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Santayana on the Role of Religion in Society
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12157 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1994 |
4,941 Words |
| Author
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Jude P. Dougherty
Jude P. Dougherty is the dean of the Department of Philosophy
at the Catholic University of America. |
In a 1992 collection, Essays on Religion and Education, R.M. Hare reprints his 1973 article, "The Simple Believer," where he wrote that the philosophy of religion is "a subject which fastidious philosophers do not like to touch."1 Equipped by his empiricist progenitors, Hare is not afraid to enter the field to confront what he takes to be an enfeebled Christianity defended only by its simple masses. From the outset he assumes that the educated man cannot believe in the supernatural, a belief he equates with superstition. He does not argue for this position but regards it as so well established that he, at least, needs to provide no evidence. Hare then asks, "Can religion do without the supernatural? . . . suppose someone produced an interpretation of Christianity that could be accepted by the best humanists; would this necessarily be a bad thing?"2 An informed reader might respond that such interpretations are plentiful and have existed from the early centuries of Christianity, and they exist also for Judaism. Santayana, whose thought we will examine in a moment, provides one for Christianity. Lenn Goodman, in his 1991 book On Justice: An Essay in Jewish Philosophy, provides a purely naturalistic interpretation of the books of the Torah.3 Wishing to salvage the moral teaching of the Hebrew prophets, Goodman, nevertheless, cannot bring himself to acknowledge either an immaterial reality or an afterlife. This should give us pause. If Goodman can carve out a role for a secularized Judaism, and Hare is willing to embrace a Christianity that has no reference to the supernatural, what is there about religion that makes even the nonbeliever reluctant to discard its trappings? "I believe," says Hare, "that matters are so ordered in the world that there is a point in trying to live by the precepts to which Christians subscribe."4 One may ask, Are the biblical religions, Christianity and Judaism, to be respected merely for their moral teaching?
Attitudes toward religion indicate not only personal acquaintance with religious structures and practices but deep-seated metaphysical outlooks as well. Obviously, from the examples offered above, one can be agnostic or flatly deny the existence of God and yet be appreciative of the role of religion in society, although consistency would seem to dictate the opposite. As the intellectual and cultural influence of religion wanes in a nation once thought to be Christian, it may be instructive to examine the thought of a major American philosopher who was in no sense a believer but who was, nevertheless, appreciative of the role of religion in society.
Etienne Gilson, the historian of philosophy, once ventured the opinion that the fortunes of metaphysics are bound to the fortunes of
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