Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta a “non-realism”. Realism in this scheme is the philosophical doctrine that there is a reality independent of consciousness of it and that that independence can be proved. Non-realism - leaving aside the specifics of the Indian debate - holds that, while there is no way of showing that there is such an independent reality, it must be assumed that it is there. Only then can the features of our experience and the functioning of various aspects of our consciousness be accounted for.
On this view, a distinction should be made between non-realism and anti-realism. The latter agrees with non-realism that all proofs that there is a reality independent of consciousness in fact depend upon the deliverances of that consciousness itself. But whereas non-realism concludes that that only renders the status of an independent reality indeterminate, anti-realism asserts that that shows that reality is in fact dependent on consciousness.
The resonance with Cupitt’s nonrealism will be evident here, for the general rejection of the thesis of independence can be applied to specific issues, such as God (or the external world or mathematics). However, the distinction between non- and anti- realism does not carry over, | think.
My version of non-realism, then, holds that there can be no commitment to a “real” God. (If it were argued that the issue was not one of proving the existence of such a God but of faith in one, the non-realist response would be that that faith would be incompatible with rational supposition). Non-realism holds that there is no philosophical space left for rational commitment to a real God; so we cannot do without non-realism. But non-realism grants that the features of theistic religious consciousness would not make sense without an assumption of a real God.
So, why not hold that religious life should proceed with merely the assumption that there is a God? This is where the problem arises. Non-realism might make sense as a theory of the theistic religious life, but it makes no psychological sense to urge someone with theistic consciousness to recognise that s/he is making an assumption that God is real (ie independent). For that would be to hold simultaneously that one had faith in a real God and that that God was only assumed to be real; a direct contradiction.
So, someone who wants a non-realist religious life cannot pretend to be participating in that life in just the same manner as someone with genuine theistic consciousness. Nor can they pretend to have explained the psychology of such theistic consciousness, for the non-realist cannot but claim that a theist is wrong in taking there to be a real God. Non-realism, then, asks for a radically different type of consciousness; and what is religious about it needs to be determined.
How will participants in the conference answer the question “What is religion for?” in the light of these remarks? And what can the sort of non-realist I have described be able to say further about non-realism in the light of those answers? I look forward to the conference. | es of Don Cupitt, I called my philosophical reconstruction of the “Non-realism holds that there is no philosophical space left for rational commitment to a real God; so we cannot do without non-realism”.