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Justification rather than truth: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s
defence of positive religion in the ring-parable1
Introduction on positive religion
Positive religion is not held in high esteem since the time of
the Enlightenment. Then its claims, e.g. revelatory claims or
claims to absolute, i.e. unique validity2, were considered to
be incapable of being historically verifiable or to contradict
rationality, moral as well as cognitive rationality. Regarding
the latter, the criticism was that since positive religious
claims go beyond what is possible to know, their truth cannot
be fixed. Globally speaking, three fashions of reducing or
even rejecting positive religion prevailed then: Positive
religion could be reduced to morality – the fashion
particularly prevalent in the ‘German’ (i.e. Prussia and
surrounding countries) version of the Enlightenment (see also
below, section 3). Or, it could be reduced to natural
religion, to deistic and similar doctrines – particularly
prevalent in the English version of the Enlightenment. Or, it
could be straightforwardly rejected in the spirit of an all-
I wish to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on an
earlier version of this article.
2 In the following, I use ‘positive religion’ as standing for the concrete
forms of religion that have emerged in history, thus, Christianity, Judaism
etc. Positive religion includes e.g. claims to the absolute validity of one
particular religion. It incorporates thus claims that are considered to be
particularly disturbing in the Enlightenment-age, i.e. claims that are not
controllable by ‘reason’. Its counterpart, ‘natural religion’, refers to
forms of religion that are considered to be controllable by reason indeed
(for a more detailed distinction, see ‘Natürliche Theologie’ in: Religion
in Geschichte und Gegenwart (H.D. Betz et al., eds.), 4. ed., vol. 6, pp.
120-4 (Christian Link) and ‚Deismus’, vol. 2, pp. 614-23, especially
subparagaraph ‚Religionsphilosophisch’, pp. 614-6 (Peter Byrne)).
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out atheism – the fashion particularly prevalent in the French
version of the Enlightenment3.
And positive religion’s stakes have not improved much
since the time of the Enlightenment. To be sure, we are not as
easily inclined to reduce positive religion to natural
religion as our ‘Enlightened’ forefathers were. But only
because religious claims have fallen into disrepute on a
global scale, natural and positive alike. It seems that the
most we can hope for in the wake of the Bultmann-school, or,
more radical, death of God-theologies, is some form of
demythologised, existentially interpreted (i.e. reconstructed)
positive religion.
To be sure, there are the believers who embrace positive
religious claims no matter what. But they pay a heavy price
for their stance by sacrificing those insights and
intellectual virtues that have become commonplace in Western
modernity, e.g. regarding the necessity of critical thinking,
autonomous thinking (as opposed to tradition-bound thinking)
etc. In my eyes, sacrificing those intellectual virtues is as
dissatisfying as the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment
rejection or reduction of positive religion is.
Obviously, these are rather crude generalizations. Closer scrutiny
reveals e.g. that there existed deists in Germany as well, e.g. Hermann
Samuel Reimarus (see e.g. Helmut Thielicke, Glauben und Denken in der
Neuzeit, Tübingen: Mohr 1983, pp.92vv). Yet, the point is that they did not
set the tone in Germany (see Schultze, Harald, Lessings Toleranzbegriff.
Eine theologische Studie, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck en Ruprecht, 1969, pp.
23vv, also pp. 39vv). For a characterization of the different versions of
the Enlightenment in the different countries, see e.g. Hans Joachim Störig,
Geschiedenis van de filosofie, pp. 373vv, 392vv, and 416vv.
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In the interpretation suggested below, Lessing provides a
way out of the dilemma between either uncritical thinking and
reducing/rejecting positive religion. He comes up with a way
that enables the believer to maintain ‘positive’ religious
claims while being able to maintain her intellectual
integrity. His way out of this dilemma is to contend that
believers have an epistemic right to maintain positive
religious claims although they are uncertain as to their
truth. In other words, they do not have to overstep the limits
of what is humanly possible to know in order to maintain
positive religion.
The problem how competing positive religions can exist
side by side will be the example with the help of which the
problem of positive religion will be tackled in the following.
Lessing deals with that problem most distinctly in his theatre
play ‘Nathan the Wise’4. I will analyse it, more precisely, its
famous ring-parable, in the following fashion: First, I will
sketch different interpretations of the solution provided in
the ring-parable. I will suggest an interpretation, which
avoids the reductions and rejections of positive religion
mentioned above (chapter 1). Second, I will show that
Lessing’s solution that we can be epistemically justified in
holding positive religious claims although their truth is not
Lessing, Laocoön, Nathan the Wise and Minna von Barnhelm, Steel, W.A.
(ed), in: Everyman’s Library, No. 843, London: J.M. Dent & Sons). In the
following, I will use the English translation wherever possible. However,
in cases in which particular phrases are crucial, I will use the German
original (Lessing, Nathan der Weise. Ein dramatisches Gedicht in fünf
Aufzügen, Stuttgart, Reclam, 1990).
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fixed is philosophically tenable (chapter 2). Third, I will
show that focussing on the question of the justification of
religious claims rather than that of their truth has certain
advantages for the pursuit of the philosophy of religion. By
doing that, Lessing is in good company, viz. in the company of
e.g. William James and Alvin Plantinga (chapter 3).
I) Different types of interpretations of the ring-parable:
Sketch and Evaluation
1) Summary of the ring parable
The ring-parable is situated right in the centre of ‘Nathan’,
thus indicating its importance within the overall story. Let
me summarize it as well as its background.
‘Nathan’ is situated in Jerusalem, at the time of the
crusades. Three religions exist side-by-side, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. The successful Muslim leader, sultan
Saladin, has spent all his money on his military campaigns as
well as on acts of generosity towards his people. He invites a
rich and wise Jew, ‘Nathan’, to his palace in order to
approach him for money. In order to enact pressure upon him
and also to test his wisdom, the sultan asks him which of the
three religions is the true one. Nathan responds with the
ring-parable, which goes as follows.
There existed a ring, which had spectacular qualities to
it. For example, ‘whoso wore it, trusting therein, found grace
with God and man’.5 It was supposed to go from its holder to
5
Lessing, Nathan the Wise, p. 166.
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the hand of his most beloved son. At some point, however, a
man possessed that ring who had three sons whom he loved all
dearly. He could not decide to whom the ring should go. Thus,
he made two duplicates of that ring. At his dying hour, he
called upon his three sons separately and gave each of them a
ring. After their father’s death, all three sons claimed to
possess the true ring. Recognizing that their brothers had an
identical ring, they consulted a judge in order to settle the
matter.
