The fictionalist approach to religion is still very much a minority view, and as a relatively young approach, it is still a contested issue whether religious fictionalism is a feasible position.50 In recent years, we have seen a new development where fictionalists are beginning to address religious issues which at first glance might be
48 Also see Deng (2015: 203-209).
49 I elaborate this point in a minor article which unfortunately is only available in Swedish
(Palmqvist 2019c).
dismissed as irrelevant for the approach, like the problem of evil.51 As a brief introduction to the current debate, we will now take a closer look on some stock objections against religious fictionalism, as well as some of the attempts at re- orientation.
Some stock objections
Many objections have been raised against the project of religious fictionalism, and several potential problems or problematic assumptions have been brought to attention. Some issues, like the question regarding what kind of motivation a fictionalist need, primarily concern how the details of fictionalism are best spelled out. Others, however, are more serious, concerning the feasibility of the entire enterprise. The fictionalist’s capacity to make a religious commitment has been questioned, as has the fictionalist’s use of religion language.
One important problem concerns the fictionalist’s ability to participate in a religious community. Objectors standardly stress the difference between realist and fictionalist religion. It has been suggested that the fictionalist is engaged in an altogether different project than the realist believer (Harrison 2010: 55). It has also been suggested that since the fictionalist uses religious language in an instrumentalist and expressivist fashion, and the realist uses it to ascertain religious truths, no real communication will be possible and the fictionalist will be like an actor trying to play a role in a setting all other participants take seriously (Cordry 2010).
In response to objections such as these, proponents of fictionalism tend to stress three things. First, the fictionalist is not supposed to “pretend” to be a believer in a way that deceives her religious community. Secondly, the fictionalist would naturally choose a more liberally oriented congregation where the emphasis on religious truth is weaker and the acceptance for non-belief stronger. Thirdly, and most importantly, there is a great bit of continuity between realist and fictionalist use of religious language. For example, Eshleman claims that while religious language undoubtably has a truth-normed use for the realist, it commonly has instrumental and expressivist functions as well. The fictionalist is not inventing new functions for religious language but tries to capitalise on the non-truth-normed functions already present (Eshleman 2010).52
Another pressing concern regarding religious fictionalism is why an atheist should engage in a religious fiction at all, in order to reach some spiritual or moral ends? Why not use secular language and non-religious instruments to reach the same goals? To this, the fictionalist reply is that religious language contains symbols which cannot be reduced to non-religious language (Eshleman 2005: 92).
51 For a discussion on the afterlife, see Eshleman (2016), for treatments of the problem of evil, see
Robson (2015) and Le Poidevin (2019: 46-55).
52 This crucial point is easily overlooked. For more on the distinct functions of religious language,
As I make clear in paper III, I think the claim that religious symbolic language is irreducible leads to inconsistency, when taken together with the very plausible assumption that a fictionalist needs reasons independent from the fiction to justify her engagement. Since the fictionalist is driven by non-religious motivation, to achieve some non-religious goals, there seems to be no room for irreducibly religious concepts. However, I do not think religious fictionalism requires an irreducibility thesis. It presumably can be defended as one kind of fiction amongst others, and just like we need not defend the “irreducibility of literature” to justify reading a novel, we should need no special reason to engage in religious fiction. Fictionalist re-orientation
In recent years, fictionalists have started to explore issues which might seem surprising given the core assumptions of the approach. Most notably, there has been a growing interest in the impact of the problem of evil on fictionalism. The assumption that the problem of evil becomes irrelevant by the move from realism to fictionalism has been seriously questioned. It has been objected that if the fictionalist does not include evil into her fiction, she will miss out on much of religious life, not being able to react religiously on severe negative events (Robson 2015: 355-356). It might be suggested that the problem could be easily overcome by providing a revised, coherent version of the religious view one adheres to. However, such a solution has been forcefully rejected by Le Poidevin who suggests that to make possible existential struggle on fictionalism, we should allow for religious fiction to be paradoxical (Le Poidevin: 2019: 46-55).
Another recent development is due to Eshleman, who has begun exploring whether the afterlife can be a useful fiction. According to Eshleman, the coming kingdom of God can be one such useful fiction. The idea is that a moral agent can be strengthened in her good work, if imagining or pretending that it will be brought to perfection by God (Eshleman 2016). While I think the afterlife must be included in a religious fiction, I am doubtful whether it can be a useful fiction. I am especially doubtful of Eshleman’s idea that one’s morally good work will improve by pretending it will be brought to perfection. For example, I do not think you become a better policeman if you continuously pretend that Batman will take over after you have done your best.53