it is now an exoteric view, sometimes accepted by "believers" themselves, and so could even be considered a postmodern heresy. but theological fictionalism does not work: faith is real assent and not make-believe; belief is different from acceptance; belief and faith are dispositional, but make-believe seems to presuppose an account of beliefs as occurrent states; we cannot anymore imagine at will than we can believe at will. INtroDuCtIoN Theological fictionalism maintains that religious monotheistic commitment does not necessitate the truth of theism. According to this position, God could have the same ontological status as a fictional character in a novel or a movie. Such a character does not exist; we know that that character does not exist; but we think about this character and experience emotions (or quasi-emotions) about it and what it does. like the experience of fiction, religious experience could consist in a game of make-believe. robin le Poidevin defends such a theological fictionalism (without using this label) in chapter 8 ("Is God a Fiction?") of Arguing for Atheism,1 partly inspired by Kendall Walton's theory of make-believe.2 1 robin le Poidevin, Arguing for Atheism (london: routledge, 1996). 2 Kendall l. Walton, Mimesis as Make-Believe (Cambridge, mA, and london: Harvard university Press, 1990). euroPeAN JourNAl For PHIloSoPHY oF relIGIoN 3/2 (AutumN 2011), PP. 427-437 roGer PouIVet428 In the first section of this paper, I will review le Poidevin's version of theological fictionalism. but theological fictionalism is not simply a theory held by philosophers. It also appears to be widespread in Post-modern cultures. The assumption is that we do not have to accept full-blooded theological realism – that God exists, that He revealed himself, that Christ was resurrected, and so on – in order to be religious persons. Such realist claims, it is thought, have been definitively disproven in the post-enlightenment period, thanks to the human and social sciences. my second point will consist in inspecti