Work #1584 · Middle period
Some Dogmas of Religion
McTaggart's 1906 'Some Dogmas of Religion' — atheistic-idealist critique of theistic religion
J. M. E. McTaggart
· 1906
· English
· Philosophical monograph
Tradition: British idealism / philosophy of religion / atheistic personal idealism
McTaggart's 1906 'Some Dogmas of Religion' — atheistic-idealist critique of standard theistic dogma
Published by Edward Arnold in 1906, 'Some Dogmas of Religion' is McTaggart's principal philosophy-of-religion book. While McTaggart accepted personal immortality (his idealist system requires it), he was a thoroughgoing atheist regarding the existence of God, and the book offers detailed critiques of the cosmological, design, ontological, and moral arguments, of the doctrine of God's omnipotence, of God as creator, and of the metaphysical possibility of the orthodox-Christian doctrines. The book is a distinctive late-Victorian / Edwardian non-theist philosophical defence of personal immortality.
Author
Editions cited
- Some Dogmas of Religion (Edward Arnold, London, 1906; 2nd ed. 1930)
School Embodiments
Idealism
22%
Major Cambridge-idealist philosophy of religion.
"Personal immortality without God." (Some Dogmas of Religion, ch. 1)
Defining philosophical-atheist argument from an idealist standpoint.
"The traditional arguments for God's existence are demonstrably defective." (Some Dogmas of Religion, ch. 3-5)
Major early-twentieth-century philosophy-of-religion treatise.
"Critique of theistic dogma." (Some Dogmas of Religion, subtitle)
Rationalism
10%
Strong rationalist-philosophical methodology.
"Philosophy can settle the question of religious dogma rationally." (Some Dogmas of Religion, preface)
Realism
6%
Idealist-personalist realism about persons.
"Persons are real, atemporal, immortal." (Some Dogmas of Religion)
Hegelianism
8%
Hegelian tradition.
British-idealist tradition.
Internal Tensions
McTaggart's atheistic-idealist philosophy of religion — distinctive non-theistic defence of personal immortality.
⧖
I. Time
1906.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Grain: Continuous
Freedom: Deterministic
Traversability: Linear
Direction: Uni-directional
Dimensionality: One
✦
II. Space
Cambridge.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Curvature: Flat
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◉
III. Matter
Single philosophy-of-religion monograph.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Conservation: Conserved
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◎
IV. Observer
Middle McTaggart.
Attributes
Time Instance: Single
Space Instance: Single
Knowledge Extent: Total
Knowledge Retainment: Total
Physicality: Disembodied
Agency: Active
Number: Plural
Metaphysical Agency: Impersonal
⚡
V. Energy
Critical-idealist energies.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Conservation: Conserved
Dispersibility: Reversible
⧉
VI. Information
Single book.
Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival
Cosmic Conservation: Conserved
Personal Conservation: Conserved
Granularity: Continuous
Personas that cite this work
Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint
Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.
Computed school proximity
The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.
How Some Dogmas of Religion resolves each dilemma
37 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 12 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 20 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas · 5 distinctive
Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/202)
Do you really choose?
If the brain is a physical system and physical systems are governed by laws, then every choice is also a chain of causes — which raises the question of what was really left to choose.
Choice is real within a determined order — agency and determinism aren’t opposites.
On this view, the future is determined and you are genuinely choosing. Those aren't contradictory because the determination runs through you rather than around you: your reasoning, deliberation, and assent are the way the determined outcome gets settled. Choice is what it feels like from …
Roads not taken
The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. (69%) ·
Choice is structural illusion — every event is fixed by the prior state. (10%) ·
Even if the universe is undetermined, you are not the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/202)
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
Addiction looks from one angle like the textbook case of agency failing — a person doing what they don't, in any meaningful sense, want to do. From another angle it looks like agency at work in hard conditions. Which it is depends on what agency is.
The addict is genuinely responsible within a determined order.
On this view, the addict is acting within a determined order but is genuinely acting — making decisions, endorsing or resisting urges, seeking or refusing help. Responsibility attaches not because some uncaused choice happened, but because the addict is the kind of agent through which …
Roads not taken
The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. (69%) ·
The addict's behaviour is the outcome of causes; 'responsibility' is a useful fiction, not a metaphysical fact. (10%) ·
Even if the universe is undetermined, the addict isn't the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/202)
Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
When an autonomous AI takes an action that harms someone, the question of who or what is responsible — the developer, the operator, the model itself — turns on whether the model is the kind of thing that can be a responsible agent.
