William James’s Answers to James B. Pratt’s Questionnaire on Religion

The following is a reproduction of William James’s answers to a questionnaire on religion circulated in 1904 by James Bissett Pratt, who at the time was a doctoral student of James at Harvard University. It is found collected in The Letters of William James (1920) and as an autograph manuscript hosted by Harvard found here.

In the questionnaire, James provides a succinct account of his understanding of God. That is a particularly insightful piece that is otherwise unavailable online as a stand-alone page. James’s answers are highlighted in bold.

It is being realized as never before that religion, as one of the most important things in the life both of the community and of the individual, deserves close and extended study. Such study can be of value only if based upon the personal experiences of many individuals. If you are in sympathy with such study and are willing to assist in it, will you kindly write out the answers to the following questions and return them with this questionnaire, as soon as you conveniently can, to James B. Pratt, 20 Shepard Street, Cambridge, Mass.

Please answer the questions at length and in detail. Do not give philosophical generalizations, but your own personal experience.

1. What does religion mean to you personally? Is it:

1. A belief that something exists? Yes.
2. An emotional experience? Not powerfully so, yet a social reality.
3. A general attitude of the will toward God or toward righteousness? It involves these.

If it has several elements, which is for you the most important? The social appeal for corroboration, consolation, etc., when things are going wrong with my causes (my truth denied), etc.

2. What do you mean by God? A combination of Ideality and (final) efficacity.

1. Is He a person — if so, what do you mean by His being a person? He must be cognizant and responsive in some way.
2. Or is He only a Force? He must do.
3. Or is God an attitude of the Universe toward you? Yes, but more conscious. “God,” to me, is not the only spiritual reality to believe in. Religion means primarily a universe of spiritual relations surrounding the earthly, practical ones, not merely relations of “value,” but agencies and their activities. I suppose that the chief premises for my hospitality towards the religious testimony of others is my conviction that “normal” or “sane” consciousness is so small a part of actual experience. What e’er be true, it is not true exclusively, as philistine scientific opinion assumes. The other kinds of consciousness bear witness to a much wider universe of experiences, from which our belief selects and emphasizes such parts as best satisfy our needs.

How do you personally apprehend his relation to mankind and to you personally?

If your position on any of these matters is uncertain, please state the fact. Uncertain.

3. Why do you believe in God? Is it

1. From some argument? Emphatically, no.
2. Or because you have experienced His presence? No, but rather because I need it so that it “must” be true.
3. Or from authority, such as that of the Bible or of some prophetic person? Only the whole tradition of religious people, to which something in me makes admiring response.
4. Or from any other reason? Only for the social reasons.

If from several of these reasons, please indicate carefully the order of their importance.

4. Or do you so much believe in God as want to use Him? I can’t use him very definitely, yet I believe. Do you accept Him not so much as a real existent Being, but rather as an ideal to live by? More as a powerful ally of my own ideals. If you should become thoroughly convinced that there was no God, would it make any great difference in your life — either in happiness, morality, or in other respects? Hard to say. It would surely make some difference.

5. Is God very real to you, as real as an earthly friend, though different? Dimly real; not as an earthly friend.

Do you feel that you have experienced His presence? If so, please describe what you mean by such an experience. Never.

How vague or how distinct is it? How does it affect you mentally and physically?

If you have had no such experience, do you accept the testimony of others who claim to have felt God’s presence directly? Please answer this question with special care and in as much detail as possible. Yes! The whole line of testimony on this point is so strong that I am unable to pooh-pooh it away. No doubt there is a germ in me of something similar that makes response.

6. Do you pray, and if so, why? That is, is it purely from habit, and social custom, or do you really believe that God hears your prayers? I can’t possibly pray — I feel foolish and artificial.

Is prayer with you one-sided or two-sided? — i.e., do you sometime feel that in prayer you receive something — such as strength or the divine spirit — from God? Is it a real communion?

7. What do you mean by “spirituality?” Susceptibility to ideals, but with a certain freedom to indulge in imagination about them. A certain amount of “other worldly” fancy. Otherwise you have mere morality, or “taste.”

Describe a typically spiritual person. Phillips Brooks[1].

8. Do you believe in personal immortality? Never keenly; but more strongly as I grow older. If so, why? Because I am just getting fit to live.

9. Do you accept the bible as authority in religious matters? Are your religious faith and your religious life based on it? If so, how would your belief in God and your life toward Him and your fellow men be affected by loss of faith in the authority of the Bible? No. No. No. It is so human a book that I don’t see how belief in its divine authorship can survive the reading of it.

10. What do you mean by a “religious experience?” Any moment of life that brings the reality of spiritual things more “home” to one.

[1] Phillips Brooks (1835–1893) was an Episcopalian clergyman from Boston of international renown who was widely considered one of the best preachers in Christendom in his time. Today, he is best known for writing the hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” John F. Kennedy’s famous exhortation to “not pray for easy lives” but to “be stronger men” is a quotation of Brooks.