Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life

Philosophers Without Gods

While philosophy and religion have long been my passion, I had a more specific reason for reading this collection of essays, "Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life" (2007), edited by Louise Antony. I had read Daniel Garber's 2009 Aquinas Lecture at Marquette University, Milwaukee, "What Happens After Pascal's Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief" and was fascinated by Garber's careful, nuanced analysis of the nature of religious belief. Garber's essay reaches the following seemingly paradoxical conclusion: "it seems to me that the conviction I have may well suffice for the salvation that I seek, the salvation that was the ultimate point of this whole exercise. And this leads to a delicious irony. It is possible that while the certainty that I arrive at through the Pascal Regimen may be good enough for eternal salvation, it isn't good enough for everyday life". Garber makes reference to his essay "Religio philosophi: Some Thoughts on God, Reason, and Faith" in "Philosophers Without Gods", the book under review here. I was so impressed by Garber's essay that I purchased "Philosophers Without Gods" immediately.

The book consists of essays by twenty philosophers, including Garber, and the editor of the volume, Louise Antony. Each of the philosophers in the book self-identifies as an atheist. In their individual essays, the philosophers explain why he or she does so and how he or she came to reject theism. The essays are all within the Judaic or Christian understanding of theism. They discuss Jewish and Christian theology and, crucially, they all engage with Biblical texts. It is important at the outset to be reminded that the Abrahamic faiths and the Bible do not necessarily exhaust theism.

Philosophical studies of religion and of atheism are legion but what sets "Philosophers Without Gods" apart is the personal, searching character of the essays. This is particularly the case for the first of the two parts of the book, which consists of ten essays under the heading "Journeys". These essays are heavily experiential in tone as the writers explain what led them to atheism, frequently after growing up in religious homes. Not accidentally, I think, the essays also suggest why their writers opted to become philosophers and to explore questions of religious faith in detail. I did not become an academic philosopher, but the book resonated with me and reminded me of my own life, journeys, and searchings.

In particular, the first four essays are by philosophers raised in Judaism. Garber's essay "Religio Philosophi" is in this group and it has a much more personal tone than his broader, more academic Aquinas Lecture. Garber describes his fascination with religious questions, particularly with the Christian mysticism and early Christian thought he encountered in his philosophical studies. For all the appeal and wisdom he drew from this tradition, Garber explains that he remained a nonbeliever and an atheist. The Aquinas Lecture, if I understand it correctly, is slightly more open to the possibility of belief.

The remaining three essays by Stewart Shapiro,Joseph Levine, and Louise Antony are also steeped in different ways in Judaism and show respect for its teachings even while the authors largely reject the religion. The six remaining essays in Part I by Daniel Farrell , Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Edwin Curley (the outstanding recent translator of the works of Spinoza), Marvin Belzer, James Tappenden, and Daniel Dennett are likewise heavily autobiographical, personal, and insightful from a perspective beginning in Christianity. I was deeply moved by the essays in this part of the book. The essays are accessible to readers who have faced questions of religious faith in their own lives and require no particular background in philosophy.

The essays in Part Two, "Reflections" continue the personal, meditative character of the essays in the first part but they tend to focus on specific philosophical issues. Thus the essays, including Elizabeth Anderson's "If God is Dead is Everything Permitted" address the claim that without God, "everything is permissible" or subject to relativism. The problem of evil, long a difficulty for religion is the subject of several essays, including the reconstructed essay "Divine Evil" by the late David Lewis.. Some of the essays, including "Transcendence without God" by Anthony Laden, and "Without the Net of Providence" by Kenneth Taylor discuss and reformulate traditional religious concepts in a secular way. I found these discussions insightful. David Owen's essay "Disenchantment" suggests the limitations of science even in a world without God. Marcia Homiak's "An Aristotelian Life" explores the "Nichomachean Ethics" as offering an alternative to theism. And the essays by Simon Blackburn, Richard Feldman, Georges Rey, and Jonathan Adler address aspects of atheism and theism in dialogue. In general, the essays in Part II of the book are somewhat more technical than those in Part I. Some of them are couched in the idiom of modern analytic philosophy.

This book is valuable for many reasons. For me, much of it was deeply personal and related to questions in my life. The book allows philosophers to speak for themselves and shows the still crucial character of the discussion between theism and atheism in understanding and in leading a good human life. More broadly, the book shows the continuing importance of philosophical thinking, an importance which sometimes is slighted by philosophers themselves. The book encourages the reader to think deeply about assumptions and about large issues. I do not consider myself an atheist but I also am not a theist within the terms of this book. I was glad to find this book and to think through it.

"Philosophers Without Gods" will appeal to serious readers with a strong interest in religious questions.

Robin Friedman