Abstract

Helm criticizes contemporary—largely analytic—work in philosophy of religion which closes off dispute or objection by a simple appeal to "the grammar of religious language" or to "what the believer would say." "The argument of this book is that such approaches involve an important error in philosophical method, for they rest on the mistaken assumption that the ‘religious believer’ has an unmistakable identity, and that ‘religious language’ is a distinct, homogeneous form of language". The issue is methodological because it focuses on "the conceptual imperialism that has plagued accounts of religious belief". Helm believes that philosophical models will more adequately and less dogmatically reflect the pluralism and complexity of religion if we separate religion or theology from metareligion or metatheology. Thus, Part I of the book argues for this distinction and for the interpenetration of meta- and object-languages, in order to reject what are presented as straightforward appeals to an uncontroversial univocity in the logic or language of religious belief. Part II illustrates the inadequacy of such appeals by describing four prominent models of religious belief: 1) the probability model, based on empirical data or natural analogies ; 2) the self-authentication model, based on the intuitively grasped character of a document ; 3) the regulative model, based on morality ; and 4) the acquaintance model, based on immediate awareness and a free or unconstrained interpretation. Part III suggests how each of these four paradigm theories might respond to the two basic questions in Flew’s "falsificationist challenge": What would falsify p? and What reasons would induce A to change his mind as to the truth of p? The variety of the responses is intended to reinforce Helm’s contention that philosophers must give over question-begging methodologies which surreptitiously impose favored models on religious belief.—C.A.C.