Charles Taliaferro, Chair of the Department of Philosophy, St. Olaf College is the senior co-editor of a six volume Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion involving 200 scholars from around the world for Wiley-Blackwell and Editor-in-Chief of Open Theology. We invited him to answer the question “What does philosophy of religion offer to the modern university?” as part of our “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series.

Philosophical reflection on matters that are religiously significant go back to the earliest recorded philosophy in the west and east.  Philosophy of religion as it emerged in the modern era, beginning in the 17th century, was not a clearly separate sub-field until the twentieth century, but one can see hints of it in the German University system with the separation of theological and philosophical faculty.  In the mid-17th century, however, when the term “philosophy of religion” first appears in English (coined by Ralph Cudworth), there emerged a tradition of practicing philosophy in which philosophical reflection on religion and religious practices and beliefs was seen to be of primary interest.  It is from the school of thought known as Cambridge Platonism (which included Cudworth, Henry More, John Smith, and others) that we find the first sustained philosophy done in the English language with the coining of terms that are very much with us today, such as “theism,” “consciousness,” and various terms for naturalism, materialism and their counterparts.  What the Cambridge Platonists focused upon in the 17th century is still very much a part of the current practice of philosophy of religion in the modern university.  They were concerned with the following six areas which have a recognizable role in the practice of philosophy of religion today.

The evidence for and against theism and alternative non-theistic concepts of God.  The Cambridge Platonists were all Christian theists, but they were very much energized by the challenges of modern science, atheism and secular naturalism, and religious diversity.  They were the first philosophers in English to advance versions of the ontological, cosmological, teleological and moral theistic arguments, along with a theistic argument from religious experience.  They also were the first in English to develop a theistic argument from consciousness: they contended that the emergence and existence of consciousness was more plausible given theism than naturalism.

Faith and Reason: They contended that religious faith should be guided by evidence and defended a robust natural and revealed theology.

To what extent does the modern science of Galileo, Newton, et. al., threaten our recognition of the reality of consciousness? Putting it another way, they were skeptical about what today we would call non-reductive materialism, and insisted on the reality and irreducibility of consciousness.  As suggested above, they thought this was pivotal to a Christian, but even more broadly, theistic concept of the cosmos.

Freedom and determinism: They were very much alive to the importance of libertarian freedom as a condition for moral (and theological) responsibility.  Although he is rarely acknowledged, Ralph Cudworth was the first philosopher in English to make a powerful case for libertarian free will.

Diversity and tolerance: The Cambridge Platonists pre-date Locke’s early work on tolerance.  They articulated and defended tolerance during the English Civil Wars.

Religious ethics: The Cambridge Platonists were wary of appealing to God’s power or omnipotence as a way to adjudicate ethical disputes.  They were very much on Socrates and Plato’s side in the Euthyphro: they believed that God loves and commands what is good and just, because it is good and just, rather than claiming that some act becomes good and just solely on the grounds that it is commanded by an omnipotent power.

There are areas in contemporary philosophy of religion which go beyond these six matters, both in terms of depth and scope.  So, today, there is more detail in each of these areas, extensive work on anti-realism, on the worldview of non-Christian religions—which the Cambridge Platonists were concerned with but they lacked the detailed knowledge of, say, Buddhism, to do extensive philosophy of Buddhism—and so on.  Contemporary feminists have been and should be interested in Anne Conway (1630-1679), More’s student and an important critic of More, Leibniz, and Descartes.  The Cambridge Platonists had an important role in providing grounds in philosophical theology for opposing racism.

In summary, the history of philosophy of religion in universities in the modern era (since the emergence of modern science) have been robustly shaped by the pioneers of philosophy of religion, the Cambridge Platonists.  This is a tradition that is alive today and explicitly endorsed by Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton, and a host of others.  I offer an overview of the history of philosophy of religion which features the Cambridge Platonists in the book Evidence and Faith: Philosophy and Religion since the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge University Press) and offer a modern introduction to Cambridge Platonism for general, university-educated readers in The Golden Cord: A Short Book on the Sacred and Secular (University of Notre Dame Press).

Peter Jonkers is full professor of philosophy at Tilburg University (School of Catholic Theology) in the Netherlands. We invited him to answer the question “What does philosophy of religion offer to the modern university?” as part of our “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series.

