Religious Diversity and Localized Naturalism

Abstract

In my paper, I consider Alexander Khramov’s position on the diversity of religious experience. His solution consists in combining physicalism and theism and is intended to show the advantages of theism over polytheistic and animistic religious practices. First, examples of situations in which physicalism fails to exclude polytheistic and animistic interpretations are provided. I then consider the underlying problems of the argument: first, the contradiction between the notion of cause that utilizes the physicalist thesis of causal closure and the notion of cause that theism presupposes, and, second, the limitations that Christian physicalism presupposes. Finally, a less radical version of the naturalistic solution to this problem is considered. It is based on the fact that the method of local naturalism can be combined with the idea of the supernatural God but allows for the exclusion of other supernatural beings. I conclude that despite the shortcomings of this naturalistic solution, it is preferable to Khramov’s solution and demonstrate the hidden advantages of the general direction of his reasoning.