A brief inquiry into the meaning of sin and faith: with On my religion PDF
Preview A brief inquiry into the meaning of sin and faith: with On my religion
A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith John Rawls A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO THE MEANING OF SIN AND FAITH WITH “ON MY RELIGION” Edited by Thomas Nagel With commentaries by Joshua Cohen and Thomas Nagel, and by Robert Merrihew Adams HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, En gland 2009 Copyright © 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rawls, John, 1921–2002. A brief inquiry into the meaning of sin and faith : with “on my religion” / John Rawls ; edited by Thomas Nagel. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-03331-3 (alk. paper) 1. Philosophical theology. 2. Philosophy and religion. 3. Sin. 4. Faith. 5. Rawls, John, 1921–2002—Religion. I. Nagel, Thomas. II. Title. BT40.R39 2009 230—dc22 2008033809 Contents Introduction 1 Joshua Cohen and Thomas Nagel The Theological Ethics of the Young Rawls and Its Background 24 Robert Merrihew Adams A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO THE MEANING OF SIN AND FAITH 103 A Note on the Text 104 Preface 107 chapter one A General Prospectus 110 chapter two Vindication of the Natural Cosmos 129 chapter three The Extended Natural Cosmos 157 chapter four The Meaning of Sin 179 chapter five The Meaning of Faith 214 Bibliography 253 ON MY RELIGION 259 General Index 271 Index of Biblical Passages 277 A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith Introduction Joshua Cohen and Thomas Nagel 1. When John Rawls died in 2002, there was found among his files a short statement ent i tled “On My Religion,” the second of the two texts included in this volume. He had apparently written it in the 1990s,1 not for publication but perhaps for the interest of family and friends—though he did not distribute it. Rawls describes the history of his religious beliefs and attitudes toward religion, and refers to a period during his last two years as an undergraduate at Princeton (1941–42) when he “became deeply concerned with theology and its doctrines,” and considered attending a seminary to study for the Episcopal priesthood. But he decided to enlist in the army instead, “as so many of my friends and classmates were doing.” By June of 1945, he had abandoned his orthodox Christian beliefs. With characteristic tentativeness and a disclaimer of self-knowledge, Rawls speculates that his beliefs changed because of his experiences in the war and his re flections on the moral sig nifi cance of the Holocaust. When he 1. The version published here comes from a file created on his computer in 1997.
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