Table Of ContentRELIGION AND ULTIMATE WELL-BEING
The author calls for a radical change in our view of religion, rejecting accepted
ideas both for and against as provincial, out of touch with the facts and lacking
in explanatory power, and argues that no view of faith that fails to acknowledge
its power as well as its weaknesses can survive rigorous scrutiny.
He emphasises the prominence of the desire for and experience of benefit in
the world's religions - something mostly ignored by philosophers of religion -
and recognises the conditioning effect of the social and physical environment on
all religious beliefs and customs - something which most believers deny or
concede only partially. This opens the way to identifying the core of religion as
an experience of the sustaining, transforming power of a transcendental orien·
tation coming to different patterns of expression in the earth's family of spiritual
traditions.
Building on this global picture of religion and using methods adapted from
the natural and social sciences, the author develops an explanatory theory of
religion as the result of humanity's resourceful finitude in finding ways to over·
come the problems of vulnerability and pain in a mysterious, threatening yet
also sustaining cosmos, depicting the questing spirit as an adventure of nature
and an affirmation of the earth, as well as a feeler held out for signals of tran
scendence. His theory also shows why religion exists in a variety of forms all over
the world.
The book ends by applying the theory to give a provocative view of the future
of religion in a world wary of promises but as hungry as ever for guidance and
well-being.
Dr Martin Prozesky is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious
Studies at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, specialising
in the philosophy of religion. He lectured previously at Rhodes University and
the University in what is now Zimbabwe, working between those two appoint
ments as an editor in the field of academic publishing. He studied at Rhodes
University, Trinity College, Oxford, and at the Episcopal Divinity School in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr Prozesky has published articles. in theological
journals in Britain and South Africa and is editor of a new journal called
Religion in Southern Africa. In 1982 he was a visiting scholar at the School of
Theology in Claremont, California.
LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
General Editor: John Hick
Danforth Professor, Claremont Graduate School
Claremont, California
Already published
Masao Abe ZEN AND WESTERN THOUGHT
William H. Austin THE RELEVANCE OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO
THEOLOGY
Paul Badham CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH
Paul and Linda Badham IMMORTALITY OR EXTINCTION?
Patrick Burke THE FRAGILE UNIVERSE
Margaret Chatterjee GANDHI'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
William Lane Craig THE KALA M COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FROM PLATO
TO LEIBNIZ
Stephen T. Davis LOGIC AND THE NATURE OF GOD
Lynn A. de Silva THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF IN BUDDHISM AND
CHRISTIANITY
Padmasiri de Silva AN INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY
Ramchandra Gandhi THE AVAILABILITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS
J. C. A. Gaskin HUME'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
H. A. Hodges GOD BEYOND KNOWLEDGE
Hywel D. Lewis PERSONS AND LIFE AFTER DEATH
Eric Lott VEDANTIC APPROACHES TO GOD
Geddes MacGregor REINCARNATION AS A CHRISTIAN HOPE
Hugo A. Meynell AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF
BERNARD LONERGAN
F. C. T. Moore THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF MORALITY
Dennis Nineham THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE BIBLE
Martin Prozesky RELIGION AND ULTIMATE WELL-BEING
Bernard M. G. Reardon HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
John J. Shepherd EXPERIENCE, INFERENCE AND GOD
Patrick Sherry RELIGION, TRUTH AND LANGUAGE GAMES
SPIRIT, SAINTS AND IMMORTALITY
Wilfred Cantwell Smith TOWARDS A WORLD THEOLOGY
Shivesh Chandra Thakur RELIGION AND RATIONAL CHOICE
Robert Young FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND GOD
Further titles in preparation
RELIGION AND
ULTIMATE
WELL-BEING
An Explanatory Theory
Martin Prozesky
Associate Professor in the Department of Religious
Studies, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg
M
MACMILLAN
© Martin Prozesky 1984
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1984 978-0-333-32498-1
Ali rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without permission
First published 1984 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS L TD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Prozesky, Martin
Religion and ultimate well·being. -(Library of
philosophy and religion)
l. Religion-Philosophy
I. Title II. Series
244'.1 BL51
ISBN 978-1-349-17528-4 ISBN 978-1-349-17526-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17526-0
Why don't you examine the religious life itself? Examine
especially those highest reaches of the spirit in which all other
activities are held back or even suspended, and the whole soul is
dissolved in an immediate sense of the infinite and the eternal ....
Only those who have observed and truly come to know people in
these stirnngs can rediscover religion in its external
manifestations (Friedrich Schleiermacher 1806: 21).
There is a verge of the mind which these things haunt; and
whispers therefrom mingle with the operations of our under
standing, even as the waters of the infinite ocean send their waves
to break among the pebbles that lie upon our shores (William
James 1902: 421).
