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The End of Philosophy of Religion?
Author(s): Timothy D. Knepper

Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion , March 2014, Vol. 82, No. 1
(March 2014), pp. 120-149
Published by: Oxford University Press
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The End of Philosophy
of Religion?
Timothy D. Knepper*
Should philosophy of religion end? Or should its ends be redrawn? With

the 2008 publication of Nick Trakakis' The End of Philosophy of Religion,
these questions have been "en-titled," even if unsuitably answered. This
article begins by showing how The End of Philosophy of Religion falls
short at both ends, failing either to identify that which threatens to ter
minate a certain philosophy of religion or to offer an alternative set of
goals for any philosophy of religion. It then takes these shortcomings as
instructive of what is really wrong with our currently ascendant philoso
phies of religion, particularly with respect to their failure to learn from
and contribute to the academic study of religion. Finally, it articulates
five features of a philosophy of religion that does have something to offer
to religious studies, demonstrating in each case how both analytic and
continental philosophy of religion fall short of these marks.
WITH THE 2008 PUBLICATION of Nick Trakakis' The End of

Philosophy of Religion, that which some long feared and others eagerly
anticipated was finally en-titled. Hyperbolically so, one might add. For it
Timothy D. Knepper, Drake University, Philosophy and Religion, 203 Medbury Hall, Des
Moines, IA 50311, USA. E-mail: tim.knepper@drake.edu. A version of this article was first read at a
spring 2010 Humanities Center colloquium at Drake University, then at the 2010 annual meeting of
the American Academy of Religion, and finally at the spring 2011 conference on the future of
continental philosophy of religion at Syracuse University. I thank those whose critical comments have
aided its development—Jennifer McCrickerd, Craig Owens, and Joseph Schneider (in the case of the
first reading); Jerome Gellman, Michael Rea, and Kevin Schilbrack (in the case of the second
reading); Ron Mercer, Dan Miller, and Nick Trakakis (in the case of the third reading); and the two
anonymous reviewers at the JAAR. A version of this article has recently been published as the
opening chapter of my The Ends of Philosophy of Religion: Terminus and Telos (New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). I thank Palgrave MacMillan for allowing me to reuse that material here.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 2014, Vol. 82, No. 1, pp. 120-149
doi: 10.1093/jaarel/lft072
Advance Access publication on December 23, 2013
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of
Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

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Knepper: End of Philosophy of Religion 121
was not the philosophy of religion per se that Trakakis found moribund,
but analytic philosophy of religion: "The present study claims to drive
one further nail into the coffin of philosophy as it is practiced in the ana
lytic tradition, but with one peculiar twist: the focus will be on the philo
sophy of religion" (1).
Unfortunately, the nail missed. Trakakis' reading of analytic philoso
phy of religion was so narrow that the corpse it attempted to inter was
straw.1 Worse, Trakakis' efforts came up short at both ends, failing not
only to diagnose what is really ailing contemporary philosophy of religion
but also to prescribe a viable course of recovery. What Trakakis found to
be afflicting contemporary philosophy of religion was the overly profes
sional and technical, overly scientific and logical, and overly objective and
detached nature of analytic philosophy of religion: "My aim will be to
show that the analytic tradition of philosophy, by virtue of its attachment
to scientific norms of rationality and truth, cannot come to terms with
the mysterious transcendent reality that is disclosed in religious practice" (2).
But could not one say that matters are quite the opposite?—that philo
sophy of religion is even still not yet a field of academic inquiry that
investigates religious reason-giving in as many of the religions of the
world as possible, with as many reliable tools and methods of inquiry as
possible, by a community of inquirers that makes every effort to be as
objective and diverse as possible?2 Indeed, philosophy of religion ought
'This is best evidenced in one of Trakakis' central chapters, his critique of theodicy as too objective
and detached, too scientific and logical, too professional and technical. The entire chapter is premised
by the claim that theodicy is "one of the heartlands of analytic philosophy of religion"; those analytic
philosophers of religion who in some way object to the problem of theodicy are therefore "lonely
voices in the wilderness" (2, 6). But then, in an attempt to bolster his critique, Trakakis goes on
to note more than twice as many analytic philosophers of religion who are criticizing theodicy as
those doing theodicy. A second example—Trakakis' defense of perspectivalism against epistemic
foundationalism—is almost the inverse: instead of noted diversity being marginalized, actual diversity
is unnoted. I frankly do not see any philosopher of religion disagreeing with the central claim of
Trakakis' epistemic "perspectivalism"—the conditioned and contingent nature of knowledge (59).
And I certainly do not see any philosopher of religion claiming to attain "absolute truth," "the final
answer on God and religion," or "objective knowledge," "the knowledge of things as they are in
themselves" (60, 75). As one prominent analytic theologian has taken pains to explain, not only is
there a good deal of diversity in analytic philosophy about such matters, but most analytic
philosophers of religion simply do not fit such a caricature (Rea 2009).
2Trakakis appears to confuse the philosophy of religion with what looks more like Christian
spiritual formation, accusing it of ignoring or reducing to purely abstract concerns the existential and
lived dimension, of failing to come to terms with "the mysterious transcendent reality that is
disclosed in religious practice" due to "an attachment to scientific norms of rationality and truth,"
and, in the case of theodicy, not only of passively neglecting the needs of but also of actively injuring
those who suffer (115, 2, 29). Of course there is, in a good many contexts, something wrong with
reducing the lived dimension of religion to purely abstract concerns, with applying scientific norms
of rationality and truth to religious practice, and with professionalizing and technicalizing the
philosophy of religion. But the professional practice of philosophy of religion is not one such context.

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122 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
to advance and test hypotheses, for this is how humans inquire; it ought
to apply the tools of formal logic and empirical science, where applicable,
for these have shown themselves conducive to human inquiry more often
than not; it ought to be professional and, where necessary, technical, for
this is how communities of inquirers attain degrees of objectivity and pre
cision; and it ought to conduct its affairs as critically and correctively as
possible, for doing so has proved an effective way of managing and mini
mizing distorting biases. But it ought to do all this with respect to human
acts of religious reason-giving in a diversity of historical religions, not just
ahistorical theism or postmodern philosophy. And so, the issue is not
"whether it is legitimate (in some significant sense) to offer a theodicy in
response to the problem of evil" (6), but whether it is legitimate only to
inquire about theistic efforts at explaining anomie.3
The same is true at the other end. The concluding chapter of The End
of the Philosophy of Religion advocates, with Bruce Wilshire, the retrieval
of the "value of myth," which served as "a fountain of wisdom in ancient
cultures"; and, with David Tacey, the fashioning of a "new image of God,"
which "must be expressed in a new language" (115-116). But as this new
image of God is said to be "intimate, intense, and immanent," and this
new language is said to express the existence of this God as a matter of
"reasoned trust" or "mystical faith," these ends not only exclude a signifi
cant portion of the world's religions but also beg some of the very ques
tions that a philosophy of religion should want to investigate (116).4
3About anomie (which encompasses many more types of nomos-threatening disorder than evil),
see Peter Berger's The Sacred Canopy (1967). Note that Trakakis does recognize that, in the case of
theodicy, "the heart of the problem lies with the kind of God, or the specific conception of God, that
forms the basis of discussion" (11). And he even goes on to add that this is "to call attention to the
nature of the divine reality that is taken to be experienced in the world's religious traditions" (11). But
there is then no mention of religious traditions outside of the Abrahamic fold, nor really any
awareness that "the nature of divine reality that is taken to be experienced" in such religions might be
quite different—indeed, might not even be taken to be divine or real. Such considerations are not
altogether absent from Trakakis' co-authored essay with Monima Chandha in Philosophy East and
West (2007). Even better, see Purushottama Bilimoria's (1995) Sophia article "Duhkha & Karma: The
Problem of Evil and God's Omnipotence."
4And the same is true of Trakakis' other attempt to steer a new course for the philosophy of religion:
his chapter 5 reading of Kazantzakis' The Poor Man of God, which, in contradistinction to the
preceding four chapters—chapters that are admitted to be terminologically, stylistically, and
methodologically analytic in appearance—seeks "to take a glimpse at what a 'philosophy without
philosophy' [Blanchot] might look like, what a 'weak philosophy' [Vattimo] could assume in practice"
(85). What follows, though, is by no means clear, appearing most to resemble a "deconstruction
without deconstruction"—a stylistically Derridean exposition of The Poor Man of God (complete with
shifting marginalia) that seeks to locate not those interstices at which the text undermines itself but
those quotes on which a continued critique of analytic philosophy of religion can be grounded. What is
clear is that, once again, answers to the very sorts of questions that philosophers of religion should want
to ask are assumed—answers, moreover, that privilege a certain western (Romantic) understanding
of God:

