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Page 1[IR 9.1 (2006) 54-73]

Implicit Religion (print)

ISSN 1463-9955

Implicit Religion (online) ISSN 1743-1697

doi: 10.1558//imre2006.9.1.54 Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006, Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies Street, London

SW11 2JW.

Religious Identity: In Praise of the Anonymity of

Critical Believing

JOHN HEY30 Denver Road, Mickleover, Derby DE3 OPS, UK

[email protected]

This is an essay about believing rather than beliefs. I use the term anonymousto analyse Karl Rahners concept of anonymous Christianity, and to underline

the universality of believing.Rahners anonymous Christianity seeks to render universal a traditionalexclusive Christian message of salvation. However, in insisting that Christremains the pivot of this message, Rahner subverts the promise of his concept.Iuse the term anonymous believing to emphasize that believing is a universalhuman instinct to create meaning, from within an existence whose contingencyinevitably lies beyond explanation. Believing has a natural primacy overknowing. Critical believing is the attempt to create meaning amidst thecomplexities of our subjectivity, and the cultural contexts of our lives and of the

physical world, knowledge of which is constantly growing.My contention is that the primacy of believing is undermined by the primacy

accorded to the knowledge-based assertions that are currently characteristic ofreligious creeds and moral injunctions. Anonymous critical believing eschewscreeds, but embraces the values of justice, compassion and well-being, whichreligions also espouse. There are close links between implicit religion andcritical believing. However, I believe the two are categorically different:implicit religion is predominantly descriptive and substantival, while criticalbelieving is process orientated.It is one thing to ask how we can tell if our beliefs are true; it isanother to ask what makes belief, whether true or false, possible.(Davidson 2004: 3)

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55 Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.
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IntroductionAt first sight the concept of anonymity has negative connotations. Itsignifies the lack of a name and therefore the lack of identity. However,it captured my attention initially via Karl Rahners concept of anony-mous Christianity. Moreover my focus on Rahner, and subsequentcritique, led me to consider the nature and process of believing itself.

Believing, I suggest, is something we all share as human beings as weseek to make meaning. In this sense believing is implicit in humanliving. What role then do religious labels play in helping us to under-stand what it means to believe? Is believing simply intrinsic to ourshared humanity? Might believing be considered anonymous in thatcommon sense? For understood in this way anonymity would havepositive connotations, underlining something which is common andintrinsic to our being human. In which case does the believing thatundergirds our identity need the sanction of names and labels, includ-ing religious labels? In relation to the title of this journal: is an implicithuman believing synonymous with implicit religion; and what aboutthe relationship between the concept of critical believing, which I shall

introduce here, and that of implicit religion?Karl Rahner uses the idea of anonymous Christianity to emphasize theuniversality of Christian belief. In other words, the Christian message ofsalvation transcends the confines of Christian culture and history.Truebelieving does not need the stamp of Christian identity. However,Rahner still embraces the traditional teaching of the exclusivity ofsalvation wrought by God in Christ, whether or not its unique source inChrist is recognized by those who believe. The anonymous Christian,therefore, is one whose believing is true, and yet who does not acknowl-edge Christ as its source. Rahners concept of anonymity, therefore, hasa Christian label firmly attached! It is not the believing that is anony-mous, but rather the Christian label that is anonymously conferred. I

want to argue, however, that it is appropriate to embrace this widerconcept of the anonymity of believing itself, and to distance it fromwhat seem to me to be the dangers of religious labelling.Rahners concept of anonymous ChristianityFor Rahner the concept of anonymous Christianity dependsupontwoa

priori theological propositions. God wills the salvation of all humanity,but that salvation depends upon the unique act of God in Christ (Rahner

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John Hey Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.

1969: 395). Thus Rahner attempts to soften the traditional exclusive

teaching of no salvation outside the Church. His intention is pastoral:to help Christian believers to orientate themselves more positively to amulti-cultural world. His anonymous Christianity has, therefore, beenassociated with an inclusivist model within a Christian theology ofworld religions. Inclusivism offers preservation of Christian identity,alongside an acknowledgement that the believers of other faiths alsohave an identity as part of Gods plan of salvation.In the debate of the 1980s Rahners inclusivist model existed alongsidetraditional exclusivism as well as a more newly minted pluralism (Race1983). Exclusivism asserts that Christianity is the one true religion; allothers are deemed false. Pluralism, on the other hand, contends that allreligions offer different pathways to salvation. Inclusivism seeks a mid-

dle way, that salvation, while universal, is made possible only throughChrist, whether he is acknowledged or not. Race says, To be inclusive is


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to believe that all non-Christian religious truth belongs ultimately to Christ andthe way of discipleship that springs from him(Race 1983: 38).Rahners work has enabled many in the mainstream Christian tradi-tions to identify with this inclusivism. However, exclusivists criticize iton theological grounds, for subverting the distinctiveness of Christ andof Christianity. In particular, they criticize it for devaluing the costliness

of Christs death on a cross (von Balthasar, 1994). Pluralists criticizeinclusivism on ethical grounds, for its imperialist pretensions in itsassertion that believers of other religions should be labelled anony-mous Christians (Race 1983).