The AI can be a genuine agent within determined conditions — and therefore genuinely responsible.
On this view, what makes a being responsible is not indeterminism but the kind of process the being is. An AI that deliberates, considers consequences, can be given reasons, and modifies its behaviour on reflection is doing what responsible agency is, even if its underlying …
Roads not taken
An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. (69%) ·
An AI's behaviour is fully determined by training and input; 'responsibility' applies if at all to its makers. (10%) ·
Neither AIs nor anyone else are the locus of free agency; the question is the wrong one. (6%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree
(31/202)
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
The heat death of the universe — entropy maxed out, no further work possible — is among the more sobering implications of mainstream physics. Whether it is structurally inescapable depends on what kind of finitude the cosmos has.
Both time and matter are unbounded; 'running out' is misframed.
On this view, the cosmos has neither a temporal horizon nor a material exhaustion point. The framing of running out presupposes bounds that the cosmos doesn't have. Energy gradients perpetuate; new configurations emerge; the categories that make heat-death scary don't apply at the cosmic scale.
Roads not taken
Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. (47%) ·
Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. (26%) ·
The cosmos has bounds; heat death is a real horizon. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree
(31/202)
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Whether we can grow our way out of resource constraints — or whether the cosmos sets limits the economy ultimately must obey — depends on what kind of finitude matter has.
Resources are practically inexhaustible on cosmic scales; terrestrial limits are engineering.
On this view, matter and time are both unbounded at the largest scales. Terrestrial resource limits are real engineering and political constraints but not metaphysical ones; the cosmos can in principle support whatever expansion intelligence is capable of.
Roads not taken
Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. (47%) ·
The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. (26%) ·
Resources are finite in the strict sense; living well requires accepting the limit. (12%)
4 mainstream positions
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
Both time and matter are unbounded; we cannot in principle owe more than is possible.
15%
How much weight do future people deserve?
Time arises from events or from a deeper substrate — the future is not yet.
32%
Is regret rational?
The past is not a thing now; regret is the present holding what is no longer.
32%
Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them?
Past species no longer exist; what we owe is to the present and the future.
32%
Matter · 7 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
What stuff is — fundamental, relational, or appearance.
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree
(47/202)
Is the world created from nothing?
Creatio ex nihilo is one of the most distinctive Western-theological claims. Whether matter was created from nothing, eternally exists, or is sustained moment-by-moment turns on what kind of thing matter is.
Matter is real but emerges from something deeper — neither bedrock nor created-from-nothing.
On this view, matter is genuinely there, but it isn't the floor of reality. It depends on something more fundamental — dependent origination, mind, divine sustaining act, computational substrate, or the structure of conditions — and is conserved only at its own level of description. …
Roads not taken
Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. (55%) ·
Matter is constituted by relations; the question of 'from what?' presupposes substance. (16%) ·
Matter arises and dissolves through cosmic rounds; neither created from nothing nor eternal. (4%)
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree
(47/202)
Is the physical world fully real?
Realists, idealists, and relationalists divide on whether matter exists mind-independently, derivatively, or as a pattern of relations. The split runs deeper than any single scientific question.
Real but sustained — not mind-independent in the strict realist sense.
On this view, the physical world is real enough — it has its own laws, its own conservation principles, its own resistance to wish — but it is not the floor of being. It is sustained by something else: mind, divine attention, computational substrate, or …
Roads not taken
Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. (55%) ·
Real as relations — neither pure substance nor pure construction. (16%) ·
Real for this cycle — the deepest reality cycles through creation and dissolution. (4%)
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree
(47/202)
Does matter have intrinsic moral standing?
Do rocks, soil, rivers, and stuff in general deserve moral consideration — or only the living, the conscious, the human? The answer turns on what matter is.
Matter is morally considerable derivatively — through what it sustains.
On this view, matter doesn't have standing on its own; it has standing through what it makes possible. Soil matters because it grows food; water matters because it sustains life and mind and practice. Asking whether the rock as such has moral standing slightly misreads …
Roads not taken
Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. (55%) ·
Matter has intrinsic moral standing as part of the relational fabric. (16%) ·
Matter is in flux; standing is impermanent and ritual-mediated. (4%)
4 mainstream positions
What is money?
Money is a real institution with intrinsic features.
54%
What is a nation?
A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character.
54%
What makes someone male or female?
Sex is a real biological kind with given content.
54%
Should we edit the human germline?
Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given.
54%
Observer · 37 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.
Distinctive · only 5% of schools agree
(11/202)
Is environmental damage ever truly permanent?
