John Dewey

John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American philosopher and educator who significantly influenced the philosophy of religion through his pragmatist approach. Initially influenced by Hegelian idealism at Johns Hopkins University, Dewey gradually developed a naturalistic philosophy that reconceptualized religious experience without supernatural commitments. His major work "A Common Faith" (1934) distinguished between "religion" as institutional dogma and "the religious" as a quality of experience arising from the unification of the self around inclusive ideals. Dewey argued that traditional concepts of God should be replaced by faith in the active relation between ideal and actual, emphasizing human intelligence and community rather than transcendent deity. His reconstruction of religious concepts influenced religious naturalism and humanistic approaches to spirituality, challenging both traditional theism and militant atheism by proposing a middle path that preserved religious values while rejecting supernatural beliefs.