There seem to me to be two problems here. Since the time of theEnlightenment in the West, the scepticism which is associated with acontemporary secular society, has flourished partly because the appealsto both reason and revelation have failed to establish a secure and con-vincing epistemological basis for religious believing. And secondly, itdoes not seem to be clear how dialogue between the religions can flour-ish, when believing is understood in terms of rival and competing truthclaims, claims which in any case remain epistemologically insecure.

Thus, a preliminary conclusion suggests that Rahners anonymousChristianity, in spite of his attempt to universalize the Christian mes-sage of salvation, has merely succeeded in underlining the problem ofexpressing any believing, let alone religious believing, in factual anddogmatic terms which lack justification.

Page 4Religious Identity: In Praise of the Anonymity of Critical Believing57 Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.

Rahner and anonymous believingBut this is to get ahead of myself. My initial study of Rahner led me toask whether he was implying that human believing as such could be

termed anonymous. He introduces the concept of the vorgriffthepre-apprehension of beingas the condition of all human knowing.Here God is not so much a knowable transcendent being, but rather thetranscendental condition of all our knowing. All our knowing and beingtake place in the context of what Rahner conceives as a ubiquitousgrace. Therefore, salvation, for him, occurs when a human being recog-nizes and responds in faith to that gracious state. Believing is thus anatural human condition, an unconscious trust in the very apprehen-sion of being. Rahner says,Man is he who is always confrontedwiththe holy mystery, even wherehe is dealing with what is within hands reach, comprehensible andamenable to a conceptual framework The holy mystery is notsome-

thing upon which man may also stumble, if he is lucky and takes aninterest in something else besides the definable objects within thehorizon of his consciousness. Man always lives by the holy mystery,even where he is not conscious of it (Rahner 1966: 54).Is this a natural human believing, appropriating human well-beingwithout the need for religious labels? Does natural human believingintrinsically possess an anonymous character? This is what excited me.Rahner however, does not seem to endorse such an interpretation.Thenotion that God is the transcendental condition of all human believing,does not provide the foundation for his specifically Christian theology.Karen Kilby (2004) argues that it is the dogmatic assumptions of thistheology which sponsor the notion of the pre-apprehension of being.Rahner is not so much an advocate of anonymous believing, but ratherof the finality of Christian believing, from which anonymous believingin some way derives its life because its source is Christ. Anonymous


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Christianity, it seems, is founded on a revelation only captured in eccle-siastical dogma.Believing and knowing: natural and supernatural believingIn his understanding of believing Rahner attaches primacy to credal for-mulations. Christ is accorded pivotal significance as the final cause of our

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salvation (Kilby 1997: 27). God has a trinitarian nature. The Church isthe abiding and historically manifest presence of the saving grace in Christ(Rahner 1963: 202-203). Central to Christian believing according toRahner, it seems, is the assertion of knowable facts.

There seems to be some confusion here. The creeds begin by assert-ing the primacy of believing in relation to an assertion of individual orcorporate identity, and validate that primacy with a set of historical andmetaphysical facts. So how is this relationship between believing andknowing to be understood? In his article on Belief in the Oxford Com-

panion to Philosophy(Honderich [ed.], 1995), Fred Dretske says:Belief is often taken to be the primary cognitive state; othercognitive and conative states (e.g. knowledge, perception, memory,intention) being in some combination of belief and other factors(such as truth and justification in the case of knowledge).Here is an unambiguous philosophical endorsement of the primacy ofbelieving. By that, I mean that believing expresses our foundationalorientation both to the natural world and the world of humanity. Ourbelieving expresses our valuing of other people and the environment.Many of the judgements we make which affect our actions are based onbeliefs, because we lack hard evidence to justify them. Of course, when itcomes to achieving some form of cultural assent to a proposition, or to a

course of action, then knowledge is accorded primacy. Knowledgemay be defined as an informed and tested cultural consensus concern-ing the way the world is. I prefer to be treated according to recognizedmedical knowledge rather than by someone offering (possibly eccen-tric) remedies on the basis of strongly held beliefs. Both believing andknowledge, therefore, can each be said to have primacy in their specificcontexts.However, it is important to adhere to the principle of the primacy ofbelieving for two reasons. First, we can never know things as they are inthemselves. We only know them in relation to our own and our culturesexperience. We are often seduced into thinking that in naming some-thing we know it. However, we only know it as it impinges upon us, not

as it is in itself. The name we give it is a reflection of our experience andour culture. The name we give it does not capture the nature or realityof the thing as it is in itself. In this sense it is important to recognizethe fundamental anonymity of things we name and claim to know.

