On the Possibility of Religious Knowledge and the Necessity of Religious Education

The aims of education have been variously described as being concerned with generic skills and generic attributes and with the transmission of knowledge. Knowledge, as it is commonly understood does not seem to include religious knowledge, except in the sense of the study of comparative religions. If there is no religious knowledge, but only belief, then religious education will not be concerned with the transmission of knowledge and hence, will not be concerned with truth, but only with the initiation and formation of persons in a particular cultural belief system. While there may be good practical reasons for forming persons to have an appreciation of their cultural heritage, the idea that there is any religious knowledge which expresses the truth about the world on this view is false. Religions may be studied from a sociological, historical or even psychological perspective and so their study may be justified, but the idea that religious education is concerned with religious knowledge, where this involves knowledge of the existence of a supreme being, God, as well as the truth of particular religious propositions is rejected. In this paper, I want to argue for the possibility of religious knowledge and hence of the importance of religious education. If there is such a thing as religious knowledge and if it is important for human beings, then there is a prima facie case for students to receive religious education and so gain religious knowledge as part of this education. There are independent reasons for students to receive religious education quite apart from having the opportunity to gain religious knowledge, since, as suggested, religious education is also about the formation of persons in the belief systems of a particular culture, but if there is a religious knowledge then it is an important component of any education and students should be given the opportunity to gain religious knowledge. We will begin with some account of what we mean by religious knowledge, drawing on Thomistic metaphysics, and argue that there are propositions about the nature of the world for which there is good evidential support, however, given its nature, there are different ways of interpreting how the evidence is to be understood.