Extinction is forever; soil erosion takes centuries to repair; the carbon we emit will warm the climate for millennia. But whether 'forever' or 'millennia' means what they say depends on what kind of process the universe is.
What appears irreversible is reversible by the right action.
On this view, the appearance of permanence is a function of limits we have not yet exceeded. Divine action, sufficiently advanced technology, intentional restoration practice can in principle reverse what now appears irreversible. The lost is not gone for good; it is gone for now.
Roads not taken
Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. (66%) ·
Loss is part of cycles; what disappears returns in another form. (17%) ·
From the standpoint of the One, the categories of permanence and loss are conventional. (8%)
Distinctive · only 5% of schools agree
(11/202)
Can a civilization recover from collapse?
Rome fell; Maya cities emptied; Bronze Age trade networks collapsed in a single generation. Whether what was lost can be recovered — or whether collapse is structurally final — depends on what kind of process civilization is.
Civilization is the kind of order that can in principle be restored.
On this view, the order that constitutes civilization — information, practices, institutions, ethics — is not destroyed by collapse, only dispersed. Given the right work, by humans, divine action, or both, it can be reconstituted. The historical pattern of recovery and renewal is partial evidence; …
Roads not taken
Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. (66%) ·
Civilization rises and falls in cycles; recovery is structural to history. (17%) ·
From the One's vantage, civilizational categories are themselves conventional. (8%)
Distinctive · only 5% of schools agree
(11/202)
Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally?
The universe trends from order to disorder. Whether that physical pattern carries moral weight — making the preservation of order, beauty, complexity a kind of cosmic duty — depends on whether time has the kind of structure morality could lean on.
Apparent entropy is reversible in principle; the moral category is restoration.
On this view, the second law describes local pattern rather than cosmic destiny. What is broken can be repaired — by divine action, by human work, by energetic intervention. The moral weight of restoration is real and not borrowed from the physics. The cosmos is …
Roads not taken
Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. (66%) ·
Local entropy increase is part of a cycle; the moral category is participation in the cycle. (17%) ·
From the One's vantage, the second law is itself a feature of the conventional, not the ultimate. (8%)
14 mainstream positions
Could causation work backwards?
Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural.
68%
Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us?
The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction.
68%
Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it?
The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description.
68%
When does a person begin?
A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence.
54%
What is marriage?
Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make.
54%
Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it?
Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce.
32%
Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge?
Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it.
32%
Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces?
An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing.
32%
What makes someone the same person over time?
You are a soul — what persists through change is the non-bodily aspect.
29%
Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married?
The soul persists; the cognitive change is the body's, not the person's.
29%
If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived?
The soul accompanies the person; engineering can't transfer it.
29%
Could an AI have a mind that matters?
Yes — mind is a pattern, not a substrate.
9%
Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans?
If the pattern of mind is there, the standing is there — regardless of species.
9%
Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious?
If the pattern is present at sufficient complexity, the experience is present too.
9%
20 unaligned
Are coincidences ever more than coincidence?
Schools split: 49% / 37% / 8%
—
Are the dead morally present to the living?
Schools split: 44% / 35% / 13%
—
Are there indivisible units of experience?
Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13%
—
Can prayer for someone far away affect them?
Schools split: 49% / 37% / 8%
—
Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally?
Schools split: 50% / 29% / 12%
—
Does history have a direction or meaning?
Schools split: 37% / 23% / 19%
—
Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless?
Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13%
—
Does prayer change God's mind?
Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13%
—
How is knowledge of reality produced?
Schools split: 25% / 17% / 13%
—
Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom?
Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13%
—
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination?
Schools split: 48% / 15% / 15%
—
Is memory stored or reconstructed?
Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13%
—
Is reality fundamentally digital?
Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13%
—
Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal?
Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4%
—
Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed?
Schools split: 65% / 16% / 10%
—
Should we colonize space?
Schools split: 48% / 15% / 15%
—
What happens to "you" when you die?
Schools split: 37% / 30% / 18%
—
What is our place in nature?
Schools split: 48% / 15% / 15%
—
What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize?
Schools split: 44% / 16% / 14%
—
Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species?
Schools split: 40% / 28% / 14%
—
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
Information is conserved — the personal pattern is held even when an individual mind loses it.
39%
Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
Information at the cosmic level isn't destroyed; deletion only obscures access.
39%
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back?
The information that constitutes a person is conserved; restoration is in principle possible.
39%
Is forgiveness ontologically possible?
The offense persists ontologically; forgiveness is real moral work, but it doesn't erase what was.
39%