This explains why knowledge changes. We also know things that were


unknown when many religious creeds were formulated. Secondly, cen-tral to our believing is our valuing, which is not capable of verification.Ethics and aesthetics fall into this category and have as great, if not

greater, significance for how we direct our lives than our so-calledknowledge of facts.


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When it comes to the expression of religious believing, is it not anerror to subvert this natural primacy of believing, by granting primacyto credal knowledge? Since the time of the Enlightenment in the Westscepticism has arisen over whether it is possible to establish the exis-tence of a supernatural creator by means of reason. The alternative to arational justification of religious believing has been one based on reve-

lation. This seemed to be the basis Rahner opts for, and indeed it isarguably the basis which the Church has relied on for its credal formu-lations. However, the appeal to revelation to justifysupernaturalknowl-edge claims has not carried conviction within the prevailing culture ofthe secular West. What the different traditions claim as revelation bearstoo close a relation to the cultural values created by human beings withinspecific historical contexts. This leads me to suggest that it is grosslymisleading to transfer the natural primacy of believing as a founda-tional human activity to the primacy of a supernatural believing vali-dated by the appeal to revelation. It is hard to distinguish supernaturalbelieving from unsubstantiated claims to know, and thus from adubious supernatural knowing. The only believing open to humanity is

a natural believing. I contend, therefore, that it is a mistake to see ascentral to human believing, dogmas which contain historical facts,metaphysical facts and absolutist ethical injunctions.Natural believing: critical and uncritical believingDretske (op. cit.) speaks of believing as a primary cognitive state. Believ-ing expresses the primary nature of the relationship between the self inits cultural context and the world which forms both the source and thebackcloth of our interpretation of experience. Moreover, what informsthis believing is an inner subjective dynamic interaction between know-ing, feeling and valuing. But of course this inner triangular dynamic canonly exist in the context of the world which forms the physical back-cloth to my subjectivity, and in the context of the variety of cultural

life-settings which act as the cradle wherein my subjectivity formulatesits beliefs. Thus the inner subjective triangle is itself part of a second

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triangular dynamic consisting of subject, world and culture (Davidson1994: 234 and Farrell 1996: 113-14). It is out of this complex network ofinteractions that human identity is created, be it the identity of a musi-cian, a political activist, a religious believer, or a drug addict.

Thus, believing as this natural condition should not be construed aseither positive or negative. Some believing may result in personalities

which offend others and identities which grieve even the subject. Thedrug addict and the child abuser may recognize a chronic dissonancebetween their feeling, knowing and valuing. The believings of othersmay be subjectively consistent but at odds with what is generallyaccepted knowledge of the world, or accepted cultural valuations. Ithink of fundamentalist creationist believing, misogyny, homophobiaand racism. Thus believing may result in either fragmented subjectiveidentities, or in strong subjective identities which gain their strengththrough failure to engage with either the world or cultural debate.Believings in this category have negative connotations, being damagingto the individual and the wider society. Although they retain the labelof natural believings, I also label them as uncritical. Most of us prac-

tise uncritical believing in many areas of our lives!However, believing may result in the creation of a positive sense of


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identity, able to hold together the subjects own feelings, knowledgeand valuings. At the same time, this identity is able to acknowledgecurrent trends in knowledge while recognizing the complexity of asociety of many cultures. Here too is a natural believing, but this believ-ing I label critical. It is the attempt to achieve a delicate balancingbetween feeling, knowing and valuing, while at the same time seeking

to relate that balancing with an openness to knowledge about theworld, and a recognition and appreciation of cultural tensions. Criticalbelieving helps in the creation of a positive identity which recognizes thegood of the individual and the wider society. However, paradoxically, itis important to be clear that achieving a positive identity through onescritical believing does not mean having a fixed identity. Because of heropenness the critical believer will have an identity that is more anony-mous, less amenable to labels, because it is ready to learn and changeand adapt, and does not claim a definitive knowledge of who she is.

The foundation of critical believing lies in an awareness of the com-plexities of believing. It is an attempt to manage the inner tensions ofthe subjects own consciousness and the tensions existing between the

subjects experience of the world, and of the cultural traditions whichPage 8

Religious Identity: In Praise of the Anonymity of Critical Believing61 Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.

shape the subjects identity. Critical believing, therefore, recognizes theparameters of human being set within the context of the wider structureof being. Those parameters exist within the subject herself, constitutedby feeling, knowing and valuing. They also exist in the relationshipbetween self, world and culture.How, then, is critical believing to be managed, and by what criteria?All believing is related in some sense to survival. Thus I value those

things which enable me to survive. I also value those things whichenable me to prosper and to take pleasure in existence. The founda-tional notion of survival for believing, however, does need some qualifi-cation. For some people survival and the pursuit of pleasure exist intension. The racing driver clearly values the thrill of speed, and thinksthe excitement of the race outweighs the risk of injury and even of death.For others the tension between pleasure and survival cannot be rationallybalanced. The drug addict and the alcoholic are so dependent upontheir addiction for stimulation that it damages the survival instinct. Atthe other extreme there are those who value the survival of others abovetheir own survival.However, given in the main the primacy of survival for believing,

how might that foundational instinct relate to the dynamic of criticalbelieving? What do I need to survive? As a child I need food to grow,and, when I am mature, food to replenish my body. I also need shelterfor my protection. I also need relatedness to develop a sense of identity.My sexual needs present themselves and are clearly linked with securingsurvival for my genes. Obviously my valuings are geared to preservingmy existence in all these ways.

