58 beyond wishful thinking
initial conditions of a set of phenomena to be explained and the laws of
motion governing the workings or the change of those phenomena
within a certain confi guration space. Th e laws fail to determine the
initial conditions. Th ese conditions may, nevertheless, be explained by
other laws. From the standpoint of the relevant laws, the initial condi-
tions are factitious and stipulated givens.
When, however, we try to generalize this style of explanation from a
part of the phenomena to the whole of the universe— from mechanics
to cosmology— the distinction between initial conditions and law- like
explanation breaks down. Th ere is no outside, from the vantage point
of which we could stipulate the initial conditions as starting points for
the operation of the laws.
What is good, by way of explanatory style, for the part is no good for
the whole. It is just this sort of breakdown through generalization that
occurs when we try to impose the distinction between the is and the
ought on the enacted beliefs that deal with our existence as a whole and
with its most basic defects. We call such action- oriented and compre-
hensive beliefs religion.
A third characteristic of religion is that the imperative of life, rooted
in a vision of the world, responsive to the incurable defects in our exis-
tence, requires us to commit our lives in a certain direction. It requires
us to commit our lives without having what, by the prevailing stan-
dards of rational discourse, could ever be an adequate basis on which to
do so. Neither the evidence of the senses nor the application of our
reasoning, within any established discipline or method or outside all
par tic u lar methods and disciplines, can suffi ce to provide such a basis.
Our faculties, our methods, our sensory access to the world all ad-
dress aspects and fragments of our experience. Th ey shadow and ex-
tend the range of our actions. No matter how extensive their subject
matter or scope of application may become, they never lose their frag-
mentary and restricted character. In religion, however, we must take a
position with respect to the limiting and shaping features of our expe-
rience as a whole. For this task, our equipment is, by its very nature and
origin, inadequate. Nevertheless, the need to do what we will always be
unprepared to accomplish is inescapable.
If the position to take were only cognitive, we might be able to take
no position at all. However, it is not merely cognitive; it goes to our