Religious Imaginings

In this chapter the author contends that many instances of religious attitudes are best characterized as imaginings. Having discounted some apparently obvious reasons to classify them as beliefs as well as Van Leeuwen’s reasons to classify them as “credences”, the author argues that their functional profile matches neatly that of paradigmatic imaginative states. This view does not have the undesirable consequences that it may prima facie seem to have. It does not force us to say that religious people are hypocrites, nor that they have faulty self-knowledge. On the contrary, it helps us to make more rational sense of their sincere religious avowals. This view also fits nicely with some recent accounts of the multidimensional nature of faith, laying the basis for a more comprehensive picture of the religious mind.