The Role of Philosophy in an Edifying Cultural Discussion of Religion
A rationalistic agenda has traditionally dominated discussions in the philosophy of
religion. Most of the discussions in this field have focused on an assessment of the
rational coherency of religious belief, where "belief" is understood to name the
intellectual assent religious believers are alleged to give to the propositional
formulations of natural theology and creedal dogma. "Belief" in this sense is no
different from the belief the analytic philosopher gives to the conclusion of logical
arguments based on empirically verifiable premises. According to this way of understanding
belief, both religion and philosophy are seen as competing forms of method with the same
goal—uncovering or apprehending the one truth of mind-independent reality.
Kai Nielsen is a well-known philosophical critic of religious belief who bases his
criticism of religion on the aforementioned intellectualistic understanding of religious
life. While he recognizes that there is more to religious life than intellectual assent to
dogmatic creedal formulas, he maintains that ultimately religion stands or falls with the
rational coherency of the concepts he alleges are at work in the language games of the
major world religions. That is, while Nielsen acknowledges that there is a difference
between "belief in" something and "belief that" something exists, he
nonetheless insists that "‘belief-in’ is logically dependent on
‘belief-that.’" In the case of religious belief in God, Nielsen argues
"there could be no believing in God without believing that God exists: that there is
such a reality." Because of this logical dependence, Nielsen concludes that "if
believing that God exists is a very problematic conception through the groundlessness of
our believing or through the incoherence of our conception of God, then that
problematicity transfers to our believing-in. If believing that God exists is incoherent
... then believing in God is also incoherent."(2)
Because Nielsen thinks that religion as a form of life stands or falls with the
rational coherency of the concepts he claims operate within such a form of life, the crux
of his argument against religion is devoted to arguing for the rational incoherence of
religious belief, especially belief in the God of the three major monotheistic
religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He summarizes his argument, saying,
". . . the God of developed religions is claimed to be an infinite
individual, omnipresent, yet still an individual, a bodiless person, who, though still a
person, is transcendent to the world. . . . [S]uch a string of words makes
no sense . . . . Such a conception of God is incoherent."(3)
While many religious people do not recognize themselves in Nielsen’s description of
what religious faith involves, he nonetheless insists that, in order for one to be
properly religious, and not a closet secularist or atheist, one must
"believe-that" the God described in the aforementioned traditionally theistic
concept exists; one must give one’s intellectual assent to this conception of God.
Religion as a form of life is logically dependent upon this intellectual assent, and so
that form of life dissolves as soon as one comes to see that such belief is actually
incoherent.
It is precisely this conceptualization of what religious commitment involves, however,
that Nielsen’s critics claim is rationalistically overdetermined. Barry Allen says
that "Nielsen’s atheism seems to be a variation on Enlightenment
Platonism. . . . Nielsen allows that there may be more to faith than
holding a system of propositions to be true, but he seems to think that whatever more a
religious life is, it requires the submission of the intellect to an orthodoxy enforced as
ultimate truth, and it is in the name of truth and unforced reason that he attacks
it."(4) In defense of religious forms of life, and
against Nielsen’s attacks upon religious orthodoxy, Hendrik Hart claims that
"Nielsen can deal with Christian faith’s irrationality only if it has a common
denominator with ideologies, metaphysics, or science in being a belief system." Hart
denies that religion is essentially such a system of articulable propositional beliefs,
insisting instead that it is a praxis, a specifically trust-oriented form of life. In
opposition to intellectualistic understandings of religious faith, he insists that
"religion is not also a set of practices, but primarily if not only
a way of living."(5)
Hart and Nielsen present us with two radically different understandings of religious
faith. The reasons each thinker has for insisting on their own particular understanding
are instructive not only for philosophers of religion, but for anyone interested in
assessing the normative role philosophy may legitimately play in cultural
discourse—anyone, that is, interested in the way philosophy contributes to the
education of humanity. When it comes to adjudicating the legitimacy of religion, in
particular, Nielsen envisages a larger role for reason than does Hart.
