I read somewhere recently that nowadays most philosophers and their students are
atheists. Such a claim, I suspect, is true in regard to philosophers only to the extent that
one thinks philosophy is being done these days only in certain schools of thought (e.g.,
logical positivism, materialistic naturalism), and excludes not only all those many individuals
who practice philosophy within the framework of one or another particular religion
(e.g., the Reformed Epistemologists, Catholic Thomists, Christian Existentialists), but also
anyone who, independent of any specifically religious orientation, entertains, say, a more
idealistic, albeit evolutionary, approach to philosophy (e.g., Process Philosophers). Insofar
as philosophy students are concerned, I can only speak from my own experience. Of the
more than six thousand students I have taught over the past thirty years, some, but certainly
not most, were atheists. Be that as it may, the vast majority of current philosophers
and their students I have known, read, or taught have remained deeply interested in questions
of a religious sort. Furthermore, even if it were true that most philosophers and their
students are nowadays atheists, what they think and say about God and religious matters
in general must be weighed against the long conversation that has been going on for centuries
among philosophers, most of whom certainly were not atheistic in their thinking.
Having the latest word in the philosophical dialektike is no guarantee of having a corner
on the truth. There are good reasons, therefore, for all philosophers and students to pursue
their interest in religious questions within the historical context of this ongoing philosophical
conversation about God and religion.