William James on Religious Saints and Verifying the God Hypothesis

Abstract

William James proposed a Science of Religions in his Varieties of Religious Experience in order to fulfill his promise that pragmatic empiricism could illuminate the meaning and truth conditions of religious ideas. Most commentators have focused either on his “will to believe” defense of faith, or on his analysis of the power of mystical inspiration. A unifying interpretation is assembled, synthesizing his kind of pragmatism, his fascination with mysticism, and his application of Science of Religions to religious saints. Religious saints generate live hypotheses about society moving towards the ideal moral order. People can participate in that momentous opportunity for progress with their own moral lives. Although James’s Science of Religions permits interdisciplinary inquiry into religious experience, and especially the moral energy of inspired saints, his hopes for verifying hypotheses about God cannot be fulfilled.