Despite his many disavowals of rationalism, Nielsen insists on reducing religious faith
to intellectual assent in order to set philosophy up as the judge of religion. In
contrast, Hart insists on the irreducibility of religious faith to articulable
propositions in order to defend the uniqueness of religion as a practical form of life
from the withering glare of Enlightenment rationalism. Emphasizing the irreducibility and
uniqueness of religion as a form of life, however, is also a tacit defense of
incommensurability and pluralism, for, presumably, if one form of life is unique and
irreducible, one should find many such forms throughout human society. Nielsen rejects
this defense from incommensurability partly because for him such pluralism would not be a
reasonable pluralism, and would be marked by closedness and ideological dogmatism. I will
argue, however, that understanding religion as a unique and irreducible form of life is
ultimately more helpful for an edifying discussion of religion, one that does not
necessarily throw up a roadblock to the critical inquiry of particular religions either.
The major issue between these two understandings of religion is whether or not the only
path to the adjudication of differing forms of life is through a rational critique of the
propositional "creeds" or "fundamentals" which have been articulated
within those forms of life. Defenders of the uniqueness and irreducibility of religious
forms of life do not put the same stock in human reason here that Nielsen does.(6)
For them, to submit religious life to the normative authority of reason means redescribing
that life as disenchanted, secular, and naturalistic. Therefore, they insist on the
uniqueness and irreducibility of religious forms of life, forms of life which are shaped
by centuries of tradition, and which are defined just as much if not more by the kind of
life they recommend than by the rationality of their creedal proclamations.
I agree that we should judge religion according to the cultural fruits of its practice,
and not the alleged coherence or incoherence of its dogma. Religion will always fail the
latter test, because religion is mainly the human historico-cultural response to life in
relationship with the mysterious existential boundary conditions of human experience.
Because religion is a way of coming into positive relationship with all that eludes and
exceeds our rational comprehension, the language used to communicate the various sides of
this form of life, including God-talk, will of necessity be metaphorical. But, as
metaphor, such language does not lose touch with the world, rather, it helps us take up a
particular orientation toward our life within it. It is on the plane of the cultural
desirability of the particular life-orientation, not the rational coherency of articulated
propositions, that religion should be adjudicated.
Judging all cultural worldviews, religious and secular, on this plane involves putting
religious forms of life on a level playing field with secular ones. If we authentically
eschew Enlightenment rationalism, we must admit that we are without recourse to a
transcendent epistemological vantage point from which to judge differing forms of life. We
can only discuss them from here below, by assessing the cultural fruits borne through the
living out of these different forms of life. Reason can help us do this, but it may no
longer lay claim to the role of superjudge.
Incommensurability, Pluralism, and the Philosophy of Religion
Defenders of religious forms of life who choose to insist on the incommensurability of
such forms of life, are, at least implicitly, defenders of pluralism and cultural
diversity. This defense of religion allows no room for the sort of exclusivism and
epistemological hubris often associated with dogmatic religious faith. It provides no such
metaphysical comfort. The arguments used to support the incommensurability of religious
forms of life simultaneously question such Western epistemological arrogance. On a level
playing field, no one group may claim revelatory advantages over others, although one
might with effort attempt to communicate the way in which one’s chosen form of life
uncovers aspects of the world which are not disclosed to another’s.
Nielsen, however, remains concerned that such an insistence on perspectival
incommensurability will harmfully divide humanity and discourage moral solidarity. His
main concern is to keep lines of communication and criticism open. Only, for him, such
openness requires that all differing forms of life will, in some measure of generality,
admit of and thus reduce to propositional articulation:
If . . . all of us are caught up in a particularistic perspectivism,
[if] nothing non-question-begging can be said here by anyone, then, of course, if this is
so, nothing can be said, on any side and for any form of life, and, if this
is so, then we cannot even intelligibly deceive ourselves into believing that silence will
yield truth, insight, or salvation.(7)
If differing forms of life really are incommensurable, argues Nielsen, then no
arguments can be proffered in defense or in criticism of a particular form of life and
everything boils down to blind, inarticulate trust. Yet, in critically discussing
religious forms of life, are we really playing the sort of zero-sum game that Nielsen
describes? Just because religious forms of life do not reduce to propositional
articulation need not imply that nothing can be said about them, or that we cannot use
language and reason to critically discuss them.
