Saulsbury 1

Philosophy of Religion
Prof. Williams
David Saulsbury
Essay #2
Word Count: 1,750
On the Pragmatist View of Faith: Is it Faith at All?
Can religious faith exist without religious belief? In order to answer this question, it is
necessary to give an account of the nature of religious faith. In The Nature of Faith, Richard
Swinburne aims to provide such an account. According to Swinburne, there are three views of
faith in the Christian religious tradition: the Thomist, the Lutheran, and the Pragmatist. He claims
that the advocates of these different views are not necessarily commending very different
conduct or affirming very different doctrines from each other (Swinburne 511). However, in this
essay I will argue that the Pragmatist view of faith, as presented by Swinburne, is incompatible
with the Christian religious tradition as represented by the biblical text--which is, arguably, the
foundation of the Christian religious tradition. I intend to show that a person of the Pragmatist
view of faith should instead be considered a person of either a weak form of the Thomist or the
Lutheran views of faith, or should be recognized as agnostic. That is to say, I intend to show that
the Pragmatist view of faith, as presented by Swinburne, cannot be used to achieve the goals of a
person of Pragmatic faith. To this end, I will first provide a synopsis of the three views presented
by Swinburne. I will then make an argument against the compatibility of the Pragmatist view of
faith, as an independent form of Christian faith, with Biblical Christianity. Then, I will elaborate
upon my claim that a person of the Pragmatist view of faith should be considered a person of
either the Thomist or Lutheran views of faith or should be recognized as an agnostic.
According to Swinburne, the Thomist view of faith, named for St. Thomas Aquinas, is
by far the most widespread and natural view of the nature of religious faithto have faith in

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God is simply to have a belief-that, to believe that God exists (Swinburne 512). Of course, as a
Christian account of faith, the Thomist view requires belief in... [Christian] propositions about
what God is like and what acts He has done [such as those propositions found in the Nicene
Creed], and you must believe these latter propositions on the ground that God has revealed them
(Swinburne 512). On the Thomist view of faith, therefore, faith is, in actuality, a kind of belief.
However, it is [a] belief thatdoes not amount to scientific knowledgebut is greater than
opinion (Swinburne 512). Faith is a belief as strong as the belief involved in scientific
knowledge (Swinburne 512) but, unlike scientific knowledge, it does not include an
understanding, or an account, of why the object of faith must be true (Swinburne 512).
Moreover, faith, on the Thomist view, is not necessarily meritorious (Swinburne 513). Only
faith ...joined to the firm purpose of doing those actions which love for Godproperly
understoodinvolvesworship of God, feeding the starving, visiting the sick, and converting
the irreligious (Swinburne 513). However, only the complete readiness to do [these] good
works was required for meritorious faith (Swinburne 513).
On the Lutheran view of faith, belief that God exists [that is, the Thomist view of faith]
must be accompanied by complete trust in God. According to Swinburne, trusting God is
something additional to believing that He exists and to believing propositions about him
(Swinburne 515). It is to act on the assumption that God will fulfill His promises, despite the
possibility that He might not do so, which would result in catastrophic consequences (Swinburne
515). On the Lutheran view of faith, as presented by Swinburne, belief that God exists was
accorded lesser importance than trust in God (Swinburne 514). Swinburne concludes that,
within the context of the Lutheran view of faith, belief that God exists [or the Thomist view of
faith], would inevitably lead to complete trust in God (Swinburne 515). Swinburne claims that

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the Lutheran and Thomist views of faith seem to be almost identical, because they both require a
belief that God exists, and because they both--either implicitly or explicitly--require complete
trust in God (Swinburne 515).
This notion of trust in God as an integral component to faith provides the basis for the
Pragmatist view of faith. On the Pragmatist view of faith, as presented by Swinburne, a person
has Christian faith if he acts on the assumption that there is a God who has the properties which
Christians ascribe to Him and seeks to do those good actions which the love of God (if there is a
God) would lead him to do (Swinburne 517). According to Swinburne, [you need only believe]
that there may be a God and that you are more likely to show love for Him if you do certain
actions rather than others (Swinburne 518). He claims that acting on the assumption that God
exists, without necessarily believing that God does exist, is equivalent to trusting God to make
good on His promises (Swinburne 518). On the Pragmatist view of faith, it is assumed that ...by
doing certain actions (e.g. those which God, if there is a God, would lead him to do) as by doing
any other actions, and more probably that he will attain these goals by doing these actions than
by doing some other actions (e.g. nothing at all) (Swinburne 517).
But what are these goals? Swinburne states that a ...person of Pragmatist faith
will...worship and pray and live a good life partly in the hope to find a better life in the world to
come [i.e., because that person hopes for salvation]he prays for his brethren, not necessarily
because he believes that there is a God who hear his prayers, but because there is a chance that
there is a God who will hear those prayers and help his brethren [i.e. because that persons hopes
that his prayers will be answered by God] (Swinburne 517). Unfortunately for Swinburnes
person of Pragmatic faith, I intend to show that the Pragmatist view of faith is incompatible with
the biblical view of faith, in that it will not likely be sufficient for a person of Pragmatist faith to