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But what is most unfortunate about Trakakis' book is that, much like a
Hollywood blockbuster, it fails to deliver on a provocative title. Indeed,
there is something wrong with the philosophy of religion, so wrong that
scholars of religion should call for an end, or at least for "a completely fresh
start" (115). But it is not the over-technical or over-scientific methods of
the field. Nor is it the putative specters of cognitive meaninglessness or
onto-theological complicity. Rather, it is the simple fact that philosophy of
religion is significantly out of step with, and therefore has very little to offer
to, one of its parent fields, religious studies. And this is largely due to the
fact that the content of reflection in philosophy of religion is usually either
a fictionalized and ratified theism or the latest critical notion of some con
tinental philosopher, not the historical religions of the world in their local
ized complexity and comparative diversity. But it is also due to the fact that
philosophy of religion can look more like philosophical theology—not a
(relatively) religiously neutral examination of reason-giving in the religions
of the world, but an overt apologetic for (or against) the reasonableness or
value of some particular kind of religion. This, then, is the great irony of
contemporary philosophy of religion: at the time when it thrives most, it
offers least to the academic study of religion (which thrives all the more).
The remainder of this article serves therefore as a sort of sequel to
Trakakis' debut screening, albeit one with different sets of conflicts and
resolutions. In place of Trakakis' resolutions of myth-value retrieval and
divine-image construction, it articulates five ends or desiderata of a phi
losophy of religion that has something to offer to the academic study of
religion: cultural-historical diversity among the human acts of religious
reason-giving about which it inquires; diversity of race, gender, class, and
creed among its inquiring community; thickness of description with
respect to the cultural-historical details of concrete acts of religious
reason-giving; formality of comparison with respect to the categories and
processes of comparison of particular acts of religious reason-giving; and
multidimensionality of evaluation of the diversities and patterns of
Truth is like that. And the ultimate truth, Truth Itself, that is, God, always evades neat and
accurate formulations, much to the consternation of philosophers and theologians. (88)
The mind, with its sophisticated proofs and refutations, wishes to augment its authority,
to "spread itself out and conquer the world not only by means of heaven but also by
force," whereas the simple, illiterate heart has no such ambitions, but desires only love and
peace. (91)
And so, there is little of use here for any philosophy of religion that might have something to offer to
the academic study of religion, a failing that seems partly attributable to the fact that Trakakis looks
for viable alternatives to analytic philosophy of religion only within continental philosophy and
narrative-literary approaches (1,113,2).

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religious reason-giving.5 And in lieu of Trakakis' conflicts of professional

ism and objectivism, it shows that what threatens to end or marginalize a
certain philosophy of religion is a tendency to fall short of these five ends
(and, so, in a sense, to be professional and objective enough). Tend is the
operative root here. By no means could this article's portrayal of analytic
and continental philosophy of religion be complete; rather its scope is
limited to a few recent essay collections that claim to be representative or
constitutive of analytic or continental philosophy of religion: in the case of
the former, Michael Peterson and Raymond VanArragon's edited collec
tion Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion (CDPR) (2004),
Yujin Nagasawa and Erik Wielenberg's edited collection New Waves in
Philosophy of Religion (NWPR) (2009), and Jonathan Kvanvig's edited
collection of the second volume of Oxford Studies in Philosophy of
Religion (OSPR) (2009); and in the case of the latter, Philip Goodchild's
edited collection Rethinking Philosophy of Religion (RPR) (2002a),
Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell's edited collection Explorations
in Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion (ECCPR) (2003), and
Eugene Long's edited sixtieth volume of the International Journal for
Philosophy of Religion (IJPR) (which was later published as the essay
collection Self and Other, 2006).6 And even here, space permits a treatment
5More is written about religious reason-giving under the section of "Thick Description." Here, let
me point out two things. Religious reason-giving puts succinctly what I believe philosophers of
religion should study—localized human acts of reason-giving about religious matters, not generalized
systems of religious ideas, not "divine" reality itself. Religious reason-giving also displays how
philosophers of religion study an aspect of religion that is typically not covered by other subfields of
religious studies (e.g., when philosophers of religion examine topics such as ritual and gender, they
do so with respect to the reasons that humans offer about them).
6A few brief words about my selection of sources are in order. I looked, first, for essay collections
(so as to encounter as many different voices and viewpoints as possible); second, for works that
concerned the nature and practice of analytic or continental philosophy of religion as such; third, for
essay collections that were published relatively recently. (At the time of my research, the second
volume of OSPR was the most recent volume available.) I should also say that, although 1 do not
quote from any other sources here, my estimations of analytic and continental philosophy of religion
are also informed both by conferences I have attended on the futures of these subdisciplines (in 2011)
and by additional essay collections, journal articles, seminal monographs, and comprehensive
histories I have read from and about these subdisciplines. There are just too many sources to treat
them all in an (approximately) eight-thousand word article. Also note well: all the editors of these
collections maintain that the contents of their collections are representative or constitutive of their
respective subdisciplines. Peterson and VanArragon say their textbook is "designed to feature some of
the most important current controversies in the philosophy of religion," and thus that its debates are
between "recognized experts" on "key questions" (xi). Nagasawa and Wielenberg say their volume
"aims to gather together some of the best philosophers of religion of the new generation," providing
"an opportunity for young and up-and-coming philosophers of religion to review these developments
[of earlier philosophers of religion] and introduce their own cutting-edge research" (vii). Kvanvig
says his edited volume "continues the initial intention behind the series of attracting the best work
from the premier philosophers of religion, as well as including the work of top philosophers outside
this area when their work and interests intersect with issues in philosophy of religion," and therefore

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of no more than just a few essays with respect to each desideratum; thus,
the focus is on those essays that best exemplify both the successes and the
failures of analytic and continental philosophy of religion. Perhaps it goes
without saying, then, that neither analytic nor continental philosophy of
religion is either entirely or intrinsically useless to the academic study of
religion. Nevertheless, as will be demonstrated below, if these collections
are indeed representative or constitutive of these subdisciplines (as their
editors claim), then both analytic and continental philosophy of religion
tend toward the useless, if not the harmful.7
A DIVERSE OBJECT OF INQUIRY

First, the object of inquiry in any philosophy of religion that has
something to offer to the academic study of religion must be religiously
diverse—not the religious reason-giving of some one religion or type of
believes that it contains "contributions by an impressive group of philosophers on topics of central

importance to philosophy of religion" (vii). Goodchild indicates that the work presented in his
collection is by "the contemporary inheritors of this tradition [of Enlightenment philosophy of
religion]"; he then goes on to summarize the contents of the collection as five different approaches to
the field of continental philosophy of religion (28, 29-38). (Note also that these essays were first
written in response to a call for papers that asked, "What is Continental philosophy of religion?")
Maxwell and Baker pronounce their collection both "an exploration and a showcase"—the former, as
"an endeavor to delineate some of the content and dimensions of contemporary scholarship in the
area of philosophy of religion in relation to the European or 'Continental' philosophical tradition";
the latter, as "authored by philosophers whose names may not immediately leap to mind to a broad
philosophical audience when they think of philosophy of religion ["with some exceptions"], but who
nonetheless are producing scholarship of the highest quality and thereby filling out the meaning
of the term 'Continental Philosophy of Religion'" (1, 6). And about his edited issue of IJPR Long
says, "The essays in this volume were invited with the hope that they might make more widely
available and contribute to some of the discussions that are shaping recent continental philosophy of
religion" (1).
7As I make clear in my conclusion, this is not to say that analytic and continental philosophy of
religion are not well suited to other ends. In fact, each constitutes a dense investigation of a narrow
subset of religious reason-giving, and therefore contributes data to a wider, cross-cultural
investigation of religious reason-giving. Thus, as I also make clear in my conclusion, I do not desire
their demise (unlike Trakakis, who calls for the end of analytic philosophy of religion). I should also
say here that I am not under any illusion that analytic and continental philosophers of religion
actually do or possibly will think of their subdisciplines as in step with and contributing to the
academic study of religion. (As one anonymous reviewer indicated, such philosophers of religion are
usually trained and appointed in philosophy departments—this is the discipline with which they are
in step and to which they seek to contribute.) And so my goal here is less that of convincing such
philosophers of religion to jump ship than that of helping row and steer an alternative philosophy of
religion that is in step with and seeks to contribute to religious studies. And by no means am I alone
in this. Among the many contributions to a philosophy of religion that is historically grounded and
religiously diverse, I count some of the contributions of my mentors at Boston University: Wesley
Wildman (e.g., Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry, 2010), John Clayton
(e.g., Religions, Reasons, and Gods, 2006), and Robert Neville (e.g., the publications of the
Comparative Religious Ideas Project).

