Truth-Triggered Religious Commitments
It has generally been assumed that to make a religious commitment is to give oneself unconditionally to a single religious possibility, rejecting others. Here I explore the idea that a more basic commitment to truth, goodness, and beauty invites us to choose all the possibilities, conditionally, letting the truth of the matter determine which religious commitment, if any, is realized. The notion of conditional intentions provides the mechanism for this new understanding of religious commitment, and the notion of human religious immaturity gives it salience. With its broad evolutionary grounding, the view may bring illumination to a number of problems in the philosophy of religion and supersede certain older stances such as Pascal’s wager.
Date: 7 May 2018, 20:15 (Monday, 3rd week, Trinity 2018)
Venue: Oriel College, Oriel Square OX1 4EW
Venue Details: Smaller SCR
Speaker: Prof John Schellenberg (Mount St. Vincent University)
Organising department: Faculty of Theology and Religion
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Andreia Gomes Da Costa Leite