In Defence of Attitudinal Christianity

Abstract

In 1968, R. M. Hare gave a series of lectures at the Yale Divinity School, two of which were published subsequently under the title ‘The Simple Believer’.1 In those published lectures Hare enlarged upon and defended the view, which he shares with R. B. Braithwaite, that Christian commitment is best understood as being what I will call a particular world-attitude. In brief, Hare described the Christian world-attitude as consisting, first, of the adoption of a set of practical-normative standards, prescriptions as to what we should do and be, for instance, in our various cognitive and moral endeavours. Central to this overall Christian picture of human flourishing, including cognitive flourishing, is the notion of love (agape). The Christian world-attitude, in addition, involves the belief that the efforts that we make to realize these standards are not pointless in the world as it is. This faith, this refusal to doubt in connection with both moral and cognitive endeavours, is naturally expressed in religious terms, perhaps most obviously in terms of trust in the providence of God.