Is religion natural? Religion, naturalism and near-naturalism
In this article I argue that the kind of scientific naturalism that tends to underwrite projects of naturalizing religion operates with a tacit conception of nature which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be untenable. I first distinguish an uninteresting modest naturalism from the more ambitiou...
| Published in: | International journal of philosophy and theology |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
2020
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| In: |
International journal of philosophy and theology
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Naturalism (Philosophy)
/ Religion
/ Nature
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| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism |
| Further subjects: | B
near-Naturalism
B Naturalization B Religion B Naturalism B liberal Naturalism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In this article I argue that the kind of scientific naturalism that tends to underwrite projects of naturalizing religion operates with a tacit conception of nature which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be untenable. I first distinguish an uninteresting modest naturalism from the more ambitious and relevant scientific naturalism. Secondly I survey three different kinds of attempting to naturalize religion: naturalizing the social aspect of religion, naturalizing religious experience, and naturalizing reference to the transcendent. Thirdly I argue that these projects operate with a conception of nature which is insufficiently clear. I suggest three ways of charitably explicating that tacit conception of what is natural before arguing that neither of these three positions works. Lastly I offer an irenic proposal: we would do good in giving up the scientific naturalism that underlies projects of naturalizing religion in order to embrace Lynne Rudder Baker’s recently proposed notion of near-naturalism which allows the naturalist to retain a ‘science first’ attitude while avoiding problematic, overly restrictive notions of what is natural. |
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| ISSN: | 2169-2335 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: International journal of philosophy and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2020.1749717 |