ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores two attempts to find in naturalism the resources both for a viable doctrine of God and for the articulation and practice of religious faith. He discusses the two proponents of naturalism: John Dewey and Henry Nelson Wieman. A careful look at Naturalism and the Human Spirit reveals that the distinctive feature of naturalism is its thesis that there is only one reliable method for gaining factual knowledge, a method common to the developed and developing sciences. In A Common Faith, Dewey presents his view of religions, supernaturalism, and what he regards as something of abiding value that he calls by the name ‘the religious’. The author utilises the expression ‘religious humanism’, and the expression ‘empirical theism’, taking Dewey’s position to be a version of the former and Wieman’s position to be a version of the latter.
