The distinguished Descartes scholar John Cottingham is the latest addition to our rogues gallery of philosophers reasoning badly. In his book On the Meaning of Life, he writes (p. 88):
But do not the practices [religious practices such as prayer, meditation, self-examination] presuppose belief? Surely that is the most central part of a religious outlook? Without in any way disparaging the importance in many peoples' lives of the credal statements they affirm, I want to suggest that belief, in the sense of subscribing to a set of theological propositions, is not in fact central to what it is to be religious. The Pauline writings, to be sure, are full of insistence on believing certain things about Jesus, in order to be saved; and many modern preachers take a similar line. But it is, on reflection, quite inconceivable that a good and loving God should make the bestowal of his saving love conditional on whether a given human being was ready to affirm a particular proposition, for example about the inviolability of the Mosaic law, or the precise status of Jesus of Nazareth, or the primacy of the prophet Mohammed. Or that he would exclude from the club of the saved those who conscientiously reject the dogmas specific to any of the three faiths just referred to.
Sounds like a good deal to me! Unfortunately, that's all the "reflection" Cottingham offers to show that, despite millennia of scripture and theology to the contrary, believing certain claims are true is not needed for salvation or religious practices. (But who would you be praying to?) Lots of smart people have found it quite conceivable that a good and loving God might require belief in particular propositions. Nor does Cottingham supply any other argument for this claim in the rest of his book. This is an example of a proof substitute.
(Previous posts about smart people reasoning badly:)
Einstein denying the antecedent
Husserl committing the fallacy of composition
Brian Leiter ignoring an obvious counter-argument
Robert Kirk shifting the burden of proof
Andrew Brook and Don Ross offering a circular definition
James Rachels denying the antecedent
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