William James – Criteria for Religious Belief
psychologist and philosopher
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According to the dictionary, the meaning of ‘genuine’ includes “actually having the reputed or apparent qualities or character … sincerely and honestly felt or experienced … free from hypocrisy or pretense.”1 William James – psychologist and philosopher - tries to bring these qualities into his rational argument regarding the genuine options he puts forth for people to consider while they’re trying to decide whether to believe in God or not without any evidence, in his discussion “The Will to Believe”. He is arguing that we have a right to hold a religious belief, without proof, under certain circumstances, and he offers options for justifying one’s decision to have religious faith. His thesis was “Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must decide an option between propositions [that is, between proposed beliefs] whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds.”2
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James’s four criteria for an option to be genuine are that firstly it must be live; secondly it must be momentous; thirdly it must be forced; and lastly it must not be decidable on intellectual grounds. To be live, the option has to be one where you must choose one of only two paths presented, so the choices must be relevant to you – no stepping sideways into a third path to avoid the first two choices. To be momentous the option must be a unique one-time-only type of choice – they would be presented as ‘now or never’. To be a forced option, the opportunity must be unavoidable – there can be no other choice but to either accept or reject the option. Lastly, to be a genuine option it must not be able to be decided intellectually or evidentially – if someone can prove or has already proven it then it’s no longer an option.
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In his published discussion, I believe William James gave reasonable examples to explain his options regarding religious belief, but they could bear further scrutiny. Having a ‘living’ option meant that the two paths are the only viable ones you could have. But if one was presented with his example of saying, “Be an agnostic or be a Christian”3, one could very well counter that with throwing in the choice of being an atheist instead. One would have to be very certain that there were definitely only two paths that could be taken when presenting their options.
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The ‘forced’ option may be one for which there is no other path available. If someone was to say “either accept this truth or go without it”4 there is really no room for negotiation. Even a scientist must accept a hypothesis as true or false before attempting to either prove or disprove the matter. A “yes, but…” or a “no, but…” cannot be given in this situation as it then changes the choice completely, and new paths are opened up before us.
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Regarding his ‘momentous’ option, I believe that the question of ‘the right to hold a religious belief’ is, under most circumstances, not a momentous option. According to his criteria of having to be unique, irreversible, and one-time only I don’t see that belief fits this. Deciding to believe in God – or any religious figurehead - can happen at any point in one’s life so there would be very few moments when one had to make the decision ‘there and then’, the exception being, perhaps, if one was on their death bed and knowing this was their last chance to make a choice; also, we aren’t going to ‘run out’ of God if we don’t choose immediately – God is not finite. One could also stop believing at any point in their lives – assuming they aren’t on the verge of crossing over into the realms of the dead.
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To believe in something without proof is to ‘take it on faith’, and faith is subjective and intangible – indeed, this is where our ‘passional nature’ comes into play. The intellect has conclusive evidence to fall back on, faith, by its very nature, does not. In this option, William James has made a very clear choice. One may have direct faith – for example believing directly that there is a God – or faith in those who also have faith – such as priests, bishops, nuns who believe in there being a God. By accepting and using the options he puts forth, he is saying that it is alright to believe in something on faith, and that we have a right to be able to a religious belief without tangible proof.
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The main problem with James’s theory is that his set of options works subjectively to how the questioner posed the question. The examples he used to explain his options relied on the questions being put to someone in a particularly painted-into-a-corner kind of way, but then the questioner would firstly have had to been aware of just how the options needed to be presented. They also only worked on those who were open-minded about religious belief. Would they work on a room full of atheists to at least get them to acknowledge people’s right to religious belief – it would seem advantageous to have those who do not think the same way to at least be open enough to allow others to do so without question. While William James’s hypothesis isn’t unreasonable, it also isn’t infallible, but it comes very close to being able to show that people do have a right to their religious beliefs when the conditions of his genuine options are met.
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This essay was one I wrote as an assignment, while obtaining my University degree. I have included the reference list and bibliography - reference materials I used while writing - just as I’d had to for its submission. It has never before been published anywhere public, though. Images have been added for visual interest.
References:
1 "Genuine." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 14 September 2009 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genuine
2 from the Philosophy of Religion course material, Chapter 4: Is Religious Belief Reasonable? p 247, par 1
3 from the Philosophy of Religion course material, Chapter 4: Is Religious Belief Reasonable? p 262, par 1, no 1
4 from the Philosophy of Religion course material, Chapter 4: Is Religious Belief Reasonable? p 262, par 1, no 2
Works Cited:
‘Course content’ The Philosophy of Religion 2009. Massey University.
"Genuine." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 14 September 2009 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genuine
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I'm just starting to get into William James now, via my own reading on religious experience and my collaboration with education researchers (who are very much into having pragmatism play a role in dealing with ethical matters). Would have been nice to have some exposure to his ideas in my undergrad degree.
My view somewhat comes back to a distinction between belief and knowledge. It is resonable to beleive something on faith, but maybe not so much to say that you know something for the same reasons. This, of course, means a lot of of what most people think of as knoweldge is beleif, but I'm OK with that.
I'm also of the opinion that the reasonableness of a belief is much less important than the actions and choices of the person who holds it.
I agree - intent goes a long way.
I found/find philosophy to be one of the harder subjects to study because it is so intangible and subjective; although it can make for interesting discussions. :)