The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion

Graham Oppy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138574052
• eBook ISBN: 9781317515913
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Philosophy of religion has experienced a renaissance in recent times, paralleling the resurgence in public debate about the place and value of religion in contemporary Western societies. The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into seven parts:

• theoretical orientations
• conceptions of divinity
• epistemology of religious belief
• metaphysics and religious language
• religion and politics
• religion and ethics
• religion and scientific scrutiny.

Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including: religious experience, religion and superstition, realism and anti-realism, scientific interpretation of religious texts, feminist approaches to religion, religion in the public square, tolerance, religion and meta-ethics, religion and cognitive science, and the meaning of life. Together, they offer readers an informed understanding of the current state of play in the liveliest areas of contemporary philosophy of religion.

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion is essential reading for students and researchers of philosophy of religion from across the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Part I

Theoretical orientations

1

Feminist approaches to religion¹

Beverley Clack

Introduction

Over the last fifty years, the application of feminist ideas and methodologies to the practices of theology has had considerable impact.² Feminist theologians have challenged the way in which the discipline of theology understands itself, arguing that it is impossible to consider spirituality and belief in God (or gods) without understanding the way in which sexuality and gender affects the construction of these concepts. Indeed, feminist theologians have been extremely successful in attaining their goals: it is now difficult to imagine a university course in theology that does not in some way address issues of sexuality and identity.

By comparison, Anglo-American philosophy of religion has been somewhat tardy in taking seriously the effect that the exploration of issues of identity might have upon the construction and analysis of religious belief. A range of reasons might account for this reticence. There are, for example, relatively few philosophers of religion who are women. More far-reaching is the effect felt from the dominance of analytic philosophy of religion in the Anglo-American forms of the subject. Analytic philosophers of religion are committed to an approach that stresses the rational engagement with religion. This is most clearly seen in the way in which belief in God is explored. God is defined in terms that are believed to transcend their basis in the specificities of any particular faith tradition. Terms deemed common and acceptable to all the great monotheistic faiths are used to define what ‘the divine’ might be. The philosopher’s task is then to determine whether there are good grounds for holding to belief in such a God. Analysing belief and determining whether it is rational or not becomes the prime focus of concern: and, importantly, this need not imply engagement with the lived experience of religious believers. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. For example, Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro (1997) are at pains to allow space for philosophies of religion defined through the lens of different religious traditions, and D.Z. Phillips consistently exhorted philosophers of religion to place the believer at the heart of their considerations, e.g., in Reason without Explanation (1978). While noting the importance of such strategies, the main thrust of the subject has been towards engaging with a more general understanding of what God and religion mean.

Pursuing philosophy of religion in this way elevates ideas of abstraction and general applicability. For feminists, approaching religion thus is problematic: not least because they wish to draw attention to the way in which the ideas humans develop about their world invariably reflect their own individual experience and social placing. We are embodied beings, and the facts of embodiment affect our ideas about the world we inhabit.

This chapter explores the feminist critique of analytic philosophy of religion, as well as noting some of the ways in which feminists envisage future philosophies of religion. The plural ‘philosophies’ is significant here. There is no one generally agreed alternative feminist approach. Rather, a range of approaches are emerging that suggest something of the diversity possible when one allows the significance of gender and identity to shape accounts of religion and the divine.

The feminist critique of (philosophy of) religion

Feminist theology and the philosophical critique of religion

The feminist critique of religion has much in common with that of the nineteenth-century philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. Feuerbach (1841/1957) argues that the concept of God is a human construction which reifies the values of any particular human society. For the feminist, to accept this claim is not sufficient in itself. If ‘God’ stands for those qualities that human beings and specific human societies deem valuable, precisely whose values does the philosophical concept of God reflect?

In addressing this question, feminists first turned their attention to the key attributes which define the God of philosophical theism. The theist’s God is defined in terms of power, knowledge and detachment. ‘He’ is all-powerful, all-knowing, and radically self-sufficient. Furthermore, this God is impassible (cannot suffer), an attribute with connotations of invulnerability. God is immutable (cannot change). If these factors are taken together, it seems that we have a telling picture of God made in ‘man’s’ image. Replace the word ‘God’ with the word ‘man’ and one is left with the stereotypical picture of what constitutes masculinity in a society whose cultural and social life has been – and continues to be – defined and dominated by men.

By tracing the development of the distinctively feminist philosophies of religion that have appeared in recent years, one gets a sense of the way in which the early feminist critique of religion has been built upon. The earliest feminist analyses of the concept of God were concerned with exposing the way in which the notion of God has been used to legitimate male domination. The post-Christian theologian Mary Daly, a key figure in the quest for a female-centred approach to spirituality, began by outlining the extent to which the concept of God is derived from male experience of the world. Writing of Christianity – although, arguably, her words could be applied to any of the major monotheistic faiths – she notes that ‘the myths and symbols of Christianity are essentially sexist’ (Daly 1975: 227). The language habitually used of God is distinctively male, both in terms of the attributes ascribed to God, but also in terms of the gender-language used of God. God is resolutely and definitively ‘He’. According to Daly, such language does not reflect a mere quirk of fate. It reflects an ideology that has a very real effect on the way in which human relationships are shaped. In a famous passage she notes that ‘since “God is male, the male is God. God the Father legitimates all earthly Godfathers’ (Daly 1975: 227). The language of religion cannot be detached from the effect it has on human relationships. Divine male power supports human male power. Philosophers stand accused of distortion if they insist on viewing such language in abstract ways divorced from their context in human life and experience.