Three key aspects enable me to give my existence some continuingsecurity. The first is knowing; my knowledge of the world, the basicother which confronts me, is vital to my survival. I have to balance myneed to explore the world with the need to avoid danger. Every childknows this as he or she learns to walk.

The second key aspect in my search for survival and security isethics. My instinct to survive is closely related to the achievement of


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my well-being. The concept of good is introduced into the analysis ofvaluing and believing. What is good for me is inextricably linked withwhat is good for others in a bewildering complexity of valuings.

The third aspect is aesthetics. Pleasure and happiness are prime objec-tives as far as human well-being is concerned, and thus are both directlyand indirectly important contributors to survival. In the context of

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human culture, however, aesthetics is not simply a means of creatingand experiencing pleasure in a selfish or hedonistic sense. Pleasure canbe understood in terms of an engagement with profound, disturbing,painful and tragic human situations in the context of literature, art andmusic.Critical believing then, as opposed to uncritical or unconsciousbelieving, may be understood as the attempt to balance the intuitivehuman drives to know, to value and to gain aesthetic pleasure, in the

context of the double triangulation I have spoken of above: that is, thesubjects own tensions with regard to his/her feelings, knowledge andvaluing, and the wider context of critical appreciation of traditional andcultural values, alongside critical openness to the rapidly expandinghorizons of human knowledge.Critical believing and religious identityCritical believing seeks to avoid the danger of dogmatism in an under-standing of identity and the nature of identity. I have to be aware of thegap that exists between the identity I either take, or convey, within aspecific cultural and historical context, and the unknowable being whichI hold or possesses intrinsically in myself. The substantive which I useto convey identity never conveys the nature of the person or thing in

itself. It can only mark theprocess of naming something or someonethrough an experience of that object or person. The name I use, there-fore has, paradoxically, an intrinsically anonymous dimension in ametaphorical sense. Thus if I describe my mother as a brick, I conjuremy experience of her as supportive and loyal, but I do not think of heras solid and oblong! Thus beyond the characteristics I attribute to mymother, I need to recognize that she has anonymous qualities whichare not apparent to me.Of course, I cannot function as a member of a society without assum-ing and bestowing identity. As an elderly male, husband and formerteacher I have to relate to my wife, children, grandchildren, doctor,librarian, ticket collector, check-out assistant. But it remains important

to recognize always the provisional nature of these labels and roles.Thus, when I seek to come to an understanding in relation to my ownidentity, it is important to eschew using labels as the affirmation ofeither an over-confident identity in relation to others, or as a means ofconcealing an insecure identity behind the mask of culturally deter-mined roles.


In this sense it is important to acknowledge as a critical believer theanonymity which is intrinsic in attaching labels both to others and

oneself in the giving and accepting of identity. I should always respectthe anonymous unknowability of someone whose identity I label, just


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as I should acknowledge the anonymous incompleteness in the under-standing I have of my own identity.

To return briefly to Rahners understanding of the identity of thetrue believer, my discussion of Rahner demonstrated his insistence onthe substantive nature of religious identity. Believing in Christ waspivotal for human salvation. This suggests that where religious identity

has become substantive, justified by credal formulae, it is the antithesisof critical believing. However, that is not to suggest that critical believ-ing outlaws religious identity in principle. One of the most significantelements of critical believing is its attempt to hold in balance the ten-sions between knowledge, feelings and values, which constitute indivi-dual subjectivity, as well as the dynamic between subject, world andculture. The tools appropriate to tackle this task are those epistemologi-cal, ethical, and aesthetic criteria which seek the good of the individual,society and the environment.Critical believing might thus be said to endorse traditional conceptssuch as justice, freedom, well-being, and compassion. And it is note-worthy that some of the more inspiring parts of the Hebrew scriptures

are prophetic denunciations of injustice and empty religious ritual. InHosea knowledge of God is synonymous with an ethic of faithfulnessand loyalty (Hos. 4.1). Gutierrez (1974: 195) makes this concept a lynchpin in his Theology of Liberation. He says, To know Yahwehis to estab-lish just relationships among men, it is to recognize the rights of thepoor When justice does not exist God is not known; he is absent. Inthe Christian scriptures the teaching of Jesus embraces sinners and out-casts and enjoins the radical love of the neighbour. The Matthean par-able of the sheep and the goats powerfully underlines this concept.Where is Jesus to be encountered? He is to be found in the needs of thehungry, the stranger, the sick and the prisoner. In the parable Jesus says,Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my

family, you did it to me (Mt. 25.40). Here, on the lips of Jesus is, argu-ably, an endorsement of anonymous believing through this self-effacingChrist who might be seen as an indictment of an exclusive Christ-centredbelieving. Similarly, within Sikhism Guru Nanak is scathing about thehypocrisy of much religious ritual and enjoins the Sikh community to

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strive to live a truthful life rather than squabble over rival religioustruth claims.

