it does not make sense to think that, say, the Buddhist idea of emptiness is more worthy of reflection than the Islamic concept of prophethood, or vice versa. Nor does it make sense to think that the Navajo concept of the earth as our mother is more worthy of reflection than the Christian concept of the atonement, or vice versa. The field as a whole should be on the side of inclusion and broad-ranging exploration. Moreover, in the search for what it is reasonable to believe, it makes no sense to ignore most of the religious options that currently are endorsed by large numbers of people. It may even transpire that what is currently

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a religious minority—even a religious minority that is largely ignored by the wider world, and whose ideas have had little if any philosophical reflection directed at them to date—has a conception of what is religiously ultimate that is more insightful than anything else currently on offer. But what if all or most philosophers of religion want to focus on a particular religion? Maybe their thought is that others can do for their tradition what I am doing for mine, and it’s not my job to take on their work. An individual philosopher of religion can only do so much, after all. Well, what if all or most anthropologists of religion wanted to focus on, say, Indian religions? And what if all or most reflection in the field of political science were about contemporary politics in the United States? I think we would say in all such cases that there is a serious imbalance and a need to rectify it, irrespective of the preferences of specialists in the field. Academic fields and subfields, and the directions they take, are a collective responsibility of those who engage in them, and this includes philosophy of religion. Now, if the veracity of some particular set of beliefs about matters of religious significance were clear, then there might be something to be said for making the philosophical issues associated with that particular outlook central to the field. But this is by no means the case. Moreover, given the variety of religions, the range and scope of their claims, and the sheer abundance of their concepts and ideas, a broader philosophy of religion is also bound to be more interesting than philosophical reflection that is limited to a single tradition. It is likely to receive more attention from non-specialists. And, as I will shortly explain, it is also likely to be of greater service beyond the confines of the field itself. In addition, we should also consider the following point about pedagogy. In any context in which there is a diverse student body, appropriate pedagogy in philosophy of religion requires a broad approach to religion. An exclusive focus on a particular religion will unnecessarily result in a lack of relevance to many students in a diverse classroom environment; it will exclude when there is every opportunity, and every reason, to include. What we have thus far is an invitation to consider a philosophy of religion that moves in the direction of thinking about religion in all of its variety. This is the first of three lines of thought that together add up to a case for a greatly expanded philosophy of religion.

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7.2 The Future of the Study of Religion, and the Role that Philosophy of Religion Can Play in its Future My second area of inquiry has to do with providing services to researchers in a nearby field. Here my focus is in part on how scholars of religion who are not philosophers would benefit from being better equipped to deploy philosophical tools. My main observation in this second area is, once again, a simple one, and yet it is often ignored. Philosophy can provide a set of tools that can deepen understanding of philosophical aspects of all religious traditions.1 While it is no substitute for other forms of training that are relevant to the study of religion, including historical, cultural, linguistic, anthropological, and sociological training, some philosophical training will pay rich dividends for many other areas in the study of religion. The deployment of such tools would make for deeper understanding and for more penetrating exposition and analysis. It can also save people the trouble of reinventing—or at any rate save them from imagining they are inventing— wheels that have already been invented and are already functioning, and whose operation may in fact have long been an object of study and discussion. It is a lot more convenient to draw on the available terminology and on an available repertoire of concepts, and so on, than to start from scratch and to try to develop your own. Let us consider a few randomly selected examples. Consider, say, discussions among scholars of religion about (a) how the self was conceived of in early Buddhism, or about (b) whether the term “God,” when used by Christians, and the term “Allah,” when used by Muslims, are best understood to refer to the same reality, or about (c) the extent to which a concern for justice was present in a certain religious tradition in a certain period. Such discussions are bound to benefit from exposure to

1

I take it for granted that beliefs, ideas, concepts, reasoning, and the like will continue to figure prominently among aspects of religious traditions that receive philosophical attention, though religions certainly vary in the extent to which they emphasize such elements. But I am sure there are other aspects of religion to which philosophical reflection can usefully be directed. Schilbrack (2014: Ch. 2 (“Are Religious Practices Philosophical?”)) makes some thought-provoking observations in this area. He also takes a critical, and in my view balanced and convincing, look at the work of scholars who excessively downplay the role of beliefs in religion.

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contemporary philosophical reflection about such topics—which in this case would be contemporary philosophical work on the self, on reference, and on justice, respectively. These are all areas in which philosophical reflection has become ever more sophisticated and multifaceted in the last few decades. Examples are legion. The crucial point is that religious traditions involve philosophical ideas. And when they do so, philosophical tools are helpful, nay essential, for their articulation, comprehension, analysis, and evaluation. In fact it is naïve to think that one could adequately wrestle with philosophical concepts without deploying philosophical tools when they are needed. It would be somewhat akin to thinking that a grasp of the relevant languages is unnecessary. Or to trying to do plumbing without wrenches, pliers, vice grips, and other tools of that trade. Philosophy of religion has the capacity to help with providing the necessary tools to the broader study of religion. There are other aspects to this idea that philosophy of religion can provide a set of tools (terminology, concepts, and so on) for the use of scholars of religion. I will mention two. First, scholars of religion, irrespective of their specialty, often find themselves dealing with religious traditions other than the one, or ones, in which they have expertise. They interact with scholars in such fields and encounter their scholarly work. This is unavoidable if they are in the field of religious studies, this being a multidisciplinary area of inquiry that draws together scholars from many disciplines and with many types of expertise, many distinct bodies of knowledge, and many interests. However, scholars in religious studies typically are not trained in the other traditions to which they end up being exposed, nor in the relevant concepts, beliefs, ideas, and the like. And it would not be practical for them to receive such training in the case of anything more than one or two traditions. Hence they may have little common vocabulary, little by way of tools to engage with and dissect each other’s areas of scholarship. Philosophy of religion can help to bridge the gap between fields within the study of religion by providing tools that have broad application; this can help to build mutual understanding among scholars of religion. Second, as Schilbrack (2014: 20 f.) notes, philosophy of religion can also help scholars of religion to reflect philosophically on what they do: on the idea of a religion, on the purposes of the study of religion, on whether the study of religion should be secular in its orientation, and

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so on. These are, at least in part, philosophical issues; philosophical tools will help with addressing them. So there are services that philosophers of religion, could, and should, provide to the broader study of religion. Ideally, other scholars of religion would recognize the need for these services and embrace the opportunity for enrichment of their various fields, and philosophers of religion would set out to provide what is needed. At the end of this essay I make a couple of comments about practical steps that this process might involve.

7.3 The Future of Religion, and the Role that Philosophy of Religion Can Play in its Future 7.3.1 Some assumptions My third area of inquiry is the relevance of an expanded philosophy of religion to the future of religion. Here I begin with some operating assumptions, the first of which has to do with how religiously developed we should understand ourselves to be at present. In Perceiving God, William P. Alston makes the thought-provoking observation that “[we] may be in as early a stage of religious development as physicists were in the high Middle Ages” (Alston 1991: 278). However, J. L. Schellenberg is the scholar who, to my knowledge, has probed most deeply the idea that human religious reflection may be in its infancy. Broadly speaking, I find Schellenberg’s case for our religious immaturity compelling, and I just refer the interested reader to what he has to say on this topic (see Schellenberg 2007: Ch. 3 and Schellenberg 2013: Ch. 1–4). I will assume he is right about this matter. In fact, for good measure, I will help myself to four additional operating assumptions, and these will provide much of the background scenery to the picture I sketch in this section of the chapter. First, I assume that some religious progress has been made, so that we are not entirely starting from scratch. For all we know, posterity may conclude that even by now significant progress had been made by one or more religious traditions. And we should try to build on any progress that has already been made. Since we have no way of knowing which traditions have made some progress, or are about to do so, or are well situated to do so, and so forth, this calls for everyone to adopt an

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exploratory, inquisitive, and courteous approach to others and to how they understand things. Second, there are additional reasons why this sort of attitude— exploratory, inquisitive, and courteous—is appropriate in the case of religious others and their views. In particular, many perspectives on religious matters have been endorsed by many people of integrity. By “people of integrity” I mean people who, at least in the ideal case, know a great deal, avoid exaggeration, admit ignorance when appropriate, have an interest in the truth, and are intelligent, serious, sincere, sensible, reflective, and so on. People of this caliber can be found in many religious traditions, and of course among those who endorse secular perspectives. Roughly speaking, such people are no more common in any one tradition than they are in the others, and people who approximate to this ideal are similarly distributed. At least I assume all of this is so. Views that have been endorsed by people of this caliber deserve to be approached with an exploratory, inquisitive, and courteous attitude. Third, I assume that in the future there will continue to be religious progress. Indeed, forms of religion that we are currently unable to envision may emerge. Fourth, I assume that we currently find ourselves in a religiously ambiguous situation. Briefly, what I mean by this is that the following five conditions hold:2 (1) there is a significant amount of evidence for more than one religious perspective; (2) none of the competing perspectives can be proven to be correct and the relevant evidence does not clearly favor one perspective over the others; (3) each group has its own evidence to which it can appeal; (4) the evidence as a whole is diverse in its character, multifaceted, and complicated; and (5) the relevant evidence is so abundant that a comprehensive perspective, developed by taking account of it all, is out of the question. Only a partial perspective is feasible, and the task of disambiguating the situation currently exceeds our abilities. So I have made five assumptions in total. To these I want to add the absence of an assumption. What I have in mind is that I am not assuming anything about the extent to which future religious progress will be the result of human intellectual efforts or human creativity. Such progress 2

I pursue this topic in more detail, and make a case for religious ambiguity, in McKim 2012: Ch. 7.

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might instead issue from, say, a revelatory process with respect to which human beings are relatively passive and at the receiving end. Or progress could have two sources, so that it represents the confluence of two causal streams: on the one hand, human efforts or human creativity, and, on the other hand, something along the lines of a revelatory process. But, as I say, I am not assuming anything, one way or the other, in this regard. I think all of these are reasonable assumptions—or in the last case, the reasonable absence of an assumption—that should inform future reflection about religion. And there is of course a lot more one could say about each of them. I will not exactly use these assumptions, or the additional absence of an assumption, as premises in an argument in what follows, but they partly explain why I plough certain furrows and not others.

7.3.2 Elements that may obstruct religious progress, with particular attention to the functions of religion Even if human beings have made some religious progress, this progress may have been impeded in various ways. In Chapter 3 of The Wisdom to Doubt, Schellenberg discusses what he considers to be obstacles that have impeded religious exploration. These include the brevity of human religious exploration, the fact that we have had many other things to do (Schellenberg 2007: 70), and “moral” obstacles such as self-importance or greed (Schellenberg 2007: 72, 3). There is also the fact that people are attached to their world-picture, whether it involves religious belief or religious disbelief, and are difficult to budge once settled on a position (Schellenberg 2007: 81). Even virtues such as loyalty have been obstacles (Schellenberg 2007: 76). Likewise, emotions such as jealousy, envy, and anger, as well as positive emotions such as being grateful or loving, can serve as obstacles. I think that all of these are at least potential obstacles, though it is difficult to assess the extent to which these or any other potential obstacles have actually impeded religious progress. However, I want to supplement Schellenberg’s discussion with some reflection about the functions of religion. By the “functions of religion” I mean simply the roles that religions actually play in people’s lives. Roughly speaking, Schellenberg is proposing that religious progress may have been impeded because of the way we are; I will focus on what religion is, and especially on that part of the topic of what religion is that deals with what religion does, and on how religious progress may have been obstructed by virtue of what religion does, or frequently does.

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However, I then turn matters somewhat on their head and propose that the very phenomena that may have impeded religious progress are, in other respects, necessary for religious progress. Doing so will help to clarify the extent to which, and the ways in which, philosophy of religion can contribute to religious progress. Perhaps the most obvious function of religion is the descriptive function: saying how things are, or at least trying to say how things are, in those areas in which religions purport to say how things are. And the particular question I want to ask is this: To what extent has the operation of the descriptive function been impaired by the fulfillment of various other functions? Here are some of these other functions. Religion has a behavioral function. This includes being prescriptive, or providing guidance in areas of life in which people need guidance. Thus religions endeavor to specify how people ought to live, what is important in human life, and how we ought to treat others. The religions also have a therapeutic role: they help their adherents to cope with tragedy, hardship, distress, bereavement, and disappointment, and with difficult situations of many sorts. Under this rubric we might also include, for instance, providing an outlet for expressing gratitude for good fortune and for the joys of life and making people mindful of the value of gratitude. Next, there is a legitimating function. Social and political arrangements are sometimes understood to receive legitimacy from a religious source; this can make for social stability, though it can of course also inhibit needed social reform. The religions also serve to sacralize important events such as birth, unions between the sexes, initiation into adulthood or into the religious group itself, commemoration of the lives of loved ones who are deceased, and milestones in the life of a community, such as planting season or harvest. What is sacralized is rendered less precarious, more secure, more enduring. In addition, the religious traditions provide a type of social glue that binds communities together, or, to mix metaphors, a type of lubrication for the operation of the wheels of social interaction within the group. These are some of the main functions of religion, though I am sure my list is incomplete, and there is a lot one might say about the relationships among these functions and about whether some are more important or more basic than others, for example. On the other hand, my list is uncontroversial in that it describes what is manifestly the case about how religions generally function.

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I suggest that the fact that religions have fulfilled these functions may have constituted an obstacle to religious progress. It may have made for conservatism and for excessive caution in reflection, leading people to hold tight to a familiar perspective when they should have loosened their grip or even have let go, or leading them to fail to raise questions about that perspective when those questions ought to have been raised, or to fail to embrace an unfamiliar perspective when they should have done so. There is always a lot at stake.

7.3.3 How, on the other hand, fulfilling various functions may actually facilitate religious progress Here, though, is a rather different perspective on these matters. Consider, say, the therapeutic function. At least when it is working well, this involves certain benefits being provided to people in virtue of their participation in their religion: for example, people are better equipped to cope with tragedy or suffering or bereavement. Moreover, the success of the therapeutic function will normally play a role in the religious adherent’s judgment that his tradition’s account of how things are is correct. Indeed, this truth-connectedness of the therapeutic function is part of what makes it reasonable for people to adhere to their tradition, if and when it is reasonable. That is to say, the fact that a certain perspective has therapeutic efficacy signifies to the participant that he is on the right track religiously. Therapeutic efficacy, we might say, is a sign of religious progress. Much the same reasoning applies to other functions. Thus in the behavioral area there is the question whether good guidance is provided by a religion. For example, does what participants characterize as contact with, absorption in, worship of, guidance by, or communication with a putative religious ultimate—and, in general, participation in the relevant religious tradition—actually make those participants wiser, more imaginative, kinder, more selfless, more interested in knowledge? On the other hand, does it make them less prone to bigotry, intolerance, prejudice, selfishness, ignorance, indifference, and avoidable violence? We should emphasize in particular the question whether participants are influenced by their religious participation to care for the earth. For this certainly is a most pressing problem of our era. Indeed, this issue requires special emphasis because our survival, and probably our flourishing, as a species is a prerequisite for human religious progress.

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As Schellenberg rightly observes, “the goals of religion today might indeed in some way be bound up with helping the species reach later times” (Schellenberg 2013: 86). Another important dimension to this issue is that one of the consequences of our current abuse of the earth is that we are wiping out numerous other forms of life, one or more of which, given enough time, might evolve to the point where it would enjoy its own religious insights. So this is a second respect in which our failure to care for the earth might impede religious progress. A long human future and a long period of future flourishing of life in all of its diversity may facilitate religious progress. In general, morally impressive elements such as those mentioned in this and the last paragraph can signal to a member of a religion that she is on the right track religiously. As for the legitimating function, there is the question whether a religion has conferred, and now confers, legitimacy on cruel, tyrannical, or corrupt regimes and practices, or whether it has instead provided a basis for challenging such regimes and practices. And so on for other functions. What would signify progress is not merely fulfilling the relevant functions in any old way, so that some guidance, however bad or good, is provided, some regimes and practices are legitimated or challenged, irrespective of whether they are just or unjust, and so on. There is religious progress when the function in question is fulfilled in the right way so that, for example, its members care for the earth, eschew avoidable violence, challenge abuses of power, and so on. The upshot is that while there is a respect in which religious progress might issue from religion no longer fulfilling the various functions mentioned, with the result that it would not matter in so many ways to people whether they, say, retain, abandon, or modify their religious outlook since there would be less at stake, religious progress would also suffer greatly from such an eventuality. Moreover, to focus on the part of the behavioral function that has to do with providing guidance, living in accordance with whatever guidance is provided is important for determining the caliber of that guidance: for example, for determining how wise it is and how viable it is in the long term, especially when endorsed by large numbers of people across generations. To a large extent you can tell what works ethically only by dealing with—and in the process thinking through how to respond to— a variety of situations while embracing the relevant values, ethical

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perspectives, and so on. And the same goes for the therapeutic, legitimating, and other functions of religion. Future religious developments will also have to be assessed by seeing whether, and how well, the various functions of religion are fulfilled in the lives of those who adhere to the religion in question. These are, and are likely to be, among the places where signs of progress will be found. For all its value (and its value is great), detached reflection that consists in, say, pondering evidence for and against religious claims or in abstract reflection about the value of various moral teachings, but that is not integrated into any sort of religious life, will inevitably fail to take account of large swathes of religious insight and understanding.3

7.3.4 Progress in understanding and practical progress My few remarks on the topic of religious progress indicate that we should understand religious progress to combine two very different elements. First, there is the matter of achieving a deeper understanding of the truth, of what is the case. So this is a matter of fulfilling the descriptive function of religion in the right sort of way. Second, religion that is, for example, morally inspiring is religion that has made progress. This feature will be exhibited in, for example, how effectively a religion persuades its adherents to care for the earth, to eschew avoidable violence, to be kinder, wiser, and so on. And the same goes for fulfilling all other functions in the right sort of way. What we are talking about here is how religion works when people live in accordance with it. Let’s refer to these elements, respectively, as progress in understanding and practical progress. Practical progress is important for religious progress partly because practical progress is itself a central component of religious progress. A separate line of thought is exemplified by what I have called the truth-connectedness of the therapeutic function, and to recognize this 3 My point here is not that living a religious life is necessary for understanding religion. Nor is it that leading the particular sort of religious life that is associated with a particular religious tradition is necessary for understanding that religion. On either scenario, outsiders would be hard pressed to understand insiders. Either contention may or may not be correct, though I have my doubts in both cases. My point is rather that it is possible to tell whether the various functions of religion are being fulfilled, and how well they are fulfilled in, say, the lives of those who live in accordance with a particular religion at a particular time, only by observing whether this is indeed the case. This is so whether it is an insider or an outsider who is doing the observing.

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is to give the fulfillment of this function a role in determining whether there is progress in understanding. The point is in part simply that when the therapeutic function works well, this can provide reason to believe relevant claims of the tradition that pertain to that function. And the same applies to various other functions. Thus practical progress can provide evidence of progress in understanding.4

7.3.5 Pursuing religious progress So where do we go from here? One useful step is to identify some potentially promising ways of thinking and some promising areas of inquiry. This is a project to which philosophy of religion can contribute. In setting out to identify promising areas of inquiry, we should keep in mind the assumptions introduced in Section 7.3.1—namely that we are religiously immature, that some religious progress has already occurred, that people of integrity endorse many religious perspectives, that there will be future progress, and that we live in religiously ambiguous circumstances—along with the absence of any assumptions about how future religious progress might come about. As already indicated, we should adopt an exploratory, inquisitive, and courteous approach to others and to how they understand things. Furthermore, we should recognize that we stand a better chance of achieving a deep understanding of the matters with which religions deal if we all team up together and pool our efforts, and if former religious foes become allies and fellow explorers. With all of this in mind, I will briefly list five areas of inquiry and possibilities we might pursue—most of which will already be familiar—with a view to making religious progress. THE THOUGHT OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS AS SIGNPOSTS

We might pursue the thought that some current religious ideas, or even some current religions, merely offer rough and rudimentary signposts,

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For example, a tradition says that making prayer central to your life helps people to deal with everyday problems, and it may be that people who act accordingly find that it is indeed so. Or a tradition claims to provide ethical guidance for all aspects of human life and as a matter of fact it does provide its adherents with, say, clear guidance about the importance of care for the earth. And so on. So there is reason to believe that these particular claims are correct. But we should also acknowledge that practical progress and progress in understanding could turn out to have little to do with each other. I do not mean to exclude this possibility.

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merely point in a direction it may be fruitful to investigate, so that thinking and living along the lines proposed by the tradition might yield some fruit in the long term. THE TENTATIVE APPROACH

Here there are various doxastic possibilities, such as belief that is tentative and belief that incorporates an awareness that it may need revision.5 In addition, there are various alternatives to belief such as Schellenberg’s imaginative religious faith.6 And there is a rich contemporary literature on accepting beliefs, taking beliefs on trust, and the like. PLURALISTIC OPTIONS

We might consider searching for, and exploring, new forms of pluralism. By “pluralism” in this context I simply mean the idea that many traditions provide an accurate account of what is religiously ultimate, and do so equally well, though of course a pluralist approach can be taken on all manner of other issues. INCLUSIVISTIC OPTIONS

We might consider searching for, and exploring, new forms of inclusivism. By “inclusivism” in this context I simply mean the idea that while our tradition may outscore others in terms of truth, some or all other traditions nevertheless score quite well, and we do not greatly outperform them in this respect, which means that the home religion is superior in this regard, but not overwhelmingly so. SYNCRETISTIC OPTIONS

In this area I will mention a vast area for religious experimentation. Thus we can imagine a member of a religious tradition who enters another tradition and becomes a participant in it—in its rituals and observances, for example, and in its general way of life. An outsider who participates in such a fashion in a host tradition—perhaps a Muslim who participates in this fashion in Anglicanism, or vice versa—would be in a position to have at least some access to whatever reasons insiders 5 I pursue this topic in more detail, and make a case for belief of this sort, in McKim 2001: Ch. 8 and 9. 6 See, for example, Schellenberg 2013: 101–5.

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may have for believing what they believe, and for doing what they do. He or she would be in a position to have some access to the religious experiences of insiders, assuming there are such experiences. So we have some areas of future religious exploration that might contribute to religious progress. These are areas to which it is natural to turn our attention, given the operating assumptions I have introduced. Philosophy of religion can help to identify and clarify such possible future trajectories. Probably the most important thing to say about future religious progress is that we do not know what forms it will take. What we can say, however, is that we need to proceed on two tracks. We need reflection that is somewhat detached from the inevitably confining limits within which tradition-specific reflection operates, casting its net more widely. It should also be disciplined in the sense that (a) it does not involve beliefs being carelessly acquired, maintained, or rejected, etc., and (b) it involves careful consideration of options, endeavors to be systematic, and draws on relevant academic disciplines and fields such as the academic study of religion, cosmology, and the neurosciences. Philosophy of religion is uniquely well situated to help with this project. Thus it is uniquely well situated to help in identifying, clarifying, and developing options for future religious development, such as those just mentioned. We can think of all of this as a track toward religious progress. And there is a second track. Partly because of the twofold nature of religious progress, the pioneering work in philosophy of religion that would identify and probe various promising future religious trajectories should be integrated with experimentation with living religious lives that would give expression to those possibilities. This includes the investigation of whether, and how, and especially how well, lives that give expression to various religious options fulfill the various functions of religion. In the case of the behavioral function there is, for example, investigation of whether living in accordance with any particular religious perspective makes people wiser, more concerned about others, less willing to engage in or facilitate avoidable violence, more concerned about the future of life on earth, and so on. Another reason why the pursuit of religious progress needs to incorporate this second track— which is to say that it needs to be integrated with religious life—has to do with religious experience. For the religious experiences that people have

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are likely to bear on what it is reasonable for them to believe, and indeed on what they will believe. There is, then, a dimension to religious progress with which philosophy of religion can help and another dimension with which it—like any other academic discipline—cannot, other than by emphasizing its importance, steering people in its direction, suggesting relevant new ways of thinking and viable areas of inquiry, assessing the extent to which it is occurring, and the like. No academic discipline can substitute for what is to be learned from people actually living in the grip of a religious perspective. And, just to be clear about this, the exercise that I have engaged in while considering the nature of religious progress and possible obstacles to that progress—while gesturing toward possible future trajectories—is itself an exercise in philosophy of religion. By engaging in this reflection, we exhibit the field at work in a way in which it should be at work.

7.4 Conclusion We have, then, a three-part case for philosophy of religion to expand its scope. The first has to do with philosophy of religion paying adequate attention to religion in all its variety, or, if that is too ambitious, paying attention to a vast array of religious options. The second has to do with making the tools of the philosophical trade more available to other scholars of religion. And the third has to do with contributing to the religious future of humanity. Any step that advances any one of these endeavors is worthwhile, and all the more so a step that advances more than one. And indeed these three endeavors are mutually supportive in various ways. For example, if philosophy of religion is to provide tools for the study of philosophical aspects of all religious traditions, what is needed is philosophy of religion that is less about ourselves, that casts its net widely, and that concerns itself with the variety of forms that religion has taken and can take. Likewise, philosophy of religion that casts its net widely in these respects is especially likely to contribute to future religious progress. Practical steps that would help enable philosophy of religion to assist in all three areas would be a good topic to consider next. One important question is how everyone involved might go about learning everything we need to learn to make progress in this expanded philosophy of

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religion. For example, if philosophers are to deal competently with a variety of religious traditions, they will need to delve into areas in which departments of philosophy, certainly in the English-speaking world and probably elsewhere too, currently are ill equipped to provide guidance. On the other hand, philosophical ability and some philosophical training probably should be a prerequisite for admission into all graduate programs in religious studies in which the subject matter is such that philosophical skills are necessary for its comprehension, analysis, and assessment. Perhaps we need hybrid doctoral programs that combine instruction in the relevant parts of philosophy (which actually extend far beyond philosophy of religion) with the education—historical, theological, social scientific, linguistic, etc.—that is standard in many specialties in the study of religion. To conclude, what I have proposed for consideration are some interconnected areas of inquiry in which philosophy of religion is well equipped to provide guidance. What we have before us is a vast area for future inquiry and investigation.7

References Alston, W. (1991), Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Hoffman, V. (1999), “Annihilation in the Messenger of God: The Development of a Sufi Practice,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31/3, 351–69. McKim, R. (2001), Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity (New York, NY: Oxford University Press). McKim, R. (2012), On Religious Diversity (New York, NY: Oxford University Press). Schellenberg, J. L. (2007), The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Schellenberg, J. L. (2013), Evolutionary Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Schilbrack, K. (2014), Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell).

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Thanks to Paul Draper, Bruce Rosenstock, John Schellenberg, Kevin Schilbrack, and Kristin Seemuth Whaley for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

PART II

Standpoint

8 North American Philosophers of Religion How They See their Field Wesley J. Wildman and David Rohr

8.1 Introduction In 2013, one of us (Wesley J. Wildman) established PhilosophyOfReligion.org, a clearinghouse website for information and resources related to philosophy of religion (PoR). Beginning in April 2013, Wildman, working with PhD student Nicholas C. DiDonato, invited professional philosophers of religion to write blog entries for the site on the theme of “What is PoR?” After the blog series ended in May 2015, a group of students worked with us to analyze the blogs. This group included MA student Dustin Clark, undergraduate Clarinda Blais, and the aforementioned Nicolas C. DiDonato. In this chapter we will describe the procedures we employed and share key results. The motivation for the blog series under discussion in this chapter was a number of reflective attempts to identify what should be going on in this field, ventures that have continued to multiply. These increasingly vigorous efforts have included conferences and discussion forums such as the following: • The “Philosophy of Religion in the Twenty-First Century” symposium, hosted by the Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in 2006. • Beginning around 2010, several conferences with younger philosophers on the theme of the future of PoR through Boston University’s

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Institute for the Philosophy of Religion, hosted by M. David Eckel. The most recent was in April 2015. John D. Caputo’s address on the theme of the future of continental PoR at Lebanon Valley College in October 2012. An April 2013 conference entitled “Has Philosophy of Religion a Future?” organized by Jim Kanaris at McGill University, Montreal. This conference has led to a forthcoming book on this topic to be edited by Kanaris and published by SUNY Press. A colloquium at the University of Chicago in January 2015 on the future of the PoR, led by Pamela Sue Anderson. This is one of the ripple effects of the Kanaris conference above, at which Anderson presented. The “Philosophy and Religious Studies” Google Group, which has been discussing the future of PoR, especially in connection with the academic study of religion. This has led to meetings within the American Academy of Religion, the North American Association for the Study of Religion, and the International Association for the History of Religions. Perhaps the most spectacular effort is the five-year seminar titled “Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion” beginning in 2015 at the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting. The aim of the seminar is to craft a new kind of undergraduate textbook for PoR that operates in close conversation with the academic study of religion. This effort is led by Timothy D. Knepper and Gereon Kopf, with about two dozen experts on the steering committee and among the seminar participants.