In his foreword to a recent book on the revitalization of religious culture through university education the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes: “In a university world where what counts as knowing, what counts as sustainable truth claims and, ultimately, what counts as ‘humanistic’ are all issues surrounded by some confusion at the moment, theology’s contribution to the conversation is not trivial. The humanities sorely need defences against functionalist barbarity – and so, for that matter, do most of the sciences. And what happens to these questions in the university is significant for what happens to them in our culture overall. Academic questions are not – as it were – purely academic questions” (cfr. O. Crisp, G. D’Costa, M. Davis, P. Hampson (eds.), Theology and Philosophy. Faith and Reason. London: Bloomsbury, 2011, viii). What Williams writes here about the role of theology in the university also applies to philosophy of religion, and perhaps even in a more appropriate sense. Since (Christian) religion is about the truth, it has to be engaged with all the ways in which human beings in general talk about truth and believe they discover and cope with it. Philosophy of religion is well apposite to examine religious truth claims and compare them with those in other fields of research and human culture in general.

What characterizes the public and academic debate is a growing mismatch between religious truths and what counts as sustainable truth claims in the university and society at large. This mismatch also concerns theological truth claims, since theology is a theoretical reflection on the truths of religion. The predominant truth-paradigm in the university world is a scientific, objectivistic and functionalistic one, and almost all researchers at universities have to fulfill the requirements set by this paradigm in order to count as respected academics. All other expressions of the human mind, however reflective and well-argued they may be, are typically reduced to private opinions and utterances of subjective taste. Religion and theology somehow seem to be stuck in this bifurcation: they obviously do not want to follow the paradigm of scientific truth, but nevertheless refuse to be disqualified as a body of contingent opinions. What makes things worse is that the truth-claims of religion concern a reality that is beyond ordinary empirical observation, and this ‘surreal’ character reflects negatively on theology. Consequently, not only have religious truths lost a great deal of their societal plausibility, but theology too is forced into a defensive position, and is hardly accepted as a respected discussion partner in the university debate. Nowadays, many academics consider religion and theology as equally non-cognitive, and even dispute the latter’s place in the academia.

Although this condition of religion and theology is quite unfavorable, but, at the same time, unlikely to change soon, it creates a good opportunity for philosophy of religion to show what it can offer to the modern university. First of all, philosophy of religion has an essential role in clarifying the current confusion about what counts as knowing, as truth-claims, and as humanistic. Unlike theology, its object of study is not primarily God and how he has revealed himself through Scripture, the history of humankind and nature, but rather religion as an empirical reality. This puts philosophy of religion on a par with other disciplines in the modern university, and makes it more acceptable as a discussion partner. But unlike most other disciplines at the university, including many other philosophical sub-disciplines, philosophy of religion has a close connection with the specific kind of rationality and truth that is prevalent in religion, but differs substantially from what counts as sustainable truth claims in ordinary fields of research at the university. To be more precise, religious truth is not so much a theoretical or doctrinal kind of truth, but an existential one: religions claim to offer humans a truthful orientation in their lives that will enable them to lead a fulfilled life. Hence, religious truth can only be discovered through a reflection that is closely connected to a religious way of life. Through its sensitivity to the atypical, but also intriguing, character of religious truth as existential, philosophy of religion has something vital to offer to the modern university: by pointing to the existential character of religious truth, philosophy of religion can deconstruct the problematic univocity that dominates the university discussions about what counts as sustainable truth claims, thus offering a clarification of the current confusion.

Secondly, and in connection with the previous point, by interpreting religious truth as existential, philosophy of religion can contribute in putting up a defensive wall against the ‘functionalistic barbarity’ that has such devastating effects on the place of the humanities in the university. Such an approach of the humanities has led to reducing the humanities to what is economically useful, while disregarding the role of humanities as a study of the expressions of human culture for its own sake. As Rowan Williams points out, the barbarity of functionalism is not confined to the university, but spreads to human culture overall. Functionalism deprives human life and culture of their substance, and interprets them as instrumental for something else. Among many other social philosophers, Jürgen Habermas has warned against the dangerous effects of such a colonization of the life world. Religion has always resisted a functionalist reductionism, since it is essentially about the very substance of human life and the world. Against this background, it is no wonder that Habermas, especially in his more recent work, draws attention to religion as a safeguard of substantial values that tend to be forgotten in our functionalistic age. They are not only relevant for believing people, but also for secular ones. The task of philosophy of religion, not only in the university, but even more importantly in society as a whole, is to ‘translate’ these substantial religious values and truth claims into the language of reason, which can be universally understood.

