Three Species of Religious Rationalism There is no doubt a need both for theology that prioritizes Christian loyalties as such and for theology that prioritizes loyalty to the very strictest principle of “pure reason.”

By the latter I mean, simply, the most acute mistrust of possible irrational motives for faith. Namely: mistrust of any desire for fanciful consolation; mistrust of any desire for the reassurance of certainty; mistrust of any desire to be justified in one's all too natural xenophobic mistrust of those who belong to other groups.

Of course, the first sort of theology—that which prioritizes confessional loyalties—by no…