The judge’s verdict is crucial for interpreting the ringparable and is commonly conceived of as containing the
solution to its problem, viz. how competing religions can coexist. Thus, I quote the judge’s words in full length:
‘Thus spake the Judge: Bring me the father here
To witness; I will hear him; and if not
Leave then my judgment seat.
Think you this chair
Is set for reading of riddles?
Do you wait,
Expecting the true ring to open mouth?
Yet halt!
I hear, the genuine ring possesses
The magic power to bring its wearer love
And grace with God and man.
That must decide;
For never can the false rings have this virtue.
Well, then; say, whom do two of you love best?
Come, speak! What! Silent! Is the rings’ effect
But backward and not outward? Is it so
That each one loves himself most?
Then I judge
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All three of you are traitors and betrayed!
Your rings all three are false.
The genuine ring
Perchance the father lost, and to replace it
And hide the loss, had three rings made for one…
So, went on the Judge,
You may not seek my counsel, but my verdict;
But go! My counsel is, you take the thing
Exactly as it lies.
If each of you
Received his ring from his good father’s hand,
Then each of you believe his ring the true one‘Tis possible the father would not suffer
Longer the one ring tyrannise in’s house,
Certain, he loved all three, and equal loved,
And would not injure two to favour one.
Well, then, let each one strive most zealously
To show a love untainted by self-care,
Each with his might vie with the rest to bring
Into the day the virtue of the jewel
His finger wears, and help this virtue forth
By gentleness, by spirit tractable,
By kind deeds and true piety towards God;
And when in days to come the magic powers
Of these fair rings among your children’s children
Brighten the world, I call you once again,
After a thousand thousand years are lapsed,
Before this seat of judgment. On that day
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A wiser man shall sit on it and speak.
Depart!
So spake the modest Judge.’6
2) Sketch of the different interpretations of the judge’s
verdict/counsel
It is hardly contested among Lessing-scholars that the judge’s
verdict/counsel at the end of the ring-parable provides the
key to interpreting it. Yet, it is well contested what this
verdict consists of. There are legions of interpretations of
the ring-parable and I cannot repeat them here in detail.7 Let
it thus suffice to sketch three different types of
interpretations and then evaluate them.
Interpretation alternative 1): The atheist reading
In truth, all three rings are lost, thus, religion is a ‘lost
cause’. This interpretation receives support from the judge’s
earlier verdict:
‘All three of you are traitors and betrayed!
Your rings all three are false.
The genuine ring
Perchance the father lost, and to replace it
And hide the loss, had three rings made for one’.
Lessing, Nathan the Wise, pp. 168-9. Note that the judge’s words consist
of two components, first, a verdict, second, a counsel beginning with the
second paragraph (‘my counsel is you take the thing exactly as it lies…’).
We will come back to that distinction below.
7 For a summary of the different Lessing-interpretations, see Gerhard
Freund, Theologie im Widerspruch. Die Lessing-Goeze-Kontroverse, Stuttgart
et al.: Kohlhammer, 1989, pp. 15-25, for interpretations of Lessing’s ringparable in particular, see e.g. Lüpke, Harald von, Wege der Weisheit:
Studien zu Lessings Theologiekritik, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck en Ruprecht,
1989, pp. 150-7, Politzer, Heinz, Lessings Parabel von den drei Ringen, in:
Politzer, Das Schweigen der Sirenen, Stuttgart, Metzlersche
Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968, pp. 345vv, Schultze, Toleranzbegriff, pp. 71vv,
Koebner, Thomas, Nathan der Weise. Ein polemisches Stück?,
Interpretationen. Lessings Dramen, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1987, pp. 138-208,
Karl Barth, Die protetantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert. Ihre
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‘Your rings all three are false’ means on the non-symbolic
level that all three religions at stake are false, mistaken,
or ‘fake’ - and, we may add from our current, more global
perspective, the same holds for religious claims not belonging
to the three Abrahamitic religions at stake here. They are
mistaken as well. In short, according to this interpretation,
all religions are ‘fake’.
Naturally, the ‘atheist’ reading of Lessing favours this
interpretation. It implies not only that religion is false but
also that it is treacherous- the three brothers claiming the
validity of their respective claim are, besides being
‘betrayed’ themselves, all ‘traitors’ according to the judge’s
verdict8. The natural by-product of this atheist interpretation
is that all ‘missionary’ impulses inherent in positive
religion are repressed. If all religions are ‘fake’, then,
obviously, we have no right to universalise the claims implied
in any of them.
Interpretation alternative 2, the theist reading: I come
now to an interpretation alternative, which reads Lessing’s
solution theistically. This interpretation can be split up
into two subtypes, 2a) and 2b). Before I delve into their
Vorgeschichte und Geschichte, Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag Zollikon, 1952
(2.nd ed.), pp.208-236.
8 This reading can be supported by the historical claim that the origins of
the tolerance-parable can be traced back locally and in time to close
proximity to the origins of the ‘Betrugstheorie’, i.e. the theory according
to which Moses, Jesus and Muhammed are all traitors. Both originate in the
8th/9th century in Bagdhad/Bahrain. Although Friedrich Niewöhner (Veritas
sive Varietas. Lessings Toleranzparabel und das Buch von den drei
Betrügern, in: Veröffentlichungen der Lessing-Akademie Wolfenbüttel,
Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider) alludes to this possibility in his
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differences, however, I will point out what they have in
common, thus, what distinguishes them from the atheist
interpretation.
This solution implies that the question which of the three
religions is the true one is here and now indeed nondecidable. But whatever follows from this hic et nunc nondecidability does not discredit the religious pursuit as such.
This solution receives support not from the judge’s earlier
verdict but from his later counsel:
‘My counsel is, you take the thing
Exactly as it lies.
If each of you
Received his ring from his good father’s hand,
Then each of you believe his ring the true one‘Tis possible the father would not suffer
Longer the one ring tyrannise in’s house,
Certain, he loved all three, and equal loved,
And would not injure two to favour one’.
The certainty that the father ‘loved all three, and equal
loved, And would not injure two to favour one’ is contrasted
with a possibility, viz. a possible explanation or conjecture
of the non-decidability of the truth of religion
‘Tis possible the father would not suffer
Longer the one ring tyrannise in’s house’.
Independently of the question as to whether this
particular conjecture holds or not, the judge goes on to say
compilation of material on the matter, he does not explicitly support it,
if I understand his rather unsystematic remarks correctly.
