God in the Act of Reference
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God in the Act of Reference

Debating Religious Realism and Non-Realism

Erica Appelros

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eBook - ePub

God in the Act of Reference

Debating Religious Realism and Non-Realism

Erica Appelros

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About This Book

To claim to believe in God without accepting that God exists independently of human minds would mean reducing God to merely a human construct, thus not real enough for being the object of religious worship. This book sets out to challenge this common view on existence and religious belief. Arguing from concrete examples of language use in children's make-believe play and other ordinary situations, Erica Appelros suggests that what makes us consider something to be real involves our capacities to relate to our surroundings - not only on grounds of their physical characteristics but also on grounds of human construction. This book makes a substantial contribution to the contemporary debate within philosophy of religion on religious realism and non-realism, and suggests innovative and constructive solutions to the perennial philosophical and religious issue of what is meant by talking about God and God's existence.

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Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2017
ISBN
9781351932776
Subtopic
Religion
Edition
1
1 Realists and non-realists
Introduction
People talk. Incessantly. People talk about all sorts of things and in all sorts of circumstances. Having access to a language for communication is partly what distinguishes us as human beings. We talk about our neighbours, the novels we read, our dreams, our ambitions, and our children’s real or imagined achievements. Our children talk about Superman and Santa Claus. Most of us have at least on some occasion talked about God, and some of us may frequently address God in words of prayer. In the same breath we cover anything from frying pans to true love; we ask a congregation for money to repair the church roof and thank God for the resulting contribution in the next sentence. Philosophers, on the other hand, supposedly standing aloof from this mishmash of mundane matters of conversation, only talk about two things: mountains and unicorns, or, rather, about two categories of words: words that refer to that which exists, and words that do not so refer.
But is there really, in all our diverse linguistic practices, such a sharp dividing line between referring and non-referring expressions? Do indeed all those disparate matters that we talk about let themselves be nicely streamed into two mutually exclusive categories: having mind-independent existence or being a product of our wild imagination, a mere fantasy? I say no. We need theories of reference and existence that do justice to our actual human enterprises and the complexity of our natural language use. As a result of the common close equation of reference with existence, a great many actual language examples where reference apparently takes place cannot be analysed in terms of reference. Philosophers therefore need to reconsider what they mean by reference and existence. When carried through, this reconsideration will have far reaching implications for a much debated subject within philosophy of religion.
The topic of religious realism and non-realism (or anti-realism as it is also called), diverse and multifaceted as it is, has recently caused much debate in contemporary philosophy of religion. As Joseph Runzo remarks in the introduction to a collection of essays on the subject: “no issue is more trenchant [in contemporary philosophy of religion] than that of religious realism vs. religious non-realism”.1
If you believe in God you also believe that God exists, that God is real. If you call upon God in prayer you believe that you by means of your words refer to that God. This is the traditional religious common sense view of God, reality, and reference. Moreover, it seems quite reasonable. After all, who would put their life in the hands of God if they did not believe that God existed? Who would pray without believing that anyone is there listening? As we all know, however, things are not always that easy for philosophers. Some philosophers of religion, so-called religious non-realists, seem paradoxically enough to have suggested that we can indeed believe in a God that we do not believe exists and pray to a God that is not considered to be real. Others, so-called religious realists, have opposed this, since, given the religious common sense view described above, this would not be a religiously adequate form of religious belief.
The debate between religious realism and religious non-realism is a debate between (at least) two philosophical positions, all of which claim that their own interpretation of God, reality, and reference is the correct or the best interpretation. Much energy in recent writings is spent on working out what the various standpoints involve. Is there really a complete dichotomy between religious realism and religious anti- or non-realism, or is the whole controversy misdirected? D. Z. Phillips and other Wittgensteinian philosophers of religion hold that religious realism and non-realism are equally confused; whereas others, both realists such as William P. Alston, Janet Martin Soskice, Roger Trigg, and John Hick, non-realists such as Don Cupitt, and atheists such as Robin Le Poidevin, claim that there is a real issue at stake concerning the reality of God in the religious realism and non-realism debates.2 Yet others, sometimes called internal realists, such as Eberhard Herrmann, wish to avoid the two extremes and take into account the good intentions from both sides. Agreeing that there is a real issue at stake and that for us to be rational beings we need to be able to distinguish between our inquiries and the object of our inquiries, Herrmann still maintains that the reality we thus talk about and inquire into is not a metaphysical reality, but is always a reality that is conceptualized by us.3
It is generally and tacitly assumed by realists that in order to believe in God and partake wholeheartedly in religious activities, one must be a realist with respect to religious matters. The debate is therefore too often silenced before it has even had a chance to get started, religious non-realism not even being considered an alternative to discuss. Some recent attempts have been made, though, to establish a charitable dialogue between realists and non-realists.4 In order to facilitate dialogue and understanding, both religious realists and non-realists must be willing to leave their ringsides and move on to explore other approaches than the dualisms and dichotomies often invoked. For this, new analytical tools are needed. I intend to provide them.
Realism, anti-realism, and non-realism
During the last century we have witnessed the rise of postmodernism, constructivism, deconstruction, relativism, and the questioning of objectivity, dualism, and absolute truth. These theories are in an important sense reactions against metaphysical realism and a realist conception of truth. The reaction against realism is accentuated within postmodernism in its deconstruction of the Western metaphysical tradition. Metaphysical realism is traditionally understood as an ontological theory that includes the semantic issues of truth and reference and how language is mapped onto an independently existing world. It typically holds that whatever is said to exist, be it the natural world with most of its common-sense and scientific objects, or God, must exist independently of our knowledge, theories, and conceptual structures.
There are a number of subject matters where realism is disputed in various ways. The reality of the physical world has been disputed by idealists and phenomenalists; the reality of mathematical objects is disputed by intuitionists, constructivists, and formalists; the reality of future and past events is disputed by neutralists; the reality of mental events is disputed by behaviourists; the reality behind ethical statements is disputed by subjectivists; and the reality of scientific entities referred to by means of theory dependent terms is disputed by instrumentalists. Religion is no exception. The statements disputed in terms of realism and non-realism are here about so-called supernatural entities such as God. Do these entities exist independently of human minds or not? In this postmodern age and with a view of reality as a human construction, the question arises whether religion can still be functional. As Peter Berger remarked: once we realize that the sacred canopy is a cultural product, not a gift of the gods, that canopy can no longer provide protection. Or, in the view of Freud, once mankind realizes that religion is an illusion, an infantile projection of its wishes, a mature person cannot take refuge in it any more.5
There being no general argument for or against realism, one must for each area investigate what is in dispute and in what way it is in dispute.6 The area where realism is most frequently discussed today is philosophy of science, in particular physical theories such as quantum mechanics. Whenever the issue of realism and anti-realism is discussed in general terms, it is therefore likely that what is said concerns the scientific subject matter, even when this is not explicitly stated. Arguments from the discussion about scientific realism and anti-realism are not, however, automatically transferable to other areas where the issue of realism and anti-realism is debated. Caution is therefore needed when applying supposedly general arguments and concepts from the debate on realism and anti-realism within science to the area of philosophy of religion.7
In order to proceed with a discussion on realism and non-realism with regard to religious entities, we thus need to delineate the subject matter of religion, within which the issue of realism and non-realism derives its meaning. Definitions of what religion is are legion. For my purposes, though, neither a realist definition of religion, which incorporates metaphysical dogmas and concentrates on beliefs and religious experiences, nor a non-realist definition of religion, which incorporates other metaphysical dogmas, albeit negative ones, and concentrates on the reductive aspects of religion, is fruitful. Since I am concerned with how reference to God might be explicated in a non-reductive and religiously adequate way, but without presupposing metaphysical realism, it would not be well-advised to have a standpoint on metaphysical realism built into the formulation of the problem itself. To avoid that, let us take the metaphysically most neutral approach and understand religion from the perspective of the religious actions and religious practices in which the religious beliefs are logically implied, rather than the other way round.8 Specifically, for the discussion of reference, I shall characterize a religious practice partly as a linguistic practice where the associated conceptual structures in essential respects rely on conceptualizations that are very weakly dependent on physical characteristics. For practical reasons only, the examples given throughout the book will be taken from a Christian context, since that is the religious context with which I am the most familiar.