Feminist scholars of religion built upon Daly’s work, seeking to expose the concept of God as a male construct of divinity. Pursued in this way, the concept of God is revealed as supporting and justifying masculinist concepts and values. Sharon Welch provides a fine example of this method. At one point in her analysis of the atmosphere of ‘cultured despair’ prevalent in the last throes of the Cold War in the late 1980s, she turns her attention to the concept of divine omnipotence. Rather than consider this concept in isolation from human practices, she asks what the desire for an omnipotent God signifies. Her answer is not a cheery one. For Welch, it reflects and justifies forms of destructive human behaviour. The desire to be ‘all-powerful’, reflected in the concept of God, speaks to a desire that should not be cultivated: ‘the political logic of such doctrines [is] the glorification of domination’ (Welch 1989: 111). An all-powerful deity lends itself to the drive for power. Moreover, idealising omnipotence contains the belief that absolute power is an absolute good: after all, God, as perfect, is defined as all-powerful. It would seem that in glorifying divine omnipotence, human beings – or rather human rulers – are similarly encouraged to seek after such power. Welch refutes the very idea that absolute power is good. We only have to consider human history to see the legacy of thinking of power in this way. As she puts it, ‘absolute power is a destructive trait’ (Welch 1989: 111). If this is so, ideas – be they philosophical or theological – can never be considered ‘innocent’. If God embodies absolute power (is omnipotent), consideration needs to be paid to the effect that this glorification of power has on human relationships. A crucial part of the feminist scholar’s work is, then, to connect ideas with practice.

It is worth considering how Welch proceeds in her analysis. Absolute power only makes sense when located against the backdrop of a hierarchical society. If rulers are to aspire to the power of God, the ruled are to submit to their ‘masters’ just as the Church is to submit to ‘her’ God:

The result of the theological valorisation of absolute power is the erotics of domination, the glorification of submission to the greatest power.

(Welch 1989: 117)

Such a belief has considerable ramifications for women, traditionally viewed as subordinate to men. If the hierarchical structure on which such ideas depend is also divinely ordained, there is no way in which women can challenge the impact that this structure has upon their lives.

The liberation theologian Dorothee Soelle provides a fitting example of what such beliefs might mean in practice. Concerned to illuminate the way in which ideas about God affect lived experience, Soelle describes the experience of a woman suffering domestic violence. She goes into this case in considerable detail, giving a sense of the woman’s isolation, of her dependence upon the whims of a brutal husband. She also considers the psychological bars forged by her religious beliefs that act against her resisting her fate. Living in a religious community, she finds it difficult to challenge her suffering because of a theology which sees suffering as something sent by God. As such, it must be accepted. Soelle claims that this woman’s experience reflects the logic which emanates from belief in an all-powerful God: God is visualised as a sadist who demands the sufferer to be a masochist with no choice but to conform to their lot and bear it (Soelle 1975: 10–16).

Like Soelle, Welch wants to challenge such thinking, making a similar connection between forms of theological language and human praxis. If such challenges are taken seriously, then the very way in which God is conceptualised must be reviewed. Moreover, as Soelle and Welch argue, the concept of God is not philosophically neutral; it can be mapped onto the social values that constructed it in the first place. As Soelle’s example shows, models of God have an impact on the extent to which justice is or is not possible for women.

Towards a feminist philosophy of religion: Jantzen and Anderson

While Welch’s critique of omnipotence engages with the key philosophical theme of power and considers it theologically, her central concern is not to create a feminist philosophy of religion. Other feminist scholars have furthered this project. The work of Grace Jantzen (1998) and Pamela Sue Anderson (1998; 2012) suggests something of what a feminist philosophy of religion might look like. At the heart of both accounts is a critique of the method and concerns of the discipline itself.

Jantzen’s approach challenges the basic methodology that informs the analytic philosopher’s engagement with religion. At its heart, she argues, lies the assumption that the philosopher is a rational subject who weighs the evidence and comes to a (largely) detached response to the problems posed. That such a stance is unproblematic is rarely challenged. Issues of embodiment – what it might mean to be approaching this topic as a gendered and raced subject at a particular point in human history – are considered unnecessary and beside the point (Jantzen 1996).

