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Analysis of “A Common Faith” John Dewey’s book, A Common Faith, explores the wonderful world of religion in a very unique way. Like any good philosopher would, Dewey begins with the basic problem at hand. He says there are basically two different types of thinking when it comes to religion. There are, of course, the people that associate religion with the supernatural and abide their lives, to whatever extent, to the beliefs and practices of their sect. And then you have the people who think that science, and the advance of culture, have completely destroyed the credibility of any and every religion having to do with the supernatural. Dewey’s view is not of either of the two mentioned before. But to explain that we should first define the terms that he will be using throughout his book. First of all, Dewey distinguishes between religion, and religious. The definition of religion is stated as people recognizing that a higher unseen power has control of ones destiny, and is entitled to obedience, and worship, and other stuff like that. As for the term “religious,” it does not really denote anything. There is nothing that you can look at and say, now that is religious. It describes attitudes that could be taken towards ideas, which do not necessarily exist simply because they are only ideas. He says that the supernatural aspect of religion came about in the earliest of societies, it was simply the best answer they had. Through thousands of years people have worshiped some form of God. So now Dewey shifts to talk about experience, or religious experiences. He says that those who say that there is a definite kind of experience that is religious are giving the word (religious) a specific meaning, just like that of the word moral, or scientific. This of course does not follow because religious as an experience signifies something that could belong to any other type of experience. This is further understood when Dewey explains that a religious experience is something that is used to validate beliefs or practices. Dewey explains that, experiences can be had by non-believers that God-fearing people would classify as religious, when the non-believer just assumed it all to be a moment of clarity.
Approximate Word count = 1434
Approximate Pages = 5.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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