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‘My counsel is, you take the thing exactly as it lies’. In
other words, the religious pursuit can be practically
‘enacted’ in the moral domain and is logically independent of
the question of its truth:
‘Well, then, let each one strive most zealously
To show a love untainted by self-care,
Each with his might vie with the rest to bring
Into the day the virtue of the jewel
His finger wears, and help this virtue forth
By gentleness, by spirit tractable,
By kind deeds and true piety towards God’.
The point to grasp is that, in this interpretation, it is
legitimate to continue with one’s religious pursuit: ‘Then
each of you believe his ring the true one’. Every follower of
one of the three religions and, by extension, of other
religions as well is, at least, prima facie epistemically
justified in maintaining her belief. In this perspective, the
moral admonitions can serve as a criterion to distinguish
between truly legitimate and illegitimate religious
perspectives. For example, one could argue that ‘a love
untainted by self-care’ and the other moral admonitions could
serve to distinguish legitimate religious pursuits from
illegitimate ones.
Within this type of explanation, two subtypes can be
distinguished. I come now to Interpretation alternative 2),
subtype a): The reduction of religion to morality.
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The religious claims implied in the ring-parable are
cognitively non-decidable, i.e. it is non-decidable which
religious truth claims are valid and which are not. But the
cognitive dimension can be bypassed in religious matters.
Thus, different from solution 1), it does not follow the
illegitimacy of the religious pursuit as such but, rather, the
more limited claim of the illegitimacy of the cognitive
component implied in it. That is to say, the cognitive is to
be substituted by the moral in religious matters and that
allows for a principled legitimacy of the religious pursuit.
This interpretation can be captured in the maxim: ‘Let us
forget about the truth claims implied in religion and focus on
its moral dimension instead. That way we can uphold it (even
in the face of its modern critique)’.
This interpretation shows some commonality with ‘noncognitive’ reconstructions of religious utterances (e.g. R.
Braithwaite’s9) and, more broadly, with those attempts to
reconstruct religion in purely moral terms which have risen in
our Western cultures in response to the modern challenges of
religion. Those attempts sacrifice religion’s cognitive
dimension but hold on to its moral dimension. Another example
of those attempts is the move to cling to a pacifist morality
- allegedly being implied in the Scriptures, say, the Sermon
on the Mount - while the cognitive background that led to its
Braithwaite, R.B., An Empiricist’s View of the Nature of Religious
Belief, in: Hick, J., Classical and Contemporary Readings in the
Philosophy of Religion, Englewood Cliffs: Simon & Schuster, 31990, pp. 302312.
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formulation in the Scriptures - say, an eschatology of
‘Naherwartung’ - is given up. In this popular move, the
cognitive dimension of Christianity is sacrificed at the
expense of its moral dimension.
Interpretation alternative 2), subtype b): The cognitive
dimension being maintained in spite of its non-decidability.
The cognitive non-decidability of religious claims does not
entail that their cognitive dimension should be abrogated and
substituted by the moral one. All that follows from this
cognitive non-decidability is that there is no such thing as
truth proper in religion. But that does not entail that there
are no other interesting things to be said about the cognitive
dimension of religion, e.g. regarding the question of its
justification (see below, section 7).
This point can be distinguished into two further subpoints, viz. that, i), the non-decidability in religious
questions is a principled one; in this case, you will have to
interpret the time-phrases ‘days to come’ (of the ‘magic
powers’), the ‘children’s children’, and, above all, the
famous phrase ‘After a thousand thousand years are lapsed’ as
symbolic ones. They are not to be taken literally but are
meant to indicate the principled incapability of coming to a
reasonable decision on the issue. Also, you will have to
interpret the utterance ‘On that day a wiser man shall sit on
it and speak’ not to be meant literally. In short, you will
have to insist that all of those utterances do not point to
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the possibility of overcoming the current non-decidability but
are ways of prolonging it into eternity without saying it
bluntly.
The alternative, ii), is to understand the current nondecidability not as a principled one but leave, at least, the
possibility open that at some point in history what is now
non-decidable will become decidable. In this interpretation,
you can take the above mentioned phrases more or less
literally10, the upshot being the possibility that the question
of the truth of religion will be decided in a time to come.
Since the argument suggested below is compatible with both
options, I will not decide between them in the following11.
3) Evaluation of the different solutions
Let me briefly evaluate the different solutions.
Solution 1), the ‘atheist’ interpretation, fails not only
because it is incompatible with (most of) Lessing’s other
writings12 but also because it is difficult to maintain on
text-internal grounds. The brothers and the judge have indeed
Obviously, you cannot take phrases such as ‘thousand thousand years’
literally in the sense of indicating a definite time-span. Rather, they are
meant to indicate the possibility that the question of the truth of
religion will be decidable in some future.
11 Personally, I have a slight preference for reading ii), according to
which Lessing does not regard the non-decidability on the truth of religion
to be a principled one - one of the reasons being that Lessing is in that
respect a child of the Enlightenment with its optimism regarding the
possibilities of the progress of human cognitive capabilities (see e.g.
Lessing, ‘Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts’, in: Die Erziehung des
Menschengeschlechts und andere Schriften, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1969).
12 In order to consistently hold an atheist interpretation, you would have
to re-interpret too many of Lessing’s positive remarks on religion - among
others, those in his letters which were not meant for publication and for
which the argument does not stick that he tried to escape repression by
keeping up the appearance of being genuinely religious although he was not
in his heart. If he were an atheist, it would also be difficult to explain
why he wrestled with religion all life long - after all, Lessing is not
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no clue as to what the truth of the matter is, as to whether
the one ‘true’ ring is lost or not. But Lessing introduces
different perspectives to the ring-parable. He introduces a
perspective which is situated above the brothers’ and the
judge’s perspective. Let’s call it the ‘reader’s perspective’.
Here, more information is provided. This is particularly clear
if we look at the beginning of the ring-parable.
Before coming to the judge’s verdict/counsel, the reader
gets to know that the father asked the artist ‘To make him on
the model of his ring Two others’13. That is to say, the true
ring serves as the model and the artist makes two copies. But
if the true ring were lost and the father had made two copies
only, he would obviously fall short of one ring to give to his
three sons. Thus, the reader has no reason to assume that the
true ring is lost. Furthermore, the reader has read that ‘Even
the father scarcely can distinguish His pattern-ring’14. This
utterance presupposes that there is such a thing as a patternring, thus, that it is not lost. In short, for the reader,
there is no reason to assume that the true ring is lost. Thus,
the interpretation according to which the true ring is lost
and all rings are ‘fake’, i.e. all religions are ‘fake’,
cannot be supported on a textual basis15.