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religion but the religious reason-giving of all religions insofar as this is

possible.8 (More on the "religious reason-giving" part of this phrase
below.) For philosophers of religion hardly understand anything about
human acts of religious reason-giving in general—their diversities, pat
terns, deployments, genealogies—if they limit their inquiry to a small
subset of the whole. Worse, philosophers of religion risk mistaking part
for whole. Arguably, analytic and continental philosophy of religion, at
least as represented in these collections, are guilty of both. The object of
inquiry in analytic and continental philosophy of religion tends not to
be the historical religions and, even when it is, tends to be a philosophi
cally rarefied Christianity.9 Consequently, when analytic and continental
8My understanding of inquiry is influenced by Wesley Wildman's Religious Philosophy as

Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry, my understanding of religious reason-giving, by John Clayton's
Religions, Reasons, and Gods. And my response to the vexed issue of whether there are religions outside
the modern West is shaped by Kevin Schilbrack's "Religions: Are There Any?" (2010). To be sure, the
philosopher of religion should tread carefully with the category of religion, mindful not to homogenize
and ossify, privatize and autonomize, transcendentalize and sacralize. In fact, philosophers of religion
might want to dispense with the category of religion when identifying acts of religious reason-giving
since what matters here is not that such acts occur under the auspices of some "religion" (as opposed to,
say, some "philosophy" or some "culture") but that they pertain to some ultimate problem, solution,
path, destination, reality, or truth for some community. Dispensing with the category of religion in this
respect might help the philosopher of religion see and appreciate a wider array of acts of religious
reason-giving. Indeed, it might help the philosopher of religion see and appreciate acts of religious
reason-giving among the philosophizing of analytic and continental philosophy of religion. This is to
say that although the object of inquiry in analytic and continental philosophy of religion often is not the
historical religions (but rather the concept of theism or the texts of postmodernity), the activities of
analytic and continental philosophy of religion constitute historical acts of religious reason-giving that
can be investigated as such. I hope that this suffices as a response to one anonymous reviewer's
concerns about my use of the concept historical religions. To be sure, there is no neat distinction
between inquiry into, e.g., tetralemmas in Nagarjuna, proofs in Plantinga, and aporias in Derrida. What
matters most here is that the investigation of religious reason-giving covers a wide array of cultural
historical acts, not just ahistorical theistic or postmodern philosophical ones.
9Examples of neglect of the historical religions in general and the non-Abrahamic religions in
particular abound. For the analytic collections, this includes the following: in the case of the attributes
and actions of God, the debates between William Hasker and Paul Helm (CDPR) and between Michael
Murray and David Basinger (CDPR), as well as the essays of Daniel Hill (NWPR), Klaas Kraay (NWPR),
Brian Leftow (OSPR), and Ted Warfield (OSPR); in the case of arguments for/against the existence of
God, the debates between John Worrall and Del Ratzsch (CDPR) (2004), between Richard Gale and
Bruce Reichenbach (CDPR), and between William Alston and Evan Fales (CDPR), as well as the essays
by Alexander Pruss (NWPR), Neil Manson (NWPR), Bradley Monton (OSPR), and Jordan Sobel
(OSPR); in the case of theodicy, the debate between William Rowe and Daniel Howard-Snyder/Michael
Bergmann (CDPR), as well as the essays by Michael Almeida (OSPR), Daniel Howard-Snyder (OSPR),
and Hugh McCann (OSPR)', and in the case of the beliefs and actions of theists, the debate between
Dean Zimerman and Lynne Baker (CDPR), as well as the essays of David Efrid (NWPR), Christian
Miller (NWPR), Daniel Howard-Synder (NWPR), Christopher Eberle (NWPR), Thaddeus Metz
(NWPR), and Christian Miller (OSPR). And when there is consideration of the historical religions, it is
usually cursory and Christian: in the debate between J. L. Schellenberg and Paul Moser about divine
hiddenness (CDPR), Moser considers evidence for divine hiddenness in the Bible; in the debate between
Gale and Reichenbach (CDPR) about the cosmological proof, Reichenbach considers whether a gap
remains between the God it proves and the God of the theistic religions; the debate between Stephen

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philosophers of religion do rise above their primary object of inquiry to

generalize about religion or religious reason-giving in general, they tend
to do so in an ethnocentrically essentialistic manner.
Now analytic and continental philosophy of religion do both make
important contributions to the philosophy of religion—the former, the
dense investigation and critical evaluation of theistic reason-giving; the
latter, the creative exploration of new forms of religious reason-giving in
"postsecular" continental philosophy. But one need to only read the
tables of contents of these collections to know that the analytic collections
are almost exclusively occupied with Christian theism; the continental
collections, with continental philosophy. And to read the essays them
selves is to find that not one of them engages historical religion outside
the "Judeo-Christian" fold in any significant respect, and that not more
than one in every ten engages historical religion at all. Each set of collec
tions does contain a call for things to be different. Wayne Hudson's
"Schelling, Bloch, and the Continental Philosophy of Religion" (RPR)
Davis and Michael Martin (CDPR) about whether it is rational for Christians to believe in the
resurrection considers relevant New Testament passages; the debate between Peter Byrne and Keith
Yandell (CDPR) recognizes the diversity of the world's religions (and, in Byrne's case, also within each
religion); the debate between William Hasker and Paul Helm (CDPR) about whether God takes risks
considers some tensions between the God of the Bible and the philosophical god of theism; the debate
between Janine Idziak and Craig Boyd/Raymond VanArragon (CDPR) on divine command morality
(CDPR) focuses on biblical evidence of divine commands; in the debate between Jerry Walls and
Thomas Talbott (CDPR), Talbott counters the God of theism with the God of the New Testament; the
essay of T. J. Mawson (NWPR) considers nontheistic answers to the question "Why is there anything?";
the essay of Tim Bayne and Greg Restall (NWPR) looks to recent biblical commentary to support their
participatory model of the atonement; the essay of Hud Hudson offers a new metaphysical
understanding of the biblical-Christian myth of a "fall"; the essay of Graham Oppy (OSPR) considers
some varieties of theism, nontheism, and poly-theism; the essay of Tomis Kapitan (OSPR) develops a
definition of religion that ranges over several different types of historical religions; and the essay of
J. L. Schellenberg (OSPR) considers future nontheistic configurations of rational religion. In my
estimation, it is only the essays of Oppy (OSPR) and Kapitan (OSPR) that substantially engage historical
religions beyond the Abrahamic traditions. This makes for two essays out of forty-seven. Matters are
perhaps worse in the continental collections. The majority of the essays considered only recent
Continental philosophers. From RPR, this includes Philip Goodchild (both essays), Matthew Halteman,
Donna Jowett, Bettina Bergo, Gary Banham, Grace Jantzen, Graham Ward, Gregory Sadler, Clayton
Crockett, and Wayne Hudson; from ECCPR, Jeffrey Robbins, Will Large, Jones Irwin, Eric Boynton, Jim
Kanaris, Michael Purcell, Clayton Crockett, and Pamela Sue Anderson; and from IJPR, Michael Purcell,
Richard Cohen, Pamela Sue Anderson, Anselm Min, Merold Westphal, and Maeve Cooke. A couple of
these essays also included consideration of recent analytic philosophers: Pamela Sue Anderson (RPR,
ECCPR) and Hent de Vries. And a few others were less expository and more constructive in nature:
Mark Nelson (ECCPR), Deane-Peter Baker (ECCPR), Eugene Thomas Long (IJPR), and Calvin Schrag
(IJPR). But only nine (of forty-one) spent significant time with the historical "religions": John Caputo
(RPR: Christian gospels and Peter Damian), Jonathan Ellsworth (RPR: pagan and Abrahamic
apophasis), Edith Wyschogrod (RPR: Neoplatonism; IJPR: Jewish halakah), Karmen MacKendrick
(ECCPR: Gospel of John), Catherine Pickstrock (ECCPR: Plato), Patrick Lenta (ECCPR: South African
jurisprudence), William Franke (IJPR: Damascius), and Fred Dallmayr (IJPR: theodicy in several
different religions). And none (of forty-one) spent significant time with non-Abrahamic religions.

