Gutting, Gary. Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism.

Notre Dame, Indiana: University Of

Notre Dame Pr, 1983.

Blake Wehman: James Madison University

In Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism, Gary Gutting does a wonderful job using

simple language to articulate on the difficult subject of religious justification. He breaks the book

into two parts: the first focusing on why people feel the needs to justify religious beliefs, and the

approaches, and secondly, he goes through justifications of religious belief that he either finds

true or false. Gutting’s book does a great job filling in most of the epistemological holes found in

most intellectual discussions involving justification of religion; in addition, his style of writing

and his conclusive stance on the subject is modern, intellectual, and I would argue that it would

resonate within the average 21st century secular reader.

In Part One, Gutting begins by introducing the Wittgenstein approach to the justification

of religion. The Wittgenstein approach rejects the contradiction model and says that saying one

does not understand religion or religious belief does not mean one is contradicting their belief. 1

In other words, Wittgenstein claims that one can understand all the language used in a belief and

still not understand the belief itself. The approach and theory seem complicated at first but

Gutting does a great job of elaborating and making it clearer. For example, Gutting describes

Wittgenstein’s approach in this quote, “Wittgenstein may understand the “picture” his friend has

– i.e. he sees how the different parts fit together in a coherent way – but he does not see how the

picture “regulates” his life.” 2 Therefore, Wittgenstein’s approach applied to nonbelievers

perception of religion is simple: many of them may understand the language used or understand

1
Gutting, Gary. Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism. Notre Dame, Indiana: University Of Notre Dame Pr, 1983.
2
Gutting, 18.
the teachings they may have undergone but they do not understand the entire message or broader

effect religion has on individuals. It does not resonate within them; therefore, according to

Wittgenstein, the necessity to justify religious belief is debunked by the fact that those attacking

it do not have an understanding of the true meaning behind religious belief.

However, that is Wittgenstein’s stance. Gutting goes on to dispute this stance. According

to Gutting, he believes that that basic understanding of the language or some of the elements of

religion that Wittgenstein referred to allows for the basis of judgment. This judgment opens up

the door to criticism and ultimately after these doors are open, justification of the beliefs is the

result. As gutting puts it, the advantage that the believers has over the non believer is simply that

he can have the experience of religious belief; this, however, does not disallow the non believer

from making evaluations about religious claims. 3 He makes this conclusion by claiming that

nonbelievers can listen to religious claims and using their own judgment decide the veridicality

of the statement; therefore, concluding that religious beliefs do need justification. 4

After making his strong stance through Wittgenstein, Gutting takes a different direction.

He begins the discussion of “God-talk” and what it entails. The second argument Gutting

approach is that since God-talk “exhibits the autonomy of the religious mode of discourse,”5 then

one cannot apply the normal modes of justification to it. The discussion of God-talk becomes

clearer and well presented in Gutting’s section on Aquinas and the language of God.

In this section, Gutting focuses on the religious language used to describe God and

Thomas Aquinas analysis of such. The epitome of this section lies on page 56, where Aquinas

3
Gutting, 24.
4
Gutting, 24.
5
Gutting, 43.
concludes that the only way one can speak of God is to say, “To be God is to be to-be.”6 In other

words, the only way someone can predicate God is by saying that God simply is. There are no

predicates or attributes one can apply to God because God is limitless and a perfect being.

Therefore, applying attributes that pertain to humans would limit God’s power and be an

imperfect application to a perfect being. Aquinas uses this formula to devise a series of sentences

that describe God, for example to be God is to be infinite, etc.7 The importance of this is to

develop a basis upon which we can talk about God and potentially place judgment. However,

even with Aquinas’ formula, humans lack the ability to place judgment due to the extremeness of

the statements. Humans are unable to comprehend what it means to be perfect or infinite

therefore making judgment impossible. 8

However, Gutting makes a very interesting connection to Aquinas God-talk and its

application to Christian believers. He discusses three examples, “God is to be good,” “God is to

be eternal,” and “God is to be one.” Gutting comments on how these three examples of God-talk

can be influential; for example, God’s goodness can lead us to live morally excellent lives, God

being eternal can “direct us to aspects of our inner experience”, and God being one can “lead us

to the appreciation of the integrity of things. 9 Its correlations like this that need to become more

prevalent in theological discussions. Gutting’s connection here would be a great representation

of the many secular Christian believers across the world. There may be few people who believe

the fundamentalist approach to Christianity but many people enjoy its underlying theme and

message.