Thus, given the alternative provided above, the theist
type of interpretation is to be preferred. It implies that
Marx thinking that religion entails morally dreadful consequences and that
it should be abrogated for this very reason.
13 Lessing, Nathan the Wise, p. 167.
14 Ibid.
15
whatever follows from the hic et nunc non-decidability of the
question which of the three religions is true does not
discredit the religious pursuit as such. This being the case,
the question emerges which of the different possible
interpretations within solution 2) is to be preferred.
Let me begin by discussing alternative 2a), according to
which the religious is upheld but reconstructed in solely
moral terms.
This interpretation receives ‘geistesgeschichtlichen’
support from the fact that the ‘German’ version of the
Enlightenment has in general a strong tendency towards
emphasizing the moral dimension in religion (see also above,
Introduction). If we look at the person who is - next to
Lessing - the representative of the German Enlightenment,
Kant, we find him undermining all (robust) cognitive religious
claims by criticizing the proofs for the existence of God and
by relegating the notion of God into the realm of the ‘ideas
of reason’ (together with the notions of the soul and the
world). That is to say, in the cognitive domain, religious
claims fulfil only some sort of meta-function - such as
providing an ultimate unity for experience. Yet, they do not
belong to the ‘categories of mind’ proper and sense-experience
does not correspond with them. But, after having undermined
their cognitive import, Kant ‘resuscitates’ religious ideas in
the moral domain, viz. through his famous ‘proof’ that the
15
Barth emphasizes this point in Theologie, p. 230.
16
idea of God is a necessary postulate for the pursuit of a
robust form of morality16.
Since Lessing wrote his ‘Nathan’ roughly at the same time
and in a similar intellectual environment in which Kant did17,
it is well conceivable that both entertained the same sort of
ideas. Thus, it is not far-fetched to assume that Lessing
undermines the cognitive dimension of religion and
‘resuscitates’ it on the moral level.
Is this interpretation correct? Yes and no. To some
extent, Lessing shares the moral tendency characteristic of
the German Enlightenment. For example, in the judge’s counsel
quoted above, he emphasizes moral categories, such as ‘a love
untainted by self-care’ and ‘kind deeds’. This shows that
moral categories are indeed important. Furthermore, it can be
argued that the whole of ‘Nathan’ has a moral tone to it. This
comes out e.g. in the religious ‘conversion’ Nathan’s
daughter, Recha, undergoes when she switches from a ‘religion
of fancy’ (‘schwärmerische Religion’) to a ‘religion of the
deed’ (‘Religion der Tat’)18.
See Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (e.g. 3, 392vv and the
entire ‚Transzendentale Dialektik’) and Kritik der praktischen Vernunft,
5,125 (and 5,122), all in: Kants Werke, Akademie Textausgabe, Berlin 196877. My point is here simply to sketch broad ’geistesgeschichtliche’ lines.
Thus, I repeat the standard Kant-interpretation without delving into the
question as to whether it truly depicts Kant’s own intentions.
17 ‚Nathan’ is published two years (1779) before the first edition of the
critique of pure reason (1781); see also von Lüpke’s comparison between
Lessing and Kant, Weisheit, 20-3.
18 Her belief in supernatural occurrences is corrected by Nathan to a
‘religion of the deed’: ‘Begreifst Du aber, wieviel andächtig schwärmen
leichter, als gut handeln ist? Wie gern der schlaffste Mensch andächtig
schwärmt, um nur…gut handeln nicht zu dürfen?’ Nathan der Weise, p. 16, v.
359-364). That this switch is considered to be an advancement on Recha’s
part is, among others, clear from the fact that ‘Nathan’ is on the whole to
16
17
But although Lessing emphasizes the moral dimension of
religion to some extent, he does not reduce religion to it.
Holding such a position would be difficult to square with
Lessing’s other writings. They convey clearly that, although
he seriously wrestles with the cognitive aspect of religion
and re-interprets it where he thinks necessary, he does not
abrogate it. Rather, he tries to make sense of it one-way or
the other. For example, he wrestles with the notion of
revelation seriously and attempts to reconstruct it without,
however, abandoning it19.
Furthermore, if you look for text-internal grounds, you
will have to judge that, although the judge’s words contain
some allusions to morality, it is nowhere clearly suggested
that the cognitive should be abrogated in favour of the moral
in religion. In short, although interpretation 2a), according
to which Lessing abrogates the cognitive dimension of religion
entirely and reconstructs it on purely moral grounds, has some
plausibility to it, it is on balance not fully convincing.
Given the above alternatives, we are left with possibility
2b), viz. that the cognitive non-decidability of religious
claims does not entail that their cognitive dimension should
be abrogated (difference with interpretation alternative 2a),
let alone that religion as such should be abrogated
(difference with the atheist alternative, 1). We are thus left
be read as an ‘Erziehungsschrift’, a piece in which religious education,
‘Enlightenment’, is emphasized (see Koebner, Nathan, pp. 154vv).
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with the solution that religious claims are indeed nondecidable, yet, they should not be abrogated in an atheist
fashion, nor reduced in a moralist fashion. The question what
this solution implies precisely and how it can be
theoretically underpinned will be answered in the following
section.
4) Explanation of the fact that the judge’s words contain two
very different solutions to the problem of positive religion
It was suggested above that the judge’s words contain the
solution to the problem of positive religion. Closer scrutiny
reveals, however, that they provide two rather different
solutions, one contained in the verdict, the other in the
counsel. The verdict is rather harsh: The judge demands the
impossible - ‚bring me the father here to witness’; he
ridicules the three brothers although each of them is
subjectively entitled to his claim to possessing the true ring
- ‘do you wait, expecting the true ring to open mouth?; and he
concludes that since each of them loves himself best, all
three are ‘traitors and betrayed’. In short, positive
religious claims, i.e. claims to absoluteness as they are
exemplified in the brother’s claims, are rejected here.
The counsel, however, is much milder. Here, the judge
recognizes that all three brothers are subjectively entitled
to their respective claims – ‘each of you received his ring
from his good father’s hand. Then each of you believe his ring
In his last work, conceptualised shortly after ‚Nathan’ (see above, f.