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(2002) concludes its exposition of the philosophies of religion of

Schelling and Bloch with seven implications for the future of continental
philosophy of religion, the first of which implores it to move beyond
work that is "ethnocentric and unhistorical":
First, there is a clear implication that philosophy of religion needs to take

account of historically positive data about religious traditions, actual
mythologies, and particular esoterisms, and not only be about Kantian
aporias based on ahistorical notions of religion, reason, or language.
This implies that work on the philosophy of religion that is ethnocentric
and unhistorical may require substantial qualification. (293)
And J. L. Schellenberg's "The Evolutionary Answer to the Problem of

Faith and Reason" (OSPR) (2009) maintains that theistic solutions to the
problem of faith and reason are premature apart from "careful and sym
pathetic attention to other religious traditions":
Religion in the world today is hugely diverse, but many of those con
cerned with theism still live in something of a "bubble" when it comes to
acquaintance with religion. Furthermore—and here we have another tes
timony to human immaturity ... —theistic religious traditions are often
models of self-preoccupation, fixated on details of self-articulation and
self-preservation. Within such an ethos, reinforced by emotion-height
ening participation in particularized religious practice and ritual, there is
not much motivation to really get to know people and ideas and experi
ences in other traditions. But precisely such careful and sympathetic
attention to other religious traditions and the experiences associated
with them is required to become justified in believing what one's own
theistic religious experience suggests. ... In this context, for the theist to
believe that her present religious experiences tell the truth about the uni
verse instead of resisting belief and taking such experiences as nudging
her further along an exciting though presently inconclusive line of
research, seems to have rather little to do with the philosopher's burning
desire for real truth and understanding. (260)
One of the analytic collections also contains a couple of essays that

actually are different. Tomis Kapitan's "Evaluating Religion" {OSPR)
(2009) ventures beyond the theistic in proffering a naturalistic definition
of being religious that ranges over all the historical religions.10 And
Graham Oppy's "Gods" (OSPR) (2009) draws on religious traditions as
10Kapitan defines being religious as follows: "a person is religious in virtue of (1) possessing certain
attitudes that determine a fundamental problem, and (2) engaging in efforts to resolve that problem"
(83). Religion, then, is the nominalization of this human activity: "the impulse or tendency in human
beings to participate in the religious response to the religious problem" (91).

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diverse as Zoroastrianism and Dvaita Vedanta in problematizing reduc

tive theistic stipulations of the concept of God. But such efforts are
simply drowned out. And that by which they are drowned out could, in
some cases, be characterized as ethnocentric essentialism.
In the case of analytic philosophy of religion, such ethnocentrism is
evident in the very editorial introductions to these collections. The
editors of New Waves in Philosophy of Religion conclude their introduc
tory discussion of the contents of their collection—contents that resemble
the standard fare in analytic philosophy of religion: attributes of a theistic
God, proofs for a theistic God, implications of the existence of a theistic
God for human morality and existence, and a dash of Christian doctrine
(atonement, in this case) for good measure—by claiming that "[i]t should
be clear by now that this volume covers a wide range of topics from many
different perspectives" (x). And although the editors of Contemporary
Debates in Philosophy of Religion are careful to point out that their
content is restricted to issues related to classical theism in general and
Christian doctrine in particular (xi), their exclusion of nontheistic reli
gion gives the impression that questions such as "Does science discredit
religion?" and "Is God's existence the best explanation of the universe?"
can be meaningfully answered in such absence, and furthermore, their
inclusion of debates about Christian doctrine such as "Is it rational for
Christians to believe in the resurrection?" and "Should a Christian be a
mind-body dualist?" gives the impression that philosophy of religion is
really just Christian theology.
For continental philosophy of religion, this is usually less stated than
implied—namely, in this case, that to get clear about the nature of reli
gion, one needs only to consult a continental philosopher or two, perhaps
in conjunction with a Christian mystic or two. But for one essay in partic
ular, these assumptions are effectively identified with the entirety of
continental philosophy (of religion). From its very Kantian inception,
declares Matthew Halteman's "Toward a 'Continental' Philosophy of
Religion" (RPR) (2002), continental philosophy has argued "that theolog
ical inquiry is secondary to the more fundamental philosophical task of
elucidating a conceptual logic of 'the religious,' the universal structure
that underlies all particular faith traditions" (59). For Halteman in partic
ular, this logic or structure is first exemplified by concepts such as infinite
love, responsibility, sin and salvation, repentance, and sacrifice, then
located in the infinite and therefore unattainable demands of justice and
responsibility that Derrida reads out of Levinas' reading of Kierkegaard's
reading of the myth of Abraham's attempted sacrifice of Isaac (62-63,
64-70). Of course, this characterization of religion's universal structure
looks all too much like the latest in a long line of modern-western

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constructions.11 But it is not the result as much as the method that

should bother us here: why look to only the (post)modern and western
for the universal structure of religion? This is what is so troubling about
the object of inquiry in continental and analytic philosophy of religion—
not just the restriction of it to continental philosophy or ahistorical
theism, but the ethnocentric essentializing of it as the whole of religion in
general or the privileged instance of religious reason-giving in particular.
A DIVERSE COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY

Second, the subject that inquires in a philosophy of religion that has
something to offer to the academic study of religion should strive to
remain as ideologically critical and corrective as possible—a community
of inquirers that brings critical awareness of its biases to its objects of
inquiry, allowing those objects to correct those biases. Of course, this is
not to say that we can ever come to leave all our distorting biases at the
door of inquiry, let alone even come to awareness of them. But we must
try. And since we can never succeed, it is of crucial importance that a
diversity of biases be represented among the inquiring community. This
means, for starters, diversity of gender, race, and class. But in the case of
philosophy of religion, diversity of creed is arguably even more im
portant. And this is just where analytic and continental philosophy of
religion appear least diverse (at least as represented in these putatively
representative collections).12 With respect to religion, not only are the
"Compare Del Ratzsch's characterization of the "core beliefs shared by nearly every religion":
(1) A supernatural person—God—created the cosmos.
(2) God cares about humans.
(3) God ultimately controls cosmic and human history.
(4) God can intervene in earthly events.
(5) There is objective meaning/significance to human life both now and after death. (73)
uAs footnote 9 suggests, only Oppy's and Kapitan's contributions to OSPR devote significant
attention to religions other than Christianity or Judaism. This makes for two contributions out of
eighty-eight, far fewer than the twelve contributions by women. It is true, as one anonymous reviewer
pointed out, that these collections appear to be just as homogenous with respect to race. But given
that they are collections in the philosophy of religion, their lack of diversity with respect to religious
philosophical commitments is more conspicuous. It is also true both in general that content is not
necessarily indicative of commitment and in particular that the commitments of these contributors
are not always discernable. But when they are, they are almost always of a Christian-theistic (or
antitheistic) persuasion, rarely of a nontheist, and never of a polytheist persuasion. (For evidence
and exceptions, see the following footnote.) Add to this (1) the relative lack of awareness of the
religious-ideological homogeneity of the inquiring community, (2) the relative lack of effort in the
diversification of the religious-ideological commitments of the inquiring community, (3) and
the relative lack of critical attention to the cross-cultural applicability of concepts such as religion
and theism, and we have a fairly strong case for the relative narrowness of creed among the
inquiring community.

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objects of inquiry in these essays, where historical religions, almost exclu

sively restricted to Christianity, but several essays also contain confes
sional moments in which the authors give indication either that they are
themselves of a Christian persuasion or undertake their project for
Christian ends.13 And with respect to philosophy, not only does the ana
lytic-continental distinction seem more rigid in the philosophy of reli
gion than in any other area of philosophical inquiry, but there is also little
evidence of dialogue, let alone collaboration, between the two fields. Such
lack of diversity is in itself problematic in that it limits the objectivity of
the inquiring community: if it is the case that preconceptions can never
be put aside entirely and may even be constitutive of inquiry, then it is
important that as wide a variety of perspectives as possible be represented
among the inquiring community. Much more problematic, though, is
when this lack of diversity is ignored, if not actively encouraged. Here we
sometimes see not, as we might expect, critical awareness of the relative
homogeneity of the inquiring community combined with active efforts to
open that community to difference and alterity, but rather the celebration
of bias, particularly in the form of the deliberate adoption of religiously
confessional standpoints; the refusal to expose those biases to correction,
particularly from outside the inquiring community; and the appeal to
authority, as a surrogate for actual arguments.
Take, for example, John Caputo's "The Poetics of the Impossible and
the Kingdom of God" {RPR) (2002), which, for all of its interesting atten
tion to the concept of "divine time" in the Christian New Testament and
Peter Damian, takes this concept to be both manifestly true and devastat
ingly confounding to "the philosophers, who are accustomed to arrange
things according to the principles of being, reason, order, possibility,
presence, sense, and meaning" (53). In this one move, it would seem that
Caputo establishes a certain Christian-postmodern homogeneity among
the inquiring community, grounds the findings of that community not in
publically contestable reasons but in religious-philosophical authority,
and protects these biases and findings from scrutiny by the diverse others
13I do not mean to suggest that the mere articulation of Christian-theistic commitments is
problematic. It is only so (in the context of the philosophy of religion) when unbalanced and
unchecked by other religious-philosophical commitments. These are the essays in which such
commitments are stated or implied: Howard-Synder (NWPR), Bayne and Restall (NWPR), Hudson
(OSPR), Howard-Synder and Bergmann (CDPR), Moser (CDPR), Ratzsch (CDPR), Davis (CDPR),
Yandell {CDPR), Murray (CDPR), Basinger (CDPR), Walls (CDPR), Talbott (CDPR), Idziak (CDPR),
Boyd and VanArragon (CDPR), Zimmerman (CDPR), Baker (CDPR), Caputo (RPR), MacKendrick
(ECCPR), Nelson (ECCPR), and Min (IJPR). Antitheistic commitments are most explicitly articulated
in Rowe (CDPR), Worrall (CDPR), Fales (CDPR), and Martin (CDPR)-, nontheistic commitments, in
Schellenberg (CDPR), Bryne (CDPR), and Long (IJPR).

