Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:34:48.193Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The power of humility in sceptical religion: why Ietsism is preferable to J. L. Schellenberg's Ultimism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2015

JAMES ELLIOTT
JAMES ELLIOTT*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, 100 N. University St., West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
*
e-mail: elliotj@purdue.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

J. L. Schellenberg's Philosophy of Religion argues for a specific brand of sceptical religion that takes ‘Ultimism’ – the proposition that there is a metaphysically, axiologically, and soteriologically ultimate reality – to be the object to which the sceptical religionist should assent. In this article I shall argue that Ietsism – the proposition that there is merely something transcendental worth committing ourselves to religiously – is a preferable object of assent. This is for two primary reasons. First, Ietsism is far more modest than Ultimism; Ietsism, in fact, is open to the truth of Ultimism, while the converse does not hold. Second, Ietsism can fulfil the same criteria that compel Schellenberg to argue for Ultimism.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 97 - 116
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrosius, Aurelius (2013) On the Duties of the Clergy (Savage MN: Lighthouse).Google Scholar
Chignell, Andrew (2013) ‘Prolegomena to any future non-doxastic religion’, Religious Studies, 49, 195–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crisp, Thomas (2013) ‘On coercion, love, and horrors’, Religious Studies, 49, 165–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diller, Jeannine (2013) ‘The conceptual focus of ultimism: an object of religious concern for the nones and somes’, Religious Studies, 49, 221–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dole, Andrew (2013) ‘Is sceptical religion adequate as a religion?’, Religious Studies, 49, 235–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Draper, Paul (2011) ‘Faith without God: an introduction to Schellenberg's trilogy’, Philo, 14, 59–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Giles (2005) ‘Modernism and the minimal God: on the empty spirituality of the God of the philosophers’, in Harris, H. & Insole, C. (eds) Faith and Philosophical Analysis: The Impact of Analytical Philosophy on the Philosophy of Religion (Ashgate: Aldershot), 148–158.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2013) ‘Schellenberg on propositional faith’, Religious Studies, 49, 181–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macintosh, J. J. (2011) ‘Sceptical ultimism, or not so sceptical atheism?’, Philo, 14, 66–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morriston, Wes (2013) ‘Is faith in the ultimate rationally required? Taking issue with some arguments in The Will to Imagine ’, Religious Studies, 49, 209–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penelhum, Terence (2013) ‘Religion after atheism’, Religious Studies, 49, 249–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2005) Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2007) The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Ithaca: Cornell).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2009) The Will to Imagine: A Justification of Skeptical Religion (Ithaca: Cornell).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2011a) ‘A reply to Wykstra’, Philo, 14, 101–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2011b) ‘Reactions to MacIntosh’, Philo, 14, 77–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2013a) Evolutionary Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2013b) ‘My stance in philosophy of religion’, Religious Studies, 49, 143–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2013c) ‘Replies to my colleagues’, Religious Studies, 49, 257–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2013d) ‘Ward's review: just the facts’ (unpublished).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (forthcoming) ‘God for all time: from theism to ultimism’, in Buckareff, A. & Nagasawa, Y. (eds) Alternative Conceptions of God (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Ward, Keith (2013) ‘J. L. Schellenberg, Evolutionary Religion (book review)’, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Online Publisher).Google Scholar
Wykstra, Stephen J. (2011) ‘Facing MECCA: ultimism, religious skepticism, and Schellenberg's ‘meta-evidential condition constraining assent’’, Philo, 14, 85–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar