Religion without God

This posthumously published monograph represents Ronald Dworkin's final philosophical contribution, extending his jurisprudential concerns about value and objectivity into religious territory. The work advances a distinctive position within contemporary secular philosophy by arguing that religious experience and religious values can be coherently maintained without belief in a personal deity. Dworkin contends that what truly characterizes the religious attitude is not theism but rather two fundamental convictions: that human life possesses intrinsic meaning and importance, and that the universe itself embodies something numinous deserving of awe and wonder.

The argument proceeds through careful analytical distinctions between religious faith narrowly construed as belief in God and religious sensibility more broadly understood. Dworkin maintains that atheists who experience profound wonder at natural beauty or who hold deep convictions about life's meaning share more with religious believers than typically acknowledged. This position challenges both traditional theistic assumptions about religion's necessary connection to divinity and reductive naturalist accounts that dismiss religious experience as mere psychological projection. The work explicitly engages with both militant atheism and conventional theism, finding each inadequate to capture the full range of human spiritual experience.

Methodologically, Dworkin employs the analytical philosophical tools characteristic of his legal philosophy, particularly his commitment to taking moral and aesthetic experience seriously as irreducible features of human life. He draws on Einstein's cosmic religious feeling and various artistic testimonies to illustrate how non-theistic individuals can experience the sacred. The work situates itself within broader debates about secularization, naturalism, and the possibility of objective value, while maintaining dialogue with pragmatist and romantic traditions that similarly seek to preserve meaning within naturalistic frameworks.

The monograph's significance lies in its attempt to forge middle ground in increasingly polarized discussions about religion's place in modern life. By defending religious value without religious metaphysics, Dworkin offers secular thinkers a way to acknowledge spiritual experience without abandoning naturalistic commitments, while challenging religious believers to consider what remains essential to faith once supernatural beliefs are set aside. His position suggests that the most fundamental divide may not be between believers and non-believers but between those who affirm life's intrinsic meaning and those who embrace nihilistic reductionism.