William James's Lutheranism

VIALE, CLAUDIO MARCELO

San Pablo

Conferencia; 15 International Meeting on Pragmatism; 2013

PUC-Grupo de Estudios de Pragmatismo

Classical American pragmatism is an estimable source to understand religion as an inescapable human endeavor. Despite logical divergences among the approaches of classical figures, they share a primeval interest in religion. Charles Sanders Peirce, for example, gave religion a central role in his philosophy, especially through his conception of evolutionary love; Josiah Royce linked religion and morality in an attempt to recover the vitality of the Kantian tradition. Finally, John Dewey fought ?militant atheism? through a vision that could be called religious naturalism. As part of the core of this movement, William James?s philosophy has religion as a fundamental issue, too. Within this general frame, the present paper aims to focus on one aspect of James?s thought that has been neglected in the literature, namely its link with Luther and Lutheranism, which is examined from both a narrow and a comprehensive perspective. The former makes reference to the role played by Luther?s conceptions of religion within James?s work ?specifically in The Varieties of Religious Experience. The latter deals with Luther?s thought and the development of Lutheranism from its origin and the role played by James in connection to it. Each perspective will be dealt with in different parts of this article. Grounded on those perspectives I defend three hypotheses in this work: first, that James?s conception of religion is influenced by Luther?s thought; second, that the Lutheran core of James?s view lies in the split that he makes between religion and morality, on the one hand, and the distinction between the content of faith and having faith, on the other hand ?narrow perspective centered on James?s Varieties; third, that James?s conception of religion is one of the most radical representatives of a way of interpreting Luther?s thought: the primacy of Luther?s conception of faith against Luther?s idea of Church and sola scriptura ?comprehensive perspective integrating James?s Varieties into Lutheranism. Concerning the different sections of this article, in the first one (Luther and Lutheranism) I will depict the main features of Luther?s thought and Lutheranism; in the second, (James, Religion and Lutheranism: a Narrow View) I will examine the links between James and Luther, highlighting the former?s developments in the Varieties; in the third (James, Religion and Lutheranism: a Comprehensive View) I will contextualize James?s conception of religion in relation to Protestantism and particularly to Lutheranism; finally, I will present some conclusions.