How to Make Naturalism Safe for Supernaturalism: An Evaluation of Willem Drees's Supernaturalistic Naturalism
Naturalism is often considered to be antithetical to theology and genuine religion. However, in a series of recent books and articles, Willem Drees has proposed a scientifically informed naturalistic account of religion, which, he contends, is not only compatible with supernaturalistic religion and...
| Published in: | Zygon |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2001
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| In: |
Zygon
Year: 2001, Volume: 36, Issue: 3, Pages: 407-453 |
| Further subjects: | B
epistemological naturalism
B Wilfrid Sellars B Supernaturalism B ontological naturalism B weak underdetermination B strong underdetermination B Naturalism B limit questions B Willem Drees B Underdetermination B Methodological Naturalism |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Naturalism is often considered to be antithetical to theology and genuine religion. However, in a series of recent books and articles, Willem Drees has proposed a scientifically informed naturalistic account of religion, which, he contends, is not only compatible with supernaturalistic religion and theology but provides a better account of both than either purely naturalistic or purely supernaturalistic accounts. While rejecting both epistemological and methodological naturalism, Drees maintains that ontological naturalism offers the best philosophical account of the natural world and that, in addition, it provides the opening for a supernaturalistic understanding of religion and theology, one that best fits the condition of epistemic and moral distance from the transcendent characteristic of religious wonderers and wanderers. In this paper I examine Drees's claim and argue that it is seriously flawed. I show that Drees's naturalism is, in fact, both methodologically and epistemologically naturalistic. I also show that his attempts to limit naturalism to the sphere of the natural world by means of the phenomena of limit questions and underdetermination fail. Arguing for a more optimistic, but also, I contend, more empirically accurate account of human epistemic and moral capacities, I propose a full-fledged scientifically based naturalistic account of theology. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9744 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Zygon
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/0591-2385.00371 |