J.M. Bocheński’s New Version of the Theory of a Religious Hypothesis

Abstract

In his Logic of Religion (1965) Bocheński presumed that: (1) ‘religion’ denotes a system of propositions of religious contents, (2) man becomes an advocate of a certain religion through an acceptance of its meta-dogma, i.e. a statement that the creed of this religion is true. In his article Religious Hypothesis Revised [in: P. Weingartner (ed.), Scientific and Religious Belief, Dordrecht 1994, 142-160] Bocheński writes that the concept of religion assumed in the Logic is wrong. Our experience shows that the conversion of a man who previously was an unbeliever may occur in two steps: first, he accepts several elementary propositions about God. They constitute ‘basic faith’ (that God exists that He governs the events in the world, etc.). Then we have a collection of propositions that compose “the confession of faith” of a given religion. The religious hypothesis is applied, above all, when we accept a system. It is doubtful whether it can be used in the basic faith.

In this paper, the author discusses first various forms of religious experience that inspires the basic faith: (1) a religious interpretation of secular phenomena; (2) an experience of sacrum in the world; (3) an ‘encounter’ of Transcendence. Then he presents a new version of this hypothesis: what kind of experience that some persons have accounts for religion and whether it permits to predict their new experiences or even new events.