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outside the community. Now Caputo's essay may be extreme.

Nevertheless, it is still the case that, for all of its lip service to alterity and
difference, there is very little actual alterity and difference in continental
philosophy of religion.14 There are, of course, feminists. And here, it
should be noted, Pamela Anderson's "Feminism in Philosophy of
Religion" (ECCPR) (2003) deserves attention not only for its emphasis on
the importance of plurality in practices and practitioners but also for its
recognition that such plurality "must remain distinct from higher-order
claims to unity or agreement" that make it possible "to judge good and
bad beliefs or inclusive, exclusive and hurtful practices" (199). Beyond
feminism, however, these continental collections are absent of philosoph
ical otherness, and altogether devoid of religious otherness.15
Lacking even feminists, at least in these collections, the situation in
analytic philosophy of religion appears bleaker.16 It is true: here be athe
ists. But the majority of essays in these analytic collections appear to be
written by (Christian) theists in defense of (Christian) theism.17 And
those that are not, taken together with those that are, give the impression
that the only interesting and important clash of ideas in the philosophy
of religion is between theism and atheism. Now, there are understandable
reasons for this, reasons that largely pertain to the genealogy of western
14A notable exception can be found among another of Philip Goodchild's edited collections:
Difference in Philosophy of Religion (2003). But this collection is not identified as a work in
Continental Philosophy of Religion.
15There are ten contributions by women in these three collections, four of which advance feminist
perspectives, three of which are written by Anderson: Jantzen (RPR), Anderson (RPR), Anderson
(ECCPR), and Anderson (IJPR).
16Of the forty-seven contributions to these collections, only two were written by women (Idziak
[CDPS], Rudder Baker [CDPJ?]), and none advanced a feminist perspective. The closest these
contributions come to doing so is the contribution by J. L. Schellenberg (in CDPR) that will be treated
later in this paragraph. (Schellenberg maintains that one reason why we underestimate the force of
the argument from divine hiddenness is that we tend to think uncritically of God as a father and of
fathers as distant or absent, and we therefore fail to appreciate the fact that attributes such as caring
and closeness, compassion and empathy are "nonnegotiable in any theistic view that takes the moral
perfection and worship-worthiness of God seriously" [35].)
l7Of the forty-seven contributions to these three collections, only seven are not preoccupied with
theism (or matters of Christian belief): Alston (CDPR), Fales (CDPR), Yandell (CDPR), Byrne
(CDPR), Kapitan (OSPR), Oppy (OSPR), and Schellenberg (OSPR). Contrast this to the eight
contributions that are explicitly focused on topics pertaining only to Christianity: Davis (CDPR),
Martin (CDPR), Walls (CDPR), Talbot (CDPR), Zimmerman (CDPR), Baker (CDPR), Bayne and
Restall (NWPR), and Hudson (OSPR). This leaves thirty-two essays, twenty-seven of which appear to
defend the rationality of theism in some respect: Howard-Synder and Bergmann (CDPR), Moser
(CDPR), Ratzsch (CDPR), Reichenbach (CDPR), Gale (CDPR), Hasker (CDPR), Helm (CDPR),
Murray (CDPR), Basinger (CDPR), Idziak (CDPR), Boyd and VanArragon (CDPR), Hill (NWPR),
Mawson (NWPR), Pruss (NWPR), Efrid (NWPR), Miller (NWPR), Howard-Synder (NWPR), Eberle
(NWPR), Metz (NWPR), Almeida (OSPR), Howard-Synder (OSPR), Leftow (OSPR), McCann
(OSPR), Miller (OSPR), Monton (OSPR), Sobel (OSPR), and Warfield (OSPR).

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philosophy of religion. But times have changed—increasingly we live in a

global society populated by a teeming diversity of religious institutions
and practices and beliefs, most of which are not covered by the concept of
ahistorical theism. What is of chief concern in these collections, therefore,
is not the absence of religious-ideological diversity among the inquiring
community as much as the absence of awareness that this is a problem
that needs to be addressed. There is again one exception. And it just so
happens to occur in an exchange with the most explicit insistence on sec
tarian commitment in the philosophy of religion: the debate between
John Schellenberg (2004) and Paul Moser (2004) on divine hiddenness.
Schellenberg's arguments for why divine hiddenness justifies atheism are
most notable for the "consequence" that is drawn from them, which is
not that naturalistic atheism is therefore epistemically preferable to tradi
tional theism, but that neither category is very satisfactory, that the "range
and diversity and complexity of religion" far exceeds these options, that
the philosophy of religion is therefore "potentially far more richer and far
more wide-ranging" than these options allow, and that the hiddenness of
the traditional theistic God might in fact allow "the real God—ultimate
reality as it really is—to be more clearly revealed" (41). But this expansive
understanding of the philosophy of religion is lost on Moser, who argues
in response that one simply cannot judge matters of divine hiddenness
outside of a "filial relationship" with the God of Christianity, that philoso
phy of religion, in essence, can only be undertaken by subjects who
confess allegiance to the Christian faith and inquire about objects that
have been revealed by the Christian God:
Proper knowledge of God, according to Jesus, requires one's humbly,

faithfully, and lovingly standing in a child-parent, or filial, relationship to
God as one's righteously gracious Father. Such filial knowledge rarely sur
faces in philosophy of religion, or even in Jewish-Christian approaches to
knowledge of God. This omission is regrettable indeed. (45)
As in the case of Caputo's essay, Moser's essay is extreme. Nevertheless,

it is representative insofar as a significant number of the essays in these
collections seem to assume that if a "God" exists, it is of the Christian
theistic variety; that if religion is true, it is of the Christian-theistic
variety; and that if the practice of philosophy of religion is to be con
ducted from the vantage point of some particular religious perspective, it
is of the Christian-theistic variety. This gives an entirely wrong impres
sion of philosophy of religion, which is not a confessional-religious activ
ity that assumes and supports some particular religious faith, but an
academic field of inquiry that seeks, above all, to understand and explain

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the diversities and patterns of religious reason-giving in the religions of

the world. As such, it cannot arbitrarily stipulate that some one religion is
true from the outset. (Why not Yoruba? Why not Sikhism?) Nor can it
arbitrarily stipulate adherence to some one religion as prerequisite for its
practice. (Why not Islam? Why not Daoism?) Reasons would need to be
offered in both cases, reasons that would need to be contested by a
diverse community of inquiry, a community that would no doubt find
such appeals to authority unconvincing.
THICK DESCRIPTION
Third, any philosophy of religion that has something to offer t

academic study of religion must begin with, and linger for some
over, the thick description of religious reason-giving in the religio
the world. The religious reason-giving part of this phrase puts succ
what it is that philosophers of religion study, and does so in a way
shows not only how philosophers of religion study an aspect of rel
that is typically not covered by other subfields of religious studies
also how philosophers of religion study this aspect of religion as
thing humans do (rather than something humans think or somet
"God" is). Still, religious reason-giving should be construed bro
including both formal and informal acts of reason-giving, bot
grounds and ends of reason-giving, both the ideas that populate r
giving and the theories that reason-giving supports, both the autho
audiences of reason-giving, both the proponents and oppone
reason-giving, and both the cultural contexts and historical trajecto
reason-giving.18 All this is to say that religious reason-giving shou
described "thickly." It is also to say a diversity of methods should b
to generate such descriptions. But in the way of methods of descri
hermeneutical and critical ones stand out insofar as they are attent
the contexts of both the inquirer and inquired in a manner that is
18Religious reason-giving is best exemplified by those instances and patterns of formal ar

that pertain to the reasonableness or unreasonableness of some type of religious belief or p
especially when such reasons concern some ultimate problem or solution, path or destination
or truth for some community. Of course, it is not always obvious what is and is n
Philosophers of religion will need to look and see. To aid in such looking, I suggest empl
heuristic devices something akin to William Paden's list of panhuman behaviors, functi
dispositions (see the following section of this article). As candidates for human univers
increase the likelihood of detecting instances of religious reason-giving in many different
traditions. Since they do not come from western theo-philosophical traditions, they inc
likelihood of detecting religious reason-giving about ultimate problems, solutions, paths, dest
realities, and truths that lie outside those traditions. And insofar as they constitute a set of p
behaviors, functions, and dispositions, they increase the likelihood of detecting th
argumentative linguistic behavior of humans rather than abstract, decontextualized ideas.

