Supernatural Explanations and Inspirations

Abstract

I propose, in partial response to the rich essays by Millican & Thornhill-Miller and Salamon that religious traditions are too diverse to be represented either by a cosmological core or even (though this is more plausible) an ethical. Religious sensibility is more often inspirational than explanatory, does not always require a transcendent origin of all things (however reasonable that thesis may be in the abstract), and does not always support the sort of humanistic values preferred in the European Enlightenment. A widely shared global religion is more likely to be eclectic than carefully ‘rational’, and is likely to be opposed by a more overtly ‘supernatural’ project founded in revelation.