Still, questions remain. How are we to negotiate the fact of cultural and intellectual
diversity in a world wracked by violence and divisive strife, a world in which the fact of
diversity always threatens to devolve into the menacing specter of balkanization? How are
we to protect perspectival diversity while at the same time encouraging human solidarity?
What critical resources are at our disposal in order to negotiate amongst all the
incommensurable diversity we find?
To start addressing these legitimate concerns, I would point out that there is another
understanding of incommensurability in contemporary philosophical discourse that is
somewhat more nuanced than Nielsen’s construal. Nielsen seems to follow Karl Popper,
who once accused Thomas Kuhn of subscribing to a "myth of the framework,"
according to which "we are prisoners caught in the framework of our theories; our
expectations; our past experiences; our language."(8)
Nielsen seems to agree with this Popperian construal of incommensurability, with the idea
that admitting the reality of irreducible perspectives serves effectively to hermetically
seal everyone within a particular perspective and also to condemn human society to an
uncritical, blind-trust form of silence.
But there are other ways of honoring the reality Kuhn meant to describe which do not
subscribe to this "myth of the framework." As Richard Bernstein argues, honoring
incommensurability need not condemn us to silence, but may instead duly respect the
difficulty of negotiating and communicating between differing forms of life.
Incommensurability for Bernstein (pace Kuhn) means only that we lack a "common
measure," that we are without recourse to "free-floating standards of
rationality detached from actual historical practices to which we can appeal in order to
decide who is scientific, logical, and rational and who is not."(9)
Without recourse to ahistorical rational standards (recourse that Nielsen also insists is
not available) perspectival incommensurability is in some measure unavoidable.
Insisting upon the incommensurability of religious forms of life, then, is not the same
thing as submitting the intellect to an irrational orthodoxy. As Bernstein points out, the
reality of perspectival incommensurability is not some sort of intellectual death
sentence, because, qua language using creatures, there will always be some overlap
between the different paradigms that exist among us. This overlap makes cross-paradigmatic
translation, conversation, communication, and criticism in some measure possible. To
paraphrase Richard Rorty, one might say that alternative religions are not to be thought
of on the model of alternative geometries. "Alternative geometries," he says,
"are irreconcilable because they have axiomatic structures, and contradictory axioms.
They are designed to be irreconcilable." Like alternative cultures, I maintain
that alternative religions are not so designed, that is, they do not have axiomatic
structures. "To think otherwise," Rorty urges, "is the Cartesian fallacy of
seeing axioms where there are only shared habits, of viewing statements which summarize
such practices as if they reported constraints enforcing such practices."(10)
Importantly, however, Bernstein and Rorty both insist that such linguistic overlap is
not to be accounted for by the existence of "a single, universal framework of
commensuration."(11) Nonetheless, pointing to the
existence of this overlap does effectively deny the argument that an admission of
perspectival incommensurability (Rorty might wish to use the word
"particularity") commits one to the sort of (interpretive) scheme-(perceptual)
content relativism Donald Davidson criticizes in his essay "On the Very Idea of a
Conceptual Scheme."(12) Yet while Davidson may have
shown that incommensurability does not radically go all the way down (as it does in
alternative geometries), this does not mean he has successfully argued that
commensurability goes all the way up. To defend the incommensurability of religious forms
of life is not to deny a measure of translatability or communicability from experiences in
one form of life to those in another. Still, Bernstein’s Gadamerian treatment of the
reality of incommensurability, along with Rorty’s pragmatic defense of the
unavoidablity of a certain ethnocentrism, allows for a more sensitive, hermeneutic
understanding of the salient and irreducible differences that do exist among various forms
of life, differences that, despite the aforementioned overlap, are not fully translatable
from one differing paradigm, language game, or form of life into another.(13)
It is important to avoid understanding cultural diversity in terms that insist on
complete translatability between differing forms of life, on the one hand, or, failing
that, utter silence and inability to critically discuss these various forms of life, on
the other. We have to keep alive the tension between acknowledging commonality and
irreducible diversity. As Bernstein argues,
the "truth" of the incommensurability thesis is not closure [being
trapped in the prison-house of one’s interpretive framework] but openness. . . .