11). Here, Lessing reconstructs the notion of revelation as a progressive
19
19
the true one’; he adds a moral admonition – ‘gentleness,… kind
deeds’; and he finishes with an allusion to wisdom in times to
come – ‘on that day a wiser man shall sit on it [the judge’s
chair] and speak’. In short, a milder, wiser perspective is
offered here which tries to make sense of positive religious
claims.
How to explain the curious fact that this mild counsel is
mentioned right next to the harsh verdict?20 The best
explanation is in my eyes that both are the most salient
options for Lessing. That is to say, he mentions in an almost
Kierkegaardian manner both in the same breath since both are
‘live’ options for him. The first, the harsh verdict,
represents the standard Enlightenment criticism of positive
religion. According to it, positive religion and its claims,
e.g. absolutist claims, are to be straightforwardly rejected.
Lessing, being a child of the Enlightenment, shares this
criticism to some extent.
But Lessing adds another perspective to this criticism of
positive religion according to which positive religion’s
claims are to be viewed much more favourably. Thus, on the one
hand, Lessing is highly critical of positive religion; on the
other hand, he has some sympathy for it. Or, in his own words,
his struggle is to combine the head’s compulsion to be an
atheist with the heart’s desire to be (a Lutheran) Christian.
education of humanity.
20 Although this fact is recognized in the literature (see e.g. Barth,
protestantische Theologie, 229-31), I have not come across any serious
attempts to explain it.
20
And the fact that he posits verdict and counsel right next to
each other reflects this struggle, whereby the heart’s desire
for ‘positive religion’ comes out in the counsel and the
Enlightened criticism of positive religion in the verdict.
In my view, Lessing favours here the perspective of the
counsel. No doubt, being a child of the Enlightenment, the
perspective of the verdict is a ‘life’ option for him as well.
Yet his sympathies lie with the counsel’s mild perspective on
positive religion. For this thesis speak his other writings in
which he wrestles again and again with the claims of positive
religion. To be sure, he does not embrace them without further
ado. Yet, he does not abandon them but goes through great
length in trying to re-interpret them (see above). Also, if
you look for text-internal grounds, you can find them in the
judge’s words as well. One such ground is that the counsel
follows the verdict, thereby almost overruling it. The second
is that Lessing puts more effort and fervour into the much
more nuanced counsel than into the rather crude verdict. In
short, I think that the judge’s counsel represents Lessing’s
own stance on positive religion better than the judge’s
verdict21.
5) The interpretation of the ring-parable suggested here
‘Nathan’ (1779) is written towards the end of Lessing’s life (1781). At
that stage of his life, his relation with orthodox religion is somewhat
troubled as a result of his discussion with the orthodox minister Goeze,
resulting in Lessing’s writings being censored (the reason that ‘Nathan’ is
a theatre play is that by conceptualising it as such a play, Lessing could
circumvent censorship). Traces of that incident can still be found in
‘Nathan’, e.g. in the extremely negative portrayal of the Christian
patriarch, i.e. institutionalised Christianity. Yet, Lessing’s criticism is
21
21
But how to interpret the judge’s counsel, thus Lessing’s own
stance on positive religion? Let me begin answering that
question by alluding to a ‘finding’ that is almost
uncontested, viz. that the question of the truth of positive
religion is left undecided or open in the judge’s counsel22.
The question which of the three brothers is right, if any,
i.e. which of the three religions is ‘right’, if any, is left
undecided. It may come to a decision on it in the future,
after ‘a thousand thousand years’ are lapsed and a wiser judge
shall pass judgement. Yet, for the time being, the truth of
positive religion is still undecided.
Yet, it was suggested above that this non-decidability of
the truth of positive religion does not necessarily imply that
the books on religion should be closed. Holding that positive
religion’s truth is non-decidable is apparently different from
holding that religion is mistaken or ‘fake’ (exclusion of the
‘atheist’ interpretation alternative, 1). Nor does it imply
that the cognitive dimension of religion should be sacrificed
directed at institutionalised positive religion, not at positive religion
as such.
22 There exist interpretations according to which one of the three religions
is favoured, viz. Judaism (as e.g. Politzer suggests, Schweigen, p. 367).
Yet, those interpretations fail to take the judge’s words seriously. Those
words make unambiguously clear that the truth of the three brother’s
claims, i.e. of the three religions at stake, is undecided. Furthermore,
those interpretations fail to take the punch line of the entire play
seriously according to which Nathan’s ‘Enlightened’ fashion of dealing with
religious claims is crucial, not the fact that he happens to be a follower
of one particular religion. That Nathan is Jewish should be explained, on
the one hand, with the fact that the sources upon which Lessing drew
portray him as a Jew (see e.g. Grube, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s ringparable. An Enlightenment voice on religious tolerance, in H. Vroom, W.
Stoker et. al, Faith and Enlightenment – Friendly Enemies? The Critique of
the Enlightenment, forthcoming) and, on the other hand, with the fact that
Judaism was considered to be an oppressed religion and Lessing had a
tendency to side with the oppressed (in Enlightened circles ‘oppressing’
22
and replaced by its moral dimension (exclusion of
interpretation alternative 2a, the reduction of religion to
morality). Thus, the non-decidability of the question of the
truth of positive religion does neither imply that its
cognitive dimension should be given up nor that the religious
pursuit as such should be given up.
But how can Lessing maintain that positive religion should
be pursued if its truth is undecided? The answer to that
question is to take the following words of the judge’s counsel
seriously:
‘My counsel is, you take the thing
Exactly as it lies.
If each of you
Received his ring from his good father’s hand,
Then each of you believe his ring the true one’.
The counsel ‘take the thing exactly as it lies’ should be
understood as endowing the believer of positive religion with
an epistemic justification. In other words, I suggest that the
sentence ‘Then each of you believe his ring the true one’
should be understood as being not only a descriptive statement
but a normative one. It does not only depict the psychological
state of the believer or something of that sort, but, rather,
provides a legitimation of the right to belief in the truth of
positive religion (probably under certain provisions, viz.
only for the person who ‘received his ring from his good
father’s hand’, that certain moral constraints are met (see
traditional religion, Lessing could stand up for it, e.g. for Lutheran
Christianity).
23
above) etc.). In short, Lessing’s solution is here that
although the question of the truth of religion is undecided as
of yet, this does not rule out the possibility of legitimately
believing in (certain) positive religious claims.
