NATURALISM
— 596—
driven, consequently, and at the end, to silence, al-
though the ‘talk’ on the way, if at all helpful, will
have had its value in making the silence a pregnant
one, and indeed an occasion for having an over-
ridingly important type of human experience”
(p. 231). Similarly, in his In Face of Mystery (1993),
the theologian Gordon Kaufman points out various
problems with the dualistic language of theism, as
if we on this side of the great divide can know that
which is on the other side; our knowledge of the
world in which we live “always shades off into ul-
timate mystery, into an ultimate unknowing” (p.
326). Emphasizing “mystery,” not-knowing is a safe
strategy. However, it does not offer much guid-
ance as to particular choices to be made in life; the
notion of mystery is more epistemic than axiologi-
cal or ontological.
These different theological views—the theist,
the pantheist, and the mysterianist—are all gener-
ally compatible with a science-inspired naturalist
understanding of reality. The way they are articu-
lated and defended may be influenced by current
scientific theories, but variants of these positions
can be formulated again and again.
A different naturalistic challenge: religion as
a phenomenon
Science-inspired naturalism is a challenge for reli-
gion since it presents a view of the world that dif-
fers from traditional religious images. This leads in
religion and science to conflicts between science
and religiously motivated beliefs, such as creation-
ism. However, a naturalist view also considers reli-
gions as phenomena within reality. Thus, they can
be studied just like other human practices. The
neurosciences may inform us of aspects of our
constitution that give rise to our “inner life.” And in
an evolutionary perspective most naturalists would
explain the emergence of religions functionally
along lines similar to explanations for political in-
stitutions, languages, and other social phenomena:
Religions arose because they contributed to the in-
clusive fitness of individuals or communities in
which they arose and which in turn were shaped
by them. An alternative could be that religions
arose as a side effect with the emergence of some
other trait, such as the rise of consciousness. Thus,
naturalists might see religions with their myths and
rituals as valuable means of dealing with the chal-
lenges of life. However, a contested issue then be-
comes whether we should take the vehicles (the
rituals, myths, narratives, conceptualities, etc) seri-
ously as cognitive claims, or whether those who
want to take the cognitive claims seriously should
reject the functional naturalistic approach.
Religious naturalism as thick naturalism
Religious naturalism might be understood as a
“thick” naturalism, with idiosyncratic elements that
allow for a decent amount of coping with the vi-
cissitudes of life, with stories that support values
and motivate humans. The notion “thick” is appro-
priated here from a distinction made by the an-
thropologist Clifford Geertz between thin and thick
descriptions of a culture. Whereas the one offers a
fairly abstract and general (thin) description, the
other concentrates on the multitude of habits, be-
liefs, skills, narratives, and the like, which make for
a more tightly woven whole.
For the history of religious naturalism one
might refer to philosophers, scientists, and theolo-
gians of various backgrounds, including Henry Nel-
son Wieman, George Santayana, John Dewey,
Charles Sanders Peirce, Ralph Burhoe, Mordecai
Kaplan, and Jack J. Cohen, and to some extent even
Alfred North Whitehead and William James (there is
a huge overlap between religious naturalism and
American pragmatism). Beyond the last century
and a half, one may go back further in time and
claim to be heirs of Spinoza as well as of other pan-
theistic scientists. Claiming these as ancestors is to
some extent appropriation out of context, but that
is precisely the intellectually ambivalent practice
that strengthens identity. These “ancestors” were all
perceived as somewhat heretical in their times,
while standing in close contact with, if not being
part of, the scientific community—precisely the mix
that may fit contemporary religious naturalism.
Like any subculture, religious naturalism is not
uniform. To the contrary, as in any living commu-
nity there have arisen dialects, with different
speakers giving their own interpretations to the
words. There are Christian and humanist dialects of
religious naturalism, as well as biological, psycho-
logical, and physicalist ones, all of which reflect
upbringing, training, and heritage, as well as needs
and situations. Some dialects are dialects of another
tradition as well, just as the local dialect near the
border of the Netherlands is considered by some to
be a dialect of Dutch, whereas others treat it as a
dialect of German. Thus, liberal or revisionist forms