6
Gutting, 56.
7
Gutting, 58.
8
Gutting, 59.
9
Gutting, 64.
 Gutting concludes his section on Aquinas perspective on God talk by introducing a

different form of instigating justification. Generally, when instigating justification it is through

proof, coming from an inductive or deductive argument. However, in the instance of discussing

God, one can pass judgment which would instigate one to justify his or her belief. According to

Gutting, “judgment is a legitimate way of drawing conclusions that plays a central role in many

areas of human life.”10 Using this model, one can then apply judgment to God talk, as written by

Aquinas, and create a scenario where religious belief is needed to be justified. While I agree with

this inclusion of Gutting’s judgment as a form of criticism, I do not think it carries the same

weight that a proof would.

Gutting’s concludes his first part with some more insightful words that resonate within

any secular Christian reader. According to Gutting, religious belief is not a form of life, as the

Wittgenstein model suggests, but acts within the form of life. If one takes away religion within

America, we do not crumble or fall apart; however, if one applies religion to America, it

provides a system of truths and ethics that help further the American people.11 Ultimately, he

concludes part one by saying that “religion is neither naturalist, woven into the very fabric of our

form of life, nor transcendent, a call to an entirely new form of life” and I believe this approach

appeals to the modern era we currently live in.12

Gutting introduces one last belief against the need for justification and that is the belief of

Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga claims that the belief in religion is “properly basic,” or in other words,

because it is obvious to them, they are entitled to their beliefs. Gutting discusses the

counterarguments posed against Plantinga and a variety of objections. One of the objections is

10
Gutting, 76.
11
Gutting, 78.
12
Gutting, 78.
that the entitlement to religious belief simply because it is obvious to some and not to others,

leads to epistemic egoism. As Gutting phrases it, “believing in p because its truth is supported by

my intuition is thus an epistemological egoism just as arbitrary and unjustifiable as ethical

egoism is generally regarded to be.”13 Therefore, Gutting rejects this form of avoiding religious

justification and moves on to the theory of methodological conservatism.

Plantinga’s stance of properly basic did seem to revolve way too much around the

individual and this led to ambiguity and personal opinions. The following section discusses a

similar stance, methodological conservatism, which also talks about a truth-independent

justification. Similar to Plantinga’s properly basic theory, methodological conservatism claims

that the fact that one holds the belief is grounds for justification to the belief. However, as

previously mentioned, this is a truth-independent justification, or in other words, “what will be

justified is not the truth of the belief but the act of holding the belief.”14 Gutting concludes that

this stance of methodological conservatism does not righteously justify an entire religious belief

but rather justify certain concepts held within religious belief. Personally, both Plantinga and the

usage of methodological conservatism seem irrational; the modes of justification seem heavily

based upon subjective belief and egoism. Therefore, Gutting’s response and inclusion of these

two theories are understandable but was a weaker section in the book.

Finally, Gutting moves from the theories that avoid justifying religious belief and gets to

the heart and soul of his book: justifying religious belief. Considering most American readers

probably come from some form of religious, probably Christian, background, this part of the

book is powerful. He begins by introducing an analogical approach to the justification of religion

through Kuhn’s scientific theory. Kuhn’s scientific theory focuses on the shift or change, which
13
Gutting, 86.
14
Gutting, 102.
he refers to as a revolution, within paradigms or scientific sets of thought. He uses the

transference from Netwonian thought to Einsteinian thought as an example of a revolution. This

conversion process is parallel to a religious conversion. In other words, the foundations of

science come from revolutions throughout time that are unjustifiable through deductive or

inductive reasoning. Therefore, analogically comparing religion to Kuhn’s theory, religion is “a

tradition transmitted through historical exemplars.”15 Therefore, the justification of religion

comes through the judgment of these exemplars, like Jesus Christ, not from some proof

generated deductively or inductively. One criticism I have with this theory and one that Gutting

left out, is that even though it is analogous, it is still comparing apples to oranges. The basis of

comparison may have characteristics that, once stretched, may seem similar; however, when

attempting to conclusively justify religion, it is going to always look very different than

conclusively justifying science. To me, it seems like trying to find equal grounds of light and

dark; they may be justified in similar ways but ultimately are radically different.