The struggle to make sense of contemporary PoR has also led to a number of books, including the following: • John L. Schellenberg (2005), Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion. • Nick Trakakis (2009), The End of Philosophy of Religion, followed by articles such as “Truth, or the Futures of Philosophy of Religion” (2013). • Wesley J. Wildman (2010), Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry: Envisioning a Future for the Philosophy of Religion, followed by articles such as “From Post-Colonial Paralysis to Post-Correctional Progress: The Future of Philosophy of Religion as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry” (forthcoming).

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• Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler (eds.) (2010), After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion. This includes a chapter by Smith (2010) in which he articulates a future for PoR in the form of non-philosophy: “What Can Be Done with Religion? Non-Philosophy and the Future of Philosophy of Religion.” • Kevin J. Schilbrack (2014b), Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto, followed by articles such as “The Future of Philosophy of Religion” (2014a). It struck us that discussions of the future of philosophy of religion might benefit from information about what working philosophers of religion actually think they are doing or should be doing—hence the current study. As far as we know, this is the first time a qualitative analysis of this kind has been attempted for the field of PoR. With 51 professional philosophers of religion participating, almost all from North America, and all well known in at least one of the circles of philosophers of religion within that part of the world, the dataset supports the construction of what we think is a fair overview of field activities, priorities, and principles within the USA and to a lesser extent Canada (we will not be drawing that distinction in the analysis). There is little basis here to assess what’s happening elsewhere in the world. Quotations in what follows are directly from the PhilosophyOfReligion.org site.

8.2 Methods At PhilosophyOfReligion.org, we maintain a database of professional philosophers of religion (not students), which numbered 562 people when we started analyzing data (the list numbers 692 at the time of writing). Our procedure for identifying philosophers of religion is to study membership lists and departmental faculty lists for people so described and to solicit nominations. In all cases, we review scholarly profiles to determine whether candidates actually function as philosophers of religion and whether they are employed by an institution of higher education as a philosopher of religion. We invited about 500 of these to contribute to the blog series on “What is PoR?” by emailing them with information about the site and

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a formal request. With 51 people submitting a blog, the response rate was 10 percent. Rather than stipulating that blog contributors supply a comprehensive answer to the question, we invited them to address the question from any angle that made sense to them. Granting respondents this wide freedom was crucial to our goal of allowing field-defining approaches, themes, and tensions to emerge naturally. Of course, this also means that not all issues of interest were addressed by all authors. Whenever authors were silent on a particular topic, we simply did not code their essay at the relevant node. In no instance have we interpreted silence on an issue as taking a stand on that issue. Is this a representative sample? In particular, can we safely generalize from our sample to the population we are seeking to describe? Our dataset affords a way to assess the representativeness of our sample by comparing distributions across key demographic and institutional categories against what we know about the field as a whole. We did not attempt to gather comprehensive demographic and institutional category information for the entire field, but we report on our sample, as follows: • Department (determined for N=51): philosophy (31), theology (8), religious studies (7), philosophy and religion (3), humanities (2) • Institution Type (determined for N=43): Research University (N=29), Four-Year College (N=13), Community College (N=1) • Institution Secularity (determined for N=50): Secular (N=31), Religious School without Statement of Faith (N=7), Religious School with Statement of Faith (N=12) • Professional Affiliation (determined for N=32): American Academy of Religion (N=8), American Philosophical Association (N=16), Society of Christian Philosophers (N=8) • Gender (determined for N=51): Male (N=41), Female (N=10) These distributions seem roughly representative to us. With appropriate caution, therefore, we do intend to generalize from our sample to the entire population of North American professional philosophers of religion. We used QSR’s NVivo qualitative analysis software (version 10) to analyze the blogs. Our team began by reading the blogs to identify prominent or recurring themes, as well as idiosyncratic ideas and atypical statements. We drafted a node hierarchy to reflect those preliminary

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findings. A node hierarchy is used both to summarize data and to tag sections of the blog entries for later analysis and retrieval. In parallel with this preliminary analysis, the team generated a list of questions to which we wanted answers, and which we hoped our dataset would address. We also gathered demographic and institutional information about our contributing philosophers available online. This established four parallel datasets, as follows: • • • •

the blog entries the node hierarchy with blog segments tagged at relevant nodes the list of research questions demographic and institutional information about contributors.

The second phase of our research method was to force all four datasets to interact as intensively as possible. We read the blog entries repeatedly, tagged additional passages, adjusted the node hierarchy when necessary, modified and expanded our list of research questions, and tracked down new types of demographic or institutional information to facilitate answering emerging questions. When the datasets stopped mutating in response to their constant and vigorous mutual interaction, we deemed the second phase complete. The third phase of our research method was to use NVivo’s built-in analytical tools to explore our datasets and to attempt to answer our questions. In this process, we discovered a few shortcomings in our datasets, and went back to add new nodes, adjust tagging, amend a question, or make demographic and institutional information more precise. With our data finally stabilized and robust analyses in hand, we passed to the final phase of our research method, which was to interpret the vast amount of information we had generated and to identify what most needs to be communicated back to the field of PoR. The hidden weakness of our method is that we ended up depending more heavily than we had expected on the efforts of two participants to build the node hierarchy and tag blog segments. This was a consequence of scheduling realities rather than an oversight. Others did make contributions but, as things turned out, one of us did the largest share of the node identification and tagging while the other made key decisions to resolve competing conceptions of the node hierarchy. The end product reflects a consensus of two (the authors of this chapter), with contributions from three other team members.

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8.3 Results We present our findings in the form of answers to questions, which is how we approached the challenge of interrogating the contributed blog entries. To begin with, however, we present the frequency distribution for words used in the blog entries in the form of a word cloud (Figure 8.1). This is a rare portrayal of the field of PoR and worth thoughtful review.

8.3.1 PoR and general v. narrow conceptions of religion Question: How many of our contributors understand PoR to be about religion as such, in all its variations—as religion is typically conceived of in religious studies—rather than about one particular religious tradition? Are there correlations between possessing this view and institutional factors such as religious affiliation, or demographic factors such as age? Figure 8.1 Word cloud displaying frequency of key words from all blog entries

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Of our 51 contributors, 24 (47 percent) expressed a clearly interpretable understanding of religion. Among this subgroup of 24 whose essays did state or imply a conception of religion, 17 philosophers conceived of religion in an inclusive way consistent with conceptions of religion in religious studies, while 7 appeared to conceive of religion in a narrower way. Representative quotes follow. General definition: I broadly define PoR as philosophical reflections on the act of religion, when religion is understood as human beings’ search for and engagement with the ultimate meaning of existence. The topics of PoR cannot be limited to the traditional ones of God, good, and evil. Comparative approaches to PoR can offer us diverse religious reactions to perennial themes of life, including suffering, violence, discrimination, and war, and this global and engaged PoR seem more timely and appropriate for the field in our time. – Jin Y. Park

Narrow definition: The PoR is my scholarly opportunity to think critically and creatively about a crucial value system motivating the lives of millions of people from monotheistic traditions. – Christine Overall The PoR is the project of thinking hard about key themes in “religion,” such as divine revelation, the soul, and God. – Adam Barkman

No demographic factors are solid predictors on this question. Neither are institution type (community college, four-year college, research university, or seminary), department type, or academic society membership. The only salient factor is the religious as opposed to secular character of the college or university where our contributors teach. While it is not possible using cross-sectional datasets of this kind to determine direction of influence, Table 8.1 shows that there is an impressive correlation. Table 8.1. Operative definition of religion by religious v. secular character of employing institution Definition of religion

Inclusive Narrow

Entire subgroup (N=24)

Religious school requiring assent to a statement of faith (N=4)

Religious school with no statement of faith (N=5)

Secular colleges or universities (N=15)

70.8% 29.2%

25% 75%

80% 20%

80% 20%

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8.3.2 PoR and philosophical theology Question: How is the relationship between PoR and philosophical theology, or any theology, understood at the present time? We classified the 22 contributors expressing a clear view on this question into three groups: • PoR and theology are defined by contrast with one another (N=10) • PoR and theology are complementary or overlapping (N=9) • PoR is identical with philosophical theology (N=3). Here are excerpts illustrating these three viewpoints. PoR and theology are defined by contrast with one another: Unlike theology, PoR need not be done from inside a particular religious tradition; the philosopher of religion need not take any text or institution to be authoritative. But unlike a scholar of religion, the philosopher of religion is most fundamentally concerned with the truth or plausibility of particular religious claims. The philosopher of religion may look at the same sources as the theologian or scholar of religion, but with different questions in mind than either, such as: what reasons, if any, do we have for taking these institutions or texts to be authoritative or reliable? Are their central claims—for instance, the Christian claim that the one God is triune, or the Buddhist claim that there are no enduring selves, but only momentary states of consciousness—internally coherent? Are they consistent with other things we might believe? – Leigh Vicens

PoR and theology are complementary or overlapping: Philosophers of religion are all those who have philosophical interests in religion. With a properly wide conception of what constitutes philosophy in general, this may very well include theologians, historians of religion (for history well done is cognizant of philosophical theorizing on its subject matter), Biblical hermeneutists, anthropologists of religion, psychologists of religion, cognitive scientists of religion—even adherents of a given religion as long as they are prone to ask critical questions about their own beliefs and practices—in addition to those philosophers of religion who lead solitary lives in philosophy departments. – Mark Gardiner A philosophical theologian may use the resources and data of philosophical reflection to aid in the articulation and defense of some religious doctrine. For example, a Christian theologian might argue, using philosophical concepts and categories, from the doctrine of Christ’s incarnation, to some other doctrine regarding the Virgin Mary. This may be preaching to the choir, but if it is a suitably philosophical choir, no rules need be broken, and some edification for religious faith may result. This means that, in my view, the line between PoR and apologetics, or the defense of articles of a particular religious faith, is not always so sharp. – Jack Mulder

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PoR is identical with philosophical theology: So what is philosophy of religion? Simply put, it is the rational attempt to purify religion of error, to make it stronger through giving it a stouter connection to truth. Philosophy is the love of wisdom, the pursuit of truth and understanding. Religion that is truthful and insightful is much better than the alternative: religion that is superficial and disconnected from reality. Hence religion that has gone through the refining fires of philosophical examination emerges polished and reinforced. – Michael S. Jones

While no other background details correlated with conceptions of this relationship, the data show a definite tendency away from identity and complementarity and toward contrast as the enveloping institutions are more secular in orientation. Table 8.2 shows the details.

8.3.3 PoR and comparative philosophy or comparative religion Question: How is comparative philosophy or comparative religion reflected in current PoR? Many of our contributors mentioned comparing religious ideas across world traditions as an important aspect of contemporary PoR. Others complained that contemporary PoR is not comparative enough and in the future ought to be more clearly defined by comparison across diverse religious traditions. Here are some representative excerpts. Much more attention needs to be paid in the PoR of today to comparative analysis of many different kinds of religious tradition. – Donald Crosby As I see it, then, the major task of PoR in our time is to become more global in its orientation, comparative in its methodology, and empirical in its inquiry into the differences between specific religions. – Nancy Frankenberry

Table 8.2. Relation between PoR and philosophical theology by religious v. secular character of employing institution Relation with theology

Contrasting Complementary Identical

Entire Religious school subgroup requiring assent to (N=22) a statement of faith (N=7) 45.5% 40.9% 13.6%

28.6% 42.9% 28.6%

Religious school with no statement of faith (N=5)

Secular colleges or universities (N=10)

40% 60% 0%

60% 30% 10%

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Demographic factors including age were not important predictors on this issue. Neither was departmental location. By contrast, the type of institution, whether the institution was religious or secular, and academic memberships all correlated strongly with whether a philosopher emphasized the importance of comparative religion (see Table 8.3). This analysis suggests that a philosopher of religion is more likely to be concerned about comparative philosophy and comparative religion if he or she teaches at a research university rather than at a four-year college or seminary; if he or she teaches at a secular school or a religious school that does not require a statement of faith rather than at a religious school that does require a statement of faith; or if he or she belongs to the American Academy of Religion rather than to the American Philosophical Association or the Society of Christian Philosophers.

8.3.4 PoR and words for Ultimate Reality Question: What words are most commonly used to refer to Ultimate Reality, or the object of theological discourse? Table 8.3. Relation between prizing comparison as a vital component of PoR and institution type, institutional secularity, and professional affiliation (note the presence of rounding errors) Grouping

All contributors (N=51)

Percentage prizing comparison 24.0%

Institution type Research university (N=29) Four-year college (N=13) Community college (N=1)

34.5% 7.7% 0.0%

Institution secularity Secular (N=31) Religious school without statement of faith (N=7) Religious school with statement of faith (N=12)

32.3% 28.6% 0%

Professional affiliation American Academy of Religion (N=8) American Philosophical Association (N=16) Society of Christian Philosophers (N=8)

37.5% 12.5% 0.0%

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The relative frequency of the words used for Ultimate Reality across all blog entries are as follows: Allah (0), Yahweh or YHWH (0), T’ian (1), Shang Di (1), Ultimate Reality (1), One (2), Trinity (3), Brahman (5), Tao or Dao (5), and God (262). The Western bias is palpable.

8.3.5 PoR engaging non-Christian traditions substantively Question: To what extent does PoR seriously engage the interests and problems of religious traditions other than Western religions? The short answer to this question is: to a very small extent. While many philosophers acknowledged that PoR is best pursued in an essentially comparative context that includes all human traditions of religious thought, only 3 out of 51 contributors mentioned issues or concerns that were fundamentally rooted in non-Western traditions, or acknowledged that the interests and concerns of other religions might be significantly different from the concerns of Western monotheisms.

8.3.6 PoR and covert Christian ideology Question: To what extent is the widespread assumption that PoR is covert Christian ideology—prevalent in religious studies departments and philosophy departments—actually borne out in the focus and interests of our philosophy of religion bloggers? Of the 51 essays we received, 5 contained passages that could be interpreted as tending toward or actually manifesting the use of the PoR as a basis for doing projects that are best described as forms of Christian theology. Here is a representative quote. Most philosophers of religion are content to examine the coherence and truth claims of their own religious tradition. This does not imply that an atheist cannot evaluate the internal coherence and truth of a particular religious tradition. However, the atheist must seek to understand the philosophical and theological development of that tradition and be fair in criticism. Philosophy of religion, then, is the application of reason and experience to test the coherence and fit with reality of the claims of particular religions. This definition includes the de facto systematic theology practiced by some contemporary analytic philosophers. – Michael Potts

Concerning these five philosophers, four teach at a four-year college (out of 13 total in the sample), while one teaches at a research university (29 total). Two teach at a religious school that requires a statement of

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faith (12 total), two teach at a religious school that does not require a statement of faith (7 total), and one teaches at a secular school (31 total). Two are members of the Society of Christian Philosophers (8 total), one is a member of the American Philosophical Association (16 total), and none are members of the American Academy of Religion (8 total).

8.3.7 PoR, feminism, and eco-justice Question: Are special interests such as feminism or eco-justice having much of an impact on PoR? Eco-justice did not even register as a theme based upon several rounds of coding. Text searches for “ecology,” “environment,” and “ecosystem” return null results. Feminist PoR was mentioned by five different authors. However, it almost always occurred in larger lists of new fields or new methods of analysis and was never discussed in depth.

8.3.8 PoR, philosophy, religion: Definitions Question: How do philosophers of religion define philosophy of religion? Religion? Philosophy? About half (24) of the philosophers who contributed essays offered explicit definitions of “philosophy of religion.” In addition, 16 contributors offered definitions of “philosophy” and 7 offered definitions of “religion.” Here are the most common definitions of all three terms, listed in order of descending popularity. Note that some sources offer more than one definition of a term. Philosophy of religion (N=24): • Theorizing about religious phenomena (8) • Definition in terms of theistic or supernatural objects of religious discourse (6) • Thinking philosophically about religious questions (5) • Analysis and evaluation of religious beliefs (4) • Definition difficult or impossible (3) • Analyzing concepts used in the study of religion (2) • Definition based upon practice of philosophers of religion (2) • Definition by examples (2)

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Philosophy (N=16): • • • • • • • • •

Disciplined thinking about big questions (6) Etymological—love of wisdom (4) Radical doubt—questioning everything (3) Listing famous definitions (1) Lifeway-orienting worldview (1) Analyzing stories (1) Systematic theorizing (1) Definition by listing philosophical projects (1) Critical reflection on practice (1)

Religion (N=7): • • • • •

Devotion to a higher power (2) Family resemblance definition (2) Relation to something ultimate (1) Listing famous definitions (1) Definition impossible (1)

8.3.9 PoR and exemplars Question: Who do philosophers of religion look up to as exemplary philosophers of religion? While many philosophers were mentioned as having made important contributions to the field of PoR, only four contributors explicitly highlighted a philosopher or group of philosophers as exemplary. Matthew Davidson—Hume and Plantinga. These philosophers are admired for the clarity and staying power of their arguments and because their work was unprecedented and transformed the entire shape of the subsequent conversation in PoR. This model presents the ideal philosopher of religion as one who carefully crafts and criticizes logical arguments. Nigel Zimmerman—Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion. Levinas and Marion are admired for their “sober hospitality” or “openness” to theology. Rather than approaching religion through abstract theories, which tend to distort the religious dimension, Levinas and Marion think about religion from the inside, amid a living, concrete commitment

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to a religious life. This model presents the ideal philosopher of religion as one is who sensitive to the existential, lived dimensions of religious life. Paul Draper—Rudolph Otto. In Otto’s words, “I went [to Erlangen] not so much to quest for truth, but more to vindicate belief. I left with the resolve to seek nothing but the truth, even at the risk of not finding it in Christ.” This model presents the ideal philosopher of religion as one whose devotion to truth is manifested in a real willingness to be corrected. Robert C. Neville—Hume, Kant, Hegel, Whitehead. The quality most prized by Neville, and shared among these four paradigmatic philosophers of religion, is the commitment to comprehensive, systematic theorizing. Neville suggests that a comprehensive philosophy is needed because so many different perspectives deserve to be included in a PoR that is adequate to the complex phenomena of human religion. An adequate PoR will include both Axial traditions that have evolved alongside world civilizations and the religious practices of indigenous huntergatherer groups; the diversity of rituals, symbols, texts, intellectual products, artwork, etc. that define each tradition; and insights about religion gathered from the natural sciences, social sciences, humanistic and aesthetic inquiries, and theological and philosophical traditions. This model presents the ideal philosopher of religion as a systematic philosopher who also theorizes about religion.

8.3.10 Tensions within PoR Question: What are the substantial tensions in the field? What arguments are offered in support of each side of these tensions? Several issues proved controversial among our participants. Some tensions occurred in explicit correspondence via the blogs and others surfaced as thematically related passages were gathered together in the node hierarchy. The substance of each tension is briefly summarized here. APOLOGETICS

One tension arising in our dataset concerns the problem of apologetics. The issue of apologetics was raised by John Schellenberg and Paul Draper. Schellenberg suggested that when dialoging with some philosophers whose work is entirely focused on arguing for the existence of God, “one knows in advance that one’s interlocutor will not relinquish or revise his basic religious position regardless of the arguments turned up

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by discussion.” Draper put forward his “paradox of apologetics”: because an apologist is primarily concerned to justify the beliefs of a religious or secular community, rather than to seek beliefs that are justified, the apologist’s inquiry is corrupted and cannot justify the beliefs they defend. Schellenberg and Draper’s comments provoked several responses. Joseph Trabbic pointed out that “seeking to justify through argument propositions that one believes” is the very lifeblood of philosophy. Simply because the propositions defended are also believed by a larger religious or secular community—which nearly all propositions worth defending in PoR will be—is not sufficient to support the charge of practicing apologetics. Nor, as Bruce Langtry pointed out, does a tenacious defense sustained over a long period against a larger majority constitute evidence that one is an apologist. As long as one deals fairly with objections and rival views, such tenacity can be an intellectual virtue. The two sides of this tension are not necessarily incompatible. Trabbic and Langtry’s comments do not negate Draper’s basic point that apologetics, by its very nature, corrupts intellectual inquiry so that such inquiry no longer tends toward the truth. Moreover, in a field such as PoR where our deepest and most cherished beliefs—whether religious or secular—are at stake, the corruption of inquiry through apologetics is a serious risk. With that said, Trabbic and Langtry’s basic question still stands: how can you be sure when you diagnose someone else as an apologist? We can all agree that apologetics in Draper and Schellenberg’s sense ought to be avoided, but we also don’t want to condone a witch hunt. Fairness requires that we judge one another’s work while relying on public, objective criteria such as logical validity and careful attention to opposing arguments. ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST GOD ’ S EXISTENCE

Another tension concerns the proper role within PoR of arguments for and against the existence of God. All contributors recognize that such arguments have been central throughout the history of Western PoR. Everyone also seems to agree that this project retains a basic legitimacy today. However, whereas some philosophers think this tradition of argumentation should continue undisturbed and remain central to the field, others see the continued emphasis upon such arguments as problematic in a globalized, comparative PoR. The former opinion was typically registered as an assumption or stated as an opinion without

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supporting argument. Among the latter group, we can distinguish two different sorts of concern. The first objection—raised by Donald Crosby, Gordon Graham, Kevin Schilbrack, and Sonia Sikka—is that the centrality of arguments for and against God’s existence is inappropriate within the comparative framework of contemporary PoR. Whether or not belief in a worldtranscending Ultimate is supported by arguments simply isn’t a central concern for many South Asian and East Asian traditions the way it is for most Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Thus, as PoR matures within its new and exciting global context, arguments for God’s existence ought to be decentered without being delegitimized. A second, more substantial objection was raised by Matheson Russell. Because human religions have generated a wide variety of conceptions of Ultimate Reality, some theistic and some not, it is important that traditional Western arguments for and against God’s existence should clearly acknowledge the limitations of their applicability to human religion, which they often do not do. Those who construct such arguments should also acknowledge distortions that may arise if they are extended to analyzing nontheistic or differently theistic conceptions of Ultimate Reality. THE ADEQUACY OF RATIONALITY

Judging from our blog contributors, the claim that rationality or reason is essential to the practice of PoR is something of a consensus opinion among philosophers of religion. Here are some representative quotes: “[PoR] is solely reliant on empirical and rational approaches” (Bernie Cantens); “PoR . . . is the application of reason and experience to test the coherence and fit with reality of the claims of particular religions” (Michael Potts); “reason and rationality, properly exercised, make for progress” (David Baggett); “philosophy [pursues its goal of fundamental understanding] by means of sheer thought and the criticism of thought alone” (John Schellenberg). Without denying the essential role of reason in PoR, several contributors also insisted that reason alone is not sufficient for the tasks of PoR. Merold Westphal challenges the assumption that reason provides a “neutral, presuppositionless nowhere” from which to pursue PoR. Classic Enlightenment thinkers such as Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel all appealed to “universal” reason as their norm, but “their theories are mutually incompatible, quite particular, and conditioned by discoverable cultural

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traditions.” By implication, contemporary philosophers of religion continue to appeal to reason while different presuppositions, attitudes, goals, and other background influences lead them toward contradictory conclusions. Robert Neville challenges the adequacy of reason alone when reason is narrowly restricted to logical analysis. Philosophers in the analytic tradition employ supposedly neutral reason to analyze religious topics, but in doing so “they presuppose more comprehensive philosophical and religious commitments without a means to get there by the traditions of analytic thought.” Neville seems to agree with Westphal that if background presuppositions are making a difference in the inquiry we should try to take responsibility for them, rather than abstracting them away in the name of logical precision. Perhaps more to Neville’s main point, rationality includes the risky, creative, and constructive process of hypothesis formation as much as it includes deductive explication and inductive testing. Without the constructive moment there would be nothing to explicate or test. RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE AND MEANING

Finally, our analysis surfaced a vigorous disagreement concerning whether meaning can be restricted to propositions or whether other mediums of representation are meaningful and importantly different from propositions. Different answers to this question have enormous implications concerning what philosophers of religion should be doing with their time. On one side of this disagreement, philosophers like Hermann Deuser, Mark Gardiner, Ronald A. Kuipers, Felix Ó Murchadha, and Donald Crosby highlight the vast diversity of modes of representation that, at least for religious people, seem to be meaningful: architecture, icons, images, koans, metaphors, music, myths, narratives, parables, poetry, prose, rituals, songs, stories, symbols, etc. Given this wild variety of representations, the attempt to restrict meaning to propositions appears to be a reductive betrayal of the task of PoR, as conceived by these thinkers. In Kuipers’s words, “There is a very real sense in which the intellectual practice of philosophical analysis denatures ordinary language use, and it is the latter that philosophers of religion are attempting to understand . . . it is imperative that philosophers of religion heed the Wittgensteinian call to go ‘back to the rough ground’ of the variety of

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religious language uses one finds intertwined in different religious practices and traditions today.” Though she is surely not alone within the wider field, Nancy Frankenberry was the only contributor who offered a robust statement of the opposing view. Appealing to the work of Gottlob Frege and Donald Davidson, Frankenberry claims that “only sentences have meaning.” She states that in order to “interpret myths and other propositional utterances, no new semantics or translation maneuver is needed other than what we know about natural languages”; that “[s]ymbol, metaphor, poetry, and lie are all parasitic on literal meaning”; and that “there is no such thing as ‘symbolic meaning.’ ” Furthermore, “symbolic and metaphorical utterances [have] to do with use or force (rather like adding italics or underscoring). As such, they are ‘patently false,’ as Davidson says.” If Frankenberry is correct about all this, it would certainly simplify the task of the philosopher of religion. Nevertheless, it is important when analyzing religion to distinguish sentence meaning in Frankenberry’s sense from other kinds of existential significance for which the word “meaning” is commonly used, even in philosophy. The existential significance of a poem may not be translatable into sentence meaning without loss. Similarly, when interpreting an act of prayer within an architecturally simple yet overwhelmingly vast mosque, it helps to distinguish between the sentence meaning and the existential significance that is added by the architectural context.

8.3.11 Programmatic visions for the future of PoR While many contributors made suggestions for what PoR should become, four offered programmatic visions for a renewed PoR. Gordon Graham suggests that PoR should aim to develop “a philosophical understanding of religion as a human phenomen[on].” Crucial to this program is showing how religion arises out of and is connected with human nature, including our capacities for “thought, emotion, action, imagination, and will.” Ideally, the resulting conception of religion would have a normative dimension, allowing one to distinguish between “true religion” on the one hand and idolatry or superstition on the other. Graham Oppy proposes that PoR host a vast and intricate evaluation of competing worldviews. This evaluation would proceed in three stages: (1) faithful articulation of the key components of competing worldviews; (2) determination of whether each worldview is internally consistent; and

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(3) evaluation of worldviews based upon theoretical virtues such as fit with empirical data, simplicity, explanatory scope, predictive accuracy, etc. Kevin Schilbrack casts a vision of PoR as a global philosophical inquiry within which the central concerns of all major religious traditions receive balanced attention, religious practices are emphasized as much as religious ideas and texts, and inquiry is also self-reflexively focused upon the concepts scholars use to study religion. Robert C. Neville imagines PoR as the attempt to understand human religious phenomena on the basis of comprehensive philosophical systems. Only a comprehensive philosophical system will be able to include without reductive distortion insights about religion gathered from the natural sciences, the social sciences, humanistic and aesthetic inquiries, and theological and philosophical traditions. Moreover, such a comprehensive philosophy will be capable of justifying the norms and methods of analysis that are used to judge between what is authentic and illusory in religious thinking and practice.

8.4 Conclusion Our study demonstrates that contemporary PoR is a complex field with a major fault line. On one side of the fault line dwell philosophers who write as if the field is especially about theistic or Christian theological beliefs. They work predominantly in religious institutions requiring faculty to sign statements of faith and tend to belong to the Society of Christian Philosophers or the American Philosophical Association. On the other side of the fault line stand philosophers who write as if the field is about religion as such, at least in principle, if only occasionally in practice. They work predominantly in secular universities or religious institutions with no requirements concerning statements of faith, and they tend to belong to the American Academy of Religion. This pattern manifested itself in several key analyses and, interestingly, was a far better predictor of PoR commitments than departmental location or any other factor. This dominant fault line is surrounded by web-like fractures, and there are fascinating individual exceptions to the trend, so the overall picture remains complex. But this fault line appears to support the informal characterizations of PoR that we hear, including from professors in religious studies and philosophy departments who do not want to hire a philosopher of religion because they believe they will get a covert apologist

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for Christianity, or at least for theism, who is incapable of achieving anything remotely like the objectivity for which philosophers and specialists in religious studies strive. This is neither an accurate generalization nor a fair judgment about PoR as a whole. Regardless of fairness or accuracy, the expectation of intellectual bias certainly impacts positions available in PoR. (Note: the marginalization of PoR in many research universities, including especially its declining presence in both religious studies departments and philosophy departments, is a conclusion based on both hearsay evidence and an unpublished longitudinal analysis of job postings in philosophy of religion one of us conducted some years ago.) We find Christian or theistic (or other religious or non-religious) bias distressing. For this reason, we think the Society of Christian Philosophers sets an excellent example of truth in advertising. The jobavailability problem could be mitigated if hiring schools understood the difference between Christian philosophy or analytical theology (which is also dominantly Christian), on the one hand, and PoR as philosophical inquiry into human religion in general, including all the diverse religious phenomena documented within the academic study of religion as well as the religious possibilities that may be realized in the future, on the other. Understanding the difference would allow departments to define positions the way they must in order to attract and identify the people they want to hire. What are future directions for this project? We will continue to delve into the rich dataset we have produced. In September 2015 we inaugurated a new blog series on the question “What can philosophy of religion contribute to the modern university?” and expect to report on this fascinating theme within a year or so. We are also pondering a third blog series on “What counts as excellent philosophy of religion?” because we would like to know what criteria, norms, or values philosophers use to determine the relative excellence, significance, or worth of their work and the work of others. Thus, we expect to shed further light on this fascinating field of research in the years to come.

References Schellenberg, J. L. (2005), Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Schilbrack, K. J. (2014a), “The Future of Philosophy of Religion,” Sophia 53/3, 383–8.

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Schilbrack, K. J. (2014b), Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell). Smith, A. P. (2010), “What Can Be Done with Religion? Non-Philosophy and the Future of Philosophy of Religion,” in A. P. Smith and D. Whistler (eds.), After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing), 280–98. Smith, A. P., and Whistler, D., eds. (2010), After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing). Trakakis, N. (2009), The End of Philosophy of Religion (London and New York: Continuum). Trakakis, N. (2013), “Truth, or the Futures of Philosophy of Religion,” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 74/5, 366–90. Wildman, W. J. (2010), Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry: Envisioning a Future for the Philosophy of Religion (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Wildman, W. J. (forthcoming), “From Post-Colonial Paralysis to PostCorrectional Progress: The Future of Philosophy of Religion as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry,” forthcoming in J. Kanaris (ed.), Reconfiguring Philosophy of Religion: A Possible Future? (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), Ch. 12.

9 Continental Philosophy of Religion in a Kenotic Tone J. Aaron Simmons

9.1 Introduction Although I “rightly pass” as a continental philosopher of religion, I almost never self-identify as such and I cringe when others label me this way.1 I am firmly convinced of the philosophical value of the continental archive upon which I draw, and I think that failing to take this archive seriously is detrimental to the task of truth-seeking. Yet I hesitate to accept the seemingly appropriate moniker of “continental philosopher of religion.” Although the descriptor continental is helpful for indicating the primary texts and methodologies operative in one’s work, as currently conceived it is often dangerous when it comes to the way we (1) engage with the work of others (e.g., often considering analytic work to be irrelevant to our own) and (2) even understand our own professional identity (e.g., as defined against some other tradition). Though calls for overcoming the “divide” between continental and analytic philosophy are frequently heard and often well intentioned, I have resisted calling for such a strategy. Instead I have proposed an alternative way of relating to the resources available for philosophers of religion, regardless of one’s orientation and background. Terming this alternative “Mashup Philosophy of Religion” (see Simmons 2015), I contend that we do not need to abandon our identities as “continental” 1

Here I am appropriating Jacques Derrida’s phrasing when he famously claimed “I rightly pass for an atheist.”

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or “analytic,” for those identities shape how we do the work that we do and the questions that matter to us while doing it. Instead what is needed is boldness not in the Christian sense suggested by Alvin Plantinga (1984), but in the philosophical sense of opening ourselves to instruction and correction wherever it might be found, rather than isolating ourselves in communities of discourse where our assumptions can go unchecked and our conclusions remain uncontroversial. In line with Mashup Philosophy of Religion, a kenotic tone is required in continental philosophy of religion in order to facilitate a future of philosophical significance, rather than one of self-protective insularity. In this chapter, I will gesture toward a “renewal” of continental philosophy of religion by arguing that what is needed is a metaphorical “dying to self.” In particular, I will suggest that such self-denial should occur in three areas: confession, insularity, and arrogance. By dying to itself in these ways, continental philosophy of religion will be more likely to stand as an example of how philosophy can be personal without being confessional, hospitable without being self-erasing, and humble without being irrelevant.

9.2 On Ends and Endings Renewal is not an intrinsic good. It is necessary only in those cases where the status quo is problematic. As the present volume illustrates, beliefs about the problems with the status quo in philosophy of religion are widespread. Similarly exhibiting a frustration with the status quo, and perhaps as a lingering effect of Y2K and the continued popularity of doomsday reality shows, recent philosophy of religion has been increasingly concerned with the “end” of things—especially the end of its own discourse. In The End of Philosophy of Religion, Nick Trakakis claims that “philosophy has brought about its own demise” (2009: 1). For Trakakis, philosophy of religion needs to turn to methodologies and styles that “achieve greater philosophical insight than what is usually offered in the purely academic and highly professionalized settings of contemporary philosophy” (2009: 2). “Clearly,” Trakakis concludes, “new ways of reading and writing philosophy of religion are urgently required” (2009: 2). Similarly, in The Ends of Philosophy of Religion Timothy Knepper (2013) offers a call for an end to philosophy of religion, not because it is overly technical and objective, but because it is not objective enough.

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Indeed, for Knepper, the operative bias in philosophy of religion makes it unreflective regarding its focus on “a philosophically rarefied Christianity” (2013: 10). Urging an expansive consideration of the world’s religious traditions, Knepper encourages a comparative and critical approach that incorporates nontheistic traditions so that philosophy of religion has “something to offer to the academic study of religion” (2013: 23). Although Aristotle and Heidegger might both be right that you can understand things only in relation to their end/death, it is important not to be too tempted to declare, in the spirit of Nietzsche’s Madman, that doing philosophy of religion today is ultimately to be an undertaker for a deceased discipline, or merely to visit the grave of a dead God.2 Indeed, some of the excitement in declaring things dead is that you get to announce a new way of living. Trakakis and Knepper do just that, albeit in different ways. Despite such aims at renewal, however, dangers loom large. Specifically, by declaring the “end of philosophy of religion,” even if mainly for rhetorical effect, an oppositional and antagonistic tone can be fostered that undermines the “ends” toward which declarations of the “end of philosophy of religion” ultimately aim. When I say that continental philosophy of religion needs to die in order to live, I am not interested in grand claims about the end of continental philosophy of religion. Instead my intention is to offer a possible vision of what it would look like for continental philosophy of religion to flourish in contemporary philosophy. Such flourishing, I believe, requires a good bit of self-denial—but in the name of renewal. This might, indeed, be a bitter pill to swallow, but as philosophers we should expect more of ourselves than we do of children who require bubblegum flavor to be added to their medicine.

9.3 Personal, but Not Confessional I confess that I have problems with confessional philosophy of religion— if by “confessional” we mean assuming as given one’s religious commitments and the evidentiary authority structures that attend to them. As I have argued elsewhere (Simmons 2014a), the danger of such confessional starting points is not that they are non-philosophical (ultimately 2

For an alternative interpretation, see Benson 2008.

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we all start from somewhere), but that deploying them in contemporary philosophical discourse presents more problems than it addresses. How, then, can philosophy of religion gain the existential traction that Trakakis calls for while still avoiding the problematic confessionalism that underlies Knepper’s concerns? In other words, how might philosophy of religion be personal while preventing the potentially cloistering effects of confessional thinking? Merold Westphal’s 1973 essay, “Prolegomena to Any Future Philosophy of Religion That Will Be Able to Come Forth as Prophecy,” offers an especially promising model (see Westphal 1973; all subsequent references will be to the essay as reprinted in Westphal 1991). Westphal offers a vision of “prophetic” philosophy of religion that is characterized as “personal, untimely, political, and eschatological” (1991: 12). Prophetic speech is “personal,” he explains, in the sense that, “unlike scientific discourse, it comes in the mode of direct address” (1991: 12). Westphal notes that when it comes to philosophy displaying such a personal tone, “the author is not a transcendental ego, nor his reader a nonparticipating spectator” (1991: 13). Thus the philosopher of religion can take as her model “someone other than the scientist,” for whom objectivity and universality are hallmarks of legitimate inquiry (Westphal 1991: 11). Westphal’s reason for advocating such personal philosophy of religion is deeply phenomenological. Namely, it is possible that “religion” and “religious phenomena” are necessarily matters of subjectivity (whether or not they are simply subjective) and, thus, might present problems for “objective” analysis. If so, then the register in which philosophy of religion primarily occurs would perhaps need to be shifted. Such a shift is not motivated by prior religious convictions, however, but by a philosophical interest in the phenomena being considered. Importantly, I take it that Westphal’s point is not that religious phenomena cannot be investigated through objective means, but that such objectivist methodologies might already delimit what can be understood to be true about the phenomena themselves. So, drawing on John Searle’s distinction between ontological and epistemological senses of objectivity/subjectivity (Searle 2008: esp. Ch. 9), we might say that for Westphal, although religious phenomena might be epistemologically available for objective analysis, such analysis itself may not be adequate to the ontologically subjective dimension of such phenomena. As C. S. Lewis suggests in a very Kierkegaardian vein, it might be that a subjective relation is part of what allows religious phenomena to be constituted as

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such (Lewis 1960: Ch. 2). So, rather than erecting a wall between an investigation and its object, the phenomenologist will likely simply respond that objective inquiry is not itself without limits when it comes to some phenomena (e.g., ethics, religion, love, trust, etc.). In other words, the eyeglasses that one wears might change what one is able to see. An objectivist approach modeled by the scientist is likely to yield important knowledge about the phenomena under consideration, but, in some cases, it may also necessarily miss some aspects that could be understood otherwise (in Westphal’s case, by a prophet, or for Kierkegaard, by a lover, or for Lewis, by a committed religious individual, say). Importantly, whether “religious” phenomena are somehow distinctive in this regard is a matter of active debate within phenomenology, but Westphal gives good reasons to think that, even if not unique, such phenomena are likely to be among the best contenders for illustrating the potential subjective ontological limits to objective epistemological inquiry. Westphal admits that engaging in personal philosophy of religion will likely raise concerns that we have simply moved over into philosophical theology (he does term this model “prophetic,” after all). As he explains, “this personal character of prophetic speech accounts for the tendency of prophetic argument to be ad hominem” (Westphal 1991: 13). What Westphal terms “ad hominem,” might be less charitably referred to as communitarian foot-stomping. If he is indeed suggesting that philosophy operate in this way, then we should be quite wary. However, this is not what he has to be read as doing. I think that, fundamentally, Westphal is simply illustrating the basic Kierkegaardian insight that objectivity is always already someone’s. As a postmodern philosopher well versed in hermeneutic phenomenology, Westphal understands that we are always in communities in which assumptions are authorized in one way or another. Regardless of where Westphal himself comes down on the issue, as philosophers, and contra Plantinga, we should be answerable primarily to the philosophical community. Positively, this means that philosophers should try to appeal to evidence available in principle (though perhaps not always in practice) to all members of the philosophical community and strive to operate according to the general standards of argumentation, linguistic expression, and investigatory focus that are operative within that community. One might object that this outlook is strikingly

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conservative and ends up reinforcing the status quo, rather than allowing for substantive critique, which, itself, might be viewed as a hallmark of philosophical discourse. In response, we might rightly keep in mind Richard Rorty’s distinction between a reformer and a revolutionary as helpfully appropriated regarding professional practice. As I see it, to be located within a community (and its history, culture, and standards) is, so far as is possible, to affirm reformist activity as the goal for one’s discourse, rather than revolutionary activity that seeks to replace one discourse with another. The former is a way of making one’s community better; the latter is a matter of simply leaving one’s community altogether. The hope, then, is not to replace philosophy with something else, but ever to make philosophy better oriented toward the love of wisdom in the search for truth. Sometimes this goal does require significant alteration of existing trends and accepted practices, but usually it comes in quite modest forms and occurs very slowly as the influence of a particular text, thinker, or movement gains traction over the course of many years. And even in cases when revolutionary alteration might, in the end, decidedly be required, it should be motivated by the appreciation of the community’s failures in light of where it has been and where it aims to go. The point, though, is simply that the relevant community to which we belong as philosophers is itself philosophical—if it were not, then the identity of “we philosophers” would not be stable enough even to critique in the first place. Crucially, however, such a realization about being answerable to the philosophical community does not ignore the fact that philosophers remain existing individuals and so find themselves with potentially divided loyalties in different areas of their life. As Westphal (1991) suggests, when philosophers consider notions such as God, faith, trust, transcendence, revelation, ritual, etc., they/we should attend to the fact that they/we are not detached spectators, but located participants in the communities in which such phenomena might occur, be interpreted, and challenged. So, in this sense, I am not advocating that philosophers should phenomenologically or argumentatively “bracket” their religious identity in the name of methodological atheism, say. Instead philosophers just need to be diligent about the way that such religious identity is situated in relation to philosophical inquiry. The soundness of an argument does not depend on whether I am a Christian or not, but the plausibility of my living according to its

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conclusions might. Further, how to understand the various notions under consideration in philosophy of religion depends on who is deploying them as meaningful. Here, Knepper’s suggestion that philosophers of religion should be more attentive to work going on in religious studies seems right to me.3 For example, “God” does not function as an obvious concept—being a theist in one sense will likely mean that you are an atheist in another sense. Allowing philosophy of religion to be personal means that we can attend to the specificity of discursive context as well as the reasons why, as philosophers and existing individuals with unique histories, we find one context more compelling or vibrant than another. Ignoring such context and plural identities risks making “religion” into something that really is simply a “philosophically rarefied” notion, as Knepper worries, rather than the historically dynamic (we might even say “living”) phenomena that philosophers of religion claim to be considering.4 Moreover, philosophy of religion should be personal in order to avoid the assumption that religious meaning is primarily something constructed by scholars.5 For many philosophers of religion, this realization is what licenses confessional philosophy (e.g., one might claim that “we all start from somewhere so I am ‘within my epistemic rights’ to start with my religious convictions”). Although this is one possible way to go, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. Surely I can identify with a particular community without, thereby, allowing the assumptions of that community to operate as immediate evidence in my professional life. So, as a philosopher, I am able to relate differently to my Christian commitments

3

See also Schilbrack 2014. Importantly, it is possible that a philosopher of religion could be concerned about the domain of the “religious,” or the “spiritual,” say, while finding reason to be suspicious or even critical of all historically articulated “religions.” It might seem that such a philosopher would have no interest in the work of religious studies on the historical religions, but she would likely still benefit from engaging the work of critical theories of religion when it comes to thinking about the very category of “religion” itself, now expanded beyond the historical expressions of determinate communities. In this case, though, it is still important that such philosophy be personal in relation to that philosopher’s specific attempt to rethink “the religious” beyond historical religion, regardless of the specific philosophical tradition in which such rethinking occurs—i.e., deconstructive, process, analytic, pragmatic, etc. 5 For this reason, philosophers of religion would do well to be more acquainted with the debates occurring in critical theory of religion. For an example of what such engagement might involve, see Simmons 2017. For instructive texts in critical theory of religion, see Smith 1982, McCutcheon 1997, Fitzgerald 2000, and Martin 2014. 4

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than I would while participating in an ecclesial setting on a Sunday morning, say. In my case, such reorientation is not made in the effort to be philosophically objective (though it might be for some, given their own complex and overlapping identities), but primarily in the effort to recognize that such religious commitments are not able, as such, to be assumed as reliable sources of data for all philosophers. The difference between personal and confessional is that the former is a recognition of existential location and the lived subjectivities that occupy such location, whereas the latter is a prima facie assumption about evidential authorities. As philosophers, the only confession that should be operationally assumed is one that expresses allegiance to philosophical discourse and the standards operative therein. These philosophical standards do not attest to some sort of disciplinary essentialism, but rather to the contingent status of contemporary philosophy in light of the history of philosophy itself. We can move forward only from where we find ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that where we are necessarily dictates where we must go.

9.4 Confessionalism in Continental Philosophy Potential problems with confessional philosophy are fairly easy to see in analytic philosophy of religion—especially in “Christian philosophy.” In fact, Alvin Plantinga (2011) recently noted that due to its widespread influence and impact, a danger faced by contemporary Christian philosophy is “triumphalism.” Additionally, the prominence of “analytic theology” in recent years also legitimately raises concerns that Christian philosophy is perhaps a not-too-thinly veiled practice of (nearly exclusively) Christian theology, and even a very specific variety thereof—rarely are Orthodox, Pentecostal, or Liberationist voices prominent in the philosophical literature.6

6 My concerns about analytic theology here would not find traction were this movement no longer viewed as philosophy of religion at all, but straightforwardly understood simply as theology. Yet there are other reasons to worry that such a theological designation, although appropriate when it comes to the confessionalism occurring therein, is problematic regarding the academic training of the philosophers primarily engaging in such practice. In other words, analytic theology may not be philosophy, but it also might be ill-informed theology, depending on who it is that engages in it. See Crisp and Rea 2009.

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Such confessional tendencies, and the accompanying dangers, are more difficult to identify within continental philosophy of religion. This is, no doubt, due to a variety of factors, but two are especially important. Historically, the confessional tendencies of continental philosophy are more difficult to see because instead of Plantinga’s “Advice,” one finds Heidegger’s warnings about “onto-theology” and the ontic status of theological questioning. The prohibition on confessionalism can be further understood in light of Nietzsche’s proclamation of the “death of God” and Derrida’s call for a “religion without religion.” Hermeneutically, the confessional tendencies are largely hidden because significant portions of continental philosophy are already engaged deeply with unmasking unacknowledged commitments/confessions occurring in discourse. Despite being harder to find, however, confessional dimensions are ultimately just as prominent in continental philosophy of religion as in analytic philosophy of religion—they just usually take on different formulations. In particular, they usually occur primarily either as a rejection of the implicit ontology that underlies classical theism in the attempt to remain open to a deeper expression of the divine, or as a materialist dismissal of religion as a holdover from modernity. Instead of starting from assumed truths of biblical revelation, as does much analytic Christian philosophy, large portions of continental philosophy of religion begin with the assumption that classical theism is false because it is assumed to conflict with the postmodern commitments of the participants in the debates.7 In such a situation, a new orthodoxy seems to emerge in light of the death of God, rather than in the wake of Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology, for example. As such, whereas there is often a kataphatic (positive) confessional framework in much analytic philosophy of religion, there is often an apophatic (negative) confessional framework operative in much continental philosophy of religion (see Simmons 2012). Whether kataphatic or apophatic, these orthodoxies are both theologically laden. Accordingly, even though I disagree with the assessment, I was not surprised when a former colleague suggested that “continental philosophy is just Catholicism for atheists” (Simmons 2008: Ch. 8).

7

Though such conflict is quite contestable. See Simmons and Minister 2012.

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Occasionally, the theological realities of continental philosophy are explicitly acknowledged—as when John Caputo (2006) titled a book The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event. Of course, there is no problem with the idea of continental theology. When there is no clear way to distinguish between this theology and continental philosophy of religion, however, it can seem like the one is simply assumed to be the right way of doing the other. For example, the recent book entitled The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion (Crockett, Putt, and Robbins 2014) features essays by well-known continental philosophers and well-known continental theologians, but it is unclear how to navigate the distinction between the two when they are all equal participants in articulating the future of philosophy of religion. Importantly, I do not intend to endorse a strict conception of what Nicholas Wolterstorff (2009) terms “philosophical public reason.” I instead merely want to encourage the benefits of bounded (even if porous) historically situated disciplinary communities of discourse. Ironically, some who lament the “theologization of philosophy,” as seems to occur in the work of thinkers such as Caputo, often do so by reinforcing the very sort of (a)theological orthodoxy that they stringently oppose. Consider, for example, the recent volume After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion. In the introduction, Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler claim that “If anything defines the last decade of Continental philosophy of religion, it is the theologisation of philosophy” (2010: 2). It might seem that Smith and Whistler mean to challenge confessional philosophy in similar ways as I am here, but it quickly becomes clear that this is not the case. They offer a mode of philosophizing that seems entirely to reject the possible truth of determinate religious belief, identity, and conviction. The result is not a version of philosophy of religion that avoids the dangers of confessional assumptions, but instead a version that denies the possibility of the truth of religion. If we take philosophy of religion, in some general sense, to be the philosophical investigation into religious truth, then to start by rejecting the possibility of such truth is not to make the discourse sophisticated, but instead simply to make it self-referentially incoherent. If we are not careful, opposing the “theologization of philosophy” can quickly end up eliminating the possibility of philosophy of religion itself. Shifting from confessional philosophy to personal philosophy allows

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philosophers to minimize such closure by keeping open the possibility for truth that may not fit with one’s own preferred account. Avoiding confessional philosophy does not mean rejecting the possible truth of determinate religion. To close off the possibility of such religious truth is to be every bit as confessional, and theological, as analytic Christian philosophy—but in the opposite direction. Unlike Smith and Whistler, I contend that philosophy and theology ought not to be confused with each other not because theology is a “contamination” of some sort of objective discourse, as someone like Dominique Janicaud (2000) at least seems to contend (indeed, all postmodernists should balk at appeals to such purity), but instead because philosophy and theology are individual discourses reflecting different professional communities.8 That does not mean they are not likely to overlap and intersect in numerous ways. Indeed, nothing is gained from drawing hard lines of demarcation between the communities, but it is beneficial, nonetheless, to understand them as oriented in relation to different disciplinary “centers,” as it were. Here I am drawing upon the notion developed in prototype theory that there is some model of what it looks like to be an exemplar for a radial category (see Sanders 2016). Thus, the category of “bird” might have as its prototypical center something like a robin, such that all other possible contenders for membership in that category are judged relative to some degree of proximity to that exemplary case. Importantly, these centers could be articulated differently such that rather than a robin being the prototypical center for the category of “bird,” an ostrich is, etc. Accordingly, what one takes to be the center will likely adjust what one then considers to “count” as part of the category itself. In the case of the communities/categories of philosophy and theology, the “center” is likely to be understood variously—as a representative person (Kant as opposed to Karl Barth, say), as a set of basic commitments (the importance of logic as opposed to the importance of ecclesial relevance, for example), as a set of disciplinary values (dialogical openness and hermeneutic charity, etc.), or as a particular assumed archive regarding the most “important” texts in the history of that community, and so on.

8

I have developed this point elsewhere: see Simmons 2014b. See also Simmons 2008: Ch. 7.

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The benefits of such a radial understanding of community identity are twofold. First, it enables criticism because there is a quasi-stable conception of what something is (in this case, philosophy). Namely, criticism of x requires that x be articulated such that it is even available for challenge, whether from within the community or from outside it. Second, this conception of identity does not draw a hard line of distinction, but it does allow for different identities to be understood in relation to each other while also allowing blurry cases to exist. In such instances, a thinker might be located such that she is seemingly oriented toward two different centers, depending on what specific aspects one considers as definitive (so, in philosophy, one might provide examples of such thinkers as Kierkegaard, Emerson, and Simone Weil). Rather than being a problem, the possibility for critique and blurry cases appropriately reflects the messiness of historical community identity and the complexities of individual lives. In light of this conception of disciplinary communities, to suppose— as Smith and Whistler seem to do—that theology threatens the secular identity of philosophy of religion is already to start too far down the theological road. Yet, for Smith and Whistler, this secular identity simply is the right, Deleuzean road for philosophy of religion. As they explain, the vision that they allow to “structure” their volume is guided by the fact that “Deleuze stresses the modernity, the secularity, and the speculative intent of philosophy of religion” (Smith and Whistler 2010: 6). Confessional theological orthodoxies, then, tend to operate in continental philosophy of religion in two distinct directions. On the one hand, there are those who talk a lot about God and theology (usually those working in hermeneutic/deconstructive phenomenology), but who assume that God has to be deconstructed and reconceived as beyond, without, or otherwise than being. On the other hand, there are those who want to decontaminate philosophy of its theological infection (usually those working broadly in critical theory), but who, in so doing, assume a very specific set of claims that has a bearing on all inquiry into religion. The problem with both of these alternatives is that they close down the particular sort of openness that should characterize the disciplinary center in relation to which philosophical reflection is located. Ironically, it is a commitment to such openness that should motivate resistance to confessional philosophy in the first place.

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Perhaps classical theism is true. Why not? Suppose that nontheistic Buddhism is true. What follows? Is atheism the best model for human meaning? These are all legitimate questions in philosophy of religion (whether continental or not). Unfortunately, too much of analytic philosophy of religion starts by assuming the truth of classical theism and too much of continental philosophy starts by either assuming the falsity of such theism, or simply reframing the discussion of religion altogether such that “God-talk” is already situated internal to a very particular version of postmodern materialism. In response, one might object that the “new phenomenology” that I often defend as especially productive for contemporary philosophy actually displays the worst sort of confessional tendencies. For example, one might suggest that Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Louis Chrétien, and Michel Henry certainly talk a lot not only about God, but specifically about Christianity, in seemingly confessional ways. In fact, it is because of such God-talk that Smith and Whistler can even point to “theologization” in the first place—and they are not alone in doing so.9 However, as Bruce Ellis Benson and I have argued, except for in a few specific instances, the work of such thinkers remains solidly phenomenological/philosophical insofar as they are inquiring into the possibility of phenomena that would speak to the truth of religion—and in this sense genuinely be immediately religious phenomena, instead of simply phenomena that have been historically labeled as religious—rather than assuming the actuality of such phenomena (Simmons and Benson 2013).10 Investigation into the stakes that would accompany such phenomena is legitimately to engage in conditional argumentation. In fact, if analytic Christian philosophy were reconceived as primarily a matter of rigorously but conditionally investigating the possible implications of Christian truth, then it seems that it too would avoid the problems I have highlighted. Deconstructionism, phenomenology, speculative realism, critical theory, and many other strains in continental philosophy all offer important resources for thinking about religion, God, faith, identity, and related

9 Perhaps the most famous account is Dominique Janicaud’s “The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology” (2000). 10 See also Paul Ricoeur’s account of the importance of the stakes of the “immediacy” of religious phenomena as such (Ricoeur 2000).

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notions. Yet they are all particular houses within the larger philosophical neighborhood. Personal philosophy of religion is existentially relevant while acknowledging that there are alternative possibilities for making sense of existence. Alternatively, confessional philosophy of religion might not violate some philosophical essence, but it can close down philosophy to things that might be true. Declaring that false things are false is a crucial part of philosophical inquiry, but starting by taking some viable contenders for truth off the table is not.