Put differently, my suggestion is to regard the ‘punch
line’ of the ring-parable to consist in the idea that positive
religion is justifiable, although its truth cannot be fixed
determinately here and now. Objectively, the truth of positive
religion is non-decidable hic et nunc. But that does not rule
out the possibility that the individual can be justified in
holding a particular belief- subjectively. In sum, the current
non-decidability of the truth of (positive) religion does not
a priori rule out the possibility of its justifiability.
II The philosophical tenability of Lessing’s solution
6) Is Lessing’s solution to the problem of positive religion
not hopelessly inconsistent?
You may retort now that such a treatment of positive religion
is hopeless on theoretical grounds. The reason is that Lessing
uses a theory of truth here that is hopeless to defend, viz.
that truth can be relativized. When he judges over the three
brothers, i.e. the three religions, ‘Then each of you believe
his ring the true one’, he implies that there can be different
truths. If this utterance entails indeed normative
implications, as I have contended above, then the only way to
make sense of it is to presuppose a theory that deprives the
notion of truth of its universal implications. That is to say,
24
if I am epistemically justified in believing my Christian
religion to be true, while you are at the same time
epistemically justified in believing your Islamic religion to
be true, then a non-universalistic theory of truth must be
presupposed.
This is obvious from the simple fact that, given that
Christianity entails religious beliefs competing with Islamic
beliefs, the suggestion that the Christian as well as the
Muslim can be epistemically justified in holding their
respective beliefs to be true makes sense only if the truthpredicates applied are not universally valid. Suggesting e.g.
that I am epistemically justified in holding the statement
that Christ is the redeemer of humanity to be true makes sense
only if you limit the validity claims of the truth-predicates
applied accordingly, say, to the inside-perspective of the
Christian faith or something of that sort. If you fail to do
that, i.e. if you maintain a notion of truth implying
universal pretensions indeed, you cannot consistently maintain
at the same time that the Muslim is also epistemically
justified in believing it to be true that Christ is not the
redeemer of humanity. In short, Lessing’s solution to the
problem of positive religion makes sense only if you
relativize the attribution of truth-predicates in one way or
the other, e.g. to a religious-inside perspective, a given
cultural paradigm, or whatever.
25
But, you may continue your charge, the problem is that
relativizing truth is impossible. The current philosophical
discussion has made abundantly clear that attempts to
relativize truth are impossible to maintain consistently. For
example, attempts to relativize the attribution of different
truth-predicates to different languages fail23. In short,
Lessing’s solution to the problem of positive religion fails
because it is based upon unsound philosophical grounds.
7) Why Lessing’s solution is not inconsistent: The distinction
between truth proper and justification
I disagree with the charge that Lessing is inconsistent in the
above named sense. More precisely speaking, I wish to suggest
that his account of positive religion can be reconstructed in
a consistent fashion. The trick is to maintain a strict
demarcation between truth (proper24) and justification and
interpret his account as answering to the problem of the
justification of positive religion rather than to that of its
truth. Let me explain, beginning with the demarcation of
justification from truth proper.
What I mean with the demarcation between the notion of
justification and that of truth proper comes out in the
Such as ‘x is true in Language L1 but not in L2’. For the failure of
those attempts, see Margolis, The Truth about Relativism, Cambridge, Oxford
(Blackwell), 1991, p. 7vv.
24 When speaking of ‘truth’ or ‘truth proper’ in the following, I mean a
philosophical use of ‘truth’ in the classical sense. Such a use is opposed
to its loser use in common-language and in non-classical philosophy. Thus,
in the classical philosophical use I have in mind, the use of ‘truth’ is
restricted to proper statements, presupposes bivalence or tertium non
23
26
following example25: We may be justified hic et nunc in
believing that a certain sort of alternative treatment of
cancer is preferable to its treatment with chemotherapy. Say,
there are indications right now that it is preferable on
balance since it is (almost) equally effective but has fewer
side effects. Yet, the truth of that statement is not yet
confirmed, say, there is not yet enough evidence available.
The point is that, under certain circumstances, we can be
justified in believing the alternative treatment to be the
best option available although the truth of that belief is not
yet determinately fixed. In short, we can be epistemically
justified to believe x although x’s truth is not (yet)
determined.
My point is now that Lessing’s account of positive
religion can be reconstructed in a theoretically sound fashion
if it is understood as an answer to the problem of the
justification of positive religion, not to that of its truth.
According to this reconstruction, Lessing grants that the
truth of positive religion is undecided. Yet, he argues, this
does not take away the individual’s epistemic right to
datur, implies universal pretensions, the unicity of truth (‘truth is one’)
and is associated with some kind of correspondence theory.
25 For a more detailed discussion of this demarcation, see e.g. Jeffrey
Stout, Ethics after Babel, Boston (Beacon Press), 1988 and, more recently,
in Democracy and Tradition, (Princeton 2004), e.g. p.. 231; see also
Richard Rorty, Truth and Progress, Philosophical Papers, vol. 3,
(Cambridge, 1998), e.g. p. 2. For the point that justification allows for
different outcomes - as opposed to truth (‘truth is one’)- and for making
it fruitful for providing a solution to the problem of religious tolerance,
see Grube, Die Pluralität der Religionen in Lessings Ringparabel und die
Unterscheidung zwischen Rechtfertigung und Wahrheit, in: C. Danz/U.H.J.
Körtner (eds.), Theologie der Religionen, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener
Verlag, 2005, pp. 153-186, esp. pp. 177vv.
27
maintain her particular Christian, Jewish…faith26. In short,
the proper truth-predicates are not yet distributed over the
relevant positive religious claims. Nevertheless, believers
can be epistemically justified in holding on to their
respective claims27.
There is one implication of this solution that deserves
particular attention. I mean the point that the nondecidedness of the truth of positive religion implies that its
truth is open in the strict sense of the word. That is to say,
contending that you are epistemically justified in holding a
belief, b, although b’s truth is not yet determined, makes
sense only under the provision that b could turn out to be
true. That is to say, b is not definitely false, for all we
can say thus far28.
Let me quote again:
‘And when in days to come the magic powers
This reconstruction also receives support from the earlier remarks in the
ring-parable on the historical nature of justification in religion (vv.
1970-1989, German edition). I analyse those remarks and the consequences
they entail for construing a notion of tolerance in my article religious
tolerance (see above, f. 22).