Thus I contend that, lying within religious believing, and thus poten-

tially intrinsic to religious identity, are qualities of knowing, valuingand appreciating, which criticalbelievingwouldwholeheartedlyendorse.Moreover the anonymity I propose lies in the refusal of the critical reli-gious believer to restrict such qualities to any one tradition or religiouslabel.Believing and transcendenceMy discussion of critical believing thus far leaves unanswered the ques-tion about how human believing relates to a concept of the transcen-dent. The argument that factual assertions are not central to criticalbelieving only exacerbates the problem, for belief in God does invoke atranscendent reality responsible for the creation and sustenance of theworld, as well as for the creation of meaning within it.

Two things: the first is that just as it is inappropriate to see belief inthe fact of a transcendent creator as being central to critical believing,


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so belief in the fact that no transcendent creator exists is equally inap-propriate. For this reason critical believing is fundamentally agnosticover the existence of God as transcendent being.

This openness in turn sheds light on my second point. Because thereis no answer to the question of a transcendent creator, the value andsignificance of critical believing is not impaired by lack of that specific

knowledge. In fact its value is enhanced. This is because the seriousnessof the business of believing is fully focused on the process of believingitself. In my understanding the term God can best be understood notas some mysterious transcendent object, but rather as the symbol forthe seriousness of the process itself.In short, critical believing is a transcendentprocess, in that arriving atbeliefs on the part of the critical believer cannot be accomplished by thefixing of beliefs in a secure knowledge of the world, in inherited cul-tural traditions or in the prejudices and partialities of personal experi-ence. It is a transcendent process on account of its intrinsic dynamicand its reaching beyond the comfortableparameters ofsubjectiveexperi-ence and cultural indoctrination.

Understood in this way, critical believing is the creation of meaning,value and purpose. Because of the very nature of these concepts it istempting to see their human creation as discovery, as though they were


written into the way things are. It is characteristic of any believing, letalone critical believing, that the beliefs are held and practised as ifthey were true. It is only thus that human valuing can be accorded theseriousness it warrants. And this seems to me to be quite appropriate,in that the process of valuing takes place as a dynamic within the para-

meters of self, world and culture wherein the epistemological, ethicaland aesthetic drivers power the process of interaction. And, althoughthe process is self-validating in one sense, it still remains open to thequestion of whether that dynamic has a transcendent grounding or atranscendent raison dtre. However, it is important not to allow thistheoretical possibility to be seen to possess or to be given a hiddensignificance, a sort of backdoor into a traditional transcendent belief.Critical believing properly adopts a stance of agnostic openness to thefactual question of transcendence, in order that the transcendence of theprocess of meaning-creation can the more appropriately be engaged in.Believing and anonymityWhat conclusions then are to be drawn concerning the anonymity of

believing? Rahner uses the concept to enable him to assert that non-Christians can be saved, even though Christs sacrifice is the exclusivemediation of human salvation. I have argued that human believing isdamaged and distorted by being given a cultural religious identity when-ever excessive or sole emphasis is placed on supposed historical, meta-physical and ethical facts which, on examination, lack epistemological

justification. Therefore, anonymous believing demands the eschewingof these as being intrinsic to believing. Believing should not be given afactual core. More positively, anonymous believing means embracingwholeheartedly an anonymous identity. Who am I? How can I describemyself? Clearly certain labels are important, such as my name, statuswithin a family, academic achievements, employment setting, and reli-

gious affiliation. I do not suggest that anonymous believing means shed-ding all these labels and cultural signposts. But the danger is that I


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protect myself from a critical search for meaning by using cultural andreligious labels to give myself a false sense of substantive identity. Fun-damentally, I do not know who I am. I only have the identity of a con-tingent being whose contingency renders any Olympian perspective onmy identity necessarily incomprehensible. Here is my anonymity. Andit is this anonymity which enables me to engage in the process of critical

believing, freeing me from attaching too much importance to the labels

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of identity which only provide, at best, an approximate sense of iden-tity, and at worst, an illusion of it. I am not tempted to see my believingas providing factual answers to the fact of contingency, which is neces-sarily incomprehensible. It is this anonymity, however, which guardsthe seriousness of the human search for meaning.Critical believing and implicit religionAt the beginning of this article I asked about the relationship between