9.5 Dying to Live: On Hospitality and Humility Kevin Schilbrack (2014: Ch. 1) suggests that philosophy of religion (whether continental or analytic) too often displays the characteristics of being narrow (almost always concerned with theism), intellectualist (focused on belief to the exclusion of practice), and insular (largely unengaged with the work occurring in other disciplines). Schilbrack’s account is helpful for orienting any “renewal” of philosophy of religion. Indirectly, I have already addressed the problem of narrowness in regard to confessional assumptions, but now I will consider how the danger of insularity takes on a particular form in continental philosophy of religion. Continental philosophy of religion frequently works across disciplines in productive ways. For example, when Clayton Crockett, B. Keith Putt, and Jeffrey Robbins outline what they take to be promising for the future of continental philosophy of religion, they ask: “In what ways do the burgeoning discourses on speculative realism, the new materialism, and the new findings in the neurosciences and evolutionary psychology open new pathways for thought?” (2014: 2). Even though this question appears to invite much to celebrate in the future, notice that analytic philosophy of religion is not mentioned among the possible interlocutors. Now, this could be because analytic philosophy of religion is not a “bourgeoning discourse,” or because they are explicitly looking beyond philosophy in order to be maximally open to unexpected developments. Both of these explanations are plausible, but nowhere in the introduction to their influential volume is there any development of the idea that engagement with non-continental philosophy of religion is worthwhile. As such, even though they stress that a variety of “different futures are appearing on the horizon,” apparently none of them are defined by hospitality to analytic philosophy of religion. This fact is deeply problematic because it makes it

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seem as if ignoring analytic philosophy is a legitimate practice for continental philosophers of religion. Ironically, though, as Crockett, Putt, and Robbins recognize, continental philosophy of religion has been guided by an “ethics of radical alterity” (2014: 2). Yet this ethics endorses the idea that we should be maximally motivated by hospitality to alternative ideas, perspectives, and methodologies. Importantly, since I take the “ethics of radical alterity” ultimately to be quite close in content to the notion of a hermeneutics of charity, a notion that is widespread in analytic discourse, dialogical hospitality is something that should characterize all philosophy as part of its discursive “center.” Thus continental thought is not somehow uniquely committed to the need for openness to diverse views, if those views are well motivated by argument. Continental philosophers of religion, therefore, should welcome the possible contributions of neuroscience, new materialism, speculative realism, etc. But, as philosophers, such a welcome should be offered only so long as the evidence cuts in favor of it. It might turn out that new materialism is not as promising as initially thought, or that speculative realism does not yield the results that were expected. It is problematic, though, to emphasize radical alterity and yet to offer welcome only to those who already agree with you about the mode, and assumed content, of inquiry. That said, when we first welcome others already living within the philosophical neighborhood, it becomes easier for the neighborhood to rally together to be welcoming to those from other disciplinary homelands. It might be that analytic philosophy of religion doesn’t add much to the philosophical study of religion, but this can only be a conclusion to an argument about legitimate interlocutors, not an assumed premise to one. In light of its own ethics of radical alterity, continental philosophy should renew itself by dying to the idea that it is the only way, or even obviously the best way, to do philosophy of religion. Such hospitality cannot be self-erasing, however. This is why, contra Trakakis and Knepper, I do not want analytic philosophers to become continental philosophers or professors of religious studies. Assuming methodological or stylistic hegemony is just as dangerous to philosophy as is a possible assumption of objective purity on the one hand, and confessionalism on the other. Even if the variety of objectivist and confessionalist views are likely to be much more nuanced than critics recognize, such that potential straw man presentations loom large, it is still important to recognize the

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possible tendencies reflected in such presentations as worth avoiding. Allowing continental philosophy of religion to be continental and analytic philosophy of religion to be analytic, while counting both as legitimate ways of doing philosophy of religion, is key if the individual discourses are not simply to become more concerned with selfprotection than with truth-seeking. Again, I have termed this approach— which is mutually affirming, rather than mutually exclusive—Mashup Philosophy of Religion. Displaying discursive hospitality within disciplinary commonality requires significant humility. Welcoming the Other is potentially vicious if it is simply a means of transforming the Other into another version of oneself. The risk of hospitality is that the Other might end up transforming you. A renewed continental philosophy of religion should display humility in order to interrupt its own privilege. In the attempt to demonstrate how religious texts can serve as non-confessional resources for philosophy of religion, let me suggest that a promising slogan for a renewed continental philosophy of religion can be found in the Book of John: “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3: 30, NIV).11 This basic orientation of humility is what enables philosophy to avoid communitarian foot-stomping while celebrating personal investment in the task of inquiry. Crucially, humility should never lead to irrelevance such that one is so humble that there is ultimately nothing being claimed. Confidence is not a threat to humility; arrogance is. Truth is not a threat to openness; unwarranted certainty is. Being confident because the argument supports where one stands is not a problem; being closed to the possibility of defeaters is. In the attempt to find a label for the sort of renewed continental philosophy of religion that would be a vibrant participant in a future Mashup Philosophy of Religion, let’s non-confessionally appropriate another biblical passage: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and

11

Citations from the Bible in this chapter are taken from the New International Version (NIV) and the King James Bible (KJB).

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became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place. (Philippians 2: 5–9, NIV)

This is Paul’s instruction to Christians on how to live, but it also serves as a helpful model for philosophical practice. The claim that God “made himself nothing” is the notion of kenosis (self-emptying/humbling). This kenotic conception of God does not define Jesus as authoritatively lording over those who are lesser, but presents him as maximally divine when “taking the very nature of a servant.” As a result of this act, Jesus is not erased, but “exalted.” Translating this into a philosophical framework, we might say that those philosophers of religion who are maximally open to other views, perspectives, and methodologies, when they are presented with the requisite philosophical rigor and sensitivity (again, the philosophical center should hold in order that it can even be challenged)—even to the point of dying to themselves—are those who are most likely to live into truth. I understand this idea to reflect the phenomenological notion that we should be open to that which appears in whatever mode it might take. Exaltation comes as a result of humility because the point is not about making sure that one or one’s house is empowered, but rather that one and one’s house are oriented toward what is best for the neighborhood. A renewed kenotic tone in continental philosophy of religion should not bring about the end of continental philosophy of religion. Instead it should signal that continental philosophy of religion is not concerned about reinforcing its own significance, but instead is significant because it offers important resources for thinking philosophically, but also personally, hospitably, and humbly, about religion.

9.6 Conclusion: The Constant Task of Renewal In this chapter, I have attempted to outline one possible vision for the renewal of continental philosophy of religion. I have argued that such renewal requires that the narrowly confessional orthodoxies and insular self-protection of contemporary continental philosophy of religion die out and be replaced by a kenotic tone. Only by dying in this way can we continental philosophers of religion really begin to live. Otherwise, we may indeed continue to exist, though not by propping each other up in

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order to move beyond the bucket in which we find ourselves, but by pulling each other back down so that our bucket remains full. Importantly, renewal is not something that happens once and for all. Considerations of the ends of discourses are important (though dangerous) because they remind us that ends and beginnings go together, and this all happens contingently. To conclude, then, where I began: I cringe when I am described as a continental philosopher of religion, not because I am not one, but because that description can choke the life from continental philosophy of religion itself. By adopting a kenotic tone, I believe that continental philosophy of religion will not only have life, but “have it more abundantly” (John 10: 10, KJB).

References Benson, B. E. (2008), Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press). Caputo, J. D. (2006), The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press). Crisp, O. D., and Rea, M. C. (eds.) (2009), Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press). Crockett, C., Putt, K. B., and Robbins, J. W. (2014), “Introduction: Back to the Future,” in C. Crockett, K. B. Putt, and J. W. Robbins (eds.), The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press), 1–33. Fitzgerald, T. (2000), The Ideology of Religious Studies (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press). Janicaud, D. (2000), “The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology,” in B. G. Prusak (trans), D. Janicaud et al. (eds.), Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn” (New York: Fordham University Press), 16–103. Knepper, T. D. (2013), The Ends of Philosophy of Religion: Terminus and Telos (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Lewis, C. S. (1960), The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (Orlando, FL: Harcourt). Martin, C. (2014), A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion (London and New York: Routledge). McCutcheon, R. T. (1997), Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press). Plantinga, A. (1984), “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” Faith and Philosophy 1, 25–71.

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Plantinga, A. (2011), “Reply to Nick Wolterstorff,” Faith and Philosophy 28/3, 267–8. Ricoeur, P. (2000), “Experience and Language in Religious Discourse,” in B. G. Prusak (trans.), D. Janicaud et al. (eds.), Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn” (New York: Fordham University Press), 127–46. Sanders, J. (2016), Theology in the Flesh: How Embodiment and Culture Shape the Way We Think about Truth, Morality, and God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress). Schilbrack, K. (2014), Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell). Searle, J. R. (2008), Philosophy in a New Century: Selected Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Simmons, J. A. (2008), God and the Other: Ethics and Politics after the Theological Turn (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press). Simmons, J. A. (2012), “Postmodern Kataphaticism: A Constructive Proposal,” Analecta Hermeneutica 4, 1–19. Simmons, J. A. (2014a), “The Strategies of Christian Philosophy,” lecture presented at the Society of Christian Philosophers Midwest Regional Meeting (Trinity Christian College) accessed January 7, 2016. Simmons, J. A. (2014b), “On Shared Hopes for (Mashup) Philosophy of Religion,” Heythrop Journal 55/4, 691–710. Simmons, J. A. (2015), “Introduction: The Dialogical Promise of Mashup Philosophy of Religion,” J. A. Simmons (ed.), Mashup Philosophy of Religion, special issue of Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 14/2, 204–10. Simmons, J. A. (2017), “Vagueness and its Virtues: A Proposal for Renewing Philosophy of Religion,” in R. Amesbury and M. Rogers (eds.), Philosophy of Religion after Religion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck). Simmons, J. A., and Benson, B. E. (2013), The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction (London: Bloomsbury). Simmons J. A., and Minister, S. (eds.) (2012), Reexamining Deconstruction and Determinate Religion (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press). Smith A. P., and Whistler, D. (2010), “What Is Continental Philosophy of Religion Now?” in A. P. Smith and D. Whistler (eds.), After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing), 1–24. Smith, J. Z. (1982), Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). Trakakis, N. (2009), The End of Philosophy of Religion (London: Continuum). Westphal, M. (1973), “Prolegomena to Any Future Philosophy of Religion That Will Be Able to Come Forth as Prophecy,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4/3, 129–50.

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Westphal, M. (1991), Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press). Wolterstorff, N. (2009), “How Philosophical Theology Became Possible within the Analytic Tradition in Philosophy,” in O. D. Crisp and M. C. Rea (eds.), Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press), 155–68.

10 Rationality and Worldview Graham Oppy

Many people hold that their own views about religion are uniquely rational and uniquely supported by cogent arguments. That is, many people hold that, whereas their own views about religion are both rational and supported by cogent arguments, the views of those who disagree with them are neither rational nor supported by cogent arguments. (Here, and throughout, I presuppose an ‘internalist’ understanding of rationality: my target is those who suppose that the views of those who disagree with them are neither supported by cogent arguments nor rational in an ‘internalist’ sense.) Some people may suppose that it could hardly be otherwise: given that I am bound to suppose that my own views are true, and that the views of those who disagree with me are false, I am also bound to suppose that the views of those who disagree with me are neither rational nor supported by cogent arguments. However, this view—that we are bound to suppose that the views of those who disagree with us are neither rational nor supported by cogent arguments—is surely mistaken. What we believe depends upon the circumstances of our lives in ways that frequently defeat straightforward attributions of irrationality and absence of support by cogent arguments. (For example, we all operate with no more than partial information, and we all rely upon what we take to be expert testimony, even though we all know that much expert testimony is mistaken.) Moreover, for all, or at least almost all, of us, we need only attend seriously to what is said by reflective, intelligent, well-informed people who do not share our views about religion in order to see that our own religious beliefs are not uniquely privileged with respect to either rationality or support from cogent arguments.

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What goes for people in general goes for philosophers of religion in particular. Many philosophers of religion hold that their own views are uniquely privileged when it comes to rationality and support from cogent arguments. But, as for the case of people in general, this is a transparent manifestation of cognitive prejudice, or myside bias, or the like. Or so it seems to me. In this chapter, I aim to bring out the implausibility of the claim that there is a class of philosophers of religion—holders of a particular constellation of beliefs about religion—whose religious beliefs are either uniquely rational or uniquely supported by a stock of cogent arguments. My initial focus will be on models of parties to religious disagreements. These models may be simple, but I believe that there is much to be learned from them.

10.1 Two-Person Disagreement I start with a simple case of two-person disagreement. Suppose that A and B disagree about p: one of them believes that p, and the other believes that not p. Suppose, further, that there are many independent propositions that are relevant to p, i.e. many independent propositions that have argumentative bearing on p, or that have evidential bearing on p, or the like. Suppose, finally, that among propositions that are relevant to p, A and B agree on the {pi}—for each i, either they both believe pi, or they both believe not-pi—and disagree on the {qj}—for each j, one of them believes qj and the other believes not-qj. We shall say that the pAworldview is all of the propositions that A believes that are relevant to p, and that the pB-worldview is all of the propositions that B believes that are relevant to p. One thing that A and B can do—given their disagreement about p—is to chart their opinions about other propositions that are relevant to p. In our simple model, let’s suppose that A and B identify that they agree on the {pi} and disagree on the {qj}: the {pi} are on the conversational scoreboard as agreed items—‘evidence’—but the {qj} are not. In our simple model, in articulating their disagreement A and B also articulate their p-worldviews: the full extent of the disagreement between A and B about p is given by the differences between the pA-worldview and the pB-worldview. Given a full articulation of their p-worldviews,

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we can then ask: which worldview—the pA-worldview or the pB-worldview—is better? In comparing the pA-worldview with the pB-worldview, there are two relevant kinds of considerations. On the one hand, there are ‘internal’ considerations about (‘formal’) consistency and (‘analytic’) coherence. If one of the p-worldviews is inconsistent or incoherent, and the other is not, then—in our simple model—that is sufficient to establish that the latter p-worldview is better than the former. On the other hand, assuming that the p-worldviews are not separated by ‘internal’ considerations, there are ‘comparative’ considerations about ‘theoretical virtue’. If one p-worldview is more theoretically virtuous than the other, then that p-worldview is better than the other. Suppose that the outcome of comparison of the pA-worldview with the pB-worldview is that the pA-worldview is better. What follows for B? Clearly not that B must change her mind about p. After all, there are enormously many hitherto unexamined p-worldviews that may be better than the pA-worldview, but which share B’s view about p. At most, what follows for B is that, since A currently has a better p-worldview, she has a reason to move to a different p-worldview; but—as just noted—that may well be one in which her view about p remains unchanged. Of course, in order for there to be an agreed outcome of comparison of the pA-worldview with the pB-worldview, in the case in which both p-worldviews survive ‘internal’ scrutiny, it must be that A and B agree on a list of theoretical virtues, and agree on a means of weighing those listed theoretical virtues in order to determine which p-worldview is more theoretically virtuous. While there may be some grounds for optimism about securing agreement on a list of theoretical virtues—most philosophers agree that virtuous theories find an optimal balance between minimizing theoretical commitments and maximizing explanatory depth—it may well be that there will be agreement about the weighing of theoretical virtue only in very special cases, e.g. those in which one p-worldview bests a second with respect to each theoretical virtue. In our simple model, there are serious bounds on the ability of A and B to resolve their difference about whether p using discussion and argument. Prior to detailed examination, it is unclear that we have any reason to rule that it cannot be that the pA-worldview and the pB-worldview are both consistent and coherent, and that we are unable to determine that one of these worldviews is more theoretically virtuous

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than the other. That is, there is clearly nothing in our set-up that prevents A and B from being on a par when it comes to both rationality and support by cogent arguments. Of course, our model involves simplifying assumptions. Perhaps it may turn out, when we probe some of those simplifying assumptions, that further constraints will force us to back down from the suggestion that A and B can be on a par when it comes to both rationality and support by cogent arguments.

10.2 Lack of Opinion The most obviously unrealistic assumption in the simple model is that we have supposed that A and B have definite opinions about all of the propositions that are relevant to p. Among propositions that are relevant to p, there are propositions {pi}—such that, for each i, either A and B both believe pi or A and B both believe not-pi—and {qj}—such that either A believes qj and B believes not-qj, or A believes not-qj and B believes qj. But, in real cases, there may also be propositions rk for which one of the following conditions obtains: (a) A believes rk and B suspends judgement about rk (or vice versa) (b) A believes rk and B has never considered rk (or vice versa) (c) A believes rk and B does not even possess the concepts required to frame rk (or vice versa) (d) A suspends judgement about rk and B has never considered rk (or vice versa) (e) A suspends judgement about rk and B does not even possess the concepts required to frame rk (or vice versa) ( f ) A has never considered rk and B does not even possess the concepts required to frame rk (or vice versa) (g) A and B both suspend judgement on rk (h) Neither A nor B has considered rk ( i ) Neither A nor B possesses the concepts required to frame rk Where there is suspension of judgement about p-related propositions, there is suspension of judgement between alternative p-worldviews. We can use a small modification to our simple model to illustrate the considerations that arise. Suppose that everything is as it was before, except that there is one proposition r that A believes and on which

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B suspends judgement. While A has the pA-worldview, B is undecided between the (p&r)B-worldview and the (p¬-r)B-worldview. There are various possibilities when it comes to evaluation. If the pA-worldview is better than both the (p&r)B-worldview and the (p¬-r)B-worldview, then B needs to change her worldview with respect to propositions other than r. If the pA-worldview is better than just one of the (p&r)B-worldview and the (p¬-r)B-worldview, but is merely not worse than the other, then while A has no reason to revise, B has reason to revise, perhaps to whichever of the (p&r)B-worldview and the (p¬-r)B-worldview is not worse than the pA-worldview. If the pA-worldview is better than just one of the (p&r)B-worldview and the (p¬-r)B-worldview, but worse than the other, then both A and B have reason to revise their p-worldviews, with B perhaps having reason to settle on whichever of the (p&r)B-worldview and the (p¬-r)B-worldview is better than the pA-worldview. If none of the pA-worldview, the (p&r)B-worldview, and the (p¬-r)B-worldview is better than the others, then either neither A nor B has reason to revise (if ‘draws’ are not reasons for revision), or both A and B have reason to revise (if draws are reasons for revision). And if both the (p&r)B-worldview and the (p¬-r)B-worldview are better than the pA-worldview, then, while B has no reason to revise, A clearly has reason to revise his p-worldview. Obviously, if there is suspension of judgement about more propositions— and on both sides—then there is greater complexity, but the same kinds of principles will apply. Adding suspension of judgement to the mix does not rein in the bounds of the ability of A and B to resolve their differences about p using discussion and argument. Where there is a proposition that has not previously been taken into account, matters are more interesting. Again, we can use a small modification to our simple model to illustrate the considerations that arise. Suppose that everything is as it was initially, except that there is one proposition s that A believes and that B has not previously considered. While A still has the pA-worldview, B’s consideration of s must lead B either to adopt a pB’-worldview that includes s or a pB’’-worldview that includes not-s, or to suspension of judgement between a pB’-worldview that includes s and a pB’’-worldview that includes not-s. Depending upon exactly what B does, the pattern of agreement and disagreement between A and B on p-related propositions may be different in one or more of the following ways: (1) B and A now agree on s; (2) B and A now disagree on s (perhaps because B suspends judgement on s); (3) B and A now agree on p;

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(4) B and A now disagree on some—or all—of the {pi} on which they previously agreed; (5) B and A now agree on some—or all—of the {qj} on which they previously disagreed. Of course, if A and B do not now agree on p, then we are back to the case with which we began, and exactly the same considerations apply. Moreover, as before, it is clear that there are serious bounds on the ability of A and B to resolve their difference about whether p using discussion and argument. If B has not yet taken a prelated proposition s into account, A’s drawing B’s attention to s will give B some work to do. But drawing B’s attention to s won’t give B reason to change her view about p that is not also reason for A to change his view about p if there is—and B is aware that there is—either a pB’-worldview that includes s, or a pB’’-worldview that includes not-s that is at least as theoretically virtuous as the pA-worldview. Where there is lack of concepts required for framing p-related propositions, the discussion follows the same direction as the discussion of the case in which there are propositions that have not been taken into account. This is hardly surprising, given that lack of concepts required for framing p-related propositions can explain why those p-related propositions have not been taken into account. If A believes s, and B lacks the concepts required to frame s, then B has some work to do: to start with, B must acquire the concepts required to frame s. But, once B has acquired those concepts, then B is in a position to consider whether s—and we are back to the case that we discussed in the previous paragraph. While it is true that it is an unrealistic assumption of the simple model that A and B both have definite opinions about all of the propositions that are relevant to p, the making of that unrealistic assumption does not impugn the claim that, in disagreeing about p, A and B can be equal, or at least on a par, when it comes to both rationality and support by cogent arguments.

10.3 Deference to Experts A second obviously unrealistic assumption in our simple model is that it fails to explicitly factor in ways in which A and B might appeal to expert opinion in the course of their argument and discussion. Suppose that, while A and B disagree about p, they both recognize that neither of them is a p-expert, where p-experts are people who are experts when it comes to the assessment of p. Given that A and B both recognize

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that neither of them is a p-expert, it seems that A and B ought to recognize that neither of them is well placed to evaluate considerations that bear on p. If A bases his p-opinion on advice from one set of experts, and B bases her opinion on advice from a dissenting set of experts, then— if anything—we have even more reason to suppose that A and B can be on a par when it comes to both rationality and support by cogent arguments. After all, A and B both recognize that there are considerations, of which they have neither knowledge nor understanding, that play into expert assessment of whether p. Even if A presents to B a consideration that, for all B can tell, is a decisive consideration in favour of A’s view on p, A and B ought both to reflect that p-experts who reject A’s view on p have a response that, for all A can tell, is a decisive response to that consideration. This consideration about expertise is just the tip of a very large iceberg. It is obvious that, for some proposition p, there is no one who is an expert with respect to all of the p-related propositions that are relevant to p. Indeed, more strongly, it is obvious that, for a great many propositions, there is no one who is an expert with respect to all of the other propositions that are relevant to any chosen one of those propositions. Moreover, it is hardly any less obvious that, for a great many widely canvassed, important propositions, there is no one who is an expert with respect to all of the other widely canvassed propositions that are broadly accepted to be relevant to any chosen one of those important propositions. Experts with respect to a proposition p are, often enough, not experts with respect to some of the propositions that are relevant to p. Perhaps the key point here is that, when we form our opinions, we very rarely form them on the basis of a careful weighing of all of the relevant considerations, or even all of the relevant considerations that have hitherto received some attention from some people. Given this point about the formation of our opinions—and given that we are aware of this point about the formation of our opinions—it is clear that there will be many cases in which we have good reason to doubt that our own views are either uniquely rational or uniquely supported by cogent arguments.

10.4 Best Theories Even if it is granted that, on the basis of modelling of two-person disagreement, it seems plausible that everyone is going to have good

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reason to doubt that some of his or her own beliefs are either uniquely rational or uniquely supported by cogent arguments (and, in particular, that everyone is going to have good reason to doubt that his or her own religious beliefs are either uniquely rational or uniquely supported by cogent arguments), it might be suggested that we should not be looking to the case of two-person disagreement in seeking verdicts about which claims are ‘rational’ and which claims are ‘supported by cogent arguments’. After all, the two-person case is idiosyncratic: each person has his or her own cognitive limitations that influence what he or she believes. Perhaps, instead, we should turn to collective examination of best theories on the subject matters that are of interest to us. How should we collectively investigate the best theories that are relevant to an assessment of a proposition p? Here is a plausible—albeit highly idealized—procedure. First, identify all of the propositions that are relevant to p. Second, construct all of the ‘largest’ theories that contain nothing but claims that are relevant to p. Third, identify the most theoretically virtuous ‘largest’ theories that contain p. If there is just one such theory, then the best view about p is given by that theory. If there are many equally most theoretically virtuous theories that contain p, and they all give the same verdict about p, then the best view about p is given by the verdict of those theories. If there are many equally most theoretically virtuous theories that contain p, but they do not give the same verdict about p, then there is no collective verdict concerning the best view about p. If, for any theory, there is a more theoretically virtuous theory, but there is a point beyond which all of the best theoretically virtuous theories agree about p, then that is plausibly the best view about p. If, instead, it is merely the case that the frequency of occurrence of one view about p approaches unity as we consider only better and better theories, then—though perhaps more contentiously—that is plausibly the best view about p. If, to take another possibility, all views about p are present with roughly equal frequency as we consider only better and better theories, then there is plausibly no collective verdict concerning the best view about p. And perhaps there are other possible outcomes that have not been canvassed here. Of course, this idealized account cannot be implemented in practice. Indeed, not one of the steps in this idealized account is realizable. In practice, we cannot identify all of the propositions that are relevant to p. (First, we lack the concepts required to frame some of those propositions.

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Second, even though we have the relevant concepts, some of those propositions are too complicated for us to grasp. Third, there are too many propositions for us—even collectively—to entertain them all, and that is likely true even if we (somehow) need attend only to a bunch of suitably independent propositions. And, fourth, there are cases where we are unable to determine whether a proposition is relevant to p—because of considerations about concept possession, or complexity, or processing speed, or the like.) In practice, in consequence, we cannot construct any—let alone all—of the ‘largest’ theories that contain nothing but claims relevant to p. In practice, in consequence, we cannot identify the most theoretically virtuous ‘largest’ theories that contain p. (Even if we could construct all such theories, the task of assessing them for consistency, and the task of comparing the theoretical virtues of the consistent theories among them, would each be impossible for us to carry out.) Does the mean that the idealization is useless? No. There are scaleddown versions of this project that are worth pursuing. If we are interested in determining which is the best among currently held theories about p, we can collectively engage in the following project. (1) Articulate, to an appropriate level of detail, the major, actually endorsed theories about p—i.e. collections of claims that are relevant to p. Make sure that, when we do this articulation, we articulate all major, endorsed theories to the same level of detail, and with the same level of respect for what the best of those who endorse those theories say. (2) Check—with the same degree of thoroughness for each theory—whether any of the theories is inconsistent or incoherent. Note that, because the articulation of the theories is an ongoing project, and because there are theoretical difficulties associated with demonstrating consistency, the checking for consistency and coherence is also an ongoing project. (3) Compare the theoretical virtues of those major, endorsed theories that have not been shown to fail tests for consistency or coherence. At any point at which we make a comparative test of this kind, we may discover that one major, endorsed theory is at least pro tem theoretically superior to the other major, endorsed theories. The most obvious point to make about this worthwhile, albeit scaled-down, version of the collective project of worldview examination is that contemporary philosophy of religion comes nowhere near fulfilling this project for a wide range of religious claims that are both

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(a) seriously disputed and (b) such that there are numerous other claims that bear on them. The most obvious failure comes at the first stage. Most philosophers of religion who make claims for unique rationality and unique support from cogent argumentation do so solely on the basis of considerations about their own p-worldviews. While they spend considerable attention to the elaboration of their own p-worldviews, they give little or no attention to the elaboration of competing p-worldviews. But it is obviously impossible to provide reasons for supposing that your own p-worldview is uniquely rational and uniquely supported by cogent arguments unless you pay serious attention to competing p-worldviews. Your claim that competing p-worldviews are inconsistent deserves to go on the philosophical scoreboard only if you derive inconsistencies from sets of claims that all belong to the best competing p-worldviews. And your claim that best competing p-worldviews are less theoretically virtuous than your own p-worldview deserves to go on the philosophical scoreboard only if you have done the detailed work involved in comparing the theoretical virtues of your own p-worldview with the theoretical virtues of best competing p-worldviews. There is also often failure at the second stage. Many philosophers of religion suppose that they can demonstrate the unique rationality of their own p-worldview, or that they can provide cogent argumentative support for their own p-worldview, by deriving the claim that p from a bunch of other claims that belong to their own p-worldview. But, obviously enough, deriving the claim that p from a bunch of claims that belong to a best p-worldview does nothing at all towards showing that other p-worldviews are inconsistent or incoherent, unless all of the premises involved in the derivation belong to those other p-worldviews. In order for a derivation to be worthy of a place on the philosophical scoreboard, that derivation must be—or must genuinely appear to be—a reductio of a p-worldview that is claimed to be a best p-worldview by philosophers whose opinions deserve to be taken seriously. And there is also often failure at the third stage. Many philosophers of religion suppose that they can demonstrate the unique rationality of their own p-worldview, or that they can provide cogent argumentative support for their own p-worldview, by making claims about the theoretical virtues of their own p-worldview. But, obviously enough, non-comparative claims about the theoretical virtues of a single p-worldview do nothing at

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all towards establishing that that p-worldview is more theoretically virtuous than competing p-worldviews. For example, the claim that a particular p-worldview exhibits a high degree of explanatory depth— even if defensible—tells us nothing about how that p-worldview compares to other best p-worldviews; in particular, it brings nothing to the debate about whether other p-worldviews achieve a more virtuous tradeoff between explanatory depth and theoretical commitment. Reflection on suitably scaled-down versions of collective p-worldview examination, in the light of contemporary practice in philosophy of religion, does not promise to bear out claims about possession of views about religion that are uniquely rational and uniquely supported by cogent arguments. Indeed, on the contrary, reflection on suitably scaled-down versions of collective p-worldview examination, in the light of contemporary practice in philosophy of religion, promises rather to deliver reasons for doubting that there are contested p-worldviews in philosophy of religion that are uniquely rational and uniquely supported by cogent arguments.

