TY  - JOUR
T1  - Towards an Understanding of Iris Murdoch’s Godless Theology
AU  - Coşkuner Kalın, Ceylan
PY  - 2025
DA  - October
Y2  - 2025
JF  - Medeniyet ve Toplum Dergisi
PB  - Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi
WT  - DergiPark
SN  - 2587-0092
VL  - 9
IS  - 2
LA  - en
AB  - Iris Murdoch, a twentieth-century Irish philosopher and novelist best known for her contributions toethical theory, argues that philosophy should rest not only on ethics and art but also on religion.While affirming the indispensability of religion for moral life and ethical reflection, she calls for acritical re-examination of Christianity—addressing both its institutional practices and its prevailingconception of God. According to Murdoch, the historical and intellectual trajectory of Westernculture has exposed a personalized, myth-laden understanding of God as detached from reality andultimately unsustainable. In response, she advocates the demythologization of traditionalChristianity—which remains bound to this mythological conception of the divine—and itsreconstruction through insights drawn from Eastern traditions, particularly Zen Buddhism. Reenvisioningreligion as what she terms a “Godless Theology”, raises inevitable questions: Is itphilosophically coherent to speak of theology without God? Does the very expression itself notharbor a paradox? She grounds this theology in Plato’s Idea of the Good, which serves as itsontological foundation, and reformulates the ontological argument so that it aligns with her broaderphilosophical vision. This study argues that Murdoch’s theology, while rejecting the notion of apersonal deity, nevertheless advances an unconventional ontological understanding of deity—onethat, though nontraditional, still constitutes a genuine form of belief. Accordingly, the discussionconsiders whether Murdoch’s Godless Theology should be regarded merely as a nominal stance or,more significantly, as a substantive reconfiguration of faith. This article contributes bydistinguishing nominal from ontological ‘godlessness’ in Murdoch, showing how
KW  - Godless Theology
KW  - Demythologization
KW  - The Idea of the Good
KW  - Ontological Argument
KW  - Christian Buddhism.
KW  - Iris Murdoch
CR  - Akyüz, Y. (2013). Dostoyevski’nin Eserlerinde Tanrı Problemi. Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi
İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 36, 55-82.
CR  - Altorf, M. (2013). Iris Murdoch, or what it means to be a serious philosopher. Revista Internacional de
Filosofía, 60, 75-91.
UR  - https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/metder/issue//1802333
L1  - https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/5324350
ER  -