Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-7dld4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-24T19:05:34.263Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in the Philosophy of Religion

Religious Fictionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2019

Robin Le Poidevin
Robin Le Poidevin
Affiliation:
University of Leeds

Summary

This Element is an introduction to contemporary religious fictionalism, its motivation and challenges. Among the issues raised are: can religion be viewed as a game of make-believe? In what ways does religious fictionalism parallel positions often labelled 'fictionalist' in ethics and metaphysics? Does religious fictionalism represent an advance over its rivals? Can fictionalism provide an adequate understanding of the characteristic features of the religious life, such as worship, prayer, moral commitment? Does fictionalism face its own version of the problem of evil? Is realism about theistic (God-centred) language less religiously serious than fictionalism?
Get access

Keywords

religionfictionfictionalismrealismmake-believe

Information

Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in the Philosophy of Religion
Online ISBN: 9781108558198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 25 April 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Element purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Bibliography

Arnold, Matthew (1884). Literature and Dogma, London: Smith, Elder & Co.Google Scholar
Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, Truth and Logic, London: Gollancz, Victor; second edition, reprinted, Penguin Books London: Penguin, 1971.Google Scholar
Ayer, A. J.(1946). Preface to second edition of Language, Truth and Logic, London: Victor Gollancz; reprinted, Penguin Books, London: Penguin, 1971.Google Scholar
Basinger, David (1983). ‘Why Petition an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Wholly Good God?’, Religious Studies 19: 25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, R. B. (1955). ‘An Empiricist’s View of the Nature of Religious Belief’, Ninth Arthur Stanley Edington Lecture, reprinted in Mitchell (1971): 72–91.Google Scholar
Brock, Stuart, and Mares, Edwin (2007). Realism and Anti-Realism, Durham: AcumenGoogle Scholar
Byrne, Peter (2003). God and Realism, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Chesterton, G. K. (1916). ‘Introduction to the Book of Job’; reprinted in The Chesterton Review 11 (1985): 5–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coakley, Sarah (2002). ‘What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does it Not? Some Reflections on the Status and Meaning of the Chalcedonian “Definition”’, in Davis, Stephen T., Kendall, Daniel, and O’Collins, Daniel, eds., The Incarnation, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2002): 143–63.Google Scholar
Cordry, Benjamin S. (2010). ‘A Critique of Religious Fictionalism’, Religious Studies 46: 77–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cupitt, Don (1980). Taking Leave of God, London: SCM Press.Google Scholar
Cupitt, Don (1987). The Long-Legged Fly, London: SCM Press.Google Scholar
Cupitt, Don (1991). What Is a Story? London: SCM Press.Google Scholar
Cupitt, Don (2012). The Last Testament, London: SCM Press.Google Scholar
Currie, Gregory (1990). The Nature of Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1963). ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes’, in Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982: 3–19.Google Scholar
Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion, London: Black Swan.Google Scholar
Deng, Natalja (2015). ‘Religion for Naturalists’, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 78: 195–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eddington, Arthur (1939). The Philosophy of Physical Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eklund, Matti (2015). ‘Fictionalism’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fictionalism/.Google Scholar
Eshleman, Andrew (2005). ‘Can an Atheist Believe in God?’, Religious Studies 41: 183–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eshleman, Andrew (2010). ‘Religious Fictionalism Defended: Reply to Cordry’, Religious Studies 46: 91–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eshleman, Andrew (2016). ‘The Afterlife: beyond Belief’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 82 (2): 163–83.Google Scholar
Field, Hartry (1980). Science without Numbers, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Flew, Antony, and MacIntyre, Alasdair eds. (1955). New Essays in Philosophical Theology, London: SCM Press.Google Scholar
Forrest, Peter (1997). ‘The Epistemology of Religion’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-epistemology/.Google Scholar
Gender, Tamar Szabo (2008). ‘Alief and Belief’, Journal of Philosophy 105: 634–63.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1957). ‘Meaning’, Philosophical Review 66: 377–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, Ian (1983). Representing and Intervening, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Victoria (2010). ‘Philosophy of Religion, Fictionalism, and Religious Diversity’, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 68: 43–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hick, John (1960). ‘Theology and Verification’, reprinted in Mitchell (1971): 53–71.Google Scholar
Hick, John (2007). Evil and the God of Love, 2nd ed., London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hick, John (1989). An Interpretation of Religion, London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, New York: Hachette Book Group.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2013). ‘Schellenberg on Propositional Faith’, Religious Studies 49 (2): 181–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2019). ‘Can Fictionalists Have Faith? It All Depends’, Religious Studies 55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, David (1757). ‘Of Tragedy’, in Green, T. H. and Grose, T. H. The Philosophical Works of David Hume, London: Longman, Green (1874–75), Vol. 3.Google Scholar
Jay, Christopher (2014). ‘The Kantian Moral Hazard Argument for Religious Fictionalism’, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 68: 43–58.Google Scholar
Joyce, Richard (2005). ‘Moral Fictionalism’, in Kalderon (2005): 287–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalderon, Mark Eli ed. (2005). Fictionalism in Metaphysics, Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kodaj, Daniel (2014). ‘The Problem of Religious Evil’, Religious Studies 50 (4): 425–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kripke, Saul (1972). Naming and Necessity, Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamarque, Peter (1981). ‘How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions?’, British Journal of Aesthetics 21 (4): 291–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leslie, John (1989) Universes, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lewis, C. S. (1955). Surprised by Joy, London: Bles.Google Scholar
Lipton, Peter (2007). ‘Science and Religion: the Immersion Solution’, in Moore and Scott (2007): 31–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McBrayer, J. (2010). ‘Skeptical Theism,’ Philosophy Compass 4 (1): 1–13.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1977). Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Finlay (2018). ‘Can Fictionalists Have Faith?’, Religious Studies 54: 215–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malcolm, Finlay, and Scott, Michael (2017). ‘Faith, Belief and Fictionalism’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98: 257–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malcolm, Finlay, and Scott, Michael(2018) ‘Religious Fictionalism’, Philosophy Compass 13: 1–11.Google Scholar
Matravers, Derek (1997). ‘The Paradox of Fiction: the Report versus the Perceptual Model’, in Hjort, Mette and Laver, Sue eds. Emotion and the Arts. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 78–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Basil ed. (1971), The Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Andrew, and Scott, Michael, eds. (2007). Realism and Religion: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Nagasawa, Yujin (2017). Maximal God, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton-Smith, W. H. (1981). The Rationality of Science, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1895). The Anti-Christ, in Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ, translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Phillips, D. Z. (1965). The Concept of Prayer, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Phillips, D. Z. (1988) Faith after Foundationalism, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (1977). God, Freedom and Evil, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Pojman, Louis (1986). ‘Faith without Belief’, Faith and Philosophy 3: 157–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radford, Colin (1975). ‘How Can We Moved By the Fate of Anna Karenina?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 49: 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robson, Jon (2015). ‘Religious Fictionalism and the Problem of Evil’, Religious Studies 51: 535–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Gideon (1990). ‘Modal Fictionalism’, Mind 99: 327–54.Google Scholar
Rowe, William L. (1978). Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction, Encino, CA: Dickenson Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Sauchelli, Andrea (2018). ‘The Will to Make-Believe: Religious Fictionalism, Religious Beliefs, and the Value of Art, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96: 620–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaper, Eva (1978). ‘Fiction and the Suspension of Disbelief’, British Journal of Aesthetics 18 (1): 31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Michael (2000). ‘Framing the Realism Question’, Religious Studies 36 (4): 455–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Michael (2013). Religious Language, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Michael (2017). ‘Religious Language’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religious-language/.Google Scholar
Soskice, Janet (1987). Metaphor and Religious Language, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (2010). Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering, Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (1977). The Coherence of Theism, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas (1980). The Scientific Image, Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, Kendal (1978). ‘Fearing Fictions’, Journal of Philosophy 65: 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Roger (2010). Talking About God: The Concept of Analogy and the Problem of Religious Language, Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this element is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Religious Fictionalism
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Religious Fictionalism
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Religious Fictionalism
Available formats
×