27 Obviously, Lessing himself fails to sharply demarcate the notion of truth
proper from that of justification - and the same verdict holds for the
Lessing-commentators interpreting him in a similar fashion as suggested
here (see e.g. Schultze, Toleranzbegriff, pp. 71vv). But that fact is not
overly surprising since, first of all, Lessing is not a philosopher in the
strict sense of the word, second, he lived well before that distinction
became popular, third, he and (most of) his commentators think within
Continental, German, philosophical parameters and are not familiar with
distinctions of this sort. Thus, my point is not so much that Lessing or
any of his commentators used that demarcation but, rather, that his account
can be reconstructed by using that demarcation in a fashion which preserves
its interesting features, i.e. its treatment of positive religion, while
not being theoretically unsound.
28 It may seem to be tautological to specify the sentence ‘b’s truth is not
yet determined’ as ‘b is not definitely false’. Yet, in comparative
arguments, viz. in the critiques of James mentioned below, this
presupposition is notoriously overlooked. That is why I point it out here
explicitly.
26
28
Of these fair rings among your children’s children
Brighten the world, I call you once again,
After a thousand thousand years are lapsed.
Before this seat of judgment. On that day
A wiser man shall sit on it and speak’.
No matter whether you interpret those lines as contending that
the question of the truth of positive religion is nondecidable as a matter of principle or whether you interpret
them as holding that its truth is undecided up to now as a
matter of fact – in either case, it is not implied that
religion is definitely false for all we can say thus far.
It is worth noting here in passing that it is the nondecidedness of positive religion’s claims that enables Lessing
to get a notion of tolerance worth its name off the ground:
Insofar as the truth of positive religion is undecided,
tolerance is the ‘natural’ stance to take. For it could well
be that my Christian religion will turn out to be true. But it
could also be the case that your Jewish, Muslim… religion will
turn out to be true. In the face of the uncertainty regarding
truth we are confronted with right now, all ‘missionary’
impulses become obsolete. I have no right to impose my
Christian faith upon you since I cannot be certain that my
religion will turn out to be true at the end and yours will
not (nota bene: A feature interesting in our current, widely
atheist Western world is that the atheist has also no right to
impose his lack of faith upon the believer).
29
III) The philosophical desirability of Lessing’s solution: Why
it is preferable to tackle questions of justification rather
than questions of truth in the philosophy of religion
8) In favour of a new paradigm in philosophy of religion
Thus far, I have engaged in questions of Lessinginterpretation. I have suggested that it is possible to
interpret him as answering questions of justification rather
than of truth proper. But I have not answered the question why
it is desirable to interpret him in such a fashion. I will do
that in the following by suggesting that tackling questions of
justification is a more promising approach in the philosophy
of religion than tackling questions of truth proper. I will
call the former approach the ‘new paradigm’ (in the philosophy
of religion), the latter ‘the standard paradigm’.
The standard paradigm (in the philosophy of religion) is
characterised by a focus on the question of the truth,
likelihood, probability etc. of religious claims. According to
it, questions of justification are ‘fall-out’ from truthquestions. That is to say, the question whether or not we are
justified in holding religious claims depends on how the
question of their truth… is settled. If they are true…, we are
justified in holding them, if not, we are not justified. The
standard paradigm thus ascribes logical priority to the
question of the truth of religious claims over the question of
their justifiability.
30
The problem with the standard paradigm is that it leads
into a dead-end street. We have exchanged arguments for the
truth or falsity of religion for centuries now – yet, the
result is inconclusive, in my view29. To be sure, there is a
widespread consensus that the traditional proofs for the
existence of God have failed. Yet, this is not a knockdown
argument against religion since they can be reconstructed as
arguments rather than proofs for the plausibility of theistic
claims30 or as cumulative arguments for their probability31.
And the atheist claim that religion is flawed because the
theodicy-problem is insurmountable is also far from
conclusive. Apart from the fact that this criticism has
bearing only on certain religious claims, not on others32, it
is not even a knockdown argument against the former. The
theist can simply escape it by reconstructing her religious
claims, e.g. by amending the notion of God presupposed
appropriately.
Other arguments for and against religion could be
mentioned here as well. Yet, my point is probably clear
anyway: We have waited for the crucial argument for or against
religion to surface for centuries and have been disappointed.
This being the case, it makes little sense to expect it to
29
Obviously, the problem is a complex one. For the purposes of this paper, however, I have to restrict myself to
a brief sketch of the criticism of the standard paradigm.
30 In particular, the teleological argument lends itself to such a reinterpretation.
31 See Richard Swinburne, The existence of God, London, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979.
32 Whether or not this criticism affects religious claims depends mainly on
the question what sort of an idea of God they presuppose, to what extent
31
emerge in the foreseeable future. But if the question of the
truth of religious claims is not decided and there is no
reasonable hope that it will be decided in the foreseeable
future, then it makes sense to suggest that we should stop
devoting all our energy and time to answering that question.
Rather, we should move on to explore new grounds.
More precisely, we should switch paradigms in philosophy
of religion. Rather than focussing solely on the standard
paradigm with its idea that the justifiability of religious
claims is logically dependent upon their truth, we should
explore the new paradigm more closely. That is to say, we
should develop a logic of decision–making in the face of the
non-decidability of the question of the truth of religious
claims. We should develop means to answer the question as to
whether we are justified to hold on to religious claims which
are independent of the question as to whether they are true or
not (provided that the evidence for or against them is not
conclusive either way). In short, we should switch from the
standard paradigm to the new paradigm and focus on the
question of the justifiability of religion.
That is the point of the above-suggested interpretation of
Lessing’s ring-parable. He contends that we can be justified
in holding religious claims – provided certain constraints are
met (see above, section 5)- although we are uncertain as to
their truth. This idea, I take it, is worth exploring further.
God is considered to be both (all-)powerful and the (supremely) loving
being.
32
9) The new Paradigm: Lessing, William James, Alvin Plantinga
and Coherentist Holism
The new paradigm and its core idea that the question of the
justifiability of religious claims can be answered in spite of
the fact that their truth is not (yet) fixed may still appear
to be strange. Let me rectify this appearance by demonstrating
that there are other proponents of this paradigm, among them
such famous thinkers as William James and the Reformed
Epistemologists. In other words, the ‘new paradigm’ is not as
novel as it may appear to be at first glance but has a
honourable tradition going for it.
This paradigm’s most famous proponent is probably James
with his famous article ‘The Will to Believe’. I have
suggested elsewhere33 that this article should be read
independently of what is usually considered to be James’
‘definition’ of truth, viz. that truth is tantamount to
‘expediency of belief’ or something of that sort. Rather than
arguing that religious claims are true, James argues that we
have a right to decide in favour of holding those claims by
invoking will or passion. We have this right although their
truth is not fixed.