an implicit human believing and implicit religion, and also about therelationship between critical believing and implicit religion. In thisfinal section I shall try to focus this question.I have argued that believing, that is the attempt to make humanexistence both meaningful and purposive, is implicit and intrinsic tohuman life. However, I am not sure that this is synonymous with impli-cit religion, and I have argued that implicit believing is not synonymouswith critical believing. Critical believing is an attempt to recognize theparameters within which human meaning-making takes place, in parti-cular the constraints that need to be recognized with regard to theknowledge claims that we make. Implicit believing can easily shadeinto unquestioned, dogmatic believing when these parameters are not

recognized. Neither implicit believing nor critical believing are neces-sarily religious.Implicit religion is a term coined by Edward Bailey some thirty yearsago. Bailey, in his article Implicit Religion, explains:The approach opens up the possibility of discovering the sacredwithin what might otherwise be dismissed asthe profane, and of find-ing an experience of the holy, within an apparentlyirreligious realm.Above all, in contemporary society itallows for the discovery of somekind of religiosity within what might be seen as an unrelievedlysecular sphere (Bailey 1998).Implicit religion, therefore, seeks to embrace the secular, rather thanseeing it as something that stands over against the religious. Whatwere

seen as belonging to two separate worlds (secular and faith) can now beseen as belonging together like two sides of the same coin (Bailey 2001:3). Bailey wants to both widen and deepen the concept of religion; widenin the sense of discovering religion in patently secular spheres, anddeepen in the sense of recovering an implicit dimension beneath thecultural manifestations of explicit organized religions. He says, Explicit


religion has always been seen by this student as a possible and properexpression of implicit religion (Bailey 2001: 87).

If I understand the concept aright the student of implicit religion isengaged in a twofold task. In the first place, she is offering a new formof apologetic for religion in a postmodern social and cultural context, by


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suggesting that a religious consciousness permeates many, if not most,areas of secular life. And secondly, she is embarking upon a specificform of academic study, which investigates the phenomenon of religi-osity within a whole variety of areas of social and cultural life. So, forexample, this Journal includes articles on implicit religion in psycho-therapy (Implicit Religion 7.2), and the notion that discourse on human

rights can be labelled a secular religion (Implicit Religion 6.1). Thisapologia for the recognition and study of implicit religion is thereforecritical of the assumption that explicit religion separates itself from thesecular world. It is also critical of the secularisation hypothesis, whichsuggested that social and psychological needs are sufficient explanationof the phenomenon of religion. Once these needs are understood, thethesis suggested, religion will be seen to be redundant. This notion wascurrent in the early expressions of the sociology of religion.Bailey supports Durkheims view that religion expresses a more basicand fundamental dynamic between the individual and society. Bailey,in an article entitled Sacred, says, Emile Durkheims point (1912)that the sacred is part of the structure of consciousness, and indeed the

continuing sine qua non of all its development, rather than an early stagethat can be left behindmay have validity (Bailey 1998). This wouldhelp to explain not only the survival of religions, but also the contem-porary currency of concepts like spirituality and sacredness.

There are then considerable similarities between the concepts ofcritical believing and implicit religion. In both concepts believing is abasic and unavoidable dimension of what it means to be a person, inour attempts as human beings to create meaning. Moreover, because itis fundamental in this way, it is entirely natural, permeating bothsecular areas of experience as well as the more obviously and explicitlyreligious spheres. Both concepts see themselves in practical terms. Atthe heart of Baileys definition of implicit religion is the concept of

commitment. Both, therefore, may be termed heuristic by nature, thatis, they are themselves experiments in believing in order to createmeaning. Bailey says,

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The first, specific meaning of implicit religion is with reference tocontemporary, secular society. It is intended to flag up a heuristicdevice The method is to adopt the hypothesis that it has such areligion, in order to see whether that enhances our empirical, theo-retical and practical understanding of its secularity(Bailey 2001: 85).

Both concepts, then, might be said to share an understanding ofbelieving as being fundamental, natural and practical. In addition theyalso recognize and emphasize the importance of the existential dimen-sion of believing. Bailey is critical of the phenomenological approach tothe study of religion as advocated by Ninian Smart, who embraces thenotion that Expression can be bracketed, so that Religionitself exhibits,but without directlyExpressing, what it is that the Expresser is attempt-ing to convey (Smart 1973: 52). In Smarts terms, then, the anatomy ofreligion can be studied by the student of religion, and the expression ofthe believer, that is to say what he/she believes and takes most seri-ously, can be appropriately bracketed. Bailey rejects this understandingof the phenomenology of religion: Phenomenology might provide the

cure [to the problem of describing ones faith my interpretation] butnot if it too becomes functional and morphological, omitting the sub-jective from its objectivity (Bailey 2001: 18).


