The nature of propositional faith—whether it requires belief or can persist independently of it—remains a central issue in the philosophy of faith. (Malcolm and Scott, A Philosophy of Faith: Belief, Routledge, 2023) introduce the Sincere Endorsement Argument (SEA), asserting that nondoxastic theories, which posit faith without belief, collapse into either doxasticism or religious fictionalism, thereby undermining their purported distinctiveness. This article argues that John Schellenberg’s under…
Read moreThe nature of propositional faith—whether it requires belief or can persist independently of it—remains a central issue in the philosophy of faith. (Malcolm and Scott, A Philosophy of Faith: Belief, Routledge, 2023) introduce the Sincere Endorsement Argument (SEA), asserting that nondoxastic theories, which posit faith without belief, collapse into either doxasticism or religious fictionalism, thereby undermining their purported distinctiveness. This article argues that John Schellenberg’s underexplored nondoxastic theory—here termed Schellenbergian nondoxasticism (SN)—provides a compelling counterpoint. I begin by outlining Malcolm and Scott’s SEA and then clarify SN’s scientific and epistemic foundations. By highlighting SN’s adoption of an imaginative attitude grounded in a commitment to truth, along with its ability to maintain a truth-committed stance at the higher-level epistemic discussion, I show how it avoids a collapse into either of the competing theories. Moreover, SN’s serious motivational commitment to seeking truth provides a decisive criterion for distinguishing nondoxastic theories from religious fictionalism.