Jack Mulder is Professor of Philosophy at Hope College. We invited him to answer the question “What does philosophy of religion offer to the modern university?” as part of our “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series.

What does philosophy of religion offer to the modern university?

Nothing.

Or at least, that is what I fear that philosophy of religion offers to the modern university when it is finished cruising down its current course.  Archbishop Fulton Sheen once wrote that “A bigoted man is one who refuses to accept a reason for anything; a broad-minded man is one who will accept anything for a reason.”  Now philosophers of religion, as with all philosophers and all rational people, should oppose bigotry.  The reason for that, I think, is that bigoted people refuse to accept the terms of rational discourse.  They persist in their views in the face of overwhelming reasons to deny them.  In particular, bigoted people persist in the face of reasons so overwhelming that the only way for them to continue holding their views is to opt out of the project of rational discourse entirely.  Consider racism.  Modern biological anthropology has now provided evidence so compelling for the misapplication of the term “race” to anything substantially biological (in that there are no biological markers that all members of one race have and that all people who are not members of that race lack) that one would have to be a bigot to hold to any intrinsic reasons for the superiority of one race over another.  That doesn’t mean that the term “race” has not changed over the years (as has the term “atom,” to take an example from Paul C. Taylor) into something strategically important to hold on to for political and cultural purposes such as fighting the injustice of past and continuing racism, but it does mean that those who hold racist views have no rational leg on which to stand.

“Broad-minded” people, to use Sheen’s language, might seem to be quite the opposite of bigoted people, but it turns out that the two groups share some important characteristics.  On the one hand, broad-minded people (in this very particular usage I am taking from Sheen), on the face of it, accept all comers.  On the other hand, it becomes clear soon enough that it is not the project of rational discourse to which they are welcomed.  Philosophy of religion, and academic discourse more generally, should welcome all opinions that are willing to take up the burden of offering reasons (in a fairly broad sense), accessible in principle to anyone.  That does not mean that those who have a religious experience incapable of being fully described in rational terms, such as St. Teresa of Avila, are beyond the pale.  It merely means that such people must be willing to seek out reasons for why, epistemically, religious experiences could be veridical, should they wish to engage in academic discussion.  But this also means that conversations at a university should be academic in nature, and that if you are unwilling to articulate your views in a rational way, then you have opted out of the project of rational discourse.  A corollary is also true: if someone represents her views as rational, her views should not be represented as merely sentimental or emotive.  Certain forms of dialogue have a way of construing the enterprise as merely one of encounter.  But philosophical discussion must keep all of those charitable dispositions in place and do still more.  Personally, I believe that there is better evidence for God’s existence than for God’s nonexistence.  I believe the Christian view of the afterlife can be defended against critics.  I even believe that there are good, philosophically grounded, reasons for why people who are already Christians should believe the Catholic dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception.  While I sometimes articulate these views as part of my Catholic faith, I am willing to accept the burden of offering a rational picture for why I believe these things.  (Philosophy of religion is not always done from a religious perspective, but it can be done that way.)  Certainly, I could be wrong, but these are not merely feelings.  They entail disagreements with others who also accept the burden of rational discourse.  These should be charitable disagreements, to be sure, but our reasons must be scrutinized even if that forces us to change.

My sense is that the “modern university” has a tendency to do one of two things in regard to religion as it cruises down its current treacherous path.  In the one case, it ignores the convictions of religious people who are willing to enter the project of rational discourse, perhaps because of its own hegemonic sense of what constitutes reason.  Or sometimes it might welcome certain religious or moral views only insofar as they will admit to being treated as elements of a “broad-minded” sampler of views that are welcomed less as serious rational partners in the discourse of the university and more as superstitious and/or cultural holdouts for people, especially students, who haven’t yet fully embraced “reason” in its currently fashionable garb.

Philosophy of religion is an area of study and research that can, and should, invite all participants to the project of rational discourse as it concerns the religious life, disinviting only those who are unwilling to submit their religious views to rational scrutiny (of a broad sort).  For the unexamined religious, or secular, life is not worth living.

Graham Oppy is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies (SOPHIS) at Monash University. We invited him to answer the question “What does philosophy of religion offer to the modern university?” as part of our “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series.