However, Gutting does raise his own dispute to this analogy. According to Gutting, this

analogical comparison leaves out one important characteristic of Kuhn’s scientific theory: the

affirmation of the revolution through scientific consensus in a concrete community. The problem

in the analogy is therefore apparent: there is no universal community within religion. There are

even differences within denominations of Christianity; therefore, developing a justification of

religious belief through consensus would be utterly impossible. Gutting’s compromise would be

to reach a consensus, it would have to be on the broadest terms possible but even then that would

only lie within one form of religion. There would obviously be dissenting opinions within the

religious communities as to what was deemed justifiable. As a reader, I was hoping that Gutting

15
Gutting, 120.
would implement some form of religious pluralism here as a compromise however it was

nonexistent. Incorporating the belief that each religion has an aspect or element of truth to it and

are all under the same central God would fit in nicely here.

Gutting’s most insightful and moving part of his book comes towards the end when he

cites numerous testimonies of experiences with God. He uses these examples to formulate an

argument that all these people have some form of a sensual experience with God, and many of

them are sane, intellectual people. Therefore, with this many occurrences all across the world,

how can one refute the existence of God? He immediately dismisses the attempt to debunk the

experiences as psychotic or some kind of insanity because it is terribly irrational to conclude that

all the people having these experiences are crazy. I would have to agree with Gutting on that

conclusion.16 Next, he introduces the Marxist or Freudian approach which dismisses these

experiences as religious and points to a different cause. As for Freud, he concludes that religion

is illusory and comes from wish-fulfillment therefore we create these experiences

psychologically. Marx, on the other hand, points to socioeconomic conditions and concludes that

religious belief and experience comes from the living conditions. Gutting’s response to these

opposing viewpoints to religious belief is simplistic and genius. Obviously when opposing

viewpoints to general world views are proposed, they can be discredited by another world view.

In other words, there are Marxist explanations of Freud and Freud explanations of Marxism;

their theories do not hold any more ground than religious belief does.17 Gutting’s simple and easy

dismissal of these dissenting opinions was easy to follow; in addition, as a reader I found his

arguments rational and I often was eager to turn the page to find out his stance on the issue at

hand.

16
Gutting, 160.
17
Gutting, 163.
 Gutting wraps up his final chapter with more insightful words on the meaning of religion.

He goes on to conclude that religions offer truths that can resonate within any man or woman.

The closest he gets to a pluralistic approach to religion is towards the end of his book when he

claims,

“despite the manifest diversity of religious experiences, there remains a content common to them all; and,

apart from very uncommon instances of highly specific revelations via visions or mystical insights, it is

possible to accept consistently the essential features of almost all religious experiences.” 18

Finally, Gutting incorporates some kind of stance that tries to bridge together the differing

religious beliefs across the globe. Whether Gutting is discussing the significance of an

experience with God or trying to understand how religion is justifiable, he never seems

concerned with the fact there are so many different religions. Granted the book was published a

bit before global religious awareness, I would think that a professor of religion would understand

some of the religions beyond Christianity. The main concern with the book is the lack of

diversity or incorporation of other fundamental religious ideas. The book is not Christian

Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism, it is just Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism;

therefore, the book has a pointedly Christian direction and lacks any real incorporation of other

religious stances like Islam or Hinduism.

Ultimately, Gutting concludes that is rational to hold that belief in religion is justifiable;

however, he adds a distinction that there are core religious beliefs and then there is an outer set

of beliefs. These outer beliefs he goes on to write are capable of being labeled irrational and at

best can be regarded with interim assent.19 The core belief that he refers to is simply that there is

a good and powerful being concerned with us. He concludes by saying that beyond that simple
18
Gutting, 171.
19
Gutting, 178.
belief, he is skeptical about religion. 20 Coming from a secular reader, Gutting does an amazing

job summarizing the different viewpoints and stances for and against justifying religion. His

conclusion fits in perfectly with the current condition of religion in America and the significance

it has amongst the majority. Religion has a lot to offer communities and the people living within

the communities; however, adding on to Gutting’s viewpoint, I believe that beyond the belief

that there is an all powerful and good being, lies a realm of fanatics and fundamentalists whose

interpretations of religion can lead to irrational and destructive think. Therefore, Gutting’s

Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism elegantly depicts how one can justify religion and it is

timely considering how secular America has become. However, the main element missing from

Gutting’s book is the connection of the justification of religious belief with religious awareness

and tolerance. Seeing as the world is globalizing, a Gutting-esque stance on what kind of

religious belief is justifiable could enlighten many people and could potentially cause less

fundamentalism and more pacifism.

20
Gutting, 179.