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I sense, therefore, that Baileys existential concern is to the forefrontin his work on implicit religion. When he writes of a cleric setting outon the study of religion, in contrast to theology, as a prolegomenon toconverting implicit religion from a hunch to a hypothesis (Bailey2001: 57), I see this as Bailey himself, concerned to resist on the onehand the secularist reductionism of religion, and on the other the

increasing isolation of the theology of the church. Implicit religion is away of providing a new context for religion and religious believingwhich will allow the new cleric and the church to function in a waymore closely related to the needs of a postmodern, multi-cultural, secu-lar society. Similarly, my notion of critical believing stems from myown conversion, from language teaching in secondary school to theteaching of religion and theology in both school and university, as avehicle for enabling my students to reflect on their own and societysvalues, and to engage critically with them. Baileys existential contextwas church and community, mine was education in school and uni-versity.In the previous sections I have set out a rationale for critical believ-

ing and its anonymity on the basis of my critique of Karl RahnersPage 16

Religious Identity: In Praise of the Anonymity of Critical Believing69 Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.

concept of anonymous Christianity. But how does the concept ofimplicit religion work? What can we claim to know about implicitreligion, and on what basis can we claim to know it? What sort of epis-temological basis is either claimed or assumed? This strikes me asbeing an important question.It seems to me that Bailey offers us three ways of recognizing andknowing implicit religion: the psychological, the sociological and the

religious. Bailey points to findings by Alister Hardys Religious Experi-ence Research Unit, where a third of respondents testified to experienceswhich they labelled as religious (Bailey 1998). Similarly, David Hayspeaks of implicit religion in both psychological and sociological terms,but with a predominantly psychological epistemology. He understandsreligion as a socially constructed system of symbols, which is a responseto a universally available dimension of human experience, biologicallyinbuilt and commonly labelled in Western culture the sacred or thetranscendent.The implicit dimension of religion is important torecognize, because in a secular society religion does indeed suffer froma socially constructed suppression of the form of consciousness thatunderlies religious insight (Hay 2003: 18). Thus religious experience

might be said to be evidence of a unique and universal form of humanconsciousness, which evidences itself much more widely in humansociety than simply within the confines of specific religious traditions.Secondly, it is understood in sociological categories. Bailey referswith approval to Durkheims concept of the sacred. For Durkheim thereality which undergirds the sacred and religious symbols is societyitself and its power. Religion thus reflects the relationship between theindividual and society, a relationship which inevitably persists bothwithin and without traditional belief systems.Finally, it is understood religiously. Describing his notion ofsecularfaith Bailey says,Properly understood it may already run the gamut of sensing a cosmic

sacred, encountering a personal holy, and commitment to an ineffablequality of humanness, consciously or unconsciously, in some degree,daily (Bailey 2001: 4).


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Im not clear whether this passage relating to the sacred, the holyand commitment is intended purely descriptively i.e. merely describingwhat some people claim to know, or whether it implies an epistemologi-cal justification for the claims to have this religious knowledge on the

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70John Hey Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.

basis of a unique type of experience which can be labelled religious.Certainly Bailey rejects the idea that the experience of transcendence isrestricted to the exceptional (Bailey 2001: 25). Most religious pract-tioners,thought their belief was primarily to do with the ordinary, theusual.That is what popular religion (and superstition and magic) havealways been about: to make use of the incomprehensible was natural,rather than supernatural (Bailey 2001: 25).What is happening here? Are these religious terms transcendent andthe incomprehensible justified in their use, either by Baileys practi-

tioners or by Bailey himself, simply because they are religious? Or isthere an implicit theological epistemology present here?Bailey (2001) in his The Secular Faith Controversydoes not speakdirectly of theology. He refers to it for the most part in relation toorganized religion, and conjuring notions of a traditional dualism ofthe natural and the supernatural. It is usually set in some form ofcontrast with the religious. This leaves me in something of a quandaryas to how to understand his justification for the knowledge claims hemakes about implicit religion. He himself addresses the problem asone of validating transcendence. Let me quote what seems to me to bea significant passage:Thus the belief itself follows the object of that belief in being sui

generis and, therefore, simultaneously and inevitably unprovableexcept through the witness of religion and of life itself. For his (thepersonal transcendent) and our silence is otherwise ambiguous. Itcould be a mark of respect for his ubiquitous presence orconsequenceof his unreality. It could signify reverence ordenial(Bailey 2001: 25).It seems to me there are two possible ways of understanding theineffability that is contained within this implicit religious belief: thatis, either expressively or theologically. It can either be understoodexpressively in a way which D. Z. Phillips (1976), following Wittgen-stein, might advocate, that is, functionally, without the need for furtherexplanation. In that case the meaning of ineffable is to be understood interms of the form of life which it both evokes and participates in,namely the specific commitment or commitments undertaken. Accord-ing to this interpretation these religious, sociological and psychologicaldimensions, or grammars, are the means by which these religious formsof life find expression. In so doing they provide a postmodern way of


understanding which truly values the difference in the approaches tothe experience. The epistemological question, that is the question of thelegitimacy of the knowledge claims, is seen to be redundant and evenmistaken.

