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The only way, so far as I can see, that one could give any other answer than the one implied would be to argue that it is impossible to define religion strictly functionally in the sense in which I have claimed so to define it without defining "the existential question," and that this requires, in tum, employing such concepts/distinctions as "whole"/ "parts," "ultimate/immediate setting of human existence," "the structure of ultimate reality in itself/in its meaning for us"---in short, the entire conceptuality of a proper transcendental metaphysics as well as of the analytic philosophy of religion corresponding thereto. Thus I commonly characterize "the existential question" not only as "'the most vital of all our vital questions," but also as "our question about the meaning of our existence in its ultimate setting as a part, together with others, of the all-encompassing whole of reality." But this is to argue, in effect, that the "substantive/functional" distinction is not absolute, but relative, analogous to the distinctions "categorial/transcendental" and ""content/structure" in at least some of their uses. If this be allowed, then I can see how one could: (1) define '''religion'' in its strict and proper sense as I have long defined it; (2) hold that this definition is not substantive but functional; and still (3) maintain that "religion" so defined has the absolutely minimal metaphysical presuppositions that I have argued it has. Otherwise, I can see no way around either abandoning my position that "religion" is to be defined strictly functionally or else giving up my contention that the absolutely minimal metaphysical presuppositions of "religion" so defined are, as I have said, "the necessary applicability of the two disjunctive transcendentals, concrete/abstract and divine/nondivine." 

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