Intellectual, Humanist and Religious Commitment: Acts of Assent

Abstract

This book is a defence of commitment by those of us who have sceptical doubts, especially about religion, and who have lost their epistemic innocence as a result. My personal motivation is the loss of epistemic innocence among Roman Catholics, due to the manifest unholiness of the Church. That so many of its clergy were paedophiles is bad enough; that so many bishops sought to cover this up is a scandal egregious even for a scandal-prone organization. The Nicene Creed invites us to believe in the 'One, Holy, Apostolic and Universal Church'. How can we? We often describe this loss of epistemic innocence as loss of faith, but it is not so much loss of faith as loss of any purely passive, easy faith. So much for my motivation: my intended audience consists of all who, for whatever reason, have either lost or never had epistemic innocence on various disputed questions. I shall defend commitment and invite them to commit.