William Wainwright on the Rational Assessment of the Christian Worldview

MYSTICISM: A STUDY OF ITS NATURE, COGNITIVE VALUE AND MORAL IMPLICATIONS. By William J. Wainwright. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. 1981. REASON AND THE HEART: A PROLEGOMENA TO A CRITIQUE OF PASSIONAL REASON. By William J. Wainwright. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 1995. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 2nd edition. By William J. Wainwright. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co. 1998. RELIGION AND MORALITY. By William J. Wainwright. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. 2005. REASON, REVELATION, AND DEVOTION: INFERENCE AND ARGUMENT IN RELIGION. By William J. Wainwright. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2016. William Wainwright (1935–2020) is a famous contemporary philosopher of religion who passed away in November 2020. I think this is a great loss for all of us. He has made immense contributions to the analytic philosophy of religion, and together with towering figures like Richard Swinburne, William Alston, and Alvin Plantinga, he has led the way for the resurgence of theistic philosophy in academia. I came to know of his work on mysticism when I was working on my D. Phil. Thesis on the argument from religious experience (ARE) in the late 1980s at Oxford University. Wainwright was one of the earliest proponents of an analytic version of ARE—see his early article (Wainwright 1973a) and then his book Mysticism (Wainwright 1981). According to the reviewers Delmas Lewis and Paul Griffiths, Wainwright's Mysticism “is the first attempt at a systematic and rigorous assessment of mystical experience since the publication of W. Stace's influential Mysticism and Philosophy more than twenty years ago. It is also the first work in English during the period of the critical study mystical experience inaugurated by Richard M. Bucke and William James at the beginning of this century to adequately formulate and extensively discuss the philosophical problems involved in assessing the cognitive value of mystical experience” (Lewis and Griffiths 1984, 293). This recognizes Wainwright's important pioneering work in the study of mysticism and religious experience. My doctoral research heavily relied on Swinburne, who was another early defender of ARE, but Wainwright's work had also inspired me. I also thought that his early article (a very short one) in Ratio effectively defused the naturalistic explanation objection to the ARE (Wainwright 1973b). I later had e-mail interactions with him because I submitted my paper to Faith and Philosophy (at that time, he was the editor). In 2009, we invited him to attend an international conference on the philosophy of religion at Hong Kong Baptist University. I came to meet him personally at the conference. I still remember that after I finished my presentation on how to deal with the problem of religious diversity epistemically, he came forward to me and said, “I am sure this must be the way to deal with this problem.” Wainwright is admirable not only for his rigorous scholarship but also for the breadth of his vision and his broad-mindedness. As a Christian theist, he generously quotes theistic mystics from Hinduism and Islam, and his work on the philosophy of religion truly draws on cross-cultural religious resources, while most other philosophers of religion still focus mainly on the theistic or Christian traditions. He is not prone to make dramatic or exaggerated statements; rather, he has a tendency toward understatement. When he wants to say, “Position A is superior to position B,” more often than not, what he actually says is: “It is not clear that position A is inferior to or less rational than position B.” Quite a few reviewers have noticed his predilection for the use of double negatives. While he has his own convictions about many issues, he holds them irenically and is not dogmatic. He welcomes dialogue between seemingly opposite schools. For example, he was delighted about the dialog between analytic philosophers and continental philosophers. This can be seen from his dialogue with Amesbury: a “thing which has excited me personally, because I've been rooting for it for years, is that there is starting to be more of an interface between continental philosophers and analytic philosophers ... the analytic and continental philosophers are talking to one another! ... that's a splendid development” and Wainwright He has also the dialogue or between analytic philosophers of religion from the and philosophers in the of his and A in the and the (Wainwright many analytic Wainwright has been by continental like and and he like (Wainwright Wainwright has and to Wainwright's in this I an of Wainwright's to the Christian to the naturalistic or other religious This can his on ARE, the of religious and In the many are are the rational that can be to religious is the of the or in the use of the of many of the are of this is not to the but to a of the of Wainwright's argument for the Christian Wainwright is a about and and the of in or assessing or He with the to in and or of he which that all are effectively the he is to of in the between position is often but the is less He that in and are the is often by the of that one is about it is to that the of the For example, with is the then is is then the theistic ... is (Wainwright He one to that the are by that are and For this on the that of the the of for assessing (Wainwright and use to with one another to the problem of religious by that in religion be mainly or can be because of by can be and For the only or most important of ... religion is not or but less or more in the of it ... and and (Wainwright Wainwright that other of we the of by to (Wainwright For example, it “is to that the of a Christian is or the of Christian is only a of ... or (Wainwright Wainwright not think we to the problem of religious diversity by and the For the and of to ... the is the of while the is and of on which that the of the other For example, the on the that are to and this is (Wainwright religious of religious also to like and but and is that we by from religious to religious and (Wainwright of between religious is also who that the the Wainwright this is ... is and ... is are to and on the of the ... are (Wainwright He also that the mystics of the have the For example, the mystical of figures or of or of the are from the by or (Wainwright discuss his for the of theistic experience Wainwright is a about with to or with the than the he that and are there is to them to the Christian for Wainwright are religious and other religious He to from the of in his and his is the Christian is at rational or it is not clear that the Christian is less rational than he to that the of can be by the in he that the theistic or Christian position is only to other This is an in Wainwright's which I Wainwright the and to most have also to a the or Wainwright had about this by his on This with the of a and then the in by his or and what are and are not (Wainwright Wainwright thought that one ... for a ... to that is what most by ... one for that the of a is in theistic and He the more but on a to a of theistic and or (Wainwright He is about to the one he he is also that be by what is and is not a he that must be by a of the of the which ... about the and the which it and not (Wainwright Wainwright's about the of a to have been later is in his his own like Wainwright I think he has one has been to study the in philosophy of religion or philosophy of not to the of Wainwright to the of and he that we have to on in of all only that in many and In 2009, his in was by the of the paper he at the international conference on the philosophy of religion at Hong Kong Baptist and a for By Wainwright that the of religious is the which and only is (Wainwright He also with Paul J. Griffiths that to is a in the of religious Wainwright is by of argument and he with that the of a religion be a or that to make of experience a ... are and by (Wainwright is at Oxford the of the Philosophy of the Christian and he this of a for and later for Christian we that Wainwright's is from which holds to the For there are rational but the of that be by be by and Wainwright still that a of argument is in assessing and this of argument is by in like and In and many other philosophers of that for a between religion and on and often of and to the explanation and that the are It is that the be in and that not and this is also of many of is an are make and are by of While Wainwright still on the between religion and which is of a religious (Wainwright he in the with that in be to for the rational of or other This is in of his Philosophy of he that we not of because many we use in the and the meet rigorous of them are (Wainwright to a by a of ... 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Archaeology · Epistemology · Rationalism · Relativism · Wainwright · History · Karl Barth and Christian Theology · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Philosophy · Theology and Philosophy of Evil

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