The Architecture of Religion: A Theoretical Essay by Paul Wiebe (review)

388 BOOK REVIEWS Nielsen's essays. The development of such notions need not be a defense of religion. It may weU be that passions elicited and developed in some religious beliefs are not to be encouraged. (This is part of Hume's argument in The Natural History of ReUgion.) The chief shortcoming of Nielsen in this area is his apparent inability to recognize any form of religious interest other than a speculative, intellectual interest in an explanation of the world's existence. Again, in view of his profes!!ed intimate knowledge of Kierkegaard, this is a puzzling shortcoming. In the volume's closing peroration, Nielsen pronounces the demise of the philosophy of religion. Its issues-the truth, justifiability, and coherence of religious beliefs (his list)-have been .settled: negative on one or more counts. What needs to happen next is, he says, an examination of religions as human phenomena and of the needs expressed through them. This he regards as a new agenda. But, if our focus on the issues is broader than Nielsen's, we can recognize that these studies (he mentions Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Durkheim, and Fromm} are a part of the philosophy of religion. From a perspective broadened in this and other dimensions, it appears that the issues in philosophy of religiontruth , justifiability, and coherence-are not settled. Nor are they boring. H endriw Oollege, Oonway, Arkansas JOHN CHURCHILL The Architecture of Religion: A Theoretical Essay. By PAUL WIEBE. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1984. Pp. 153; index. The Architecture of Religion is a brave book. Not only does the author outline the essential structure (the "architecture") of religion, he also defines the essential task of the modern age, traces the general contours of true religion, and suggests a corresponding design for the study of religion, properly conceived. In fact, he could easily be criticized for trying to do too much, especially in a first book. But, in this reviewer's opinion, he should not be criticized on these grounds. There should be a place in academic life for addressing life's most serious concerns in bold new ways, even if the results are only provisional, and the publisher is to be commended for bringing Paul Wiebe's attempt to construct a theory of religion to a general audience. None of this means, of course, that the theory itself should not be criticized. That is what every theorist expects, and Wiebe is no exception. He begins by telling us that religion is "that basic human reality in BOOK REVIEWS 889 which humans master what they judge to be the one profound ill by confronting this ill with a good just as profound" (p. 29). Presumably, everyone has an interest in profound matters in which goods and ills are conceptualized and drawn into focus, and to this extent everyone is basically religious, no matter what he regards as life's greatest good. This idea has a Tillichian ring, which is not surprising given the author's background . Yet Wiebe criticizes Tillich for using the descriptive concept of ultimate concern in a normative way, judging alien religions as idolatrous faiths and claims that his own central concept of profound interest is purely formal and perfectly neutral, being altogether free of the " hermeneutical imperialism " which mars Tillich's account. In view of the fact that Wiebe uses his theory to discount traditional authorities in religion and to outline the shapes of true religion, this promise of neutrality seems overblown. Maybe the critical edge of his theory comes from other aspects of the theory, not from the concept of a profound interest-but then why couldn't the same be said of Tillich7 In any cruse, Wiebe follows Tillich in supposing that all people are religious. "No human life,'' he says, "is ever without religion" (p. 28). But common sense deserves a word here. Surely there is a difference between people whose interests are scattered and ever changing and people whose lives are ruled by dominant religious concerns. And surely there is a difference between one who believes that life's ills have a (religious) remedy and one who believes that there are no remedies at all. Such differences...