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"affirmative" and "suspicious."19 And in the way of objects of description,

moments of contestation and change stand out insofar as it is in such
moments that humans actively reason with one another about religion—
about what religious reasons they take as reasonable and unreasonable
and why; about how they defend, modify, and abandon religious reasons
and why; and so forth.20
Now, one might expect continental philosophy of religion to excel here,
if only because these hermeneutical, critical, and genealogical tools come
from a continental toolbox. But in fact there are very few essays in these
continental collections that exhibit a hermeneutically sensitive and ideologi
cally aware reading of a "text" from outside the continental philosophical
tradition itself. Of course, very few even read the texts of the religions of the
world. But even those that do are generally inattentive to the details of the
text, show few signs of subjecting their prejudices about the text to critical
reflection, and fail to admit or exhibit moments when the text challenges
their prejudices about it. Take, for example, William Franke's essay
"Apophasis and the Turn of Philosophy to Religion" (IJPR) (2006), which
generalizes away the significant textual diversities of classical Neoplatonism,
reduces this historical other to the contemporary same of continental phi
losophy, and appropriates this constructed hybrid entity qua monolithic
whole to solve the problem of pluralism and protect divine mystery from
human idolatry (64-66).21 Again there are exceptions—or, in this case, an
exception: Jonathan Ellsworth's "Apophasis and Askesis" (RPR) (2002),
19A few quick clarifications about how I understand hermeneutical description: first, it is not free
of theoretical bias; second, it is not exclusive of critical explanation; third, it does not recover singular
meaning.
20Why should (some) philosophers of religion engage in thick description of religious reason-giving
in the religions of the world? Because they want to know how human beings from a diverse array of
places and times reason about ultimate problems, solutions, paths, destinations, realities, and truths.
Why should (some) philosophers of religion engage in thick description of religious reason-giving?
Both because thick description is a means to critical understanding and because philosophers of
religion can only competently compare and evaluate that which they first understand.
2 Early in the essay, Franke generalizes over Neoplatonic negative theology as critical not merely of
all thinking and speaking about the Neoplatonic One, but of all rational formulations, cultural myths,
linguistic assertions, and expressible thoughts in general:
This Neoplatonic philosophy of the ineffable, commonly called negative theology, is critical
of all rational formulations as inadequate to what they intend to describe. Negative theology
arises at a very advanced stage in the development of rational reflection in any given
culture, a stage where the founding myths of that culture, and lastly language itself as the
foundation of all culture, come into question. At this point, language can no longer be used
unself-consciously as having a direct grip on reality and simply delivering the truth.... In
fact, every thought that can be thought and therefore expressed is viewed as ipso facto inad
equate and subject to critique. All that can be said, affirmations and negations alike, must
be negated. (64)

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which, unlike Franke's essay, contains a considerable amount of textual and

historical detail concerning the ascetic practices that were historically con
stitutive of negative theology, looks to historical apophasis for a critique of
contemporary philosophy's "divorce of negative theology from its constitu
tive practices" and consequent "betrayal" of negative theology, and is careful
to distinguish those aspects of apophasis and asceticism that should be
recovered and practiced from those that should not (214). But this exception
notwithstanding, these continental collections do not read the world's reli
gions with thick hermeneutical affirmation; and this exception withstanding,
they do not read the world's religions with critical hermeneutical suspicion.
So much the worse, then, for analytic philosophy of religion, for
which hermeneutical, critical, and genealogical modes of philosophical
practice are foreign. Here, inquiry usually begins, at least in these collec
tions, not by reading the "texts" of the historical religions, but by positing
the notion of theism, which is then conceptually clarified and argumenta
tively evaluated in some respect. And even when such inquiry does read
such texts—as, for example, in the case of the Moser essay above, which
nudges the debate about divine hiddenness away from the theistic God
and toward the "Hebraic God"—it only ever reads the texts of
Christianity and almost always reads them affirmatively. Although this
neglect of thick and critical description is true across the board, it is
perhaps most obvious in the case of the problem of evil, which is consid
ered solely with respect to whether and how evil can be reconciled with
theism. Missing in all such essays, therefore—and especially in William
Rowe's debate with Daniel Howard-Snyder and Michael Bergmann—is
not only the sheer recognition of the diversity of forms and contexts of
reason-giving about anomie in the religions of the world, but also a crit
ical exploration of the pervasive and positive role that such reasons play
for them qua "sacred canopy."22 Instead, the debate is limited from the
very get-go to "restricted theism"—the core theistic belief "that there
exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being (God)"—thereby
effectively excluding not only the nontheistic religions but also the theistic
ones (Rowe 2004: 4) 23 To be fair, such moves might be appropriate if
This is just not true of Neoplatonism in general, as any scholar of Proclus will attest (see, for example,
Siovanes 1996), and as I, a scholar of Dionysius the Areopagite, will also argue (see, for example,
Knepper 2014 article "Ranks Are Not Bypassed, Rituals Are Not Negated: The Dionysian Corpus on
Return").
"Here, I am obviously influenced by Peter Berger, whose term anomie I prefer to evil insofar as it
encompasses many more types of "world"-threatening disorder. Clearly, though, this is one instance
of a category that cries for critical scrutiny.
23Rowe distinguishes restricted theism from the "expanded theism" of Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam.

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Knepper: End of Philosophy of Religion
one's investigation is only of the coherence and rationality of theism. But

if one wants to do philosophy of religion, to investigate religious reason
giving in the religions of the world, it is not (for the simple reason that it
is neither historically grounded nor religiously diverse). And the latter is
arguably interesting and fruitful where the former is not. (It would seem
that the only thing some sixty years of debate about the rationality of
theism has achieved is an impoverishment of our understanding of the
diversities and complexities of reason-giving in the religions of the
world.) Moreover, the latter would bring a greater appreciation for the
contextuality of religious reason-giving, and with it an expanded under
standing of the evaluation of religious reason-giving, which might serve
the former well.
FORMAL COMPARISON
Fourth, since any philosophy of religion that has something to con

tribute to religious studies must work cross-culturally, investigating
reason-giving in many different religions of the world as possible, it must
also work comparatively, undertaking formal acts of comparison that are
critically aware of both the categories under which and the methods by
which comparisons are made. As J. Z. Smith (1982) famously argued
there are no rules for the production of comparisons. But as the
Comparative Religious Ideas Project has responded, this need not mean
that comparison is magic (Neville and Wildman 2001a, 2001b). Rather,
through the judicious selection of "vague" categories for comparison and
repeated correction of those categories through exposure to the data, th
categories for comparison can be refined over time, thereby growing
more and more capable of producing less and less biased comparisons.
Given this process of correction, it ultimately does not matter too much
what categories one begins with, so long as those categories are vague
enough to register different and possibly contradictory entries that fall
under them. But why not make things easier and begin with our best can
didates for human universals—for example, the panhuman behaviors,
functions, and dispositions identified by William Paden (2001)?24
24Just imagine the sea-change if philosophy of religion were to map and compare instances and
patterns of religious reason-giving under categories such as the ones Paden identifies as panhuman
social, sociocultural, conceptual, and self-modification behaviors (in "Universals Revisited"): forming
bonds and loyalties with a kinship group; distinguishing between kin and nonkin; ranking peopl
within a group; learning reciprocities and etiquettes of cooperative relationship (or social give and
take exchange); making and following rules; defending/protecting group order; punishing or
resolving infractions of order; socializing and initiating the young; recognizing authority and socia
power; communicating with others; asking, petitioning; passing on cultural prototypes for imitation