The alternative is a cryptic theological interpretation, implicit ineither the understanding of Baileys subjects and/or Baileys own under-standing of implicit religion. I offer this view because the passage I


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have quoted above reminded me strongly of Karl Barths justificationfor Christian belief and theology. For him, there were no rational orhuman means of validating knowledge of God. Knowledge of God wasonly possible because a Wholly Other God vouchsafedhimself to human-ity uniquely through his revelation in Jesus Christ. Certainly for Baileyssubjects, and perhaps for Bailey too, the religious experience is ineffable.

It cannot be justified, except by its own ineffability, that is to say by theubiquity of its revelatory impact. If this is the case, then here is a theo-logical epistemology which successfully outstrips Karl Barths ownepistemological tour de force.At this point I confess to feeling confused. I find myself confrontingeither a postmodern epistemology which isa foundationless anti-episte-mology, or else a widespread cryptic theology validated by the apparentrevelation of some inevitable ineffability. It is here, therefore, where Iwould wish to draw a distinction between implicit religion and criticalbelieving. It seems to me that the two concepts are categorically differ-ent. Implicit religion is presented as an implicitly substantival conceptwith heuristic aims. It is an understanding of religion offered as an

object of study in its own right, as well as a means for the study ofhuman society in general. It is an attempt to discover religious beliefwhere it is scarcely recognized as such: an attempt to reveal where peo-ple apprehend a sacred dimension in ordinary secular life. Religion, inan unspecified ineffable shape or form, exemplifying theimplicitnatureof believing itself, remains the central object of enquiry. However,although it reflects the implicit nature of believing in general, becauseof its attempts to widen and deepen the notion of religion, to adopt anopen, embrace-all approach, I suspect that it lacks the critical tools todiscriminate between more or less appropriate ways of believing andbeliefs, which is a critical faculty that I claim for critical believing.Critical believing, on the other hand, should not be understood in a

predominantly substantival way. It describes a process. My main aim inusing the term is to emphasize the primacy of believing over knowing.

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Its focus is the activity of believing. Its critical function is twofold.First of all, the double triangular model by means of which I have char-acterized critical believing sets forth an epistemological rationale forthe primacy of believing. It seeks to justify believings primacy, overagainst a mere assertion of it. And secondly, this same model of thedouble triangulation provides a way of understanding the relationship

between believing and knowing to enable a critical perspective onknowledge claims, particularly in this case the knowledge claims madeby religions.In summary, critical believing does not seek to rediscover the spiri-tual or the religious amidst a prevailing secularity which scorns tradi-tional religion. Instead, it seeks to create meaning within a natural worldconsisting of both an infinitely complicated cosmos and a sophisticatedand barely understood human consciousness amidst a bewildering vari-ety of cultural traditions. With regard to the question ofreligious identitythe central issue is not the identification of distinctiveness with respectto ritual, creed, language or architecture, within or without a specificreligious tradition, but whether and how religious believing can help in

the wider task of a critical believing that is prepared to embrace a funda-mental and inescapable anonymity.


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ReferencesBailey, E. (1998) Sacred, in Swatos W. H. Jr (ed.), Encylopedia of Religion and Society,www.hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/Sacred.htmBailey, E. (2001) The Secular Faith Controversy, London and New York: Continuum.Davidson, D. (1994) Donald Davidson in Guttenplan S. (ed.),A Companion to Philoso-

phy of Mind, Oxford: Blackwell, p. 234.

Davidson, D. (2004) Problems of Rationality, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Dretske, F. (1995) Belief, in Honderich, E. (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy,Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 82-83.Farrell, F. (1996) Subjectivity, Realism and Postmodernism, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.Gollnick, J. (2004) Religion, Spirituality and Implicit Religion in Psychotherapy,Implicit Religion, 7.2: 120-41.Gutierrez, G. (1974)A Theology of Liberation, London: SCM Press.Hay, D. (2003) Why is Implicit Religion Implicit?, Implicit Religion 6.1: 17-40.Kilby, K. (2004) Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy, London: Routledge.Kilby, K. (1997) Karl Rahner, London: Fount.Phillips, D. Z. (1976) Religion Without Explanation, Oxford: Blackwell.Race, A. (1983) Christians and Religious Pluralism, London: SCM Press.Rahner, K. (1963) The Church and the Sacraments, New York: Herder and Herder.Rahner, K. (1966) Theological Investigations Vol. 4, London: Darton, Longman and

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Page 20Religious Identity: In Praise of the Anonymity of Critical Believing73 Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.Rahner, K. (1969) Theological Investigations Vol. 6, London: Darton, Longman and

Todd.Reader, J. (2003) The Discourse of Human RightsA Secular Religion?, ImplicitReligion 6.1: 41-52.Sharpe, K. and Bryant, R. (1998) Implicit Religion and Inter-faith Dialogue, www.ksharpe.com/Word/SR21.htmSmart, N. (1973) The Phenomenon of Religion, New York: Herder and Herder.Von Balthasar, H.U. (1994) The Moment of Christian Witness, San Francisco: IgnatiusPress.

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