The most influential contribution to the philosophy of religion made by American pragmatism is A Common Faith (originally delivered as the Terry Lectures at Yale University), in which John Dewey calls our attention to the difference between religion and the religious. Dewey believed that traditional religions debilitate our experience of the religious in large part because they insist on a belief in the supernatural. His project calls for a new naturalistic faith based on a democratic community applying the methods of science. Dewey's American context was primarily Christian, as it still is today. It seems obvious that if Dewey's faith is to become truly 'common', then it must successfully engage the Christian majority. My thesis is that it is not possible for Dewey's common faith project to be established within a Christian majority context The development of Dewey's own philosophy of religion is considered, with a special focus on the dramatic change in religious worldview demonstrated in his own life. Dewey's common faith project is presented, along with the four major arguments that have been raised against it (that he misunderstood the nature of the supernatural that he misunderstood traditional religions, the he misunderstood the proper object of faith, and that he misunderstood basic human nature). An effort is made to provide Dewey's project with the philosophical foundation needed to successfully engage a Christian majority community by drawing on four key parallels identified between Dewey's philosophy and traditional Christian teachings: community and koinonia, sympathy and agape, God and logos, and growth and audzano. The conclusion is that Dewey's faith cannot successfully engage its intended context. The increased religious pluralism found in America today only magnifies the weaknesses in Dewey's common faith project Other than the thesis, the two most original contributions to the philosophic dialog found in this dissertation are a new analysis of the supernatural based on the notion of dimensions as developed in string theory, and demonstrating that Christians cannot be both sympathetic and tolerant. A brief exploration of how Dewey's common faith project might engage other contexts is included as well / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_25813 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Contributors | Nelson, Lonnie Roger (Author), Reck, Andrew J (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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