Rationality and Religious Theism (Ashgate Philosophy of Religion Series) (Ashgate Philosophy of Religion Series)

Description

Joshua Golding's "Rationality and Religious Theism" is a defense of religious Judaism using an updated version of Pascal's wager. Golding first shows how it could be pragmatically rational to be a religious believer. He explains what a religious believer is, and under what conditions it is rational to be a religious believer. Subsequently, he explains what a religious Jew is and argues that the conditions for the rationality of being a religious Jew are fulfilled. The book is original in at least three ways. First, most books on the rationality of religion focus on the rationality of belief in the existence of God, but this book argues more generally for the rationality of religious practices and lifestyle, i.e. that the expected value of these practices makes it pragmatically rational to adopt them. Secondly, as far as I know, this is the only work that applies a version of Pascal's wager to the case of Judaism, and it develops the strategy so that it avoids traditional objections leveled against Pascal's wager. Thirdly, Golding defends an understanding of God that is different from the traditional understanding. God is not understood as a being, i.e. as a particular thing with certain attributes, but as Being, and the divine attributes are understood as the ways in which Being manifests itself. For example, the claim that God is benevolent is understood not as the claim that there is a being who does undeserved good things for people, but that the universe is governed by a law that makes undeserved goods happen. I have doubts about whether this understanding of God is intelligible or religiously acceptable; I don't think that it is consistent with the sources with which Golding shows familiarity, e.g. Maimonides and Luzzatto. Fortunately, as Golding emphasizes, nothing in his argument depends upon whether God is understood in this way or in a more traditional way. I also think that the discussion was sometimes too quick. For example, I think that there might have been more extensive considerations of objections, though I don't think that the answers provided to the objections fail. I recommend this book. It should be of interest to philosophy students and philosophers of religion. Those without any previous exposure to contemporary analytical philosophy may find it quite difficult, and I recommend Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen's "Permission to Receive" and Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb's "Living Up to the Truth" as more traditional and accessible defenses of religious Judaism.