254 religious revolution nowreliable insight into the framework of existence. Th e predicament of
philosophy then becomes an expression in thought of the human
condition.
Philosophy is neither the handmaiden to theology nor the successor
to religion. It is too powerful, in de pen dent, and truthful to be the for-
mer and too truthful, weak, and self- aware to be the latter.
Th e argument of this book combines two ways of thinking. One way
of thinking is philosophy, represented in its relation to religion in just
the way that I have described. Th is is the mode of thought exemplifi ed
in the account of the insuperable fl aws in human life and in the analysis
and criticism of the three major spiritual orientations.
Th e other way of thinking is a kind of anti- theology. In this chapter
and the next two chapters of this book, dealing fi rst with the starting
points of a religious revolution today and then with the elements of a
religion of the future, I develop a discourse within a religion, not just
about a religion. However, it is not a religion that already exists. Were
it to exist, it would not be a religion in the same sense as the world
religions of the past, not even those that, like Buddhism and Confu-
cianism, dispense with the idea of a transcendent deity intervening in
history.
What makes this second discourse less or more than philosophy is
that, like every religion, it proposes more than it can justify: its pro-
gram exceeds the grounds that it can provide. It fails to remain “within
the bounds of pure reason.” What connects it with theology is that it
takes the standpoint of religion in responding to the facts of death,
groundlessness, and insatiability, in anchoring an orientation to life in
a vision of the world, and in defending a commitment of existence in a
par tic u lar direction. If there were such a religion as the argument of this
book proposes, this discourse would represent a theology of sorts of that
religion: of sorts, because the meaning of theology changes together
with the meaning of religion.
What distinguishes this discourse, however, from what theology has
historically been, and turns it into an anti- theology, is that it makes no
claims and claims no knowledge that is not thoroughly naturalistic.
Moreover, the forms of belief and of practice to which it points, under
the name religion of the future, would have none of the features that
have helped ensure the historical success of the higher religions: a