We might, by way of illustration, consider Tim Mawson’s introduction to philosophy of religion (2005). For Mawson, ‘calling God a “he” and calling God a “she” is a matter of indifference philosophically speaking’. That is not to say that this kind of language might be of no interest to broader sociological investigations, but Mawson is at pains to dismiss such reflections as irrelevant for the philosopher: ‘power connotations [are] accidentally associated with the genders’ (ibid. 19, my emphasis). If we are to be ‘clear-headed’ as philosophers of religion we should not be distracted by such cultural variables. ‘We’ recognise that God is not gendered, and so the language we use is insignificant. (One wonders, at this point, precisely who constitutes ‘we’ for Mawson.) Resolutely refusing to engage with the implications such language might have for the construction of human relationships, he comes to this conclusion: ‘given that nothing can turn on the decision one way or the other, I’m going to continue within the tradition in which I have grown up, calling God a he’ (ibid. 20).

Jantzen, like Welch before her, resists such conclusions. Drawing upon Feuerbach’s contention that the way God is conceptualised reveals the values of the society that created that concept, she argues that the concept of God reflects the ideals and concerns of those who defined it. Given that men have been the main figures in the construction of the discipline and its debates, it is hardly surprising if the way in which religion is subsequently understood depends, similarly, upon masculine preoccupations.

The example to which Jantzen draws attention is the over-emphasis on death. Why, she asks, is the engagement with death of fundamental concern to philosophers of religion? Why is the topic of immortality a central one for the philosophical study of religion? ‘Can I survive my death?’ ‘What happens to me after death?’ Philosophers of religion have invariably related the concerns of religion to such questions. Jantzen’s response is stark: such questions reflect a discipline that is ‘necrophilic’; a discipline that reflects a masculinist obsession with death (1998: 137–41).

Whether she is correct or altogether fair in making this connection is a moot point. Are women really not interested in death? After all, Jantzen has harsh words to say about the French feminist Julia Kristeva, who offers powerful reflections on death as well as the related themes of loss, melancholia, and depression (Jantzen 1998: 196; Kristeva 1989). Jantzen seems to polarise the concerns of men and women while failing to pay adequate attention to the possibility noted at the beginning of the twentieth century by William James (1902/1985) that different individuals will respond differently to the concerns of the world they inhabit.

In place of the obsession with death that she perceives in the tradition, Jantzen suggests a different model for religious reflection focused on birth. Theorising birth allows women’s experiences and lives to shape Jantzen’s philosophy of religion. And there is good evidence for her contention that birth has been neglected as a philosophical category. The existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger (1927/1962: 295) may write of the individual being ‘thrown into the world’, but to consider the process of birth seriously undermines this assertion. We are not, in fact, ‘thrown into the world’; we enter it through the body of a woman. To reflect upon this fact is to challenge Heidegger’s focus on the lonely individual who creates ‘his’ life as ‘he’ sees fit. The process of birthing reveals a different truth: we are immediately placed into a network of relationships (even if those relationships are sometimes far from adequate). Jantzen challenges the absence of a proper philosophical discussion of birth (and by extension relationship), and stresses, with Christine Battersby, ‘the ontological significance of the fact that selves are born’ (Battersby 1998: 3). To start here leads to a different set of concerns for philosophers of religion; and for Jantzen these revolve around questions of how to live, how to flourish, and how to acquire justice for all those who have been born (Jantzen 1998: 227–53).

There is much to commend Jantzen’s approach: not least because it makes philosophy of religion an ethical pursuit, with the question of the practice of living as significant as the reflection on beliefs (see also Hollywood 2004). Yet to engage with birth as a philosophical category is not without its difficulties for the feminist. One risks falling into the essentialist trap where ‘Woman’ is defined according to her specific reproductive function. This move has enabled generations of patriarchal thinkers to limit the scope of women’s lives.³ Invariably, such accounts of what it means to be a woman lead to the conclusion that because women give birth they are the ones best placed to look after children. Thus ‘the home’ and the private realm are the best place for women. The nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, for example, notes how to ‘watch a girl playing with a child, dancing and singing with it the whole day’ leads one to ask ‘what, with the best will in the world, a man could do in her place’ (Schopenhauer 1970: 81).

Connecting women with reproduction and child-rearing suggests a further connection with nature. While this might seem agreeable when thinking ecologically (see Griffin 1982), it is more problematic when placed alongside the history of western philosophy. For philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel, the perceived connection with nature means that women are less likely to be capable of rational thought than the male who has been viewed as more distant from the influence of natural processes.⁴

Jantzen’s strategy for avoiding such conclusions is to emphasise less the actual experience of giving birth, and more the ramifications of thinking of humans as beings who are born. Rather than think of ourselves as ‘mortals’ (beings destined to die), something significant happens when we think of ourselves as ‘natals’ (beings who have been born). Less attention can as a r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I: Theoretical orientations
• Part II: Conceptions of divinity
• Part III: Epistemology of religious belief
• Part IV: Metaphysics and religious language
• Part V: Religion and politics
• Part VI: Religion and ethics
• Part VII: Religion and scientific scrutiny
• Bibliography
• Index