By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
Why does Whitehead call what I distinguish as "higher," or "axial," religion, "rational" religion?
I would need to review what he says on the matter before I could say. But if I am right about the essential problematic of an axial religion—namely, that the human problem is our own self-misunderstanding, for which we ourselves are fully accountable, having always already had the possibility of understanding ourselves correctly—then there is the very best of reasons for calling it "rational." It is properly so-called because it decisively re-presents the truth about our existence that we have freely and responsibly suppressed and therefore appeals, finally, to our own experience and reason simply as human beings for the truth or credibility of its claims.
10 September 1999
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