[W]e can understand the ways in which there are incommensurable paradigms, forms of life,
and traditions and . . . we can understand what is distinctive about them
without imposing beliefs, categories, and classifications that are so well entrenched in
our own language games that we fail to appreciate their limited perspective. Furthermore,
in and through the process of subtle, multiple comparison and contrast, we not only come
to understand the alien phenomenon that we are studying but better come to understand
ourselves.(14)
If Bernstein is right about perspectival incommensurability, we may just be able to
honor the irreducible differences that exist among the various forms of life in a
pluralistic, global society, without being condemned to silence when we feel compelled to
critically adjudicate them.
Hopefully, we are coming to a point in history where a pluralism of religions,
ideologies, and worldviews may come to be seen as legitimate in its own right. Many people
are starting to view the metaphysical desire for unification of this diversity of
worldviews as an unhealthy desire, for such unification is only purchased at the price of
one of the worldviews becoming hegemonic, which has historically been the case with
Christianity, and is now the case with Liberalism, in the West at any rate. As Barry Allen
argues, "No moral source honestly available to liberals and social democrats in these
late modern times can sustain the universality and unconditional rationality inherited
from Christianity and claimed by the Aufklärer for the modern goods of autonomy
and benevolence."(15)
There always has been, and will most likely continue to be, a plurality of in-part
incommensurable worldviews. What is unique in the modern situation is that such pluralism
has come to be seen as a threat, and a presumed universal norm consciousness has been
invoked to overcome it. One might describe this modern obsession with universality as
"worldview exclusivism," the feeling that, despite the existence of differing
forms of life, my form of life is the only true one, and to the extent that other forms of
life differ from mine, they are false. In religious circles this conviction is known as
fundamentalism or dogmatism. In secular circles, such a conviction is labeled
"ideological."
The epistemological hubris evident in worldview exclusivism is, however, eroding. Many
now see our world as far too complicated to be taken in and reduced to what is seen and
experienced from one perspective. Incommensurability, worldview uniqueness and diversity,
in short, pluralism, are coming to be seen as facts of life that should be acknowledged
and maintained. With this acceptance of pluralism comes the recommendation that we drop
the epistemological hubris shown by fundamentalistic groups (whether religious or
secular). It is this hubris, and not the facts of incommensurability and pluralism
themselves, that makes dialogue between adherents of differing forms of life almost
impossible.
As this epistemological hubris erodes, however, we may enter an era marked by
"worldview inclusivism," an age in which differing forms of life are no longer
seen only as rival and competing (for the one truth), but rather one in which they may
also be acknowledged for the ways in which their incommensurable differences can be
complimentary and culturally beneficial. Of course such "worldview inclusivism"
should not be unreflective or uncritical of the negative, harmful sides of these differing
forms of life, but, to paraphrase Allen, one does not have to denounce the irrationality
of a particular form of life in order to reject the politics of fundamentalism.
To summarize, I am arguing for the recognition that differing forms of life
exist on a level playing field. This means we drop the epistemological hubris evident in
worldview exclusivism. This also means that both traditional religious believers and
Enlightenment rationalists should give up their claim to possess the one truth about the
world. Insisting on the uniqueness and irreducibility of a particular worldview may save
that worldview from reductionistic criticism, but the knife cuts both ways. Such an
insistence also levels the playing field, and in fact changes the cultural legitimation
game altogether. To put the point rather crassly, if we look to the ways in which
particular forms of life encourage life-orientations that help heal the wounds of this
world, then perhaps the truth will take care of itself. If criticism could be directed
toward revealing how particular forms of life contribute to violence, degradation, and
strife, instead of being directed toward the discovery of rational incoherence, then we
may come to see that we still have critical resources to adjudicate among differing forms
of life while simultaneously allowing a plurality of such forms of life—a peaceable
mosaic of worldviews and religions—to continue and flourish.
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