Religion and Moral Reason: A New Method for Comparative Study

Continuing in the tradition of his well-received Religious Reason, Ronald Green here offers a penetrating moral understanding of religious belief and practice. Human religiousness, he contends, principally arises from a universal "deep structure" of moral reasoning that comprises three essential elements: one guides impartial moral reasoning; a second affirms the reality of moral retribution; and a third provides escape from the penalties that justly accompany unavoidable human moral failure. Using this innovative approach, Green confronts a series of different religious traditions and issues, including African primal religions, classical Chinese religion, the "Divine Command" tradition in Judaism and Christianity, religious ritual, and the economic teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Drawing on contemporary rationalist ethical theory, Green provides a simple but effective model for understanding the complexity of religious life.