Why Philosophers of Religion Don’t Need “God”

Abstract There is no greater obstacle to the philosophy of religion than “God.” Not this god or that. Rather, “God” as the concept of some one and only ultimate reality, first cause, divine being. “God” as the presumed first move in any philosophy of religion that seeks to affirm or reject “His” attributes, existence, and activities. Most of all, the very term God. The first two sections of this article each offer three arguments for why philosophers of religion don’t need “God”: one from confusion, another from ethnocentricity, a third from impoverishment. In the first cycle, these arguments address problems pertaining to the capitalization God, in the second, with the human capital devoted to philosophizing about this capitalized God. The final section of the article then points the way forward to a philosophy of religion without “God,” one undertaken from or inclusive of the perspectives of non-western religio-philosophical “capitols.”