Religion, fiction, and facts

Abstract

Religious fictionalism is a philosophical theory that aims to provide an alternative to the metaphysically realistic (theistic or God-centred) view of the nature of religious discourse. Religious fictionalism argues that being an atheist is compatible with a certain kind of personal religiousness because it is possible to understand traditional religious discourse as a useful fiction. In the first part of my presentation, I will outline the central ideas of religious fictionalism. After that, I highlight some key problems associated with it. These have to do with the “make-believe” attitude of the fictionalist account of faith and the problems linked with personal integrity. In the last part of the article, I will turn to metaphysical and epistemic presuppositions that play a central role in religious fictionalism. I will deal with these issues in the light of Bas van Fraassen’s empiricist views on science, secularism and religion.