That is to say, his considerations answer questions of
justifications rather than of truth proper. He suggests that
we can be justified in holding religious claims, rc, on
different than truth-related grounds, viz. on grounds having
33
to do with our will-power (respectively passion)34. Insofar as
he suggests that we can be justified in holding rc although
rc’s truth is not fixed, he is a proponent of the new
paradigm.
The second witness for this paradigm is the Reformed
Epistemology project. Although I am in the records more for
criticizing than defending Plantinga35, I would like to recant
here insofar as I think that Plantinga can be read much more
sympathetically than I have done thus far36 if interpreted to
be an adherent of the new paradigm. That is to say, he should
be reconstructed as
-presupposing a sharp demarcation between truth and
justification, and
-contributing to questions of justifications, not to those of
truth proper- at least, in his discussions on the notion of
foundationalism and related topics.
See Dirk-M.Grube, William James and Apologetics: Why ‘The Will to
Believe’-Argument Succeeds in Defending Religion, in: Neue Zeitschrift für
Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 3/2004, 306-329.
34 Most commentators, however, disregard the distinction between questions
of justification and of truth-proper and consider James as answering the
latter. According to them, he suggests that we have a right to hold
religious beliefs to be true in the proper sense of the word by invoking
will or passion – a position which obviously leads to ridiculous results.
Most often, this misreading goes hand in hand with overlooking the fact
that James mentions further restrictions which must be met in order to be
epistemically justified to hold religious claims by will or passion, viz.
that a decision between two alternatives is inescapable and existentially
relevant (see Grube, James, pp. 312vv.).
35 See e.g. Dirk-M. Grube, ‘Religious Experience after the Demise of
Foundationalism’, Religious Studies 31 (1995), 37-52 and Unbegründbarkeit
Gottes?, pp. 173-81.
36 I wish to thank Nicolas Wolterstorff for alerting me to this possibility.
Let it be noted here in passing that Wolterstorff’s forthcoming project on
the notion of entitlement is another witness for the new paradigm.
Regrettably, though, the Reformed Epistemologists do not seem to like the
company of James too much – a result of having fallen prey to the common
misreading of James?
33
34
Reconstructing Plantinga in this fashion makes it possible
to re-evaluate his remarks on truth, e.g. the much-criticised
ones in ‘Reason and Belief in God’. There, he suggests that
the criteria for what can count as ‘properly basic’ must be
found with the help of examples that are relevant within a
particular community and that, thus, the criteria can be
irreconcilably different between different communities. With
regard to truth, he maintains that from the fact of such an
irreconcilable difference ‘does not follow that there is no
truth of the matter’37.
Read in the light of the above suggestions concerning the
new paradigm, this passage should not so much be taken to
indicate Plantinga’s negligence with regard to the
relativistic consequences his approach harbours concerning the
notion of truth38. Rather, it should be understood as targeting
questions of justification rather than of truth proper. That
is to say, he should be interpreted as suggesting here that,
although the truth of the Christian claims is not yet
determined, one may well be justified to maintain them39 which makes him a good defender of the new paradigm40.
Alvin Plantinga, Reason and Belief in God, in: Faith and Rationality.
Reason and Belief in God, pp. 16-93, p. 78.
38 As I have read him in Religious Experience, p. 43v.
39 The context makes it clear that this passage provides a justification for
the Christian to hold on to her criteria for proper basicality in the face
of competing criteria and the non-decidability of their truth.
40 To be sure, I still think that Plantinga is far too careless with regard
to the relativistic consequences his methodology implies in this (and
related) articles. But that is an upshot of sacrificing the notion of
‘coherence’ too light-heartedly (which is the reason why I suggest to
emphasize it, see below) rather than of his adherence to the new paradigm.
Regarding the latter, I sympathize with him.
37
35
Finally, if I may be so bold to mention my own modest
contributions in the same breath with those famous witnesses
of the new paradigm, I would like to point to the ‘coherentist
holist’-approach I have suggested41. This approach consists of
the following key-elements:
-Given that the choice between foundationalism and coherentism
is an exhaustive one as far as theories of justification is
concerned, coherentism is to be preferred;
-but coherentism in itself is found wanting for its
incapability to accommodate realist concerns; thus it needs to
be amended;
-it should be amended by pragmatist criteria, such as domainspecifically tailored ‘success-criteria’;
-from the thus amended coherentism, a particular sort of
realism follows, viz. a holism. This holism implies that the
whole of a certain religious belief system rather than the
individual religious claim can legitimately make realist
claims - provided it meets the above-mentioned criteria.
Given the divide between theories of justification and of
truth presupposed here, coherentist holism answers questions
of justification rather than of truth proper42. It provides
See Dirk-M. Grube, Unbegründbarkeit Gottes?, pp. 191vv.
In Unbegründbarkeit Gottes?, I do not yet make such a strict demarcation
between both sorts of questions. I hold even that what is generated via
coherentist holist means can be translated into truth-like-values, provided
they are appropriately moderated, say, construed as ‘truth-indicativeness’
or something of that sort.
To be sure, what can be justified via coherentist holist means has more to
do with truth than what can be justified by James’ strategy. The reason is
that James utilizes a non-cognitive sort of justification by relying on
non-cognitive means, such as will or passion, whereas coherentist holism is
a cognitive justificatory strategy. That is to say, claims generated by it
41
42
36
criteria as to when we are justified in holding a particular
religious belief-system, rbs, but does not entitle us to hold
rbs to be true in the proper sense of the word. Thus, insofar
as coherentist holism provides us with a justification to hold
rbs without committing us to hold rbs to be true, it is yet
another witness of the new paradigm.
In sum, there are other examples of the new paradigm,
among them such commonly recognised thinkers as James and
Plantinga. When Lessing presupposes something like this
paradigm, he is thus in good company43.
make better chances of being translatable into truth-like values. Yet,
although coherentist holism has more to do with truth than James’ reliance
on the will, it should still considered to be a theory of justification
rather than of truth proper.
43 Note that I mention Lessing and those other proponents of the new
paradigm here in the same breath because all of them oppose the standard
paradigm. Yet, I do not deny that there are other significant differences
between them. For example, Lessing attempts to defend the claims of
positive religion, whereas the other three members of this paradigm are
concerned to defend religion as such (although I assume that none of them –
with the possible exception of James - would be opposed to defending
positive religion in some sense). In any case, for our purposes here, we
can neglect those differences.