Looking Forward from <i>A Common Faith</i>

Abstract

A Common Faith is arguably one of John Dewey’s least effective books. In it, he tries to persuade readers that the best of two epistemologically different worlds can be reconciled in a common faith—one that employs the methods of science with a generously religious attitude. Possibly most of us today believe this cannot be done; that is, the two worlds will remain unreconciled. But perhaps, without reconciling the two worlds, we can find causes and tasks that will induce common commitment for the benefit of human survival and well-being. John Dewey begins A Common Faith with these words: “Never before in history has mankind been so much of two minds, so divided into two camps, as it is today.”1 In the first camp, Dewey places all those who believe in a supernatural being; in the second, he locates those who believe that science has “discredited the supernatural and with it all religions that were allied with belief in it.”2 But he resists “extremists” in the latter group who seemed to believe that everything religious must be abandoned. Dewey wanted to get rid of religion, but not the “religious.” Today, it might be said that the population is of three minds. There are still those who believe in a supernatural being and retain affiliation with an institution that supports their belief, and there are those—increasingly outspoken—who reject the supernatural entirely. But, in addition, there are people who call themselves “spiritual but not religious.”3 Some of these people are agnostic but avowedly on a spiritual quest, seeking spiritual truth. Some believe in God but reject institutional religion. As we’ll see in a bit, they seem to “believe in belief” but have no commitment to a specific set of beliefs. It seems to me, looking back on A Common Faith from the current state of affairs, that Dewey makes several moves that actually undermine the position he wanted to defend. First, his contention that “there is no such thing as religion in the singular”4 is a claim rejected by most sociologists and historians. Dewey says that we can speak of a religion, that there are many religions, but “the differences among them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be