10.5 Pushing Things Forwards Currently popular views about the state of philosophy of religion include (a) the triumphalist view—common among some kinds of Christian theists—that philosophy of religion is currently booming, in a way that it hasn’t done for centuries, and (b) the jaundiced view—common among some kinds of naturalist philosophers—that philosophy of religion is in terminal decline and not worthy of a place in the academy. On the triumphalist side, there are Christian theists who suppose that recent advances in philosophy of religion provide them with powerful reasons for thinking that their views are uniquely rational and uniquely supported by cogent arguments. On the jaundiced side, there are naturalists who suppose that it has long been established—largely, or perhaps even entirely, beyond the bounds of philosophy of religion—that their views are uniquely rational and uniquely supported by cogent arguments. While there are various defects that are common to both of these positions, the main point that I want to emphasize here is that proponents of both of these positions make a very poor fist of contributing to the scaled-down collective project that I sketched in the previous section of this chapter. On both sides, those partialists who suppose that their views

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are uniquely rational and uniquely supported by cogent arguments typically (a) operate with ‘straw man’ conceptions of opposing worldviews; (b) suppose that arguments from premises that their opponents reject vindicate their views, while opponents’ arguments from premises that the partialists reject are simply to be dismissed as ‘question-begging’; and (c) suppose that observations of the theoretical virtues of their own views vindicate those views while their opponents’ observations about the theoretical virtues of those opponents’ views are simply to be dismissed on the grounds that they are ‘outweighed elsewhere’. It’s London to a brick that if someone says ‘opposing worldviews are just silent on this matter’, they have made no serious accounting of the best things that proponents of competing worldviews have said on the matter, and they have made no serious attempt to work out the best things that proponents of competing worldviews can say on the matter. It’s London to a brick that if someone says that a major opposition worldview—‘Christianity’, or ‘theism’, or ‘naturalism’—is shown to be inconsistent by a logically valid derivation, many—or most, or even all— of the reflective, intelligent, well-informed proponents of that worldview already reject one or more of the claims that are used to generate the contradiction. It’s London to a brick that if someone says that his worldview is demonstrably more theoretically virtuous than competing worldviews, then the demonstration in question makes no serious attempt to assess the theoretical virtues of competing worldviews. And it’s not far short of London to a brick that he doesn’t even get as far as setting up straw man competitors to the touted worldview. In the unlikely event that you agree with my assessment of the current state of philosophy of religion, you might wonder whether there is any serious prospect of improvement. There are clearly grounds for pessimism. Many of the partialists whom I have been considering are evangelists: what they would most like is to bring people to share their worldview. Of course, the motives vary: some want people to share in the repudiation of all religions, because all religions are the roots of serious moral evils; others want people to receive the good news, because receipt of the good news is a requisite for eternal life. But, however the motives vary, they do not conduce to serious engagement in the scaled-down collective project that I sketched in the previous section of this chapter. Matters may be even worse than I have just suggested. What the scaled-down collective project that I sketched in the previous section

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really requires of individual investigators is a kind of imaginative engagement with other worldviews, i.e. with competing worldviews of other people. Imaginative engagement with views other than one’s own is hard at the best of times, but it is particularly hard if your own worldview encourages you to respond to competing worldviews with disgust, revulsion, contempt, or the like. Although this is not currently the case, it seems to me that we should particularly value philosophers of religion who are able to make serious contributions to the advancement of worldviews other than their own: if you understand other worldviews well enough that you make contributions to those worldviews which proponents of those worldviews approve, then you likely have what it takes to contribute to the scaleddown collective project that I sketched. Achievements of this kind should be celebrated; if enough philosophers of religion are able to make these kinds of achievements, then perhaps philosophy of religion will become a much more worthwhile enterprise than it is currently.

11 On the Socratic Injunction to Follow the Argument Where It Leads Jason Marsh

“The lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him.” Socrates

11.1 Introduction All of us risk coming across unanswerable objections1 to our beliefs. How should we respond to such objections if they arise? According to one ancient tradition, we should be open to revising our beliefs. On this view, Socrates’ willingness to let inquiry drive him almost anywhere remains an ideal for philosophy and science. Indeed, defenders of this view often claim that the chief aim of philosophy is to question our opinions and to take seriously the Socratic injunction to follow the argument where it leads.2 By contrast, another tradition is far less concessive, at least when it comes to philosophical objections to common sense. On this view, most often associated with G. E. Moore,3 unanswerable challenges to what we By “unanswerable objection” I mean an objection that an agent cannot answer even after sustained reflection. Such an objection needn’t be intrinsically unanswerable. 2 I am told that the idea of “following the argument” ultimately originates with Parmenides. 3 Some also associate this view with Thomas Reid. 1

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ordinarily believe often have less epistemic weight than our beliefs themselves. For instance, if an undergraduate finds Zeno’s argument against the reality of motion irrefutable, she is not likely to abandon her belief in motion. She will instead conclude that there must be something wrong with the skeptical challenge, even if a problem cannot be identified. Or she will at least conclude that the skeptical argument in fact fails, even if a problem cannot be identified.4 I cannot hope to settle the general dispute between Socratics and Mooreans here. Instead, my focus will be more specific: even if we think we can sometimes reasonably deflect challenges, in the way that the Mooreans suggest, how far might this be extended? If someone were to insist that his or her religious beliefs, for instance, have enough intrinsic weight to simply set aside the problem of evil, should this be deemed reasonable? Although many will think that the answer is clearly “no,” some philosophers of religion are starting to claim otherwise. For such philosophers, one can reasonably think of religious beliefs as having a kind of Moorean status, rendering them more obvious than at least any of the known arguments against them. One consequence of this view is that even the best argumentative challenges to various religious ideas, whether they have been refuted or not, need not be followed. My task in this chapter will be to argue that there are reasons against promoting religious Mooreanism in the field, reasons that are available even to traditional Mooreans. To clarify, I will not be arguing that religious Mooreanism is definitely false, only that the view is in tension with the Socratic injunction, that it is less plausible than more familiar forms of Mooreanism, and that it, in any case, has yet to be adequately defended. In light of these points, my advice for philosophy of religion is that the Moorean methodologies I explore here should be considered out of bounds in the field unless and until such methodologies are better motivated. This advice, to clarify, need not apply only to religious philosophers, but also to any secular critics of religion who are tempted to attribute Moorean status to their secular ideas.

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There are naturally different ways to understand both Mooreanism and the Socratic injunction. For a helpful overview of these ways, see Kelly 2005 and 2011.

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11.2 Preliminary Remarks There are different ways that a field might fail to sufficiently promote the Socratic injunction. For some, the crucial example in a field like philosophy of religion will be ideas that restrict the search for further evidence concerning the divine. For instance, on Lara Buchak’s analysis of faith, theistic faith requires willingness to refrain from gathering further evidence in order to determine the truth about God’s existence (2012).5 In addition, Huw Price is a secular critic of religion who claims that we should stop even engaging arguments for the divine (2007).6 I will not be focusing on examples of restricting the search for new evidence, but on deflecting known evidence—and in particular known counter-evidence to religious belief that is widely thought to be powerful, such as the best evidential arguments from evil. Whether or not this known evidence would actually undermine the target religious beliefs is not something I need to take a stand on here. It would be sufficient, for my purposes, that the objections would have the potential to generate full or partial defeat in many instances. Another caveat worth mentioning concerns how to raise Socratic worries about philosophy of religion. Unlike some philosophers, I will not claim that any particular individuals are not Socratic. My approach thus stands in contrast to Bertrand Russell’s when he says the following in his History of Western Philosophy: There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry . . . Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better: If he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. (Cited in Kelly 2011: 105)

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To be fair, Buchak states that how rational faith is depends on whether the search for further evidence would be decisive. She also explores the decision-theoretic benefits of faith. 6 This explains Price’s refusal to even engage John Leslie’s arguments while reviewing one of his books. In Price’s words, “While it seemed possible, even tempting, to engage with Leslie on particular philosophical points, taking theology at face value would have seemed a kind of moral defeat: feeding an ancient intellectual cuckoo that would be better simply starved” (2007). Price has reasons for his stance. But to many his stance will appear deeply premature (Schellenberg 2007) and, one might add, deeply un-Socratic.

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Whether or not Russell is being fair to Aquinas, my point is just that I am not aiming to be personal in the way that Russell is: my emphasis will be on ideas, not people. It may be that all the individuals I consider are fully Socratic, even if some of the ideas they promote are not. In fact, it may be that most ideas in the field are Socratic. I am just focusing on one trend. Finally, although I shall be contrasting Socratic and Moorean approaches to philosophy, I am fully aware that one could overstate their differences. After all, not even Socrates thought that the law of non-contradiction was open to question.7 What’s more, if “following the argument where it leads” can be understood to mean “following the evidence where it leads,” as I think it can,8 then Mooreans may well think that they do follow the evidence. They just think that Moorean evidence has more strength than the known counter-evidence. Despite these remarks, though, there remains a clear difference between the two traditions in question. Socrates seems more willing to be challenged more of the time, more willing to claim ignorance as opposed to knowledge, and more open to discovering new evidence that his prior evidence was misguided. It is this degree of openness to epistemic risk and human fallibility, which many see as epistemic virtues,9 that explains the core difference between Socrates and Moore.

11.3 Three Varieties of Religious Mooreanism To better understand how Mooreanism operates in the philosophy of religion it is helpful to start with the work of Alvin Plantinga. I start with Plantinga not because he goes as far as the traditional Moorean. Unlike secular Mooreans who claim that the traditional skeptic literally could not win, Plantinga never says that the religious skeptic could not win,10 nor does he refuse to engage the religious skeptic. Rather, I start with Plantinga because, as at least one other person has appreciated 7 Kelly makes this point. But it should be noted that some philosophers think that even logic and math can be overturned. 8 As many epistemologists have noted, evidence can include testimony and perception, and these things aren’t best thought of as arguments. 9 Instead of interpreting “following the argument” as an epistemic duty, I prefer to think of it in virtue-theoretic terms: it is generally an epistemic virtue to give arguments their due, and a vice not to. 10 Though he thinks irreligious experiences are much more likely to defeat theistic belief than irreligious arguments.

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(Leon 2010), his views paved the way for thinking about religion in way that has clear Moorean features. After all, Plantinga did not merely introduce the idea that belief in God could be justified, rational, and, if true, an item of knowledge in the absence of arguments. He further introduced the idea that skeptical challenges to belief in God could be deflected in the absence of arguments. He did this when he introduced the notion of intrinsic defeaterdefeaters into the field. Plantinga defines an intrinsic defeater-defeater as follows: “When a basic belief p has more by way of warrant than a potential defeater q of p, then p is an intrinsic defeater of q—an intrinsic defeater-defeater, we might say” (1986: 311). A common example employed by Plantinga runs as follows. Suppose that all of the available public evidence (e.g., eye-witness testimony, DNA evidence, etc.) supports the claim that you committed a horrible murder this morning. You might come to grant that this public evidence condemns you. But suppose you also have a clear memory of hiking in the woods all morning and have no memory of ever contemplating a murder. According to Plantinga, given your clear memory beliefs, you might continue to rationally affirm your innocence. That is to say, your noninferentially justified private evidence could function as an intrinsic defeater-defeater of the public evidence that, by your own lights, stands against you in third-personal terms. Trusting that others will agree with his example, Plantinga raised the possibility that something similar could happen in religious contexts. Maybe someone’s private and non-inferential religious evidence (e.g., from religious experience) might be sufficient in strength to simply overwhelm the public inferential objections, whether or not she can answer them. In response to the charge that such claims would permit various seemingly unanswerable challenges to religious belief to have little bite, Plantinga’s view seems to be that this isn’t a problem. For he claims that our non-religious basic beliefs are often improbable on the public evidence and that this often doesn’t count against them in the least. (More on his parity arguments in due course.)

11.3.1 Standard religious Mooreanism According to our first variety of religious Mooreanism, then, core religious beliefs—for Plantinga this includes theistic belief and some Christian

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creedal beliefs11—typically have more intrinsic weight than the best objections to those beliefs. Let us call this idea standard religious Mooreanism. To be a bit more precise, one counts as a standard religious Moorean, on my definition, if one endorses the idea that most believers in most instances would be epistemically well positioned to deflect even the most sophisticated and enduring known challenges to their religious beliefs (e.g., the problem of infant suffering or the problem of divine hiddenness), whether or not they, or someone they know of in their community, could satisfactorily answer those objections. So far as I can tell, Plantinga is committed to standard religious Mooreanism. For although he personally thinks the objections to theism can and should be answered by theistic philosophers (2001: 217), the question is what such philosophers are to do if they fail, by their own lights, to come across convincing answers to the challenges. Plantinga implies that philosophers, sophisticated adults, and uneducated believers in such circumstances can typically fall back on their noninferential evidence to defeat the challenger. Indeed, if theism is true, says Plantinga, then the very fact that someone continues to affirm belief in God in the face of objections is evidence that her divine sense is functioning properly and that she is externally rational (2000: 492). But even if theism is false, deflection will often be internally rational on his view, since it involves an agent sticking to what seems true to her (2000: 492). Another standard religious Moorean is, interestingly, a non-theist. In particular, William Rowe, in his oft-cited paper “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” recommends a Moorean response to the problem of evil. After presenting his own argument from evil, which he himself finds persuasive, Rowe offers the theistic philosopher a quick way out. He states: The best procedure for the theist to follow in rejecting [a key premise in my argument] is the indirect procedure. This procedure I shall call “the G. E. Moore shift,” so-called in honor of the twentieth-century philosopher, G. E. Moore, who used it to great effect in dealing with the arguments of the skeptics . . . [H]aving rational grounds for rejecting [a key premise in my argument], the theist concludes that the basic argument for atheism is mistaken. (1979: 359–60) 11

Followers of different traditions might naturally wish to revise the list.

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Although Moorean deflection can take a purely non-inferential form, as we saw in Plantinga, the Mooreanism recommended by Rowe is a little more inferential but still extremely quick and easy. It basically comes down to the following argument. (1) If the skeptical challenge were successful, then my belief would be false. (2) My belief is true. (3) Therefore, the skeptical challenge fails. The question facing Rowe’s Mooreanism, to be clear, is not whether it would be dialectically effective in a philosophical exchange with a nonMoorean. No doubt it would not be and the Moorean can admit this. The question facing Rowe is rather whether the proposed Moorean shift is epistemically defective for those who make use of it. Rowe does not seem to be too worried about this question. For he simply advises, without argument, that the theist—and one might add, the theistic philosopher— not follow his own argument from evil. Since there is no clear reason why Rowe wouldn’t permit a similar move in response to other arguments, such as hiddenness arguments, it is very tempting to characterize him as a standard religious Moorean. This interpretation also sits well with Rowe’s “friendly atheism,” according to which his theistic colleagues are rational even if he thinks they are objectively mistaken. While Rowe’s intentions seem laudable to me, one might wonder whether promoting Mooreanism is the best way to be friendly. For one might have thought that an even better piece of advice for theistic philosophers would be to do something many of them already seek to do: namely to engage Rowe’s argument head on, pointing to some mistaken premise, assumption, or piece of reasoning. A third example of a standard religious Moorean is arguably Michael Bergmann. Bergmann characterizes religious Mooreanism in terms of theistic seemings (Bergmann 2014). On this view, theistic seemings (and the higher-order seemings that the theistic seemings are veridical, which arise when we reflect on the theistic seemings) are very often strong enough to defeat the prospective defeaters to theism. Bergmann’s suggestion, to be clear, is not that theistic seemings are as strong as our seeming that there is an external world. His suggestion is rather that the relevant seemings might nonetheless often be strong enough to deflect theistic skepticism. A consequence of this claim about “felt veridicality” is this: in response to even the tougher skeptical challenges to theism, the believer has a non-inferential escape route.

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To be sure, Bergmann personally addresses counter-arguments in more inferential ways. Like Plantinga, he offers detailed arguments in response to Rowe’s arguments from evil, for instance. But even if Bergmann seeks to follow the argument, the question is whether his Mooreanism permits others to be much less reflective by allowing them to non-inferentially deflect even the best objections to theism (e.g., divine hiddenness, infant suffering, and religious diversity), without suffering full—or in many cases, even partial—defeat.

11.3.2 Strong religious Mooreanism The standard religious Mooreans we have been describing think that core religious beliefs are largely but not entirely resistant to defeat. But there are stronger views on offer. According to strong religious Mooreanism, core religious beliefs such as theism are indefeasible in the following sense: provided the target beliefs are true and properly formed, and provided that a believer is sufficiently firm and attentive, nothing need shake her beliefs. While almost no one in the field endorses strong religious Mooreanism, one apparent exception is William Lane Craig. He states: So I do not think, nor have I ever claimed, that we should always “move towards where the evidences lead us.” Evidences are shifting and in a given circumstance may not point toward the truth . . . What’s at issue here . . . is whether holding that the witness of God’s Spirit is indefeasible leads to some epistemic misstep. If it does, then I’ll gladly give up that claim. After all, that claim is not essential to Reformed Epistemology, much less Christianity. But I don’t see that you’ve identified any epistemic transgression so far. (Craig 2014a)

This passage comes from a brief question and answer forum, but Craig says similar things in his published work.12 On his outlook, certain religious beliefs are not merely innocent until proven guilty; they apparently can resist any prospect of becoming guilty given the right conditions. Craig is thus going beyond Plantinga’s religious epistemology. Whereas Plantinga’s framework makes reasonable religious belief “easy to get and hard to lose,”13 Craig seems to want it to be easy to get and, at 12 He states: “[A]rguments and evidence incompatible with that truth [of Christianity] are overwhelmed by the experience of the Holy Spirit for him who attends fully to it” (Craig 2008: 15). 13 I owe this phrase to Jon Marsh.

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least for the sufficiently steadfast believer, impossible to lose, in an epistemic sense. This Moorean attitude also explains Craig’s reaction to Paul Draper’s advice that religious and secular philosophers of religion should spend more time testing their beliefs and less time trying to protect those beliefs. In response to this Socratic advice, Craig offers the following counter-advice to believers: “[Y]ou do not need to be willing to engage in the risk of [becoming an unbeliever] in order to carry out responsible, philosophical inquiry within such a paradigm” (Craig 2014b). To be sure, like Plantinga, Rowe, and Bergmann, Craig personally cares a lot about arguments. His concern with arguments is not equivalent to promoting open-mindedness about his first-order religious beliefs, however. For although Craig will permit that his case from natural theology might need to be revised or even abandoned, there would still remain a second non-inferential source of warrant and rationality that is far more secure anyhow, on his view. This second source of warrant and rationality is said to be sufficient in strength to overwhelm any objections to core Christian claims. But what, then, are we to make of Craig’s claims about defeat? He states, for instance, that if the resurrection didn’t occur, then his specific religious outlook would not in fact be safe from defeat, at least when it comes to knowledge—for then his outlook wouldn’t even be true. Such a concession does not render Craig’s view less than Moorean, however. For the traditional Moorean can say, “if I don’t have hands, then my belief that I have hands is not objectively safe from defeat.” The question is not whether one can make such conditional claims. The question is whether one’s current philosophy of defeat, combined with one’s actual beliefs, promotes the idea that people can avoid having to test their beliefs and can avoid having to answer difficult objections they stumble across (whether or not they in fact do). Put another away, even if Craig’s Mooreanism about religious knowledge depends on whether God in fact exists, his advice functions to promote a Moorean attitude, whether or not God exists.

11.3.3 Weak religious Mooreanism This is not to say that all versions of religious Mooreanism are nearly so strong. According to a third and final version of religious Mooreanism, certain rare individuals with uniquely powerful religious

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experiences—for example, Buddha, St Catherine of Siena, or St Paul—are in a good position to deflect any of the known objections to their core religious beliefs. In addition, defenders of this view might add that the common believer can simply deflect objections to her views in cases where the objections are either flimsy, poorly formulated, or not adequately grasped. Call the combination of these ideas weak religious Mooreanism. From what I can tell, weak religious Mooreanism is not especially troubling. For I am happy to grant that experience and testimony have some epistemic weight—and that this weight is sufficient, in some cases, to overcome an objection all by itself. In fact, I can imagine that if I had the kind of religious experience reported by certain rare individuals, such as Joseph Smith, that deflection would come very naturally.14 I will thus say nothing more about weak religious Mooreanism. My concern is with the standard and strong varieties.

11.4 Why Religious Mooreanism Is Not Socratic We have seen that religious Mooreanism, even if a minority view, is a real phenomenon in the philosophy of religion. I now want to raise two challenges for promoting religious Mooreanism in the field. My first challenge concerns the Socratic injunction. The standard and strong forms of Mooreanism that we have been describing appear to violate Socrates’ injunction, if not in letter then in spirit. For as mentioned earlier, Socrates’ methodology is not just about arguments. It is about open-mindedness to being challenged, at least in domains that are properly subject to critical investigation. If philosophers were to recommend Mooreanism in other domains, such as politics, we would likely see their methodology as more dogmatic than Socratic. So why invite a Moorean methodology in the context of religion? Some Mooreans might acknowledge the tension but insist that the Socratic injunction is the real culprit and ought to be given up.15 I do not recommend this path, however. For although it is not my aim to

14

Unless, that is, an unusually plausible debunking challenge were formulated. Some might attempt to show that the view has wider skeptical implications, for instance. 15

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defend the Socratic injunction here,16 one attractive feature of Socrates’ approach should be clear: without something like it, there could be no obvious basis for criticizing being a Moorean about practically anything, including one’s Mooreanism. For this reason, a better response, it seems to me, would be for the religious Moorean to simply acknowledge her conflicting methodological commitments to Athens and Jerusalem. Or even better, the religious Moorean might seek to deny that the conflict between Socrates and Moore is even legitimate. The best way to defend the latter idea was alluded to earlier and comes in two steps. Step one involves interpreting the Socratic injunction as following the evidence, broadly construed, where it leads.17 Step two involves defending the priority of non-inferential evidence thesis, according to which non-inferential evidence is such that, even in highly controversial contexts like religion, it almost always trumps even the most difficult-to-answer philosophical objections. If these two steps were successfully taken, then following the evidence would often require deflecting in religious contexts—eliminating the tension between Socrates and religious Mooreanism. In response, I think the basic tension remains intact. For Mooreanism still arguably makes inquiry much safer, and belief preservation much easier, than Socrates would advise. Plantinga, to his credit, appreciates a version of this worry, as do some of his religious critics (McGrew 2010).18 In a section of his book on science and religion called “Can Religious Belief be Defeated?” he states: But isn’t this [i.e., the idea that experience-based basic beliefs trump counterarguments] just a recipe for intellectual irresponsibility, for hanging on to beliefs in the teeth of the evidence? Can’t a Christian always say something like the above, no matter what the proposed defeater? (2011: 183)

Plantinga responds by insisting that defeat is possible. He offers the example of modern science defeating geocentric readings of scripture. 16

I am assuming that the Socratic injunction, given its sheer influence, makes a claim on ideas in Western philosophy. 17 I am told that Michael Bergmann interprets the Socratic injunction this way. 18 As Lydia McGrew appreciates, the objection here isn’t inherently secular. She notes, “I was a Christian before I was a philosopher. But there came a time when I questioned that. And I think when that comes, and I think that’s going to come for anybody, you ought to have evidence. And I don’t think that falling back on something like, this is properly basic, as in, that’s Plantinga’s system. I don’t think that’s correct” (McGrew 2010).

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I appreciate this response, which implies that there can be a tension between Socratic and Moorean approaches on his view. Still, one wonders if Plantinga is tackling an easier Socratic objection where harder Socratic objections are clearly more pertinent. For even if Plantinga does not make defeat impossible, the harder objection is that his approach nonetheless makes resisting defeat too easy, particularly in the case of core religious beliefs. A related worry is that his approach makes inquiry into religious matters too risk-free. His geocentricism example leaves these objections untouched.

11.5 Why Religious Mooreanism Is Premature Suppose, however, that the tension between Socrates and religious Mooreanism could be eliminated. Even then there would remain a second obstacle to promoting (and one might add endorsing) religious Mooreanism in its strong or standard forms. For religious Mooreanism has not, to my knowledge, been adequately argued for. This is a problem since, as a philosophical thesis, religious Mooreanism is the kind of thing that is supposed to be argued for. It is also the kind of thing that is supposed to be defended from objections, as some Mooreans admit.19 If that is right, then in the absence of good and undefeated reasons for claiming that some belief p has Moorean status, philosophers should not promote the idea that p has Moorean status in their philosophical work or while operating as philosophers. But then a problem arises. After all, what are the reasons offered in support of religious Mooreanism? When it comes to Rowe, recall, he offers no arguments for his Moorean stance. He just sort of announces that stance. As for Bergmann, his main work in the area has yet to be completed, so we will have to wait and see. Craig, by contrast, does seek to offer reasons for why a believer might endorse religious Mooreanism. His reasons, which echo Plantinga’s at points, do not consist in offering general criteria for determining when a belief has Moorean status. Instead they are as follows. (1) Evidence can be objectively misleading. (2) A perfectly loving and powerful God could design minds and environments such that theistic belief is epistemically 19 Something like this claim arguably explains why even Craig says that he would give up his Mooreanism if it were shown to face serious problems. Thus it doesn’t seem questionbegging to hold Craig to a Socratic standard.

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safe from defeat. (3) A perfectly loving and powerful God would not allow a believer to be put into a condition where the rational thing for her to do would be to abandon her theistic belief.20 Beginning with the first claim, the idea that evidence can be misleading is both true and important. But the question is not whether evidence can be misleading but under what circumstances it is misleading, and what one’s total evidence says. As for claim two, no doubt a perfect being could give religious belief Moorean force and vivacity. But this will not matter unless we grant Craig’s third claim that God would never permit rationality defeaters for theism to be encountered. In response to this latter theological claim, while I grant that a perfect personal God would likely care about theistic belief and seek to preserve it, one might wonder whether such a God would care nearly as much about properties such as justification, rationality, or warrant.21 Anyhow, there do seem to be some a priori considerations in favor of Craig’s view. This is because we tend to think of knowledge and rationality as valuable—more valuable than mere true belief—and because a perfect God might be thought to care about valuable things. In addition, it may be that the knowledge of God in particular could promote a uniquely rich divine–human relationship. As with many intuitive ideas, though, the current one faces an empirical worry. To see why, consider the following two similarly a priori principles. NO EVIL: A perfectly loving and powerful God would not permit small children to suffer and die en masse. NO HIDDENNESS: A perfectly loving and powerful God would not permit notable amounts of non-resistant non-belief in God to occur. These principles can also seem very plausible and many think the second one, at least, has scriptural support. But virtually all theistic philosophers of religion have been forced to reject NO EVIL, since they observe that lots of infants do in fact suffer and die en masse. What’s more, an increasing number of theistic philosophers of religion are starting to grant that there

20

The first reason appears in Craig 2014a. The latter two reasons can be found in Craig

2009. 21 For all of Plantinga’s discussion of Calvin and scripture, I can still imagine many intelligent theologians wondering why God would not be satisfied giving people psychological mechanisms to preserve religious belief, whether or not doing so was rational or warranted in most of the relevant and interesting senses that concern epistemologists.

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exists quite a bit of non-resistant non-belief as well, so many will further reject NO HIDDENNESS. But then an internal problem arises for the idea that God would never (or let’s say rarely) permit believers to confront rationality defeaters. Should we really think that Craig’s NO DEFEAT view—that God would not tolerate irrational belief in God—has more weight than NO EVIL or NO HIDDENNESS? Are we really better at discerning God’s attitudes toward epistemic defeat than evil and hiddenness? That seems far from obvious. In fact, it is hard to maintain with a straight face that a perfectly loving God would care nearly as much about preserving rational or warranted theistic belief (when just theistic belief could be preserved anyhow) as God does about preserving the well-being of infants, or ensuring that lots of non-resistant non-belief does not occur. But then an internal, inductive challenge arises for Craig’s view: those who reject NO EVIL, NO HIDDENNESS, or both should lower their confidence in Craig’s claims about NO DEFEAT.

11.5.1 Parity considerations There certainly could be other arguments against my charge that religious Mooreanism remains insufficiently motivated. For instance, someone might think that a parity argument for deeming religious belief properly basic could be easily reworked to support religious Mooreanism. Such a parity argument might go as follows. Clearly, many beliefs about the past are rational even in the absence of compelling arguments for their truth. There are, moreover, relevant similarities, and no decisive dissimilarities, between beliefs about the past and beliefs about God. For example, both are “natural” in the sense that they seem obviously true, are widespread, and are non-inferentially formed. Thus, it is plausible that many beliefs about God are rational in the absence of compelling arguments for their truth. The updated Moorean version of this argument might then argue for another relevant similarity between beliefs about the past and beliefs about God. On this view, it is not simply that beliefs about the past are rational in the absence of compelling arguments for their truth. It is that arguments against the truth of such beliefs can in many cases be safely ignored or, more accurately, can be non-inferentially defeated. The updated Moorean argument might then be stated as follows: If beliefs

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about the past have more non-inferential weight than the challengers to them, and there are no relevant dissimilarities between beliefs about God and beliefs about the past, then beliefs about God plausibly have more non-inferential weight than the challengers to them. (This is similar, recall, to what Plantinga argues when he applies the idea of intrinsic defeater-defeaters both to traditional skepticism and to atheological challenges.) This updated parity argument faces problems, however, and if anything reveals further challenges for religious Mooreanism. First, even assuming there are some Moorean facts, which is controversial, the parity argument is in an important respect anti-Moorean. After all, it is not as though Moore thought that any old belief could have Moorean status. He reserved this status for the most fundamental beliefs that almost no one questioned anyhow, such as our belief in the external world. But as our beliefs get (a) more controversial and (b) more subject to personal doubts, we may need to answer the skeptic’s arguments in more sustained ways. I do not mean to assert that Moorean beliefs are necessarily or always uncontroversial and difficult to doubt. The idea might just be that the more controversial and subject to personal doubts some belief p is, the better evidence we have that p lacks Moorean status. Perhaps there ought to be additional constraints on Moorean beliefs, such as epistemic safety or something similarly modal. Even without these additional constraints, though, religious Mooreanism already faces an epistemic hurdle since there are very relevant epistemic differences between beliefs about God and beliefs about the past. For unlike specific religious beliefs, traditional Moorean beliefs are neither controversial, nor are they subject to serious doubts. Indeed, the near psychological impossibility of doubting the reality of motion or the past, for instance, stands in sharp contrast to religious beliefs, which are much more frequently doubted, even by religious epistemologists.22 Something like this asymmetry arguably explains why Moore didn’t

22

Thanks to John Schellenberg for pointing out the involuntariness asymmetry, which is distinct from the doubt asymmetry. As for the doubt asymmetry, I recall Plantinga once claiming that occasionally he’ll awake in the middle of the night asking if his religious outlook can be true, and that at other times this same outlook seems obvious. By contrast, few people have similar fluctuations when it comes to their belief in motion.

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apply Mooreanism to religious belief. It also helps to explain why religious skepticism represents a more live possibility than, say, motion skepticism. Of course, one could argue that Moorean beliefs shouldn’t be constrained at all in the aforementioned ways. But such an argument would have to be made, while addressing our earlier worry that one’s epistemology permits far too many beliefs to have Moorean status. The permissiveness worry here isn’t just the “Great Pumpkin Objection” to basic belief from religious epistemology either. For even if we grant that lots of controversial beliefs could be basic with respect to justification, rationality, or warrant, granting them Moorean status involves granting them a much stronger status. We need some constraints, and widespread agreement and difficulty to doubt seem like natural places to start.23 Perhaps if the priority of non-inferential evidence thesis could be established then parity arguments would become superfluous. This thesis, recall, claims that even highly controversial basic beliefs typically have far more weight than the best philosophical objections to those beliefs. Unfortunately, however, the target thesis has yet to be established.24 Some might think they have defended it by defending the idea that religious belief can be basic. But the basicality thesis, even if granted, might not support anything stronger than weak religious Mooreanism. Indeed, one largely neglected possibility is that rational religious belief is easy to obtain and easy to lose, at least for the philosophically curious.

11.5.2 The ethics–religion analogy A better way to defend religious Mooreanism would be to draw a parallel with moral belief. If many moral beliefs can have Moorean status, then maybe many religious beliefs can too. This strategy does not require a 23 True, some theologians might think that theistic belief used to be uncontroversial and obvious before the Fall. But this claim, even if true, would not help now. Besides, as I have argued elsewhere, scientific accounts of religion suggest that the first humans lacked anything resembling theistic belief (Marsh 2013). 24 Plantinga’s crime example would make for an interesting point of departure. But it is not nearly sufficient to build a general thesis about the priority of basic evidence over nonbasic evidence—not least since our beliefs about whether we have killed someone earlier today have much more vivacity than almost anyone’s religious beliefs. In addition, to avoid conflating normative epistemology with empirical psychology, we should presumably not imply that someone’s refusal to be challenged by arguments is evidence that she is being rational in all of the relevant senses that might interest epistemologists.

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general thesis about the priority of basic evidence over non-basic evidence. All that matters is that religion is like morality. I think this is the religious Moorean’s best bet. That is, I think the best way to establish religious Mooreanism is to make an analogy to moral Mooreanism. This is because moral belief has much more in common with religious belief than with our belief in the past. It is also because moral Mooreanism can seem tempting. After all, it can just seem that we know that it is objectively wrong to harm children for fun (not that it would be fun) with more confidence than any skeptical challenge that can—or at least will—arise. Similarly, it can just seem that we know that all humans are equal, even if this claim has been controversial. As someone who also works in moral philosophy, I get the appeal of moral Mooreanism. I am thus not surprised to see someone like Louise Antony state: “Any argument for moral skepticism will be based upon premises which are less obvious than the existence of objective moral values themselves.”25 Similarly, Elizabeth Anderson’s claim that we know certain basic moral rules “with greater confidence than we know any conclusions drawn from elaborate factual or logical reasoning” (2007: 217), while arguably exaggerated, is not entirely shocking. Unfortunately, though, this analogy to ethics also faces problems. One reason is that moral Mooreanism is itself a premature and controversial thesis. As has been noted elsewhere (McPherson 2009; Marsh 2014a: 23–4), moral Mooreanism is more often asserted than argued for and is less plausible than traditional forms of Mooreanism. Besides, there is a more fundamental problem facing the ethics–religion analogy, namely, that even if we decide to grant Moorean status to some moral beliefs, this would not automatically justify endorsing religious Mooreanism. This is because the moral beliefs most deserving of Moorean status (for example, it is wrong to harm children for fun) tend to be much more universal and less subject to doubt than the highly detailed, and typically Christian, beliefs that religious Mooreans often seek to assign Moorean status. Turning to meta-ethical views, such as moral objectivism, even here many philosophers are hesitant to recommend a Moorean attitude. This is understandable. For even assuming, controversially, that ordinary people have consistently objectivist intuitions, when it comes to meta-ethics there

25

Or at least Craig attributes this claim to Antony (see Craig 2013).

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are intelligent nihilists, constructivists, and even a few error theorists, etc. who think that nothing is, strictly speaking, objectively wrong. Given the amount of expert disagreement about these matters, one might be cautious in insisting that any particular meta-ethical stance has Moorean status. To clarify, the claim here is not that peer disagreement about moral matters should make us all agnostics about objectivism or skeptics about our basic moral convictions. The claim is much, much weaker: when there is sufficient expert disagreement about one’s belief p, this should make one extremely hesitant to claim that the arguments against p can be deflected, whether or not one could answer those arguments. Although most epistemic principles are false, this one seems pretty good to me.

11.6 A Demandingness Objection To be sure, difficult questions remain. For instance, even if moral and religious Mooreanism risk making belief preservation too easy, we do not wish to make it too hard either. And it’s not always clear how to strike the right balance here (Marsh 2014b). This is an instance of a wider problem about how hard rationality and knowledge should be, not least in cases where belief revision would involve seriously altering one’s basic identities and way of life. I do not think that anyone has resolved this problem. Even so, several considerations make the problem less than fully pressing in the contexts of morality and religion. Let me conclude by stating them. First, it is not clear that religious and moral Mooreanism are even required to preserve widespread rationality. Most people cannot even say what the problem of evil is or what the main challenges to moral realism are, for instance. Second, those who do come across serious versions of these challenges might Google responses to them, if they are interested enough to do so, exploring the debates in more detail. Third, even if not everyone is up to the task of answering the relevant challenges, shouldn’t preserving rationality while encountering complex arguments about controversial matters be a bit hard? For instance, when it comes to debates about same-sex marriage and abortion, beliefs that also shape people’s identities and ways of life, we do not typically promote Moorean attitudes for anyone. In these contexts we expect people to be responsive to evidence and arguments.

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Another point is worth mentioning in addition. When it comes to controversial moral beliefs, such as basic equality, the appeal of Mooreanism might be more practical and political than epistemic in nature. But we can treat ideas, like equality, as fundamental and authoritative in a social and political sense without taking a Moorean stance on their meta-epistemological standing. These suggestions, combined with the thought that beliefs can be epistemically secure without having Moorean status anyhow, means that the stakes in failing to endorse moral and religious Mooreanism are not as high as some might suppose. True, it’s possible that Mooreanism in one or both of these domains will be shown to be a good idea. And maybe carefully following a Socratic path will eventually lead us straight to Moorean methodology in the philosophy of religion. But my point is that this latter path has yet to be carved out and, further, seems implausible at first glance.26

References Anderson, E. (2007), “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” in L. Antony (ed.), Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (New York: Oxford University Press), 215–30. Bergmann, M. (2014), “Epistemic Intuitions and Defeaters for Noninferential Religious Belief” [podcast], sixth and final talk given at the Defeat and Religious Epistemology for the New Insights and Directions in Religious Epistemology Workshop, 17 March 2014, Oxford University accessed July 3, 2017. Buchak, L. (2012), “Can It Be Rational to Have Faith?” in J. Chandler and V. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 225–47. Craig, W. L. (2008), Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd edn (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books). Craig, W. L. (2009), “The Witness of the Spirit as an Intrinsic Defeater-Defeater,” in “Q&A with William Lane Craig #136,” Reasonable Faith with William Lane 26 Thanks to William Abraham, Fred Aquino, Kenny Boyce, Gary Colwell, Arthur Cunningham, Jason Decker, Keith DeRose, Travis Dumsday, Jonathan Fuqua, John Greco, Jeanine Grenberg, Dan Groll, Stephen Grimm, Liz Jackson, Mike Rea, Danny Muñoz-Hutchinson, Corliss Swain, and Charles Taliaferro for helpful discussion. Thanks especially to Paul Draper, Jon Marsh, and John Schellenberg for detailed feedback on an earlier draft and also to my audiences in Atlanta and Edmonton for their comments.

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Craig [website], November 23, 2009 accessed July 3, 2017. Craig, W. L. (2013), “Those Who Deny Objective Moral Values” [podcast], Reasonable Faith with William Lane Craig [website], April 22, 2013 accessed July 3, 2017. Craig, W. L. (2014a), “Indefeasibility and Openness to Evidence,” in “Q&A with William Lane Craig #381,” Reasonable Faith with William Lane Craig [website], August 3, 2014 accessed July 3, 2017. Craig, W. L. (2014b), “The End of Philosophy of Religion” [podcast], Reasonable Faith with William Lane Craig [website], October 26, 2014 accessed July 3, 2017. Kelly, T. (2005), “Moorean Facts and Belief Revision, or Can the Skeptic Win?” Philosophical Perspectives 19, 179–209. Kelly, T. (2011), “Following the Argument Where It Leads,” Philosophical Studies 154, 105–24. Leon, F. (2010), “Intrinsic Defeaters and the Plantinga–Quinn Debate,” ExApologist: A Philosophy of Religion Blog”, February 18, 2010 accessed July 3, 2017. Marsh, J. (2013), “Darwin and the Problem of Natural Nonbelief,” The Monist 96/3, 349–76. Marsh, J. (2014a), “Quality of Life Assessments, Cognitive Reliability, and Procreative Responsibility,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 89/2, 436–66. Marsh, J. (2014b), “Conscientious Objection and Reason Giving,” Bioethics 28, 313–19. McGrew, L. (2010), “CPBD 071: Lydia McGrew—The Probability of Christianity” [podcast interview by Luke Muehlhauser], Common Sense Atheism [website], October 6, 2010 accessed July 3, 2017. McPherson, T. (2009), “Moorean Arguments and Moral Revisionism,” Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 3/2. Plantinga, A. (1986), “Foundations of Theism: A Reply,” Faith and Philosophy 3/3, 298–313. Plantinga, A. (2000), Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Plantinga, A. (2001), “Rationality and Public Evidence,” Religious Studies 32, 215–22. Plantinga, A. (2011), Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (New York: Oxford University Press).

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Price, H. (2007), “Starving the Theological Cuckoo: A Review of John Leslie, Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology,” Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science 1, 136–45. Rowe, W. L. (1979), “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16/4, 335–41. Schellenberg, J. L. (2007), The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

12 Spinoza’s Philosophy of Religious Life Clare Carlisle

12.1 ‘Insider’ and ‘Outsider’ Philosophy of Religion If the contributions to this book have anything in common, it is this: we are doing philosophy of religion. But even if we have clear definitions of the terms ‘philosophy’ and ‘religion’, it is not obvious what ‘doing philosophy of religion’ means. If we also share the view that there is something to gain from reflection on how the philosophy of religion might be renewed, re-examined, maybe done differently, then we must begin by asking: in what sense is our philosophy ‘of ’ religion? What kind of relationship to religion is implied here? What are we philosophers trying to do with—or to—or for—religion? Two different answers to this question quickly present themselves. The first is that philosophy is ‘of ’ religion in the sense of belonging to it, being owned by it. On this view, philosophy puts its distinctive methods, vocabulary, and analytical skill-set in the service of religious teachings. (In the contemporary context, this often means defending religion from attack by atheists and secularists.) The idea that philosophy should be the ‘handmaiden of theology’ has a long history. It is commonly attributed to the eleventh-century theologian Peter Damian, though it goes back earlier than this; it was reconstructed in a critical mode during the Enlightenment, when the emancipation of philosophy from the authorities of Church and scripture became a viable project. ‘We can grant the Theology Faculty’s proud claim that the Philosophy Faculty is its

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handmaid (though the question remains, whether the servant is the mistress’s torchbearer or trainbearer), provided it is not driven away or silenced’, wrote Kant in The Conflict of the Faculties (1798), having recently been freed from a ban on writing about religion (see Kant 1992: 45). Kant emphasizes that philosophy, ‘having no commands to give, is free to evaluate everything’ (Kant 1992: 27–9); that philosophy’s domain is truth; and that its function in relation to theology is ‘to control [theology] and in this way be useful to it, since truth is the main thing’ (Kant 1992: 45). As Kant’s comments indicate, philosophy’s subservience to theology is an ambiguous and contested idea. On the one hand, this seems to belittle philosophy by restricting its scope to a theological agenda and, in setting the discipline upon a sectarian dogmatic foundation, legitimizing the practice of philosophy with a decidedly unphilosophical gesture. On the other hand, the view that philosophy is theology’s handmaiden is associated with the rationalization of religion: [T]he original and principal meaning of [this conception] of philosophy . . . was that philosophy had a part to play in the development of a rational Christianity, and it was mainly used to combat those who wished to reject all secular knowledge . . . In the Latin West, not only was there no formula of the type philosophia ancilla theologiae, but neither was there any one attitude associated with the idea. It was used [both] to limit the role of secular learning in theology and to justify its use, and it is the latter sense that is predominant. (Mowbray 2004: 2, 28)

Considered historically, then, the apparent subjugation of philosophy to theology might be closely connected to an alternative account of the relationship between the two disciplines (de Lubac 1959: 74–94). For according to the second way of understanding ‘philosophy of religion’, philosophy is ‘of ’ religion in the sense of taking religion as its object. On this view, philosophy is an autonomous enquiry that is of, or about, religion in the same way as it might be of art, of science, of mathematics, of history, and so on. Here, it is often supposed, philosophy stands outside its subject matter, using neutral methods of analysis and critique that can be applied to any domain of human life—as if philosophy, lacking any agenda, prejudices, or even presuppositions of its own is uniquely placed to expose and interrogate the presuppositions of other activities or discourses. These two ways of conceiving the relationship between philosophy and religion are not the only ones at work within contemporary

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philosophy of religion. But they are certainly influential, and probably dominant, within our discipline. Depending on which of these approaches is taken, the philosopher is situated either inside a religious tradition, or outside ‘religion’ altogether. Both positions are problematic, not least because in each case philosophy is often used to justify prior beliefs, rather than to reflect critically upon them. If the philosopher is inside religion, her philosophical credibility seems to be compromised— though she might try to compensate by adopting a pose of neutrality, refusing to allow the insights she has gained as a religious practitioner to inform her philosophical work. But if the philosopher is outside religion, how can she hope to understand religion properly? Isn’t she like a stranger in a foreign country, hearing an unintelligible language and observing bewildering customs? In this chapter I will suggest how philosophy might be ‘of religion’ in a sense that differs from these two alternatives of ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ positions, although it takes something from both of them. Treating religion as an object of study is an appropriate way to characterize the task of philosophy of religion, and this does not necessarily entail the ‘outsider’ position. But this objectifying approach—which can be seen historically as a reaction against ‘insider’ philosophy of religion—has ‘outsider’ tendencies. These tendencies set limits on philosophy’s ability to comprehend religion: to recognize and explain how the ethical and practical aspects of religious life may alter practitioners’ cognitive perspective and capacities, and how these alterations might challenge the view that rational thinking should be the dominant mode of access to the truth. While ‘outsider’ philosophy of religion isn’t necessarily hostile to religion, in refusing any ‘insider’ knowledge it has the limitations just described. And given these limitations, it may produce an impoverished interpretation of religion—as, for example, a set of propositions to be believed—that empowers skeptical or hostile arguments. Here I wish to explore a middle path between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ philosophy of religion by taking Spinoza as an exemplar of this alternative approach. If the philosophical tradition had taken Spinoza more seriously—if Spinoza, rather than Descartes, had become the founder of modern philosophy—then the discipline we now recognize as philosophy of religion would have developed in a different direction. Philosophy would be ‘of ’ religion differently. The scope of this chapter does not allow me to develop fully a Spinozist philosophy of religion. Rather, my aim is

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to indicate how Spinoza’s reinterpretation of religion (and of its relationship to philosophy) provides a model for us to follow in renewing the philosophy of religion, and to ask how a Spinozist philosophy of religion might illuminate aspects of religious life that remain difficult to access by both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ approaches. One of Spinoza’s most significant and theologically challenging claims is that ‘God’ and ‘Nature’ are alternative, equivalent terms for the same reality (Spinoza 1996: 114, 118). His use of the phrase Deus sive Natura in the posthumously published Ethics (1677) gave many readers the impression of atheism; others found in it proof that Spinoza was deeply religious (Herder 1940: 28–34, 95–6). Either way, in equating God and Nature Spinoza rejected the theological dogmatism that shaped many philosophies of his period. His philosophy remains attractive to those committed to atheist materialism or naturalism, but it also allows a rich and sympathetic reflection on both theological teachings and religious practices. Spinoza’s concept of ‘God or Nature’ overcomes—or at least unsettles— the inside/outside dichotomy described above, for this dichotomy rests on the opposition between naturalism, which stands outside faith, and supernaturalism, which is inside faith. Spinoza rejected supernaturalism, but his naturalism does not entail atheism. On the contrary, Spinozist naturalism both accommodates the meaningfulness of religious discourse, and facilitates critical reflection upon it. At the same time, Spinoza’s identification of God with Nature puts pressure on the modern idea of nature that is now usually taken for granted by those on both sides of the theism/ atheism debate. In 1673 he wrote, to Henry Oldenburg, that ‘I hold an opinion about God and Nature very different from that which modern Christians are wont to defend . . . However, those who think my Tractatus Theologico-Politicus rests on this, namely, that God and Nature (by which they mean a certain mass, or corporeal matter) are one and the same, are entirely mistaken’ (Spinoza 1966: 343). Of course, one reason why Spinoza was not allowed to set the mainstream philosophical agenda in the seventeenth century was his refusal to conform to the then dominant theological framework. Ironically, theology would have been better served by Spinozism than by Cartesianism in the long run. Spinoza shows why the version of religion that would become so vulnerable to the various atheisms of modernity is not in fact ‘true religion’, but a ‘deformation of religion’ (James 2012: 14). He calls this ‘superstition’: its key characteristics are an anthropomorphic image

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of God; the separation of this God from nature; ignorance of causes, which produces a misguided voluntarist conception of both divine and human freedom; and a moralizing interpretation of divine law which caused believers to fluctuate between hope of reward and fear of punishment, instead of understanding virtue as intrinsically beneficial for them. Many philosophers of religion today continue to either defend or attack this deformed theism. But from a Spinozistic perspective, the entire debate rests on an inadequate understanding of God. And Spinoza’s philosophy explains, very lucidly, why this is so. In his own time, Spinoza was able to renew the philosophy of religion not only because he was a thinker of enormous intellectual ability and insight, but also because he was neither inside nor outside a religious tradition. As a young man he was expelled from the Jewish community in which he had begun to teach; most of his friends, intellectual acquaintances, and correspondents were Christians, some of a radical or nonconformist bent. He engaged critically with the Calvinist teachings of the Dutch Reformed Church, but in doing so drew deeply and often positively on both Jewish and Christian scriptures, and especially the New Testament writings traditionally attributed to Paul and John (Carlisle 2015). Spinoza inherited a complex tradition in which philosophy and theology were thoroughly intertwined: some New Testament texts already bore the influence of Stoicism, and in subsequent centuries Christian theology had developed in dialogue with Platonic and Aristotelian thought as well as with Greek and Roman Stoicisms. Calvin’s theology, for example, drew on biblical sources, Augustine, scholasticism, Renaissance humanism, and Luther. All these strands, together with the Christianized Stoicism of the early modern period and Cartesian philosophy (itself of course indebted to Catholicism), formed Spinoza’s immediate intellectual context. If Spinoza represents the first phase of the philosophical Enlightenment which shapes our own intellectual heritage (Israel 2001), sedimented within this apparently modern legacy are layers of theology, philosophy, and scripture. Just as we may never reach back to a pure biblical tradition, untouched by philosophy, so the idea of a pure philosophy, untouched by theology, remains mythical. Even if it were desirable to sever philosophy from its religious roots, as if to purify it and render it properly scientific, it would probably be impossible to do so. Nevertheless, we encounter within Spinoza’s thought a powerful and radical attempt to free philosophy from the form of religiosity that he—like

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other Enlightenment thinkers—called ‘superstition’. What emerges from this process, though, is not a philosophy purged of theology, but a theology so refined by philosophy that the distinction between the love of wisdom (philosophy) and the study of God (theology) becomes questionable. One mark of this refinement is the possibility of articulating the existence and nature of God, and of all that follows from God, through a philosophical vocabulary and method. This is the achievement of Spinoza’s Ethics, which begins with God and ends with human beatitudo. Although Spinoza is known as one of the great early modern rationalists, his translation of theological doctrine into philosophical concepts is not simply a rationalizing project—or, to put it differently, we have to expand our post-Enlightenment conception of reason in order to accurately ascribe rationalism to Spinoza. For, like any great theologian, Spinoza theorizes not only the cognitive but the affective, desiring, and imaginative capacities of human beings, considered as thoroughly embedded in social life and inescapably subject to social influences. Like Augustine, for example, he advocates not the elimination of the passions, but their transformation. Superstition, for Spinoza, is born of both ignorance and fear (Spinoza 1966: 344–5; Spinoza 2007: 3–5). The opposite of superstitious religion is not secular philosophy, but a ‘true religion’ characterized by certain knowledge, love, and peace.

12.2 Understanding Religion It may be stating the obvious to say this, but I’ll do so anyway: the philosopher of religion’s primary task is to understand religion. Of course, this is a large, complicated, and difficult task (and so Spinoza is all the more to be admired for making progress with it). It involves understanding what ‘God’ means—or at least understanding what ‘God’ does not mean—and what human beings are like, and on this basis making some sense of the idea that human beings can live in relation to God. In undertaking this task, philosophy takes religion as its object of enquiry—but it must do so in a manner that is receptive and responsive to the peculiar nature of this object. Emphasizing this need for receptivity and responsiveness means that we can still see our philosophical work as ‘of ’ religion in the sense of belonging to it and maintaining a certain fidelity to it, not necessarily in order to defend religious belief, but in order to understand religion properly. This does not mean that

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philosophy of religion should be confessional, nor that philosophers of religion must be religious practitioners. But philosophy should strive to discern, articulate, and reflect upon the nature of religion as it is lived and practised, in its ethical and existential as well as its epistemological aspects. In Chapter 15 of his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza reflects on the relationship between philosophy and religion. He argues that reason is distorted when it is subordinated to, and restricted by, dogmatic appeals to the authority of the Bible. If reason is distorted, then its capacity to understand religion is impaired. This suggests that philosophy should be separated from theology, and freed from dogmatic constraints, if it is to comprehend the nature of religion clearly. We have seen that Kant uses a similar argument in The Conflict of the Faculties, where he claims (sincerely or otherwise) that philosophy can be an effective ‘servant’ of theology only if it is free of constraint. But Spinoza’s position is more explicitly radical than this. He rejects altogether the idea that philosophy should be ‘the servant of Scripture’ (Spinoza 2007: 186). Yet he argues this point in religious terms, describing human reason as ‘the greatest gift and divine light’, and the human mind as ‘the true text of God’s word’, while emphasizing the historical character of sacred scriptures and their inherent fallibility. ‘There are very many things . . . which reason and philosophy, though not Scripture, reveal to be false’, argues Spinoza, citing examples from the Hebrew scriptures: the suggestion that God is an extended being capable of locomotion, implied in the description of God’s descent to Mount Sinai, and the claim that God is subject to passions such as jealousy (Spinoza 2007: 189). ‘I am utterly amazed’, he writes, ‘that men should want to subject reason . . . to ancient words which may well have been adulterated with malicious intent [and] that it should not be thought a crime to speak disparagingly of the [human] mind . . . while deeming it the highest offence to think such things of the mere letter and image of God’s word’ (Spinoza 2007: 188). Targeting in particular Protestant attitudes to the Bible, which elevated scripture above reason as the primary source of divine revelation, Spinoza suggests that biblical fundamentalism is a kind of idolatry. The word of God ‘does not consist in a specific collection of books’, for ‘God’s eternal word and covenant and true religion are divinely inscribed upon the hearts of men, that is, upon the human mind. This is God’s true original text, which he himself has sealed with his own seal, that is, with

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the idea of himself as the image of his divinity’ (Spinoza 2007: 191, 163). Here Spinoza invokes the theological idea of imago dei in support of his anti-dogmatic position. He then comes even closer to an outright accusation of idolatry: those who ‘insist that, even though the divine law is written on our hearts, the Bible is still the word of God . . . are converting religion into superstition, indeed verge, unfortunately, on adoring images and pictures, i.e. paper and ink, as the word of God’ (Spinoza 2007: 164). Given that terms like ‘superstition’ and ‘idolatry’ belonged to the theological tradition which Spinoza subjected to critique, his use of these terms to describe the then dominant orthodoxy is interesting. Since Spinoza used theological terms to critique Calvinist theology, it would be simplistic to read this critique as straightforwardly secularizing. His distinction between ‘religion’ (or ‘true religion’) and ‘superstition’ allowed him to argue that subordinating philosophy to theology rests on an idolatrous misunderstanding of the divine word, and is therefore not simply disadvantageous to philosophy, but theologically problematic. In the passages cited above we find references to conversion, revelation, divine law, and covenant as well to as imago dei and idolatry. This might surprise those who regard Spinoza as a champion of secularizing Enlightenment rationalism. Spinoza’s comments on the relationship between philosophy and theology do not go only one way. As well as insisting that reason should not be subordinated to scripture, he argues that scripture should not be subordinated to reason, nor adapted to reason. He has in mind here the rationalizing tradition of reading scripture allegorically, and cites Maimonides as an influential proponent of this approach. Standing back from the ‘dispute as to whether Scripture should be subordinate to reason or whether, on the contrary, reason should be the servant of Scripture’, he declares that ‘both [views] are absolutely wrong’. ‘Whichever position we adopt,’ he explains, ‘we would have to distort either reason or Scripture . . . Both will [thus] proceed senselessly, albeit the former with reason and the latter without reason’ (Spinoza 2007: 186). According to Spinoza, then, reason can be as ‘senseless’ and ‘distorting’ as dogmatism if it is used wrongly. He thought it important to examine the psychological motivations for the application of rational arguments, not simply to focus on the arguments themselves. And it is not to be taken for granted that a narrow rationalism is the only way, nor invariably the best way, to understand religion in all its aspects. Perhaps

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it is not reason alone that provides the criterion for distinguishing between true and false religion. For Spinoza, as we shall see, ethical conduct and emotional stability are equally integral to this distinction.