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In the case of continental philosophy of religion, it can at least be said

that the effort it has expended in extracting scores of new categories from
the texts of recent continental philosophers provides a potential source of
categories for cross-cultural comparison. Unfortunately, though, these
categories are still of western provenance and therefore not only fail to
offset the systematic bias toward western forms of religious reason-giving
in the philosophy of religion, but also, if actually applied in acts of cross
cultural comparison, would most likely result in the ethnocentric distor
tion and over-simplification of the nonwestern other.25 Just imagine the
ethnocentric havoc that might be wreaked if, for example, the concepts
that Halteman (RPR) provides as examples of the universal structure of
the religious—infinite love, responsibility, sin and salvation, repentance,
and sacrifice—were to be drawn on in diverse cross-cultural comparisons.
Nor has any critical attention been paid to the method by which compar
isons are made when they are made. Anselm Min's "Naming the
Unnameable God" (IJPR) (2006), for example, concludes its explication
of apophatic motifs in Levinas, Derrida, and Marion by pronouncing,
without any trace of critical reflection on methods or categories or crite
ria, that "[m]ore than any other religion, Christianity has to speak of God
because God has spoken to us in the Son in the language of humanity,
but also has to speak of God in such a way that it does not reduce God to
another object in the world even if it is the highest or most exalted object"
(114). These collections do contain one essay that advances formal cate
gories for cross-cultural comparison: Fred Dallmayr's "An End to Evil"
(IJPR) (2006), which arranges philosophical-theological theories of evil
as guidelines for behavior; endowing certain objects and persons with superhuman status, prestige,
authority, inviolability, charisma; constructing pasts and reciting sacred histories; regenerating social
values by performing periodic rites and festivals; marking and dignifying important occasions and
roles with ritual behavior and special objects; creating linguistic objects that have no visible existence,
and acting toward them as through they were real and efficacious; classifying and mapping the
universe, including time and space; worldmaking; attributing significance (including causation) to
events and objects whether mental or physical; experimenting with alternative forms of consciousness,
trance, disassociation; disciplining the mind and body and forming constraining regimens of behavior
in order to effect certain results and kinds of fitness; using ideas to guide behavior and sort out
behavioral options; reflecting on perceived errors of thought and behavior; reinventing selfhood (280).
250f course, there are no such comparisons in these collections (since there is no substantive
consideration of nonwestern religions). Where there are comparisons, they are usually of continental
philosophers. Occasionally, a continental philosopher is compared to Christian or Jewish religious
phenomena: Caputo {RPR), Wyschogrod (RPR). And only once is a comparison proffered over
diverse cultural-historical religious phenomena (Dallmayr [i?PR]); this, though, is more of an
itemized list than a formal comparison.

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on a spectrum ranging from radical monism to radical dualism.26 But

these categories appear to concern the metaphysics underlying these the
ories more than the theories themselves, and, moreover, are advanced for
the express purpose of criticizing American foreign policy by undermin
ing the theories of evil upon which it supposedly rests: extreme dualism,
which is "profoundly questionable if not pernicious," and the "theodicy
like arguments" of extreme monism, which, since Auschwitz, have not
only "lost their luster" but are in fact "obscene" (184).
The case of analytic philosophy of religion is almost the opposite.
Here, quite a bit of attention is sometimes paid to the categories and
methods of comparison. But these comparisons are usually of "isms," not
the ideas and arguments of the historical religions. Moreover, they are
almost always only between theism and atheism, and almost always con
ducted in a manner that is more combative than comparative.27 Some of
this is true even of one of the three apparent exceptions in the analytic
collections: a debate between Keith Yandell (2004) and Peter Byrne
(2004) entitled "Can Only One Religion Be True?" (CDPR). Even here,
the investigation is less a comparison of the religions of the world than an
evaluation of yet another "ism," with Yandell charging that (Hickean)
religious pluralism is not only logically and rationally incoherent but also
religiously and morally dangerous, and Byrne replying that (Byrnean)
religious pluralism, in essence, both makes good religious sense and
enjoys widespread popular support. Thus, here, the diversity of religious
ideas is not a source for philosophical comparison but a problem for
theological resolution, with Yandell arguing that, at most, only one reli
gion can be true, and Byrne countering that "[t]he great religions seem to
have a shared vision of the final good: it will consist in eternal union with
or contemplation of a superhuman, supersensual spiritual source" (216).
One might say, therefore, that critical comparison is precisely what this
26Here are Dallmayr's categories and examples: (1) radical monism, which "holds that ultimate
reality—being a reflection of the divine or a benevolent creator—is wholly good and perfect, whereas
perceived imperfections are illusions or the result of ignorance," is exemplified by Christian and
Neoplatonic "gnosis," Leibniz, Advaita Vedanta (Sarikara), and Sufism (al-Ghazali, ibn 'Arab!); (2)
radical dualism, which is not given a description, is exemplified in Manichaeism, versions of
Gnosticism, extreme Puritan theories of predestination (Milton), and Luther; and (3) the middle
ground between monism and dualism, which is largely occupied by those who acknowledge evil or
ignorance but give primacy to goodness or rationality, is exemplified by Augustine, Descartes, and
Kant (171).
27CDPR stages four debates between theistic and atheistic perspectives: Rowe vs. Howard-Synder
and Bergmann, Schellenberg vs. Moser, Worrall vs. Ratzsch, and Alston vs. Fales. See footnote 17 for
the contributors who defend theism. The only analytic contributions that compare over diverse
religious phenomena (rather than "isms") are Kapitan (OSPR) and Oppy (OSPR). As I explain above,
the debate between Yandell and Byrne involves an evaluation of religious pluralism rather than a
comparison of plural religions.

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debate lacks. Perhaps Yandell and Bryne are not entirely to be faulted;
perhaps blame is also to be placed both with the editors, who determined
that the only debate in their collection in any way concerned with religious
diversity would in fact be about whether Christians can believe that other
religions are true, and with analytic philosophy in general, which tends
either to ignore nontheistic religions altogether or to facilely assimilate or
combatively defeat them.28 Nevertheless, there is little growth of compara
tive knowledge here with respect to broad, theistic-transcendent categories
such as religion and religious reason-giving (let alone the precise similarities
and differences between those phenomena that fall under these categories).
MULTIDIMENSIONAL EVALUATION
Fifth, a philosophy of religion that has something to contribu

religious studies can and should critically evaluate those instance
forms of religious reason-giving that it describes and compares.
might not make some in the academic study of religion too happ
evaluation need not mean what it seems. Evaluation should not come at
the expense of description and comparison; in fact, evaluation requires
antecedent description and comparison. (It is probably therefore the case
that, given the current state of philosophy of religion, evaluation ought to
be largely suspended until thick descriptions and formal comparisons
can be produced, each of which will not only require a considerable
amount of time and concerted effort but also be of great value to religi
ous studies in and of themselves.)29 Evaluation should also be diverse, an
estimation of the successes and failures, uses and abuses, virtues and
vices, and significances and insignificances of instances and forms of reli
gious reason-giving in a diverse number of contexts, by a diverse commun
ity of inquirers, through a diverse set of criteria, with respect to a diverse set
of aims. And evaluation should be undertaken fallibilistically-correctively.
Still, evaluation is a critical component of a philosophy of religion that has
something to contribute to the academic study of religion, for with it
comes understanding about those instances and forms of religious reason
giving that have been and still are more and less plausible and valuable.30
28It is not for nothing that Bryne says the following of Yandell's dismissal of Advaita Vedanta:
"One person's metaphysical profoundities are notoriously another person's examples of pretentious
nonsense" (209).
290f course, evaluation is present throughout inquiry—but I am speaking here about formal acts of
evaluation of cross-cultural content.
30I would also argue, as others have, that, since religions do make truth-claims and scholars of
religion are always already engaged in tacit evaluations of these claims, some branch of religious
studies ought to undertake these evaluations in an explicit and public manner.

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It should by now come as no surprise that what we find in the case of

analytic and continental philosophy of religion, at least in the case of
these collections, is a rush to evaluate and appropriate religious concepts
and arguments before undertaking the difficult, time-consuming work of
describing those concepts and arguments in all of their messy and
complex social-historical details. Given this, evaluation and appropria
tion tends to be rather narrow in range—in the case of analytic philoso
phy of religion, of the coherency or truth of the concept or argument; in
the case of continental philosophy of religion, of the value or significance
of the concept or argument.
Now, it may seem that critical evaluation is the strong suit of analytic
philosophy of religion (much in the way that hermeneutic description
seemed to be the strong suit of continental philosophy of religion). And
in some ways it is. Unlike continental philosophy of religion, whose eval
uations are often tacit and private, analytic philosophy of religion explic
itly articulates and publically contests its evaluations. But it is also the
case that critical evaluation is, on the one hand, too much of a strong suit
in that it is almost always the only end of analytic philosophy of religion
(to the neglect of thick description and formal comparison), and, on the
other hand, not enough of a strong suit in that it is usually only between
modern-western theism and atheism (or between varieties of theism) and
usually only for the sake of demonstrating one or the other of these
"isms" rational. A brief survey of these collections' editorial introductions
and tables of contents once again makes this clear. So does a close
reading of their contents, in this case the debate between William Alston
(2004) and Evan Fales (2004) regarding whether religious experience jus
tifies religious belief. Here, the rush to evaluate (positively) has Alston
reducing the teeming diversity of religious experiences to those that are
direct, nonsensory, and focal "perceptions of God" (which are direct,
while those of "a mysterious presence in nature" are not); deploying
"God" as a term that "ranges over any supreme reality, however con
strued" (where such construal is either of the personal-theistic or imper
sonal-Buddhist sort); and limiting the religious beliefs produced by
religious experiences to those about "what God is 'doing' vis-a-vis the
subject" and the "divine characteristics one might conceivably experience
God as having" (134-136). So much, then, has been assumed or distorted
from the get-go that a critical evaluation of Alston's conclusion—religious
beliefs produced by religious experiences are prima facie rationally
acceptable, at least in the absence of successful "overriders"—hardly
seems necessary, or even possible. Fales is spot-on in claiming that "the
extreme variability of mystical experiences and the doctrines they are
recruited to support," not to mention the relative ease with which such