Religious practices are situated in a human linguistic context, hence I take my starting point in the concrete human situation. In order to carry out a philosophical analysis of actual examples of language use, we need to make clear what factors contribute to them. My analysis, besides using standard philosophical arguments, has therefore involved methods and relevant material from other scholarly traditions, such as empirical theories about human development, communication, sociology, psychology, and play.
Besides bearing in mind that the issue of realism is always tied to a specific subject-matter, there is a further complication: we must also distinguish between its metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic dimensions.9 What is at stake in the realist-non-realist debates within a religious context concerns minimally the metaphysical dimension, where the reality of God is denied or affirmed by way of denying or affirming the possibility of God’s mind-independent and unconceptualized existence. Thus also the atheist who denies God’s existence by claiming that there is in fact no entity corresponding to the religious believer’s use of the word “God”, though it is a meaningful possibility to discuss, is in this sense a realist with regard to religious entities. A religious non-realist denies the very possibility of speaking of God as a mind-independent and unconceptualized entity. Religious realism understood in this way may be compared to so-called entity-realism within the philosophy of science, where all that is at stake is whether terms in scientific theories are taken to refer to real existing entities or not.10 Religious metaphysical anti-or non-realism in this sense may then be compared to scientific instrumentalism or antirealism. The entities spoken about are here claimed to be fictional entities, useful as tools and posits within a theory without having to be postulated to exist and without the theory being understood as describing an underlying reality.11
Adding an epistemological dimension, scientific realism in its more full-blown form additionally involves a claim that current science is more or less correct in what it states about the entities it refers to. Religious realism also involves various degrees of epistemological realism or anti-realism. Thus anything from a naĂŻve realism, where it is assumed that we can know and accurately describe what God is like, to a critical realism Ă  la John Hick, where it is acknowledged that we cannot know anything about God and that everything we say about God is a human and cultural construction, is comprised within religious realism.
At the bottom of the debates on realism and non-realism, finally, is the semantic dimension, which deals with realism in terms of truth. A semantic realist adheres to the principle of bivalence and claims that a statement must always be either true or false, whether we can know it or not: there are evidence-transcendent truths. Since the truth or falsity of a statement depends on whether the statement refers to existing referents, and whether these are as they are described in the statement, reference is important. A semantic anti-realist, on the other hand, rejects the law of bivalence and accepts that statements need not be either true or false and that there may not always be a determinate answer to the question of truth.
The terminology used in the debates over realism in the context of religion as well as in other contexts is, as could be expected, in a tangled state. In the context of religion we find “alethic religious realism”, “irrealism”, “critical realism”, “instrumentalism”, “non-realism”, “internal realism”, and “anti-realism”, each of which combines and emphasizes the above described metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic dimensions differently.12 John Hick, for example, combines metaphysical realism with epistemological anti-realism. In the eyes of those who combine metaphysical realism with epistemological realism of a stronger kind, this makes Hick an anti-realist, whereas in the eyes of those who oppose metaphysical realism, Hick is regarded as a realist.
In order to cover all instances of reactions against metaphysical realism, Michael Dummett launched the term “anti-realism” as a general and value-neutral term, not restricted to any one context or theory. In practice, however, no terminology remains value-neutral for long, and when talking about contemporary actual denials of religious metaphysical realism, I shall as a rule instead use the term “nonrealism”. Even though not originally intended that way, the term “anti-realism” has in a religious context taken on almost a derogatory meaning, which means that hardly anyone wants to associate with it. Also, a certain praxis of language use is beginning to develop, in which “religious non-realism” seems slightly more preferred to “religious antirealism” as the generic term, even though the terminology, as we have seen, still varies. For the sake of clarity I shall not use the term “nonrealism” when specifically speaking about Wittgensteinian approaches or internal realism.
Settling for this terminology does not in any way imply that I shall enter into the various realist and non-realist debates, arguing for or against one or other realist or non-realist position. That is not my purpose. My object is rather to investigate and question the underlying assumptions of one of the central objections against religious nonrealism, namely the referential objection.
A question of reference
The general view of reference that underpins most specific theories about reference is that in an act of reference a linguistic expression is connected to an independently and previously existing object, the referent. Once located, it is assumed that the referent can ...

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