12.3 Spinoza on Knowledge and Affect Spinoza defines the mind as the ‘idea of the body’, meaning the activity of cognizing (or being conscious of) the body. And he describes three kinds of cognition (or three kinds of mind), each intrinsically linked not only to a certain degree of insight into ‘God or Nature’, but also to certain emotional states and ethical capabilities. Spinoza introduces his distinction between three kinds of cognition towards the end of Part II of the Ethics, ‘On the Nature and Origin of the Mind’. This threefold distinction is crucial to his discussion of the nature and power of the affects (Parts III and IV) and of human virtue and blessedness (Parts IV and V). The first kind of cognition is ‘opinion or imagination’, which derives from ‘singular things which have been represented to us through the senses in a way which is mutilated, confused, and without order for the intellect—knowledge from random experience’ as well as from ‘signs, e.g., having heard or read certain words, we recollect things, and form certain ideas of them, like those through which we imagine things’ (Spinoza 1996: 57). This empirically derived cognition is closely connected with habituation: when we frequently observe a certain sequence of events, their ideas become associated in our minds, and our thinking therefore comes to follow a certain contingent order, derived ‘from random experience’, as Spinoza puts it. The second kind of cognition is ‘reason’, which is formed from ‘the fact that we have common notions and adequate ideas of the properties of things’ (Spinoza 1996: 57). ‘Common notions’ are characteristics which all bodies share—for example, they all involve the concepts of extension, motion, and rest (Spinoza 1996: 41, 54). This suggests that Spinoza understands by ‘reason’ the knowledge gained in disciplines like mathematics and physics. Unlike imagination, reasoning reflects the logical and causal order of nature, so that insofar as they reason, people ‘agree’ with one another. The third kind of cognition is ‘intuitive knowledge’ (Scientia intuitiva), which ‘proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the

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essence of things’ (Spinoza 1996: 57). Intuitive knowledge understands singular things in their relation to God. Spinoza distinguishes the first kind of cognition from the second and third kinds on the basis of the distinction between falsity and truth: ‘Cognition of the first kind is the only cause of falsity, whereas cognition of the second kind and of the third kind is necessarily true’; ‘Cognition of the second and third kinds, and not of the first kind, teaches us to distinguish the true from the false’ (Spinoza 1996: 57–8). Drawing this distinction between the false understanding produced by opinion and imagination, and the true understanding produced by reason, is of course a familiar philosophical move: we find versions of it in Plato and Descartes, for example. More specific to Spinoza, however, is the further distinction between two kinds of ‘true’ or ‘adequate’ knowledge. Reason perceives common properties, but not the nature (or essence) of singular things (Spinoza 1996: 54). Scientia intuitiva perceives these singular essences, and moreover it grasps the way in which essences of things follow from the essence of God.1 Although reason and Scientia intuitiva both produce true knowledge, Spinoza clearly ranks the latter at the top of his epistemological hierarchy. In his Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being (c.1660), which sets out many of the ideas that would be more fully developed in the Ethics, he writes that the person who possesses ‘the clearest knowledge of all . . . has no need either of report, or of experience, or of the art of reasoning . . . we call that clear knowledge which comes not from being convinced by reasons, but from being aware of and enjoying the thing itself ’ (Spinoza 1985: 98–9). Another distinguishing feature of Scientia intuitiva is its directness, its immediacy: it comprehends the truth ‘in one glance’ (Spinoza 1996: 57). Most significant, however, is Spinoza’s suggestion that intuitive knowledge differs from reasoning in 1 Part I of the Ethics concerns the existence and nature of God, and asserts the fundamental tenet that ‘Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God’ (Spinoza 1996: 10). This part of the text is primarily concerned with clarifying the manner in which all things are ‘in God’ and ‘follow from God’. Spinoza’s immanentism contrasts with traditional doctrines of creation: ‘God is the immanent, not the transitive, cause of all things’ (Spinoza 1996: 16) and ‘God cannot properly be called the remote cause of singular things’ (Spinoza 1996: 20). This interpretation of divine creation also contrasts, more sharply, with deism: ‘God is not only the cause of things’ beginning to exist, but also of their persevering in existing, or (to use a Scholastic term) God is the cause of the being of things’ (Spinoza 1996: 18).

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its effect upon the knower. This emerges in Part V of the Ethics, where he claims that Scientia intuitiva is ‘much more powerful’ and ‘accomplishes’ far more than the second kind of cognition: ‘From what we have said, we can easily conceive what clear and distinct knowledge—and especially that third kind of knowledge whose foundation is the knowledge of God itself—can accomplish against the affects’ (Spinoza 1996: 170–1, 176–7). This emphasis on the transformative power of intuitive knowledge develops Spinoza’s blunter claims in the Short Treatise that ‘reason has no power to bring us to our well-being’ and that ‘only the third way, true knowledge, makes us free of [the passions]’ (Spinoza 1985: 138, 129). In remarking that Scientia intuitiva frees us from the passions, Spinoza is not suggesting that this liberation is purely intellectual, with no affective dimension. On the contrary, for Spinoza, cognition and affect— the way we think and the way we feel—are inseparably connected to one another. He identifies three elementary affects: desire, joy, and sadness, and each of these has a cognitive dimension (Spinoza 1996: 76–7). Spinoza emphasizes that ‘the things which [a man] believes will make for Joy or Sadness, and which he therefore strives to promote or prevent, are often only imaginary’, and he links this with the ‘inconstancy’ of human nature and judgement (Spinoza 1996: 96). All three modes of cognition involve awareness of the body, and the capacities of the mind are directly correlated to the capacities of the body (Spinoza 1996: 39–40). Thinking is closely connected to feeling, or affect, which in turn has both mental and physical aspects. The normative order of the three kinds of cognition does not reflect increasing levels of intellectuality, and certainly not higher degrees of reflection or abstraction, but increasing stability, peace, and contentment alongside greater intellectual clarity and certainty. Spinoza thus offers a conceptual framework to analyse human affects in general, and religious affects in particular.

12.4 ‘True Religion’: Philosophy and Religious Practices Spinoza’s emphasis on embodied practice likewise helps to broaden philosophy’s understanding of religion beyond the confines of the narrow intellectualism that pervades much contemporary philosophy of religion. Religion is a highly complex phenomenon, and perhaps it is

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impossible to define and circumscribe it. For this reason, no doubt, philosophers often simplify it, making it a more manageable object of study by focusing solely on the part of it—certainly, an important part— that can be articulated in propositional form. This brings to the fore doctrines and beliefs, worldviews and teachings. But even if we confine ourselves to one religious tradition, this religion will encompass not only diverse beliefs and teachings, but many different ways of comporting oneself in relation to a given worldview, and many different ways of transmitting and receiving a given body of doctrine. Our challenge is to think philosophically not only about key tenets of religious belief, but about religious life—which includes ethical codes, moral habits, communal practices, collective and individual modes of self-identity and selfunderstanding, belief and doubt, spiritual or devotional exercises, sacred texts, social structures, ways of consecrating space and time, and so on. This raises the question: what does it mean for philosophy to understand religion—as distinct from the way the social sciences understand it? To begin with, philosophy brings to religion its characteristic distinction between reality and appearance, truth and falsehood, authenticity and inauthenticity. For example, philosophy can work to clarify the criteria that enable us to distinguish between true religion and superstition. This can be an existential issue as much as a metaphysical and epistemological issue: the question is not simply whether a certain set of doctrinal claims is true, or even verifiable, but what it means to live authentically in accordance with this doctrine, and how such existential truth might be assessed and measured. Philosophy can set the terms of an immanent critique by which a religious tradition opens itself to critical reflection and tests its efficacy, without being distorted or violated in the process. Perhaps more fundamental than these evaluative enquiries is the transcendental mode of questioning which philosophy brings to the religious life: how are human beings constituted such that it can make sense to speak of their bondage and liberation, their sin and salvation? Integral to—though not necessarily exclusive to—religious life is the possibility of transformation, whether through practice, experience, or intellectual insight. The philosopher of religion must seek to understand how the practitioner’s reason, actions, and identity may be altered through religion. In his 2014 Manifesto for the philosophy of religion, Kevin Schilbrack urges philosophers to engage with religious practices. He argues that ‘the

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traditional division of labour in the academic study of religions seems to have followed a tacit rule that the discipline of philosophy of religion studies religious beliefs (the mental) and the social scientific disciplines study religious practices (the bodily)’ (Schilbrack 2014: 32). Schilbrack ascribes philosophers’ tendency to focus on beliefs to ‘an implicit but pervasive mind–body dualism [which] supports the view that religious practices lack the properties found in cognitive activities and are simply mechanical or thoughtless . . . [M]ost philosophers of religion leave religious practices for others to study on the assumption that the practices themselves are not philosophical’ (Schilbrack 2014: 35). That is to say, philosophers often assume that religious practices ‘do not involve the kinds of cognitive activity that deserve philosophical attention’ (Schilbrack 2014: 35). If Schilbrack is right to argue that a dualistic ontology and anthropology underlie this attitude to embodied practice, this gives a hint about why Spinoza—who saw the mind and the body as causally distinct but perfectly correlated aspects of a single entity—offers a philosophical framework better equipped to make sense of practices. In drawing a clear division between the inadequate or false cognition of imagination (which provides contingent habits of thinking) and the adequate or true understanding of reason and Scientia intuitiva, Spinoza might seem to be disparaging the embodied, habitual elements of human life. However, having clarified what human happiness and virtue truly consist in, Spinoza offers advice about how one’s physical environment can better support a contented, virtuous life. We should ‘refresh and restore [ourselves] in moderation with pleasant food and drink, with scents, with the beauty of green plants, with decoration, music, sports, the theatre, and other things of this kind, which anyone can use without injury to another’ (Spinoza 1996: 140–1). Spinoza also recommends practices of cognitive and affective discipline and cultivation which help to reorder ethical life according to reason, drawing on the account of imaginative thinking and habituation developed in Part II of the Ethics (Carlisle 2014: 52–8). The mechanisms of repetition and the association of ideas that produce irrational habits can be utilized prudently to impress upon the mind certain ‘maxims’ that restrain the passions in situations where anger and hatred might naturally be provoked. Although not everyone is capable of Scientia intuitiva—for knowledge of God is a ‘gift’ given only to certain people

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(Spinoza 2007: 174–7)—we do all, nonetheless, ‘have the power’, through practices, ‘of ordering and connecting the affections of the body according to the order of the intellect’. ‘The best thing that we can do, so long as we do not have perfect knowledge of our affects,’ advises Spinoza, ‘is to conceive a correct principle of living, or sure maxims of life, commit them to memory, and apply them constantly to the particular cases frequently encountered in life. In this way our imagination will be extensively affected by them, and we shall always have them ready . . . He who will observe these rules carefully—for they are not difficult—and practice them, will soon be able to direct most of his actions according to the commands of reason’ (Spinoza 1996: 166–7). In spite of his precise taxonomy of kinds of cognition and kinds of affect, Spinoza recognizes that human beings differ in nature from one another: they have different mental capacities and different bodily constitutions (Spinoza 1996: 101). It is therefore not necessary—and indeed it would not be effective—to impose the same regime of practices on everyone. This is one of the reasons why Spinoza is so critical of dogmatism. His insistence on the freedom to philosophize can be interpreted according to a broad and practical conception of philosophy as a way of life that incorporates intellectual, bodily, and spiritual exercises. Yet Spinoza is far from being a relativist in these matters. On the contrary, he has a robust account of human error—and, precisely because each mode of cognition has both affective and ethical consequences, our errors are inevitably practical as well as cognitive. This is particularly true, of course, when it comes to our ideas of God and of ourselves, since our knowledge of ourselves, of human nature more generally, and of the whole (‘God or Nature’) in which we participate conditions all our interactions and encounters. Spinoza argues that true knowledge manifests itself both socially and psychologically: in peaceful relations between people—specifically in reciprocal acts of neighbour love—and in peace of mind within the individual. Knowing God adequately is an inseparably theoretical and practical task, which makes us not just virtuous citizens, but happy people. For Spinoza, happiness involves both joy and tranquillity, and these qualities arise from a certain manner of living. In the Ethics, he emphasizes that the ‘wise person is hardly troubled in spirit [vix animo movetur], but being . . . conscious [conscius] of himself, and of God, and of things, he . . . always possesses true peace of mind [sed semper vera animi acquiescentia]’ (Spinoza

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1996: 180). But he also writes that ‘Laughter and joking are pure joy, [and] no deity . . . ascribes to virtue our tears, sighs, fear, and other things of that kind, which are signs of a weak mind. On the contrary, the greater the joy with which we are affected, the greater the perfection to which we pass, that is, the more we participate in the divine nature’ (Spinoza 1996: 140).

References Carlisle, C. (2014), On Habit (London: Routledge). Carlisle, C. (2015), ‘Spinoza on Eternal Life’, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 89/1, 69–96. Herder, J. G. (1940), God: Some Conversations, trans. F. H. Burkhardt (New York: Veritas Press). Israel, J. (2001), Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). James, S. (2012), Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press). Kant, I. (1992), The Conflict of the Faculties, trans. M. Gregor (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press). Lubac, H. (1959), Exégèse médiévale : Les quatre sens de l’Écriture, 4 vols (Paris: Aubier), i. Mowbray, M. (2004), ‘Philosophy as Handmaid of Theology: Biblical Exegesis in the Service of Scholarship’, Traditio 59, 1–37. Schilbrack, K. (2014), Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell). Spinoza, B. (1966), The Correspondence of Spinoza, trans. A. Wolf (London: Frank Cass). Spinoza, B. (1985), The Collected Works of Spinoza, 2 vols, trans. and ed. E. M. Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press), i. Spinoza, B. (1996), Ethics, trans. Edwin Curley (London: Penguin). Spinoza, B. (2007), Theological-Political Treatise, ed. J. Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

13 Protest and Enlightenment in the Book of Job Wes Morriston

Christian philosophers sometimes read the Book of Job through the lens of their own theological presuppositions. For example, Eleonore Stump sees in the story of Job an illustration of her view that God never lets anyone suffer unless it is for their own good, whereas Alvin Plantinga finds in God’s answer to Job a vivid illustration of the thesis that although God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting suffering, we should not expect to know much about them.1 In the present chapter, I take issue with both interpretations, arguing that they read things into the text that aren’t there, while missing much of importance. If I am right, these are examples of the way in which the theological or confessional turn in contemporary philosophy of religion can blind us to what foundational religious texts actually say. The Book of Job abounds in puzzles for the interpreter, and I do not claim that there is a single, clearly correct way of sorting it all out. What I do try to show is that, when read with an open mind, this great book will be found to contain a sharp challenge to traditional ideas about God, and that the theophany at the climax of the Job story opens up highly unorthodox but religiously interesting possibilities. I shall sometimes speak of “the Job poet.” When I do so, I shall be referring to the author of the poem of moral protest and (subsequent) 1 More recently, Plantinga has developed a Christian theodicy that he thinks gives God’s actual reason for permitting evil. As far as I know, though, he still finds the skeptical theist way of reading Job to be quite plausible.

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enlightenment that constitutes more than three quarters of the Book of Job. I believe that the poet quite deliberately chose to frame his poem with a folktale about a righteous sufferer, and I suspect that his intention was subversive—that he wanted to alter the meaning of the Job story by inserting his poem into the middle of it. The poem is remarkable for the unbridled ferocity with which Job complains about the divine governance of the world. For example, Job says that God “destroys both the blameless and the wicked” and that He “mocks at the calamity of the innocent” (Job 9: 22–4).2 Job himself is an innocent victim, and, after a lengthy debate with three friends, he swears out an oath of innocence and demands that God explain Himself. God does answer Job, but not in the way he had expected. God says nothing about His reasons (if any) for destroying the innocent. Instead, God demands that Job answer His questions. Taken together, these (highly rhetorical) questions describe the founding of the earth, the play of natural forces, the behavior of various animals, and even (in the second divine speech) the strength and invulnerability of a pair of mythological monsters (Behemoth and Leviathan). Where, God asks, is Job in all of this? What can he do? What does he know? Job has little to say in response. He concedes that he has spoken “without understanding,” and repents in dust and ashes. At this point, most readers can’t help wondering why Job doesn’t have more to say. What does he know now that he hasn’t known all along? What new insight has he gleaned from God’s answer, and why does it lead him to drop his complaint?

13.1 A “Skeptical Theist” Account Some philosophers of religion—especially those commonly known as “skeptical theists”—are tempted by an interpretation on which the divine speeches are intended to persuade Job that God has inscrutable but morally sufficient reasons for permitting Job’s suffering. Alvin Plantinga sums up this view with characteristic clarity: Job complains that God has no good reason for permitting the evil that befalls him. He believes that God doesn’t have a good reason because he, Job, can’t 2

Biblical citations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 1989).

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imagine what that reason might be. In reply, God does not tell him what the reason is; instead he attacks Job’s unthinking assumption that if he can’t imagine what reason God might have, then probably God doesn’t have a reason at all. And God attacks this assumption by pointing out that Job’s knowledge is limited. (Plantinga 2000: 497)

One problem with this interpretation is that Job doesn’t make the argument Plantinga attributes to him. It isn’t what Job doesn’t see that leads to his complaint—but rather what he thinks he does see. He is certain that justice requires that God give people what they deserve. But he is equally sure of his own innocence, and (more generally) he thinks it is obvious that people don’t always get their just deserts. So, then, given what Job takes himself to know, he concludes that God is not just. Which part of this does Job now take back? Not that he is innocent, surely. (The premise of the entire book is that Job is “blameless and upright.”) Nor that people often fail to get their just deserts. (That’s only too obviously true, and the divine speeches have given him no reason to doubt it.) The answer must be that Job’s vision has led him to withdraw the claim about what justice requires of God. This may seem to leave an opening for a skeptical theist interpretation. Perhaps God has hidden but morally sufficient reasons for not making sure that people always get what they deserve. Or perhaps there are goods and evils in the afterlife that would, when properly taken into account, show that God is ultimately fair—or perhaps more than fair—to everyone. Whatever the merits of these suggestions in the broader context of debates about the problem of evil, it is a mistake to try to read them into God’s answer to Job. The concept of a meaningful afterlife is altogether foreign to the Book of Job, and the two divine speeches don’t so much as hint at the possibility of morally sufficient reasons for the way God treats people. They say nothing at all about God’s reasons—not even that there are reasons. Instead, they change the subject, directing attention away from Job and his complaint. They force him to step outside the circle of traditional ideas about God and morality, to see a world that is not centered in human life and human concerns—a world in which lions prowl and eagles soar and Leviathan is “king over all the proud beasts” (41: 34). The vision is sublime and it fills the heart with wonder, but it does not reveal (or imply) any sort of moral order.

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13.2 Eleonore Stump’s Interpretation Eleonore Stump would not agree with this assessment. Her interpretation is shaped by the belief that God is a loving parent who won’t permit a child to suffer, unless the suffering “confers an outweighing benefit” for that child, and confers the benefit in a way that “could not have been equally well achieved without the suffering” (Stump 2010: 191).3 What truly benefits a person, however, is not determined by his or her subjective preferences, but by an objective scale of values in which union with God is the best possible good, and permanent separation from Him is the worst possible evil. Stump’s interpretation is also shaped by her belief that a direct encounter with another person (a “second-person experience”) provides knowledge that cannot be fully cashed out in a set of propositions. One of her favorite examples is that of a child whose mother permits him to undergo a frightening and painful treatment for cancer. What the child most needs may not be information about the way the treatment is supposed to work, but the reassurance of his mother’s loving presence (223). Although second-person knowledge cannot be fully expressed propositionally, Stump thinks it can to some degree be shared with a wider audience. The trick is to tell a story that “re-presents” the personal encounter in such a way that the hearer (or reader) can experience “some of what she would have experienced if she had been an onlooker” at that encounter (78). The Book of Job, Stump believes, is just such a story—or rather a nested set of such stories. At the top level is a “framing story” that Stump derives from two short exchanges between God and Satan in the prologue. On Stump’s reading, Satan is an alienated child who unexpectedly shows up at a family gathering of the “sons of God.” Satan has been trying to harm Job all along, in an effort to drive a wedge between Job and God, but he hasn’t been able to get around the “hedge” that God has put around Job. Satan complains about this, pretending that there is something improper in the favorable treatment Job has received. God knows all about what Satan is really up to, but He loves Satan and wants to bring him back into loving relationship with Himself (or at least bring 3

Unless otherwise indicated, all subsequent references in this chapter are to Stump 2010.

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him as close as Satan is willing to go). With this end in mind, He permits Satan to bring about the destruction of Job’s fortune and the death of his children. He is confident that Job’s response to misfortune will give Satan a shining example of a person who is disinterestedly devoted to the good, and He hopes that this will shake Satan out of his cynicism and put him on a better path. Job responds as God had expected, but Satan is unwilling to give up on his malevolent project. He now wants God to strike Job’s person—to hit him “so hard, and so unjustly, that Job will be driven past endurance into open conflict with God” (214). Satan’s real motive has now been pushed out into the open, but God, still in pursuit of His own loving ends, permits Satan to afflict Job with a terrible skin disease. Satan now disappears from the narrative, which “shape-shifts into a story about Job” (215). Within Job’s story, God is seeking his good and he is “the primary beneficiary of the events involving his suffering.” The very same divine acts that were meant to give Satan his best shot at reformation are also intended to make Job “an exemplar of human greatness” (219). As the story of Job continues, three friends arrive and there is a lengthy debate and a sharp division of opinion. The friends belong to the “Whatever Faction of God.” They insist that whatever God wills is good and right just because He wills it (217). Job, on the other hand, chooses to be “on the side of goodness rather than on the side of power, even if the side of power should be God’s side.” In so choosing, Job is “as fervently on God’s side as it is possible to be,” and that is why (in the epilogue) God commends his attitude and condemns that of the friends (217). But God also wants to show Job that goodness and power are not ultimately separated. So He speaks to Job at length. As Stump understands them, the two divine speeches portray God as a loving parent who cares for His children. For example, when the morning stars sing together and the sons of God shout for joy, this shows that God is seeking to “bring joy” to a community of “sons” by sharing His creative act with them (187). Stump sees parental (or at least second-personal) imagery even in the descriptions of inanimate things and processes. The sea, she writes, is “created by coming forth from a womb”; God “wraps it in swaddling bands,” and controls it “by talking to the sea and telling it what it can and

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cannot do” (188). Darkness and light have “dwelling places” and God Himself guides them there. He “commands” the morning. He sends lightning where He pleases, and it “responds by talking to God” (189). Turning to the depictions of animals, Stump says God is portrayed as giving them “what they need just because they need it.” He “makes a home for the wild donkeys,” “gives hawks the knowledge necessary for flight,” and feeds baby ravens when they “cry to God.” Even in the case of the witless ostrich Stump says that there is a “loving note”—“an implication that, if the ostrich’s eggs and children survive, it is because God does the mother’s job for the ostrich mother” (189). Stump has much less to say about the second speech, but she does what she can to assimilate the two monsters depicted there to the loving parent theme. She thinks the following passage makes her point. Will [Leviathan] make many supplications to you, will it speak soft words to you? Will it make a covenant with you, to be taken as your servant forever? Will you play with it as with a bird, leash it for your girls? (Job 41: 3–5)

This is supposed to show that God “has a second-personal relationship even with these great beasts,” and they are included in Stump’s list of creatures with whom God deals “as a parent” (190). Stump next invokes the “common moral intuition” that a good parent will permit her child to suffer only if there is an outweighing benefit for the child that could not be achieved in a less painful way. Stump acknowledges that the divine speeches don’t explicitly claim that God follows this principle of good parenting, but she insists that they offer “a suggestion, a picture, that leads us to think” that He does. Moreover, she claims that there is a “ready inference” from the parental care God showers on all the rest of creation to the way he deals with human beings (191). She says that this inference is available to Job, but that he does not need it since his conversation with God provides him with something “epistemically and psychologically more powerful,” viz., “cognition of the knowledge of persons sort” (192), enabling him to grasp the point of the divine speeches directly and without an explicit inference. However, Stump continues, Job has another, even stronger source of reassurance. All the while God has been talking to him, Job has been seeing God—not with his physical eyes, but with a kind of inner sight— and this gives him what he most needs. Job had mistakenly accused God of betraying his trust, and God answers this charge by facing Job and

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letting him see His love in a direct, non-inferential way. This is what brings about his deep and heartfelt repentance. Through his suffering, his steadfast fidelity to the good, and his profound (and lengthy) encounter with God, Job has become “glorious”—“the sort of person whose life captures the imagination of anyone who learns of it” (217). This, then, is the sufferer-centered good for the sake of which God permitted Satan to afflict Job.

13.3 The Story about Satan What are we to make of this reading of the Book of Job? Let’s begin with Stump’s handling of the prologue. One must admire the ingenuity with which Stump injects subtle meanings into the tiniest details of this story. For example, when the text says that Satan was also present at a gathering of the sons of God, Stump says this shows that there is something surprising about his being there. When God asks Satan where he’s been, she thinks God is trying to bring out into the open the latter’s estrangement from God. When Satan says that he has been walking to and fro on the earth, this supposedly “evasive” reply shows that he is a restless spirit. When Satan points out that God has put a “hedge” around Job, this shows that Satan has all along been trying to harm Job. (How else would he know about the hedge?) And so it goes, as one detail after another is made to fit the more complex story Stump wants to tell. Stump knows that some readers will think she is reading things into the text that aren’t there, and that they will be impatient with the complexities of her “right-brained dissection” of the story. Here is her riposte: “Serious insight into second-person experiences and secondperson accounts is always likely to strike those short-sighted in interpersonal relations as eisegesis” (204).4 Stump is a gifted story-teller, but in this case, I think she is guilty as charged. Her own distinctive views about God, Providence, and the Bible are evident at every twist and turn of the story she chooses to tell, and they are in the driver’s seat. Here is a test question: if you were not operating on the assumption that God is a loving parent who always In Stump’s lexicon, “eisegesis” is a pejorative word for projecting one’s own ideas onto a text. 4

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makes sure that his children get what they most need, and that what they most need is what will increase the probability of their drawing closer to God, and that suffering is often that very thing, and (finally and decisively) that Bible stories never misrepresent God, would it occur to you that the “God character” in the Job prologue has anything like the motives Stump attributes to Him? Stump would no doubt reply that something like her interpretation of the prologue is needed if we are to see the Book of Job as a coherent whole. If (as she believes) the God of the theophany loves and cares for all His creatures, then we must suppose that the God of the prologue has a similarly loving relationship with both Satan and Job—unless, of course, we are prepared to impugn the competence of the author. But this, Stump says in another context, would be “a particularly lame strategy, because of the magnificent artistry” in the Book of Job (186). I do not see how it would show a lack of artistry if the character of the “whirlwind” God were quite different from that of the God of the legend. Once Job cuts loose and says just how he feels about the ruler of the universe, we are on a dramatic level completely different from that of the prologue, and I see no reason why we should not get a quite different portrait of divinity—at least as different as the indignant Job of the poem is from the submissive Job of the prologue. More importantly, of course, I don’t agree that the theophany portrays God as a loving parent. I will explain why presently, but first I must say something about Stump’s treatment of the debate between Job and his three friends.

13.4 What Is At Stake in the Debate Stump is primarily concerned with the “second-person context” of the debate, and she tends rather to neglect its intellectual content. For example, she doesn’t mention the fact that the friends repeatedly (and quite rightly) represent themselves as the bearers of traditional wisdom, and she doesn’t seem to see that what is at stake is the viability of a view of divine providence that receives frequent expression in Psalms and Proverbs.5 5 See, for example, Psalm 1 and Proverbs 10: 24–32. Passages like these are scattered throughout Psalms and Proverbs, and they are ubiquitous in the speeches of the three friends.