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receive salvation, nor will it be sufficient grounds for God to answer the prayers of such a
person.
According to Swinburne, a person of Pragmatic faith hopes for salvation and aims to
receive it by means of worship, prayer, and other good works--the basic constituents of a good
life on the Christian tradition. However, in his letter to the Ephesians the Apostle Paul states ...it
is by grace you have been saved through faith; and this not by your own doing...not because of
works (The Oxford Annotated Bible, Ephes. 2.8-9). In a subsequent letter to the Galatians, he
adds that a man is not justified [saved] by works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ
because by works of the law shall no one be justified [receive salvation] (The Oxford Annotated
Bible, Gal. 3.16). I would contend that the Pragmatist practice of performing goods works is
representative of an attempt to achieve salvation through works, in absence of belief. According
to Paul, it seems that this practice, contrary to the hopes of the person of Pragmatist faith, has no
chance of securing salvation. Because the mind of God is ...sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing the division of soul and spiritdiscerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (The
Oxford Annotated Bible, Heb. 1.12-13), the outward appearance of belief that God existsthat
is, consistently acting on the assumption that God exists, without believing that He doesis an
insufficient replacement for true belief that God does exist. Therefore, the Pragmatic view of
faith is incompatible with the receipt of salvation according to the biblical account of faith.
A person of Pragmatic faith who hopes that God will answer his prayers will be similarly
disappointed. According to the apostles, Mark and Matthew, if a person has faith that his prayers
will be answered, then his prayers surely will be (The Oxford Annotated Bible, Matt. 21.22, Mark
12.23-24). However, if a person has any doubt, he will not receive anything from the Lord
because ...he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind...

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double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (The Oxford Annotated Bible, James 1.6-8).
Swinburne admits to the unreliability of the person of Pragmatic faith, stating, ...if the
[Pragmatic] believer [begins to believe] that the Islamic Creed is more likely to be true... he will
have the...belief that he is more likely to honour God by participating in Islamic belief [and
change his behavior accordingly] (Swinburne 518). This kind of inconstancy is incompatible
with the biblical account of faith. Therefore, a person of Pragmatic faith, who does not even
possess the belief that God exists, cannot expect God to answer his prayers, because he doubts
the very existence of the God he is praying to, and has no belief-loyalty to that God.
If he does not believe that God exists, that person cannot expect to be rewarded for his
works nor can he expect his prayers to be answered. According to the biblical account of faith,
without belief, one does not have faith. Therefore, the Pragmatist view of faith, which is trust in
God without belief that God exists, does not and cannot exist within the biblical tradition.
At this juncture, I would like to elaborate on my earlier claim that a person of
Swinburnes Pragmatist faith is either one of two things: he is a person of weak
Thomist/Lutheran faith or he is an agnostic. Swinburne admits that a person of Pragmatist faith
must have weak belief about the probability of Gods existence, if he is willing to act on the
assumption that He exists. (Swinburne 517). However, I dispute Swinburnes claim that this kind
of weak belief can be presented as the basis for a view of faith. Rather, a person possessing this
kind of weak belief can be said to fall into one of two pre-existing categorizations. If, for
example, a person of the so-called Pragmatist faith at some point believed that God exists, then
that person is, by default, of either the Thomist or Lutheran view of faith. However, their faith is
weakened, presumably, by doubt, because their belief is weak. On the other hand, if a person of
Pragmatist faith never believed and never will believe that God exists, and never believed and

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never will that God does not exist, then that person is by definition an agnostic. If an agnostic
behaves just like a Christian, then that does not necessarily make him any less of an agnostic.
While the Pragmatist view of faith does, according to Swinburne, include trust in God, I
have argued that an account of faith in which trust, acting on the assumption that exists, as a
substitute for belief that something exists is not incompatible with the biblical account of
Christian faith. In fact, I believe that I have shown that, on the biblical account, faith without
belief is not faith at all. However, I have proposed that a person of Pragmatis faith could just as
easily be considered to be of weak, or doubting, Thomist/Lutheran faith or be considered an
agnostic. Of course, while I concede that it is possible that, in acting on the assumption that God
exists, a person might come to believe that God does exist, I do not think this acting on
assumption can be called faith, until, or unless, such a belief does develop.

Works Cited
Swinburne, Richard. The Nature of Faith. Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. Ed. Michael
Rea and Louis P. Pojman. 7th ed. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2015. 511-523. Print.

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The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Ed. Micheal D. Coogan. New York: Oxford University Press,
2001. Print.