Philosophy is the discipline that addresses questions for which we do not know how to produce—and perhaps cannot even imagine how to produce—consensus answers among experts using methods more or less universally agreed by experts. In any other discipline, there are borderline questions for which we do not know how to produce—and perhaps cannot even imagine how to produce—consensus answers among experts using methods more or less universally agreed by experts; these questions belong to the philosophy of that discipline. However, there are also questions that are proper to the central sub-disciplines of philosophy—metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, aesthetics, and so forth: we do not know how to produce—and perhaps cannot even imagine how to produce—consensus answers to these questions among experts using methods more or less universally agreed by experts.

Given what philosophy is, it is clear that we—collectively—want some among us to be philosophers. Pretty much every discipline starts out as philosophy; many people who work in other disciplines run into questions that currently belong to the philosophy of that discipline; and everyone comes up against questions—including, in particular, normative questions—that remain squarely and stubbornly philosophical. While progress is slow, there continue to be new disciplines branching off from philosophy; and philosophers—people who spend their time addressing philosophical questions—play an important role in that process. What philosophy offers to ‘the modern university’ is something that ‘the modern university’ should not—and perhaps even cannot—be without, whether or not ‘the modern university’ recognises this to be the case.

The main thing that religion brings to ‘the modern university’ is trouble. Religion—like sex, politics, and other ‘markers of identity’—creates circumstances that require negotiation of difference. For ‘the modern university’, this negotiation is often a very messy juggling act. On the one hand, ‘the modern university’ values freedom of speech, including free and open discussion of contested beliefs and values. But, on the other hand, ‘the modern university’ also values respect for the diverse worldviews represented among its constituents, even when that ‘respect’ allegedly requires not entering into free and open discussion of contested beliefs and values.

Philosophy of religion focuses the attention of ‘the modern university’ on the particular problem that arises in connection with contested religious beliefs and values. Philosophy of religion can be a domain in which there is—and in which there is expected to be—genuinely free and open discussion of contested religious beliefs and values. In that domain, it can be that there are no contested religious beliefs and values that are on the conversational scoreboard; it can be that beliefs and values only get on to the conversational scoreboard if they are agreed by all participants in the conversation. Moreover, it can be that, in that domain, there are no religious beliefs and values that are placed off limits: it can be that all religious beliefs and values are entitled to—and required to be subject to—consideration in philosophy of religion. Whatever may be the case elsewhere in ‘the modern university’, it can be that, in philosophy of religion respect demands entering into free and open discussion of contested religious beliefs and values.

Needless to say, it need not be that case that ‘the modern university’ allows philosophy of religion to be a domain in which there is—and in which there is expected to be—genuinely free and open discussion of contested religious beliefs and values. However, given that the primary subject matter of philosophy of religion is questions about religion for which we do not know how to produce—and perhaps cannot even imagine how to produce—consensus answers among experts using methods more or less universally agreed by experts, there is a clear sense in which it ought to be the case that ‘the modern university’ allows philosophy of religion to be a domain in which there is—and in which there is expected to be—genuinely free and open discussion of contested religious beliefs and values. Even if we allow that there are circumstances—times and places—in which it is not appropriate to try to pursue free and open discussion of contested religious beliefs and values—i.e. even if we allow that, sometimes, respect for those with worldviews very different from our own requires us to abstain from trying to pursue free and open discussion of those worldviews with their adherents—we should nonetheless insist that there must be places such as classrooms for philosophy of religion whose essential purpose is to facilitate the pursuit of free and open discussion of contested religious beliefs and values. For, while we may hold out very little hope that discussion in the philosophy of religion classroom will lead to convergence of expert opinion on contested religious beliefs and values, we can certainly expect that free and open discussion of contested religious beliefs and values in circumstances in which nothing short of universal consensus permits claims to be entered onto the conversational scoreboard will promote improved mutual expert understanding of those contested religious beliefs and values.

The account that I have given of what philosophy of religion offers to ‘the modern university’ is premised on two assumptions. The first, somewhat sceptical, assumption is that there is no prospect of convergence of expert opinion with respect to currently contested religious beliefs and values. The second, somewhat optimistic, assumption is that we will all benefit from improved expert understanding of currently contested religious beliefs and values. Much of what passes for philosophy of religion in ‘the modern university’ is taught by people who accept neither of these assumptions. In my opinion, this fact plays a significant role in explaining why philosophy of religion is currently so much less than it could be.