Despite the spread of secularism in the West, rising levels of religious belief in the world as a whole have become incontrovertible. Three-quarters of humanity profess a faith; the figure is projected to reach 80 per cent by 2050 – not just because believers tend to have more children, but also through the spread of democracy. Significant, too, is the growing prominence of post-secular thinking in several disciplines. Things looked very different as recently as the 1980s. Influential commentators assumed that mainstream religion would fade away within a few generations; anglophone theologians, to name only one group, were often intellectually insecure. The turning of the tide is a significant chapter in the history of ideas meriting a full-length study of its own. Its main conclusions are worth outlining. The scales of debate on whether religion does more harm than good will tilt a bit if the theistic picture looks more coherent on closer inspection than many had previously thought, and naturalism – the thesis that everything is ultimately explicable in the language of natural science – less plausible as a consequence.
For example, a student embarking on a philosophy of religion course today might typically be told that there are six strong arguments for the existence of God: the modal ontological argument, the kal?m cosmological argument, the argument from moral truths, the argument from mathematical truths, the argument from fine-tuning, and the argument from consciousness. None of these should be seen as logically coercive, but that does not render them redundant. If this form of reasoning can draw one towards the threshold of belief – to the point where one makes a life-changing commitment, moving beyond intellectual assent alone – or if it can build bridges with atheism, demonstrating that religion is not irrational, then it will have served a valid purpose. Believers seeking a more straightforward rationale for their convictions interlacing reason and faith could cite three forms of awareness: first, that we are embodied beings with the capacity to grasp meaning and truth; second, that our status is to be viewed as a gift prompting awe, gratitude and a heightened sense of ethical responsibility; third, an acknowledgement of this gift as grounded in a reality that freely bestows itself on us.
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