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Moreover, I think Stump misunderstands Job’s friends when she says they belong to the “Whatever Faction of God.” There is not the slightest hint that the friends think it would not be wrong for God to punish an innocent person. They merely deny that He ever does. The debate between Job and his friends is not about whether there is a standard of goodness over and above whatever God happens to do. It is not even a debate about what justice requires of God. It is instead about whether God rules the world in accordance with the requirements of perfect justice. Job thinks that his treatment at the hands of God illustrates a general pattern of neglect or abuse. What he craves, but despairs of getting, is impartial justice. Job is plainly right about one thing. Common experience shows that the goods and evils of life are not distributed in accordance with merit. Job’s friends, on the other hand, are so completely lost in their own concepts that they can’t see what’s in front of their noses. And it is because of this that they have failed to see, much less speak, the truth about God “as My servant Job has done” (Job 42: 7, 8).

13.5 God’s Answer Of course, Job also needs to be set straight about something and there is an element of reproof in the two divine speeches. So what fresh insight does the theophany provide? Is it (as Stump supposes) that God loves and cares for all His creatures? Again, Stump’s presuppositions lead to implausible interpretations. For example, there is little in the Book of Job to suggest that the heavenly court is a family, that God is the loving parent of all the (other) members of that family, or that He lets them observe His creative acts in order to bring them joy. The only textual basis for putting this spin on things is the fact that the members of the heavenly court are referred to as “sons of God.” Stump acknowledges that this is an idiom—one frequently translated simply as “gods” or “heavenly beings.” Nevertheless, she insists that it “retains some of the flavor” of its original meaning, and this, she says, “is sufficient for the point I am making” (560, note 28). I don’t agree. I would have said that her point requires the original meaning itself. What, next, are we to make of Stump’s claim that God deals with inanimate things “as if they were children of his” (188)? The best text for Stump’s thesis occurs in the account of God’s mastery of the sea. When it

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“bursts out from the womb,” God “swaddles” it in mist, clothes it in clouds, shuts it within barred doors, and says to it, “Thus far shall you come and no farther” (Job 38: 8–11). Biblical scholars find in this passage an echo of Canaanite mythology, where the sea represents a chaotic principle defeated by a hero god who establishes order. If this is right, then the passage depicts a surge of chaotic energy bursting out of the primordial abyss, and the point of the passage may be that God is entirely up to the task of preventing Chaos from overwhelming the world whose foundations He has just laid. Portraying the sea as a newborn and God as a sort of midwife may speak to the ease with which God handles the “sea problem.” It may also soften the image of locking the sea behind barred doors, but I do not think the poet wants us to see God as a loving mother who regulates Her child’s behavior by “talking to it.” What of the vivid descriptions of various animals? Is God’s loving care not visible in them? Consider first the notorious ostrich passage: The ostrich’s wings flap wildly, though its pinions lack plumage. For it leaves its eggs to the earth, and lets them be warmed on the ground, forgetting that a foot may crush them, and that a wild animal may trample them. It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own; though its labour should be in vain, yet it has no fear; because God has made it forget wisdom, and given it no share in understanding. When it spreads its plumes aloft, it laughs at the horse and its rider. (Job 39: 13–18)

The poet wants us to enjoy the ostrich—wildly flapping wings, witless laughter, and all the rest—but there is (pace Stump) no “loving note” here. The ostrich’s eggs are imperiled because God has deprived her of whatever instinct is required to protect them from danger. And while the poet no doubt thinks some of them are hatched (else there would be no ostriches), he needn’t assume that they all are, or that they survive only because God prevents them from being crushed and then reminds the ostrich mother of what she has forgotten. Consider next Stump’s claim that the speeches portray God as feeding young ravens when they “cry to God.” Here is the raven passage, with a bit of context: Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert? Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food? (Job 38: 39–41)

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I think we can assume that the Job poet knows that the mother lion hunts prey for her young, that ravens live off carrion, and that what’s good for predators is not good for their prey. The only reasonable sense in which God might be said to provide food for lions and ravens is that, in addition to creating them with their natures, He creates other species whose members can be killed and eaten. Stump finds great significance in the way the ravens’ young express their hunger and need. They “do not just cry when they are hungry; they cry to God”—and this supposedly shows that they have a quasi-personal relationship with God (189). This seems like quite a stretch to me. When the poet describes these young birds as “crying to God,” he indulges in an anthropomorphism that lends a bit of tenderness to the image of these young birds. But it also—and more importantly—serves to underscore their acute hunger and the scarcity of meat on account of which they are “wandering about.” If they are to be fed (and who says they will be?), their nourishment will be at some other creature’s expense, and it would be absurd to portray the (probably violent) death of that creature as God’s answer to a personal request from hungry young ravens. It is remarkable that death and violence are implicated in so many of the images in the theophany. It is as if they were among the world’s very finest features, those of which God is proudest. Consider, for example, the stunning description of the war horse: Do you give the horse its might? Do you clothe its neck with mane? Do you make it leap like the locust? Its majestic snorting is terrible. It paws mightily, exults mightily, it goes out to meet the weapons. It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed; it does not turn back from the sword. Upon it rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin. With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground; it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. When the trumpet sounds, it says “Aha!” From a distance it smells the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. (Job 39: 19–25)

We might be on the field of Troy, with this horse as our featured hero. He exults at the sound of battle, shouts hurrah at the sound of the trumpet, and rushes out in fierceness and rage to meet the enemy. Here too we have an anthropomorphism—or rather a whole series of them. These combine with the horse’s more familiar natural attributes (its neck and mane, its thunderous snort, its ways of pawing the ground, of leaping and running) to create a compelling image of fierce courage that embraces the clash of arms, the spilling of blood, and the ever present danger of death.

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As is often the case in the divine speeches, the opening questions imply that it is God, not Job, who does all this—that it is God who gives the horse its might, clothes its neck with a mane, and makes it leap like a locust. But it would be more instructive to consider what God’s evident admiration for this luminous being tells us about Him. Does He too rejoice at the sound of battle? As the first speech continues, God holds up a pair of winged predators (the hawk and the eagle) for Job’s admiration: Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high? It lives on the rock and makes its home in the fastness of the rocky crag. From there it spies the prey; its eyes see it from far away. Its young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there it is. (Job 39: 26–30)

These lines cannot plausibly be taken to imply that God enters into second-personal relations with individual hawks and eagles, telling them in which direction to fly or where to find the corpses of those who have been slain in battle. What we should see in the soaring flight of the hawk and the grisly meal of the eagle’s young is an invitation to celebrate the same fierce power and joy that expresses itself in the courageous charge of the war horse.

13.6 Job’s Response to God’s First Speech Immediately following the depiction of the eagle, God demands that Job respond. But Job has only this to say: See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further. (Job 40: 4–5)

There is significant variation among translations of the first clause. According to some, Job says that he is small; according to others, that he is worthless. Stump prefers the Authorized Version—“Behold, I am vile” (186)—and she defends her preference by pointing out that “the root meaning of the Hebrew word is to be contemptible or disgraced” (559, note 24). Clearly, this is one of those points at which the translator’s choice must be at least partly determined by his or her understanding of the

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context. If, as Stump believes, God has been telling Job about His loving parental care for hawks and eagles and baby ravens, and Job has all the while been seeing God’s love for him, then he must realize that he has defamed his best and truest friend. In that case, it might make sense for him to begin with a bit of self-flagellation. (Though his refusal to elaborate is a bit surprising.) But if one hears (as I do) a wild and wonderful celebration of creation, cosmos, and (non-human) animal life, then “I am of small account” is a far better fit. We can understand Job’s words this way: he sees that he counts for no more (and of course for no less) in the total scheme of things than, say, the wild ox or the eagle. But while he is deeply moved by the wonder of it all, he is also bewildered. He does not (yet) see how his complaint has been answered, and he doesn’t know how to respond to God’s demand for a reply. So he puts his hand over his mouth (an expression of awe and/or bewilderment) and declines to say more.

13.7 Seeing the Face of God The celebratory mood of the first divine speech carries over into the descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan in the second. Leviathan in particular is described in great and painstaking detail. Again we have a not-so-distant echo of Canaanite mythology, in which a sea god is vanquished by a sky god. It may be that part of the point of the passage is that the God who speaks to Job is the only power capable of dealing with this fierce embodiment of Chaos, that He can do what He likes with Leviathan—put him on a fishhook, or carve him into pieces, or put him on a leash. But it would be quite a stretch to speak of loving parental relations between God and this monster. The whole of Job Chapter 41 is devoted to a depiction of Leviathan’s power and its fearsome appearance. As one terrifying image is piled onto another in a veritable paean of praise, God seems to be holding the great sea monster up for admiration: I will not keep silence concerning its limbs, or its mighty strength, or its splendid frame. Who can strip off its outer garment? Who can penetrate its double coat of mail? Who can open the doors of its face? There is terror all around its teeth . . . Its sneezes flash forth light, and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. From its mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap out. Out of its nostrils comes smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. Its breath

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kindles coals, and a flame comes out of its mouth. In its neck abides strength, and terror dances before it . . . When it raises itself up the gods are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves . . . On earth it has no equal, a creature without fear. It surveys everything that is lofty; it is king over all that are proud. (Job 41: 12–22, 25, 33–4)

The celebration of Leviathan is immediately followed by Job’s response. We must bear this in mind as we try to grasp the meaning of these crucial lines: I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you (Job 42: 6)

The first line refers to received wisdom—to what Job had “heard” about God from other people. Unlike his friends, who were unwilling to learn from common experience, Job had already discovered that much of what he had heard is untrue, and this had led to his bitter complaint against God. But now, Job says, my eye sees You. What can this mean? Does it mean (as Stump supposes) that Job is having a direct, second-person experience in which he sees God’s love—an experience from which he can infer that his suffering serves a loving purpose, and even that it is for his own good? Apart from Stump’s own theological presuppositions, there is little reason to think so. Such a reading is particularly implausible given the juxtaposition of Job’s final words with the lengthy portrait of Leviathan. If what Job has seen is the face of mother God come at last to reassure him of her love, then her bedside manner needs work. The images leading up to Job’s response are so vivid that one might be forgiven for thinking that what he has finally seen with his inner eye is the face of Leviathan—glowing eyes and terrible teeth and smoking nostrils and all. But of course it isn’t only Leviathan that Job has seen. When Job hears God (a very different thing from hearing about God), he sees the world in all its glory and terror. The vision zooms in, so to speak, on one detail after another. Two general points are worthy of note. (1) Phenomena that human beings find strange or terrifying are repeatedly included, leading up to the dread visage of Leviathan. (2) With the exception of the fearless war horse, the animals depicted are completely wild. Like the torrents of rain that fall “where no man lives” (38: 25–7), these beasts are not made for, and do

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not serve the needs of, humans. Human beings are present only by implication and their concerns have been marginalized. Some of the images in the first speech are light-hearted (the divine builder stretching out a plumb line to take measurements, lightning bolts responding to God’s call with a brisk “Here we are!”). Some are bloody or terrifying (young eagles lapping up blood, firebrands issuing from Leviathan’s mouth). Still others are images of new life (the deer crouching to give birth) or of freedom (the wild ass who scorns “the tumult of the city”). All are suffused with mysterious significance. From the morning stars to the gates of death, from the founding of the earth to the day of battle and war, Job’s vision puts before him what Rudolph Otto called a “sheer absolute wondrousness that transcends human thought” (Otto 1936: 81). Liberated as he is from stale proverbs and dusty maxims, Job can taste and see “the downright stupendousness, the well-nigh daemonic and wholly incomprehensible character of the eternal creative power”— a power that “mocks at all conceiving but can yet stir the mind to its depths, fascinate and overbrim the heart” (Otto 1936: 82). Another way to express this would be to say that Job has seen the face of God. The refutation of traditional wisdom is now complete. Bitter experience had taught Job that the world is not in fact ruled by perfect justice, but he could not stop thinking that it should be, could not stop demanding that justice be done—hence the recurrent fantasy of taking God to court and forcing Him to acknowledge his innocence. But now, in the eye of the storm from which he hears God, Job sees a power—a Reality—so wild, so sublime that it takes his breath away. The human drama—and the human moral sense—have been left behind, and Job can see how desperately misguided his demand for a morally ordered world had been. That is why he “repents in dust and ashes.” Job’s repentance signifies an about-face, a radical change of heart and mind. But why “dust and ashes”? The best answer is that this is what Job is—it is what we all are. “Dust and ashes” is a Hebrew idiom for mortality, and there is no need to read it as referring to the ashes in which Job sat as he scraped his blistered skin with bits of broken pottery. Truth to tell, I think Job is no longer sitting. I see him standing upright, just as God had asked him to do—his face now radiant with the knowledge of Reality.

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WES MORRISTON

13.8 Repenting about Dust and Ashes That’s a lot to get out of a few obscure words, and some will no doubt think that my interpretation is motivated entirely by my own implicit biases. So let’s take another, closer look at these lines: “Therefore I despise myself / and repent in dust and ashes” (NRSV). Both lines are notoriously ambiguous in Hebrew, and translators are forced to make several hard choices. These are inevitably guided, at least in part, by what they think it makes sense for Job to say at this point in the text. For example, the verb translated as “despise” lacks an object, and this must be supplied by the translator. Nowadays, most scholars agree that what Job despises is not himself (pace the Authorized Version and its descendants), but rather his former words about God. Why so? Well, God has accused Job of “darkening counsel by word without knowledge,” and Job has now conceded that he had “uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” The natural inference is that what Job now so emphatically retracts—or despises, if you like—is his previous complaint about the injustice of God’s rule. We have next to consider Job’s repentance. Christian readers are apt to assume that Job must be expressing deep sorrow over some sin—perhaps the sin of blasphemy, or of excessive pride. But this is implausible, since the premise of the entire book is that Job is “blameless and upright.” It is true that the divine speeches accuse him of ignorance, but they do not suggest that he has sinned against God in any way. And, in the epilogue, God says that (unlike his three friends) Job has spoken of Him “what is right” (42: 7, 8). Admittedly, this is in tension with God’s earlier statement that Job had “darkened counsel by words without knowledge” (38: 2). But I think the two statements can be reconciled in the following way. Job was right when he rejected the traditionalist claim of his friends that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked, but he “darkened counsel” when he claimed that God should be doing this and complained bitterly that He was not. Job’s ignorance has now been corrected, but his honesty and courage, and his willingness to learn from common experience, are honored. In what sense, then, does Job repent? Well, it is a commonplace of biblical scholarship that the word translated as “repent” is often used to

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speak of a change of mind on God’s part,6 and this gives us the space we need to think of Job’s repentance as a break with the past that does not involve sorrow or guilt. But what about the fact that Job repents in dust and ashes? I have suggested that “dust and ashes” should be construed as referring to Job’s mortality—or, more broadly, to his mortal human nature, and there is excellent biblical evidence for this usage.7 But what could it mean to say that Job’s mind is changed in his mortality? Or in his human nature? A solution is given by Kathryn Schifferdecker, who demonstrates on purely linguistic grounds that Job does not repent “in” or “on” dust and ashes, but about (or concerning) them (Schifferdecker 2008: 186–7). Her own proposed translation of the two disputed lines is “Therefore, I recant and change my mind about dust and ashes” (184), which she takes to mean that Job has changed his mind about the status of human beings within creation. Because the divine speeches are so radically nonanthropocentric, Schifferdecker thinks Job has come to see that humans are “merely a creature among creatures, neither the center of creation nor its crown” (106). This is quite plausible, but in order to see the precise way in which Job’s complaint has been answered, I would add two related points: (1) that the wonders Job has seen while hearing the Voice are not ordered in accordance with moral principles; and (2) that the Power that manifests itself in this prodigious variety is not a member of Job’s moral community, and cannot be faulted for not running the world in accordance with its standards. Given this understanding, Job now has a clear and logically satisfying answer to his complaint that God does not rule the world in accordance with the requirements of justice. It is that for God there are no such requirements. He is neither just, nor yet is He unjust—these categories simply do not apply.

6

See, for example, Exodus 32: 14 and Jeremiah 18: 8, 10. See, for example, Genesis 18: 27, where Abraham says, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.” 7

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WES MORRISTON

13.9 Life after Enlightenment Throughout his ordeal, Job had clung to the hope that justice could be found somewhere—if not in God, then in some higher court of appeal. But now, having stood face to face with the Ultimate, he knows what a mad and senseless hope this had been. There is no court of appeal, and no law requiring justice of God. One might have thought that such a discovery would have left Job in complete and irremediable despair. But this assumes that Job still hungers for divine justice, and I don’t think he does. As I envisage his repentance, it is a conversion of his whole being—a change in the desires of his heart, and not merely of his opinions. He has been liberated from the futile craving for divinely guaranteed moral order that had fueled his rebellion and bound him in misery, and freed for the wild wonder and beauty of what is. This does not mean that Job will henceforth be lost in mystical space— indifferent to life on the human scale and incapable of forming new attachments. It does mean that suffering and loss and moral indignation will no longer define him. Whatever the Lord may yet give (or take), he will know how to receive it. As it happens, the Lord gives. There is an epilogue in which Job receives double his previous wealth, twice the normal lifespan, ten new children, and an unspecified number of grandchildren. In the smaller reality of the legend, this no doubt brings the story to a highly edifying conclusion: the righteous may be tried and tested for a time, but God makes sure that all is well in the end. This is not the message of the Book of Job. We know, and Job knows, that things don’t usually work out this way—that more often than not there is no recompense for the victims of unjust suffering. So while Job can receive the new abundance of goods gladly, he knows that he must hold them lightly. His happiness no longer depends on the gifts of fortune. With or without them, his heart is at peace because he has seen the face of God. The morning stars are still singing.

13.10 Three Objections and a Modest Proposal I anticipate three objections. First objection: “On your account, the God Job encounters may be awesome and sublime and all that, but He is

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neither morally good nor loving. So your way of reading God’s answer puts it into conflict with the central tenets of ethical monotheism.” I answer: but this is exactly my point—the Job poet was a heretic. He meant to rock the boat. He meant to reject the orthodoxies of his day, and I see little reason to think he would have been better satisfied by those of our own. Second objection: “God is the ultimate author of the Bible, and what He wants to teach us in the Book of Job may be very different from anything the human author had in mind.” I reply: the great danger of this way of thinking about a biblical text is that it silences the human author and deprives us of his insights, substituting for them fanciful interpretations whose only merit is that they line up with orthodoxy. Third objection: “You say that when Job hears God, what he sees is the world in all its glory and terror. But this blurs the distinction between God and the world, and makes the Job poet sound like a pantheist. That can’t be right, since this poet portrays God both as the mighty creator of the world and as a person who talks to Job.” I reply: I don’t doubt that the Job poet is a monotheist, but I also think that he has seen something that cannot easily be expressed within the conceptual boundaries of conventional monotheism. Here, then, is a modest proposal. Let us—at least for a moment—set aside conventional ideas about God and the world, about what ought (or ought not) to be, and take a fresh look at God’s answer to Job. We may then catch a glimpse of what this great poet saw (or thought he saw). It won’t be possible to sum it up in a neat set of propositions, but it may nevertheless shake us out of theological complacency and force us to consider possibilities outside the range of those commonly considered by philosophers of religion. If we are not willing to do this, we risk ending up in a position something like that of Job’s three friends—seeing only what we are preconditioned to see and repeating tired formulas that we have learned from others.8

8

My heartfelt thanks to Rebecca Chan, Paul Draper, Jeff Gordon, and John Schellenberg for their insights, criticism, and encouragement.

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WES MORRISTON

References The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible with the Apochryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Otto, R. (1936), The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, trans. J. W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press). Plantinga, A. (2000), Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Schifferdecker, K. (2008), Out of the Whirlwind: Creation Theology in the Book of Job (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Stump, E. (2010), Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Index Adams, Marilyn 42 Alston, William 119 Anderson, Elizabeth 203 Anderson, Pamela Sue 134 Anselm 54 Antony, Louise 203 apologetics 1, 23, 24, 35, 40, 44–5, 109, 140, 143, 146–7, 151 Aquinas, Thomas 54–5, 81, 82–7, 88, 89, 90, 91n12, 92, 190 Aristotle 57–8, 84, 156 Armstrong, David 67 atheism 28, 44, 100, 103, 159, 166, 193, 211 Augustine 26, 213 Ayer, A. J. 26 Baggett, David 148 Baier, Annette 100n8 Barkman, Adam 139 Benson, Bruce Ellis 166 Bergmann, Michael 193–4, 195, 197n17, 198 Bishop, John 71, 101n9, 103n12, 105n15, 107 Blais, Clarinda 133 Buchak, Lara 189 Buddha 196 Buddhism 18, 21, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 46, 68, 69, 95, 117, 166 Burning Man 73–5 Cady, Emilie 68 Calvin, John 212 Cantens, Bernie 148 Caputo, John D. 134, 163 Carlisle, Clare 212, 220 Catherine of Siena 196 Chrétien, Jean-Louis 166 Christianity 16, 18, 19, 23, 27, 29, 30, 38, 41, 43, 46, 152, 156, 166, 185, 194, 209 Christian philosophy 1, 16, 17–23, 24, 33, 35, 40, 44, 46, 48, 95, 105n15, 109, 152, 161–2, 184

Clark, Dustin 133 Clarke, Peter 66 continental philosophy 28–30, 154–71 Cottingham, John 80 Craig, William Lane 49, 58n17, 194–5, 198, 199, 200, 203n25 Crockett, Clayton 167, 168 Crosby, Donald 141, 148, 149 Crowe, Benjamin 15 Damian, Peter 208 Davidson, Donald 150 Davidson, Matthew 145 Davis, Bret 26n5 Dawkins, Richard 15, 16, 70 Deleuze, Gilles 165 Derrida, Jacques 154n1, 162 Descartes, René 210, 217 Deuser, Hermann 149 DiDonato, Nicholas C. 133 Diller, Jeanine 103n12 Dogen 26 Draper, Paul 58n16, 60n20, 146–7, 195 Eastern religions 1, 2, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 29, 35, 43, 46, 65, 68–70, 75, 95, 115 Eck, Diana 21 Eckel, M. David 134 Eckhart, Meister 26, 28 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 165 ethics 39, 73, 96–101, 103, 105–7, 109, 158, 168, 202–4 faith: and practical commitment 88, 98–9, 102, 103–5, 106, 109, 189 as one-sidedly Western 16–17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26, 30 non-doxastic 20, 127 statements of 142–4, 151 feminism 144 Foucault, Michel 67

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INDEX

Frankenberry, Nancy 141, 150 Frege, Gottlob 150 Gardiner, Mark 149 God: alternative ideas of 11, 29, 41, 64, 65, 74–5, 79, 103, 106, 165, 170, 199–200, 211–12, 214, 217, 221, 223, 225, 227, 229–30, 232, 234–5, 239, 240–1 as distinct from the ultimate 48, 59 in the context of non-Christian traditions 17, 18, 22, 35, 95, 117, 143, 148 Gould, Stephen Jay 23 Graham, Gordon 148, 150 Habermas, Jürgen 29–30 Hadot, Pierre 68, 80, 89 Harris, Sam 68 Heelas, Paul 15 Hegel, G. W. F. 25, 26, 29, 146, 148 Heidegger, Martin 28, 29, 156, 162 Henry, Michel 166 Hick, John 21, 34, 35, 36, 40–4, 45, 47, 100 Hill, Napoleon 66, 68 Hinduism 18, 21, 35, 41, 43, 46, 65 Hitchens, Christopher 15 Hume, David 145, 146 Islam 17, 35, 41, 46, 115 James, William 102, 105 Janicaud, Dominique 164, 166n9 John the Apostle 212 Jones, Michael S. 141 Judaism 17, 35, 39, 41, 46 Kanaris, Jim 134 Kant, Immanuel 55, 80, 146, 148, 208–9, 214 Kelly, Thomas 190n7 Kierkegaard, Sren 165 Knepper, Timothy 28n6, 134, 155–6, 157, 160, 168 Kopf, Gereon 134 Kuipers, Ronald A. 149 Langtry, Bruce 147 Leon, Felipe 190–1

Levinas, Emmanuel 145 Lewis, C. S. 157–8 Loftus, John 64 Maimonides, Moses 215 Maitzen, Stephen 49n3, 52n8, 52n9, 58n17 Marion, Jean-Luc 145, 166 Marsh, Jason 203, 204 Mavrodes, George 80 McGrew, Lydia 197n18 McKim, Robert 102n10, 120n2, 127n5 Moore, G. E. 187, 190 Muehlhauser, Luke 20n4 Muhammad 114 Murchadha, Felix Ó. 149 Nagarjuna 26, 27 Nagel, Thomas 28, 58n15 naturalism 16, 63–4, 66–8, 100–1, 211 Neville, Robert C. 146, 149, 151 New Age spirituality 15, 66 New Atheists 15, 63, 102 Nietzsche, Friedrich 162 Nongbri, Brent 19n3 Oppy, Graham 150 Otto, Rudolph 146, 237 Overall, Christine 139 Park, Jin Y. 139 Parmenides 187n2 Parsons, Keith 64 Paul the Apostle 170, 196, 212 Peale, Norman Vincent 66, 68 Perszyk, Ken 107 Plantinga, Alvin 24, 63, 145, 155, 158, 161, 162, 190–2, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199n21, 201, 202n24, 223, 224–5 Plato 56, 69, 217 Plotinus 68 Potts, Michael 143, 148 Price, Huw 189 Putt, B. Keith 167, 168 Reid, Thomas 187n3 religious experience 16, 20, 21, 39, 41, 43, 70, 79, 128, 190, 191, 196 religious pluralism 21, 22, 34, 41–4, 47, 127, 129, 138, 143, 148, 186

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religious studies 16, 19, 24, 27, 37, 113, 115–16, 117–19, 130, 151, 152 revelation 16, 18, 21, 22, 28, 38, 94, 100, 102–5, 139, 159, 162, 189, 214, 215 Ricoeur, Paul 166n10 Robbins, Jeffrey 167, 168 Rorty, Richard 159 Rowe, William L. 52, 192–3, 195, 198 Runzo, Joseph 34n2 Russell, Bertrand 189–90 Russell, Matheson 148

Smith, Wilfred Cantwell 16n1 Socrates 94, 187, 190, 197, 198 Spinoza, Baruch 148, 208–22 spirituality 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 46, 66, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88, 89, 92, 93, 108, 160, 219, 221 Steinhart, Eric 69, 74 Stone, Jerome 69 Stump, Eleonore 223, 226–36 Sweet, William 24–5, 26, 27 Swinburne, Richard 24

Sallustius 65 Sankara 27 Schellenberg, J. L. 24, 25, 28, 48–9, 51, 54n11, 58, 59, 60, 108n17, 119, 121, 124, 127, 134, 146–7, 148, 189n6, 201n22 Schifferdecker, Kathryn 239 Schilbrack, Kevin 117n1, 118, 135, 148, 151, 167, 219–20 science 15, 20, 22, 23, 26, 38, 58, 67, 70, 75, 106, 108, 128, 146, 151, 167, 168, 187, 197, 209, 219 scripture 16, 19, 22, 26, 28, 197, 199, 208, 212, 214, 215, 229, 230, 241 Searle, John 157 Sharma, Krishna 26n5 Sikka, Sonia 18n2, 26n5, 30n9, 148 Simmons, J. Aaron 154, 156, 160n5, 162, 166 Smart, J. J. C. 37 Smart, Ninian 34, 35, 36–40, 44, 45, 47 Smith, Anthony Paul 135, 163–5, 166 Smith, Joseph 196

Taylor, Charles 15 theology: global 40–4 its relation to philosophy 17–18, 24, 94, 140–1, 143, 152, 158, 161–2, 164, 165, 208–9, 212–13, 214, 215 Trabbick, Joseph 147 Trakakis, Nick 134, 155–6, 157, 168 transcendence 4, 5, 24, 60, 67, 159 Wainwright, William 1, 16n1 Weil, Simone 165 Westphal, Merold 148, 149, 157–8, 159 Whistler, Daniel 135, 163–5, 166 Whitehead, Alfred North 146 Wildman, Wesley 67, 70, 133 Winch, Peter 90n11 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 163 Woodhead, Linda 15 Zeno 188 Zhuangzi 26 Zimmerman, Nigel 145