Hostname: page-component-669899f699-8p65j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-27T18:36:57.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The proper object of non-doxastic religion: why traditional religion should be preferred over Schellenberg's simple ultimism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2018

CARL-JOHAN PALMQVIST Open the ORCID record for CARL-JOHAN PALMQVIST [Opens in a new window]
CARL-JOHAN PALMQVIST*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Lund, Box 192, 221 00, Lund, Sweden
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Taking for granted the view that belief-less, ‘non-doxastic’, engagement with religion is possible, this article discusses the proper object of such religiosity. Its focus is the claim of J. L. Schellenberg that non-doxastic religion should be directed at ’simple ultimism’. I argue that ‘simple ultimism’ is too abstract to allow for alignment with religious reality. Traditional religion is a better choice since it commonly contains religious experience. As long as the veridicality of such experience remains an epistemic possibility, it should guide our non-doxastic commitment. Objections commonly raised against reliance on religious experience become irrelevant on a non-doxastic approach.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 559 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Audi, Robert (2011) Rationality and Religious Commitment (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Alston, William P. (1993) Perceiving God (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Alston, William P. (1996) ‘Belief, acceptance and religious faith’, in Jordan, Jeff & Howard-Snyder, Daniel (eds) Faith, Freedom and Rationality (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 3–28.Google Scholar
Dole, Andrew (2013) ‘Is sceptical religion adequate as religion?’ Religious Studies, 49, 235–248.Google Scholar
Elliott, James (2017) ‘The power of humility in sceptical religion’, Religious Studies, 53, 97–116.Google Scholar
Franks Davis, Caroline (1989) The Evidential Force of Religious Experience (Oxford: Clarendon).Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2016) ‘Does faith entail belief?’, Faith and Philosophy, 33, 142–162.Google Scholar
Kwan, Kai-Man (2012) ‘The argument from religious experience’, in Lane Craig, William & Moreland, J. P. (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell), 498–552.Google Scholar
Levi, Isaac (1967) Gambling with Truth (Cambridge MA: MIT Press).Google Scholar
Mckaughan, Daniel (2016) ‘Action-centered faith, doubt and rationality’, Journal of Philosophical Research, 41, 71–90.Google Scholar
Muyskens, James L. (1979) The Sufficiency of Hope (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).Google Scholar
Pojman, Louis (1986) ‘Faith without belief’, Faith and Philosophy, 3, 157–176.Google Scholar
Rotschaefer, William A. (2016) ‘Schellenberg's evolutionary religion: how evolutionary and how religious?’, Religious Studies, 52, 475–496.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2005) Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2007) The Wisdom to Doubt (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2009) The Will to Imagine (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2013) Evolutionary Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (2004) The Existence of God, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Yandell, Keith E. (1993) The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar