A Theory Of William James' S Thought Of Conversion

Religion has been a big concern of mankind. Human's rational thinking promote ourselves to find the foundation for faith. In the background of Christian. Theses issues include: “ the relationship between human and God”, “ the way how people understand God” and “faith in God according to what”. However, there is the subject-object dichotomy methodology in traditional philosophy. Through this methodology, people seem to be separated from God. Under the impact of scientific progress, religious beliefs(such as belief in God) seems to be in danger of being replaced by scientific knowledge. Face to the difficulties of religion, William James takes a deeply philosophical reflection. He makes a detailed analysis of personal religious experience. He wants to provide solutions for the difficulties of religion. He tries to find the roots of religion.This paper studies James' s thought of conversion. It a analyses of how he find the theoretical roots for human's faith. Subject-object dichotomy methodology incursion into religion. Traditional faith will split the relationship between human and God. James pointing out that the subject-object dichotomy methodological flaws. Based on the “relationship theory”, he analyses the basement of the problem that the separation of man from God. In a psychological point, he analysis the root of faith in the process of conversion. It should be noted that this article just focuses on James' s religious conversion ideas. The other scholars dissimilar views are not in this paper's mention. The first chapter discusses background, significance, the purpose, the way to study of the research. The second chapter analyzes the subject-object dichotomy methodology, traditional religious dilemma and the methodology used to religious causes. The third chapter elaborates James' s views of religion. He believes that the essence of religion is the individual rather than the system. Religious belief come from the instinct of emotional needs, it is some kinds of emotion and has nothing to do with reason. Therefore, use reason to find religious belief is invalid. The fourth chapter discusses James' s religious conversion theory. We study the relationship between God and man, Two different personality and the mysterious religious experience. We found the subconscious mind is the root of religious conversion from the sense of Psychology. At last, the traditional religion of the difficulties are resolved, religious roots was found.