John Dewey is considered by many one of the most influential American philosophers. His thought and writings have continued to influence the shape of American education and politics more than any other writer of the 20th century. In fact, is one gives even a cursory glance at the first chapter of his book A Common Faith, one will quickly learn that his definition of the term “religious” is used almost without equivocation by politicians today. The following article examines John Dewey’s book A Common Faith, which was originally delivered as a series of occasional lectures to the students at
John Dewey’s book A Common Faith[1] is a theoretical proposal for the future of American religious life. It addresses the conflict concerning the nature and function of religion in relation to the notion of cultural unity and progress. After surveying the American landscape John perceived a genuine conflict between two predominant ways of thinking. The first is characterized by those who think “that nothing worthy of being called religious is possible apart from the supernatural.”[2] The second is characterized by “those who think the advance of culture and science has completely discredited the supernatural and with it all religions that were allied with believe in it.”[3] Dewey makes it abundantly clear throughout this book that he is not only empathetic towards the second group, he is also part of it but not without criticism. He states that this second group not only espouses the removal of the supernatural along with the presence of historic religions “but with them everything of religious nature.”[4]
The problem that John Dewey perceives is that both camps define religion with reference to the existence and adherence to a supernatural reality. He therefore proposes, “another conception of the nature of the religious phase of experience, one that separates from it the supernatural and the things that have grown up about it.”[5] In other words, if American culture is going to continue to advance, it must find a common religion, which is not encumbered by the presence of historical religions. According to Dewey, religion can be positively defined as, “a strictly collective term and the collection it stands for is not even the kind illustrated in textbooks of logic. It has not the unity of a regiment or assembly but that of any miscellaneous aggregate. Attempts to prove the universality proved too much or too little.”[6] He believes that the obliteration of religion is necessary on a twofold basis. First, it is possible to cultivate religious experience without the presence of formal religion. Second, if religion is studied historically, one will quickly learn that “there is no such thing as religion in general.”[7] In addition, religions do not genuinely exist in relation to the supernatural; rather the term religion “always signifies a special body of beliefs and practices having some kind of institutional organization,”[8] which are “survivals from outgrown cultures.”[9] However, Dewey is not completely one-sided with regards to the idea of religious experience. He believes that religious experience “as a quality of experience signifies something that may belong to all these experiences.”[10] In science, any given practitioner of the field may utilize special kind of experience in order to demonstrate “to prove the existence of certain kinds of objects.”[11] Additionally, he believes that many practitioners of religion also “relied upon a certain kind of experience to prove the existence of the object of religion, especially the supreme object, God.”[12] In addition he states, my purpose is to indicate what happens when religious experience is already set aside as some thing sui generis. The actual religious quality in the experience described is the effect produced, the better adjustment in life and its conditions, not the manner and cause of its production.”[13] In other words, the description of any type of religious experience is not the demonstration and proof for its alleged source, rather all that it demonstrates is that there was a transition and adjustment of life. The difference between a moment of epiphany and religious experience is that the efforts that moment only records and focuses on the point of transition and the status of readjustment. The focus of religious experience is not on any one thing in particular, rather it is a complete frame of mind which determines all others. Dewey states, “if this function were rescued through emancipation from dependence upon specific types of beliefs and practices, from those elements that constitute a religion, many individual's would find that experiences having the force of bringing about a better deeper and injuring adjustment in life and are not so rare and infrequent as they are commonly supposed.”[14]
John Dewey has made several errors in reasoning about the nature of religion, the implications of the history of religion, the function of religious experience, as well and is the possibility of a religious experience without context. First, it is true that a cursory study of the history of religion will reveal a wide variety of religious practices, which can in some instances contradict notions regarding universal claims regarding ethics and the existence of supernatural forces. However, the purpose of historical study of religion is not to demonstrate the existence of supernatural beings, rather it seeks an understanding religion in terms of historical connections, development, change, and influence. In addition, it is true that he a historical study of religion will reveal human involvement with regards to formal institutions. However, this also does not exclusively demonstrate that there is no such thing as supernatural involvement within any given historical institution. Second, it does not follow that the purpose of reports regarding the religious experience are necessarily an attempt to demonstrate the existence of God. It may be true that some people tried to demonstrate in some small way the existence of God, but the reality is the primary function of these kind of stories is to convey information regarding the experience. Third, it does not follow that something can exist in kind without regard to the existence of a thing in itself. For example, there is no such thing as a paperback book without the existence of a book in itself. The idea of a book had to precede the notion regarding a kind of book. Paperback books could not exist before the existence of books generally. In other words, logically speaking John Dewey cannot preserve the “religious experience” without the preservation of religion in general. It is true that religion in general can exist without the presence of certain kinds of historical religious institutions, but that does not mean John Dewey has once and for all obliterated a religion. He has despite his best intentions created a new religion on the basis of the concept of religion generally.
[1] John Dewey, A Common Faith, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934)
[2] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 1
[3] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 1
[4] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 1
[5] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 2
[6] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 8
[7] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 9
[8] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 9
[9] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 6
[10] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 7
[11] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 11
[12] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 11
[13] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 11
[14] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 14
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