The Rationality of Classical Theism and Its Demographics

Abstract

Whatever the naturalness of the religious impulse, it is obvious that nurture directs it and may either enhance or diminish it. Historians and pre-historians have long argued that varieties of polytheism (and/or ancestor- and spirit-worship) were extremely widespread, if not universal, in the earliest recoverable periods of human development. And it has long been the consensus that monotheism first emerged, fitfully but severally, in what is sometimes called the Axial Age, before gaining eventual hegemony over other supernaturalist views. Finally, there would be little dispute that, with the modern age, naturalism — the view that there is no supernatural order whatsoever — has emerged from the shadows as the view of a significant minority; in some countries it has even managed to become the majority view.

I am very grateful to John Cottingham, Douglas Hedley, Dave Leal, Steve Maitzen, Jason Marsh, Yujin Nagasawa and Mark Wynn for their comments on a draft of this chapter.