Gender and the infinite: On the aspiration to be all there is

Twentieth-century philosophers of religion made strides forward in advancing sophisticated arguments about religious knowledge, language, experience and arguments for the existence of the theistic God. However, by the end of the century Anglo-American philosophers in particular tended to treat philosophy of religion as synonymous with a Christian account of the divine. Male and female philosophers assumed an uncritical familiarity with, and so unquestioning acceptance of, the classical model of traditional theism as the subject matter for philosophers of religion. Nevertheless, before the turn of the century a number of feminist philosophers of religion had begun to challenge this account for its gender-bias; and non-western philosophers criticized the ethnocentrism or racism of western claims to neutrality in philosophy of religion. Feminist philosophers directed their criticism to the traditional theistic conception of God for its idealization of exclusively male attributes.1 Whether theist or atheist, twentieth-century philosophers of religion in the Anglo-American world too readily accepted the theistic frame of reference, failing to notice the uncritical – and in this sense unphilosophical – nature of the traditional conception of God as a personal being who is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal creator and sustainer of all creation. Why should the overall conception itself remain while endless debates centre on each of the divine attributes, especially in relation to the frequently debated philosophical problem of evil? Feminist philosophers were not alone in arguing that it would be far more constructive to try to alleviate suffering than to justify the existence of evil and a good, all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal God? This would change the nature of the philosophical problem. The radical question is, whose conception is the God of contemporary philosophy of religion? If not our own, or if a male projection of who we are, why focus philosophical debate exclusively on it?