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experiences are explained naturalistically, makes the problem of cross

checking them "acute" (146).31
For continental philosophy of religion, this "rush to evaluate" is not
as blatant. On the one hand, there is a general allergy to critical evalua
tion, fueled in large part by a disdain for the over-emphasis on evaluation
in analytic philosophy of religion, manifested in small part as an outright
hostility toward and protectiveness against critical evaluation. In addition
to Trakakis, who exemplifies the former, and Caputo, who exemplifies
the latter, the contributions of both Philip Goodchild and Grace Jantzen
(2002) are here apropos, both for their strengths and for their weaknesses.
Goodchild's introductory essay "Continental Philosophy of Religion:
An Introduction" (RPR) takes a refreshingly expansive view of human
reason, one in which objectivity, which is never final or certain, is a
product of the multiplication of perspectives (28-29, 38); but then
his concluding essay "Politics and Experience: Bergsonism Beyond
Transcendence and Immanence" (RPR) (2002b) moves to protect religion
from critical evaluation and naturalistic explanation, maintaining that
philosophy of religion must be situated in direct experience itself rather
than mediated conceptuality, that religion by nature exceeds rational
description and definition, and therefore, that theories of religion—
among which he ranks history, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, cul
tural studies, and comparative religion—are unable to grasp religion as it
is in its excess (322). And in one and the same essay, Grace Jantzen's
"Birth and the Powers of Horror: Julia Kristeva on Gender, Religion, and
Death" looks to psychoanalytic theories for a naturalistic explanation of
religious phenomena (death in particular), launching a fleet of ostensibly
objective truth-claims about such theories and phenomena in the
process, all the while excoriating analytic philosophy of religion for its
emphasis on objectivity in rationality and truth (141-145). Thus, it
would seem that continental philosophy of religion in fact does engage in
critical evaluation of its object of inquiry, though does so in a way that is
not fully aware or honest about what it is up to, and therefore, unlike ana
lytic philosophy of religion, does not explicitly articulate and publically
contest these evaluations. Of course, my greater complaint here, one that
applies to analytic and continental philosophy of religion alike, is that
evaluation is only of (post)modern-western forms of religious reason
giving, and therefore much too narrow in range, and always prior to thick
description and formal comparison, and therefore much too biased in
31For Fales, cross-checking denotes all those procedures and strategies that we use to settle
questions about the causes of something. Note that Alston's Perceiving God (1991) is a bit more
forthright about the problem of such variability.

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result. Perhaps one might retort that philosophy of religion need only
consider the most recent and strongest of arguments. But this appears
both religiously ethnocentric and historically naive. Philosophy of reli
gion needs to take account of religious reason-giving in as many places
and times as possible. Only then will it be in a position not only to under
stand religious reason-giving as a general human activity but also to eval
uate the sundry forms of religious reason-giving.
THE END
This, again, is the great irony of contemporary philosophy of religion,

at least as it is represented in these putatively representative collections: as
it thrives most it offers least to the academic study of religion. Of course,
this raises multiple questions, the most obvious of which is: why should
philosophy of religion want to be in step with and contribute to the ac
demic study of religion? For me, the answer to this question is as simp
as this: philosophy of religion philosophizes about that which religious
studies studies. More elaborately, if religious studies is the academic fie
that studies religious phenomena, the goals of which include, minimally
a hermeneutically nuanced and ideologically aware description of
diverse array of religious phenomena, then any philosophy of religion
that claims to philosophize about these religious phenomena is wel
advised to pay attention to these descriptions. This is not to say that every
philosophy of religion needs to pay attention to such descriptions; ther
are uses of a "philosophy of religion" that works instead from the conce
of ahistorical theism or the writings of postmodern philosophers (as wi
be explained in a couple of paragraphs). But if a certain philosophy of
religion seeks to philosophize instead about the religions of the world in
their localized complexity and cultural diversity, then that philosophy
religion should pay attention to the field of academic inquiry that is
engaged in such endeavors. And not just to pay attention to, but also t
contribute to—in an effort to grow our overall knowledge of the religio
phenomena under investigation. It is my hope that the twenty-fir
century might finally see the creative growth and institutional support
such a philosophy of religion.
That neither continental nor analytic philosophy of religion pays
much attention to the field of study that generates, at minimum, herm
neutically nuanced and ideologically aware descriptions of a diverse arra
of religious phenomena, that neither continental nor analytic philosoph
of religion pays much attention to historical religions beyond a certai
Christianity, raises another question: are our existing forms of philosoph
of religion really doing philosophy of religion? Again, the answer to thi

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question seems as simple as this: if a philosophy of religion is supposed to

philosophize about religion, then neither continental nor analytic philos
ophy of religion is philosophy of religion. Rather, they are, at best, philos
ophies of narrow subsets of religion (religionized postmodernism and
Christian theism, respectively); at worst, theological efforts at under
standing and defending these subsets (that more closely resemble philo
sophical or apologetic theology).32
This is not to call for an end to either analytic or continental philoso
phy of religion. In fact, there are quite useful ends for both projects.
Analytic philosophy of religion excels at encouraging the rational investi
gation of a certain Christian-theistic faith; continental philosophy of reli
gion, at encouraging a certain postreligious faith. (For what it is worth,
they are therefore much more similar than is often appreciated.)
Moreover, both offer invaluable sources and insightful studies of a select
range of religious reason-giving. Still, it might be better if they no longer
called themselves philosophy of religion. Of course, this struggle is about
much more than a name; it is about the very heart of philosophy of reli
gion—what it should be and how it should be practiced. But it is also
about a name. For as long as the presses continue to be flooded by books
that claim to be philosophies of religion but in fact are really only philoso
phies of Christian theism or religionized postmodernism, we philoso
phers of religion continue to show the field of religious studies that we do
not have much to offer to the academic study of religion. Maybe, then,
Trakakis was half right about two things: existing forms of philosophy of
religion should end, though only in name, and philosophy of religion is
in need of a "completely fresh start," though only as a respectable field of
inquiry that has something to offer to the academic study of religion.
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of religious reason-giving to a more global philosophy of religion. But two caveats would here be in
order. First, analytic philosophy of religion would need to devote critical attention to the cross
cultural applicability of the category of theism and descriptive attention to the actual patterns and
diversities of acts of theistic reason-giving. Second, both analytic and continental philosophy of
religion would need to check their apparent assumptions that their respective subsets of religious
reason-giving constituted the totality or essence of religious reason-giving.

203.78.15.150 on Tue, 12 Oct 2021 06:44:52 UTC
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The End of Philosophy of Religion?

Author(s): Timothy D. Knepper

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24488026

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Should philosophy of religion end? Or should its ends be redrawn? With

WITH THE 2008 PUBLICATION of Nick Trakakis' The End of

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religious reason-giving.5 And in lieu of Trakakis' conflicts of professional

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A DIVERSE OBJECT OF INQUIRY

believes that it contains "contributions by an impressive group of philosophers on topics of central

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religion but the religious reason-giving of all religions insofar as this is

8My understanding of inquiry is influenced by Wesley Wildman's Religious Philosophy as

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philosophers of religion do rise above their primary object of inquiry to

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(2002) concludes its exposition of the philosophies of religion of

First, there is a clear implication that philosophy of religion needs to take

And J. L. Schellenberg's "The Evolutionary Answer to the Problem of

One of the analytic collections also contains a couple of essays that

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diverse as Zoroastrianism and Dvaita Vedanta in problematizing reduc

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constructions.11 But it is not the result as much as the method that

A DIVERSE COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY

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objects of inquiry in these essays, where historical religions, almost exclu

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outside the community. Now Caputo's essay may be extreme.

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philosophy of religion. But times have changed—increasingly we live in a

Proper knowledge of God, according to Jesus, requires one's humbly,

As in the case of Caputo's essay, Moser's essay is extreme. Nevertheless,

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the diversities and patterns of religious reason-giving in the religions of

Third, any philosophy of religion that has something to offer t

18Religious reason-giving is best exemplified by those instances and patterns of formal ar

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"affirmative" and "suspicious."19 And in the way of objects of description,

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which, unlike Franke's essay, contains a considerable amount of textual and

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one's investigation is only of the coherence and rationality of theism. But

Fourth, since any philosophy of religion that has something to con

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In the case of continental philosophy of religion, it can at least be said

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on a spectrum ranging from radical monism to radical dualism.26 But

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Fifth, a philosophy of religion that has something to contribu

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It should by now come as no surprise that what we find in the case of

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experiences are explained naturalistically, makes the problem of cross

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This, again, is the great irony of contemporary philosophy of religion,

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question seems as simple as this: if a philosophy of religion is supposed to

Alston, William P.Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious