ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the use of religious fictionalism for interreligious dialogue by focusing on Maimonides and Kierkegaard. I show that both are fictionalists, that their fictionalism is grounded in their respective conceptions of divine hiddenness, and that these give rise to their construals of “truth as subjectivity”. I argue that their construals challenge the very nature of the religious distinctions that we tend to assume; they give rise to different types of “religious fellowship” that may cross denominational distinctions, dissolving some religious boundaries while creating others. Since some religious others are not merely tolerated but embraced in fellowship, I maintain that such forms of fictionalism deserve serious consideration in discussions of interreligious dialogue. The chapter has three sections. I begin with a few introductory remarks about fictionalism; in the second part, I lay out a few features of Maimonides’ fictionalism; in the third, I discuss Kierkegaard’s fictionalism. I end with a few brief observations about fictionalism and interreligious dialogue.
