Gregory W. Dawes

The Sacred, the Occult and the Distinctiveness of Religion

Is there a distinctively religious attitude? Durkheim suggested there was: it was that of regarding certain beliefs, persons, institutions, practices, or places as sacred. The idea of the sacred also featured prominently in the work of historians and phenomenologists of religion, where it referred to the transcendent (“other-worldly”) object of devotion. While the phenomenologists’ idea of the sacred has fallen out of favor, Durkheim’s idea is undergoing a revival, to which the present paper is a contribution. To regard something as sacred, it argues, is to see it as having a particular kind of normative significance, which arises from its connection with an “occult” or hidden realm. While phenomenologists regarded this attitude as irreducible, this assumption is unwarranted. While serving to explain human behavior, this distinctively religious attitude also requires an explanation, one that will acknowledge both its human origins and its political role.

Basic beliefs and Christian faith

In rejecting Plantingas ‘reformed epistemology’, Jeremy Koons has argued that no beliefs are epistemically basic, since even perceptual beliefs arise from observations that are theory-dependent. But even if all observations are theory-dependent, not all theories are alike. Beliefs that are dependent on uncontroversial bodies of theory may be ‘basic’ in the sense that they play a foundational role in the acquisition of knowledge. There is, however, another problem with reformed epistemology. It is that even if Christian beliefs were basic in this sense, they could face evidential challenge, for the epistemic status of a ‘basic’ belief depends, in part, on its probabilistic or explanatory relations to our other beliefs. It follows that Christian faith remains vulnerable to evidential arguments, such as Paul Drapers argument from evil.

The Rationality of Renaissance Magic

Belief in magic is widespread both in history and in contemporary cultures. Can such belief be regarded as rational? If so, in what way? An examination of the magic of Renaissance Europe enables us to distinguish three ways in which a belief can be rational. It can be (a) rationally defensible, given a particular set of background beliefs, (b) formed by some reliable means, or (c) the result of procedures that are collectively rational. Distinguishing these different forms of rationality not only helps us to understand magical thought; it also assists in the controversial task of distinguishing magic from science.

WHO WANTS TO BE A SAINT

Susan Wolf famously argued that a saintly life – one totally dedicated to moral concerns – would be ‘a life strangely barren’. It would mean neglecting many activities that make human life worthwhile. But her argument assumes that our moral duties are simply duties to others, that a perfectly moral person would always act selflessly. It may be, however, that we also have duties to ourselves, which include the cultivation of so-called ‘non-moral’ virtues. On this view, morality is pervasive, relating to all features of a human life, and has architectonic status, being capable of shaping all that we do.

Experiment, Speculation, and Galileo’s Scientific Reasoning

Peter Anstey has criticized the traditional distinction between empiricism and rationalism. He proposes replacing it with a late seventeenth-century distinction: that between experimental and speculative natural philosophy. But the natural philosophy of Galileo Galilei cuts across this experimental-speculative divide. It resembles speculative natural philosophy insofar as its probative force depends upon a priori, mathematical reasoning. But it also resembles experimental natural philosophy insofar as the principles of such reasoning are tested against experience. To understand Galileo’s scientific reasoning we need to supplement the experimental-speculative distinction with a third category: that of a mathematically-oriented style of early modern natural philosophy.

Participation and Causality Lévy-Bruhl Revisited

A recurring debate within discussions of religion, science, and magic has to do with the existence of distinct modes of thought or “orientations” to the world. The thinker who initiated this debate, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, distinguished two such orientations, one characterized as “participatory” and the other as “causal.” The present essay attempts to clarify what a participatory orientation might involve, making use of the social-psychological category of a “schema.” It argues that while the attitude to which Lévy-Bruhl refers is to be distinguished from an explicit body of doctrine, it does have a cognitive dimension and can embody causal claims. It follows that if such a distinction is to be made, it is not helpfully characterized as a contrast between participation and causality. A better distinction might be that between a mythical and an experimental attitude to the world.

Justified Believing:Avoiding the Paradox

Colin Cheyne has argued that under certain circumstances an internalist or deontological theory of epistemic justification will give rise to a paradox. The paradox, he argues, arises when a principle of epistemic justification is both justifiably believed (in terms of the theory) and false. To avoid this paradox, Cheyne recommends abandoning the principle of justification-transference, which states that acts of believing made on the basis of a justifiably-believed principle are themselves justified. Since such a principle seems essential to any internalist theory of justified believing, internalist theories may also need to be abandoned. I argue that while some theories of epistemic justification may indeed give rise to this paradox, an internalist or deontological theory of subjective justification will avoid it. The reason for this is that a false principle of justified believing does not render acts of believing subjectively unjustified, provided that the agent does not realize that the principle is false.

Religion, Science, and Explanation

Abstract A recent legal ruling in the United States regarding ‘intelligent design’ (ID) argued that ID is not science because it invokes a supernatural agent. It therefore cannot be taught in public schools. But the important philosophical question is not whether ID invokes a supernatural agent; it is whether it meets the standards we expect of any explanation in the sciences. More generally, could any proposed theistic explanation – one that invokes the deity of classical theism – meet those standards? Could it be both scientific and religious? The present paper sets out the factors to be taken into account when answering this question.

Why Historicity Still Matters: Raymond Brown and the Infancy Narratives

The infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke pose in an acute form the question of the historical value of the Gospels. Raymond Brown suggests that redaction criticism can bypass this question by spelling out the theological message intended by the evangelists. But his own exegesis suggests this is to misunderstand the genre of this literature. Browns indifference to historicity would be justified only if the evangelists were writing something resembling allegory, a form of narrative in which the literal sense of the story is the (dispensable) clothing of a spiritual message. But Browns exegesis suggests that the evangelists do not regard the literal sense of these stories as dispensable; they regard their theological message as resting on a foundation of historical fact. It follows that if interpreters focus on the intention of the evangelists, they cannot avoid addressing the question of historicity.

God Beyond Theism? Bishop Spong, Paul Tillich and the Unicorn

John Shelby Spong has recently advocated belief in a “God beyond theism”. While rejecting traditional theism, he also distinguishes his position from atheism. Spong suggests that there is a divine reality, which may be described as “being itself” and which reveals itself in our commitment to unconditional ideals. It is argued that this notion of God is vacuous, the product of a confused belief that “being” is a characteristic of individual beings which may be universalised. Belief in such a God is also unmotivated, since there exist naturalistic explanations of the phenomena to which Spong appeals.