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
1 Rethinking the Meaning of Religion 1
2 Religion in Global Perspective 15
3 The Art of Explaining 68
4 Human Existence and Its Setting 99
5 Religion as a Quest for Ultimate Well-Being 153
Biblz"ography 237
Index 248
Vll
Acknowledgements
A work like this, drawing on all that the author has experienced
and learnt concerning religion and several other spheres of
interest, naturally carries with it an indebtedness much too
extensive to be fully apparent even to the recipient, and certainly
too extensive for complete, individual identification. That
general assistance is none the less gratefully acknowledged, and
will be apparent in the following pages to family members,
mentors, colleagues, writers, students and friends, and also to a
few respected intellectual adversaries. Touching many personal
matters, these debts are perhaps best left unpublicised anyway.
That the ideas provoked in part by these benefactors should
now be appearing in print is, on the other hand, a matter for
which specific thanks are due to a number of people and organis·
ations. Professor John Hick gave indispensable encouragement
for initiating and conducting the project and much practical
advice; my departmental colleague Mr Patrick Maxwell has
throughout been a fertile source of information, criticism and
support, while academic friends elsewhere proved invaluable in
providing me with detailed criticisms of a draft paper from which
the present work has grown. In addition to Professor Hick they
are Dr James Moulder, now at the University of Cape Town but
then also at the University of Natal, who also commented help·
fully on chapter three; Dr David Novitz of the Department of
Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Canterbury
in Christchurch, New Zealand; Mr lain Boal, presently working
in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Professor T. A. Burkill,
formerly head of the Department of Theology and Philosophy at
the University in what is now Harare, Zimbabwe.
Completion of the book was made possible by a year's sabbati
cal leave generously granted and partly financed by the Council
of the University of Natal; by a University Travelling Fellowship
awarded by The Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, and by a
viii
Acknowledgements
lX
Senior Research Grant from the Human Sciences Research
Council in Pretoria. Opinions expressed and conclusions reached
in this book are not, of course, to be regarded as those of any of
the parties to whom I am indebted for assistance. I must also
thank the President, Dean and Faculty of the Southern California
School of Theology in Claremont, and especially the senior staff
of its Center for Process Studies, for giving me the status of
Visiting Scholar for the spring semester in 1982; and the govern
ing body of Trinity College, Oxford, for generous and helpful
arrangements in the latter part of that year. During the course of
my visits to these and other centres several scholars kindly
provided verbal comments and suggestions about particular
aspects of the present work, and I am bound to thank them by
name also: Dr Bruce Long, Professors Carl Ernst, Frederick
Sontag, John Hutchison, David Griffin, Dean Freudenberger and
John B. Cobb Jr, all of Claremont, California; Professor Roy
Fairchild of the San Franscisco Theological Seminary; the Revd.
Dr Peter Hinchliff of Balliol College, Oxford, and Mr Edward
Robinson of the Religious Experience Research Unit in Oxford,
as well as Professors Ninian Smart, Wilfred Cantwell Smith,
Maurice Wiles and Basil Mitchell. Along the way there were
many others whose informal reactions and interest are greatly
appreciated but who are too numerous for me to mention
individually. I am also grateful to colleagues at the University of
Natal who have helped me with their expertise in various connec
tions. The encouragement of Professors Victor Bredenkamp and
Gordon Hunnings is particularly valued. My wife, Mrs Doreen
Johnston and Mrs Joy Randall provided typing skills of a high
order, while the editorial and production staff of The Macmillan
Press have been models of assistance to me in preparing the book
for publication. I only wish I could have made superior use of
such exceptional helpers and friends.
Lastly, I must record especial gratitude for patience, support
and companionship to my immediate family, particularly my
wife, for whom the following pages are by now an oft-heard tale.
But in them their voices are also present, and I, for one, am
thankful.
University of Natal M.P.
Pietermaritzburg
South Africa
1 Rethinking the Meaning
of Religion
This book adds its voice to the growing call for a radically new
understanding of religion, because the ones we have inherited
cannot do justice to the global phenomenon of faith in all its basic
forms and characteristics. And since this pheno~non has been
a dominant concern of people in virtually every society for
thousands of years, until we improve our understanding of it we
are unlikely to develop reliable concepts of what it means to be
human either.
There is as yet no standard conception of religion even among
believers, which is itself a sign of the problem before us. Seeking
insight into the spiritual life, enquirers who consult the writings of
famous experts will find there as many views of the subject as
there are authors. Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote that faith is a
well-founded sense of absolute dependence, while Freud thought
of it as an obsessional neurosis. William James on the other hand
declared that religion comprises a relationship with what he
called friendly, higher powers. Emile Durkheim pronounced it to
be the result of social causes, whereas A. N. Whitehead defined it
as what people do with their own solitariness. For his part Rudolf
Otto saw the basis of religion as a sense of the holy, but Paul
Tillich, a younger contemporary of Otto also from Protestant
Germany, described it as ultimate concern. When influential
writers dealing with a common subject come to such diverse con
clusions we have every reason to suspect that much rethinking still
needs to be done.
In particular there are seven problems that seriously under
mine most existing views of religion. Seen in isolation each one is
disturbing; taken together they imply an urgent need for sweep
ing conceptual improvement. Let us consider them in turn. The
first one relates to our revolutionary modern understanding of the
1
