The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence: A Naturalist Philosophy of Religion (Religious Studies (Dis))

Develops a revised form of religious naturalism that, drawing on figures like James, Whitehead, and Wieman, argues for a "minimalist" and ethically open understanding of transcendence rooted in experience and nature rather than supernaturalism.In The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence, Jerome A. Stone offers a fresh and compelling reconstruction of religious naturalism―one that is both intellectually rigorous and spiritually open.Drawing on the rich traditions of William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Henry Nelson Wieman, and Bernard E. Meland, Stone carefully revisits their insights while critically refining their limitations. The result is a "minimalist" vision of transcendence that neither returns to classical supernaturalism nor collapses into reductive secularism, but instead articulates a thoughtful middle path: a philosophy of openness grounded in experience, ethics, and a reimagined sense of the divine within nature.Across its chapters, Stone places his approach in dialogue with major twentieth-century thinkers and movements, including Charles Hartshorne, Schubert Ogden, Langdon Gilkey, Albert Camus, and secular humanism. He consistently asks what remains viable, what must be revised, and what can still speak to contemporary philosophical and religious concerns.Particularly striking is Stone's account of "a generous empiricism" and his ethical emphasis on openness―offering a framework in which religious meaning is neither imposed nor discarded, but carefully reinterpreted. Read more