368 NOTES2 Alvin Plantinga’s (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame) remark to
the effect that good philosophizing is just thinking really hard and well is right so far as
it goes, and it is what one thinks about that makes one’s thought philosophical.
3 Cf. the comments by Everett Hall, Philosophical Systems: A Categorial Analysis (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1960), 3–6, on what medieval philosophers said regarding
being, truth, and goodness. Thoughts that something is so are either true or false, and
being true or false is essential to their nature. So thing, thought, value, like being, truth,
and goodness, come under theory of reality, theory of knowledge, and ethics, which are
the core disciplines for the philosophy of religion.
4 In terms of specifics, our focus will be on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Jainism – on Semitic and (South Asian) Indian religion.
5 By gods and goddesses as well, if there are any; by every person other than God.
6 Need it be said that these characterizations, accurate so far as they go, do not begin to plumb
the complexities of these disciplines?
7 The view that all language, or all religious language, is non-literal is unfortunately widespread.
It will be discussed below. As my comments here reveal, I take the view to be false.
8 The degree to which this is, or is not, peculiar to philosophical claims does not matter for our
purposes; it is enough that it is true of philosophical claims.3 What sorts of religion are there?
1 Proposition Q assumes proposition P amounts to If P is false then Q is false which in
turn amounts to If Q is true then P is true which amounts to Q entails P.
2 I am assuming that an accurate account of a religious tradition, whose accuracy is measured
by reference to that religion’s authoritative texts, is one that an informed adherent
would accept. The sheer fact that some adherent did not accept the account offered here
would, by itself and without reference to those texts, be without force.
3 It seems fairest to describe religious traditions in terms that most faithfully reflect their
traditional doctrinal formulations. This procedure is followed here. Thus, from the
standpoint of orthodox Christianity in any of its forms, so-called “Atheistic Christianity”
is exactly the contradiction-in-terms that it seems to be, and someone who offers as a
full explanation of the resurrection of Christ that the spirit of Jesus survived death does
not believe that the resurrection of Christ occurred. From the standpoint of almost any
Buddhist tradition, the Buddhist monks who held that one can give a coherent account
of reincarnation and karma only if there is a mental substance that endures through
lifetimes are highly nonrepresentative Buddhists. Nonetheless, the sorts of considerations
applied to religious traditions here apply to non-standard versions as well.
4 Judaism’s sacred text, the Hebrew Bible, is largely the Old Testament which, with the
New Testament, comprises the Christian Bible (what Protestants call the Apocrypha,
Roman Catholics view as part of the Old Testament). Islam accepts both Testaments,
interpreting them in the light of its distinctive sacred text, the Koran.
5 Perhaps with the exception of abstract objects.
6 Strictly, what a so-called “cyclical view of time” seems to involve is the idea that a
sequence of events occurs that fits a very complex description D, only to be followed
by another sequence of events that also fits D, and so on for ever, with no sequence
of events occurring that does not fall into this pattern. The book that told the
universe’s story would be a sequence of identical chapters. This is a view, not about
time, but about the repetition of one pattern of events. A “one-directional” view of
time, in the sense intended here, entails that the same story, told over and over,
would not match up with what occurs.