Issues in the Philosophy of Religion PDF Download

Author: Nicholas Rescher
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 311032122X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Over the years Nicholas Rescher has published various essays on religious issues from a philosophical point of view. The chapters of the present volume collect these together, joining to them four further pieces which appear here for the first time (Chapters 3, 7, and 8). While these studies certainly do not constitute a system of religious philosophy, they do combine to give a vivid picture of a well-defined point of view on the subject-the viewpoint of a Roman Catholic philosopher who, in the longstanding manner of this tradition, seeks to harmonize the commitments of faith with the fruits of inquiry proceeding under the auspices of reason.

Author: Paul Draper
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131729274X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
While orthodox religion by its very nature is conservative, philosophy at its best is inherently radical. It challenges authority, tradition, and the whole idea of "dogma." For this reason, philosophy of religion can be explosively controversial. It is bound to disturb those who peddle incontrovertible truth and fascinate those who seek spiritual truth and are willing to follow the argument wherever it leads. This volume is designed for such seekers. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers of religion to explore and debate radical new ideas about religion, God, and ultimate reality. Four related questions are addressed: How might religion make progress? Is life after death a real possibility? Must a perfect God be motivated by our well-being? What alternatives are there to traditional theism and materialist atheism? The book begins with a vision for the field of philosophy of religion and ends with a capstone chapter that touches on all of the topics debated in the other chapters. The addition of chapter overviews, annotated suggestions for further reading, and annotated guides to three additional controversies make it an ideal textbook in addition to being an important source for scholars and seekers of all kinds.

Author: Eugene Thomas Long
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9781402001673
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This collection of original articles, written by leading contemporary European and American philosophers of religion, is presented in celebration of the publication of the fiftieth volume of the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Following the Editor's Introduction, John Macquarrie, Adriaan Peperzak, and Hent de Vries take up central themes in continental philosophy of religion. Macquarrie analyzes postmodernism and its influence in philosophy and theology. Peperzak argues for a form of universality different from that of modern philosophy, and de Vries analyzes an intrinsic and structural relationship between religion and the media. The next three essays discuss issues in analytic philosophy of religion. Philip Quinn argues that religious diversity reduces the epistemic status of exclusivism and makes it possible for a religious person to be justified while living within a pluralistic environment. William Wainwright plumbs the work of Jonathan Edwards in order to better understand debates concerning freedom, determinism, and the problem of evil, and William Hasker asks whether theological incompatibilism is less inimical to traditional theism than some have supposed. Representing the Thomist tradition, Fergus Kerr challenges standard readings of Aquinas on the arguments for the existence of God. David Griffin analyzes the contributions of process philosophy to the problem of evil and the relation between science and religion. Illustrating comparative approaches, Keith Ward argues that the Semitic and Indian traditions have developed a similar concept of God that should be revised in view of post-Enlightenment theories of the individual and the historical. Keith Yandell explores themes in the Indian metaphysical tradition and considers what account of persons is most in accord with reincarnation and karma doctrines. Feminist philosophy of religion is represented in Pamela Anderson's article, in which she argues for a gender-sensitive and more inclusive approach to the craving for infinitude.

Author: Michael L. Peterson
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers
ISBN: 9786610197460
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion features newly commissioned debates on some of the most controversial issues in the field. For example: Is evil evidence against belief in God? Does science discredit religion? Is God's existence the best explanation of the universe? Is eternal damnation compatible with the Christian concept of God? Is morality based on God's commands?This first title in Blackwell's Contemporary Debates in Philosophy series presents important philosophical issues in a stimulating and engaging manner. Twelve central questions are posed, with each question addressed by a pair of opposing essays. The debates range from vigorous disagreements between theists and their critics to arguments between theists of different philosophical and theological persuasions. Both students and scholars in the philosophy of religion will readily sense the value of rigorous debate for sharply defining the issues and paving the way for further progress.

Author: Michael D. Beaty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
A collection of essays (several reprinted from Faith and philosophy, the journal of the Society for Christian Philosophers) written in response to Alvin Plantiga's paper philosophers challenge to religious philosophers to serve their own religious communities more faithfully. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author: John Cottingham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107019435
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
In this book, abstract intellectual argument meets ordinary human experience on matters such as the existence of God and the relation between religion and morality.

Author: Guy Axtell
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498550185
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
To speak of being religious lucky certainly sounds odd. But then, so does “My faith holds value in God’s plan, while yours does not.” This book argues that these two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — are inextricably connected. It argues that religious luck attributions can profitably be studied from a number of directions, not just theological, but also social scientific and philosophical. There is a strong tendency among adherents of different faith traditions to invoke asymmetric explanations of the religious value or salvific status of the home religion vis-à-vis all others. Attributions of good/bad religious luck and exclusivist dismissal of the significance of religious disagreement are the central phenomena that the book studies. Part I lays out a taxonomy of kinds of religious luck, a taxonomy that draws upon but extends work on moral and epistemic luck. It asks: What is going on when persons, theologies, or purported revelations ascribe various kinds of religiously-relevant traits to insiders and outsiders of a faith tradition in sharply asymmetric fashion? “I am saved but you are lost”; “My religion is holy but yours is idolatrous”; “My faith tradition is true, and valued by God, but yours is false and valueless.” Part II further develops the theory introduced in Part I, pushing forward both the descriptive/explanatory and normative sides of what the author terms his inductive risk account. Firstly, the concept of inductive risk is shown to contribute to the needed field of comparative fundamentalism by suggesting new psychological markers of fundamentalist orientation. The second side of what is termed an inductive risk account is concerned with the epistemology of religious belief, but more especially with an account of the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. Problems of inductively risky modes of belief-formation problematize claims to religion-specific knowledge. But the inductive risk account does not aim to set religion apart, or to challenge the reasonableness of religious belief tout court. Rather the burden of the argument is to challenge the reasonableness of attitudes of religious exclusivism, and to demotivate the “polemical apologetics” that exclusivists practice and hope to normalize.

Author: Tim Bayne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198754965
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Philosophy of religion contains some of our most burning questions about the role of religion in the world, and the relationship between believers and God. Tim Bayne considers the core debates surrounding the concept of God; the relationship between faith and reason; and the problem of evil, before looking at reincarnation and the afterlife.

Author: Tim Mulgan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191066575
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
Two familiar worldviews dominate Western philosophy: materialist atheism and the benevolent God of the Abrahamic faiths. Tim Mulgan explores a third way. Ananthropocentric Purposivism claims that there is a cosmic purpose, but human beings are irrelevant to it. Purpose in the Universe develops a philosophical case for Ananthropocentric Purposivism that it is at least as strong as the case for either theism or atheism. The book borrows traditional theist arguments to defend a cosmic purpose. These include cosmological, teleological, ontological, meta-ethical, and mystical arguments. It then borrows traditional atheist arguments to reject a human-centred purpose. These include arguments based on evil, diversity, and the scale of the universe. Mulgan also highlights connections between morality and metaphysics, arguing that evaluative premises play a crucial and underappreciated role in metaphysical debates about the existence of God, and Ananthropocentric Purposivism mutually supports an austere consequentialist morality based on objective values. He concludes that, by drawing on a range of secular and religious ethical traditions, a non-human-centred cosmic purpose can ground a distinctive human morality. Our moral practices, our view of the moral universe, and our moral theory are all transformed if we shift from the familiar choice between a universe without meaning and a universe where humans matter to the less self-aggrandising thought that, while it is about something, the universe is not about us.

Author: Elizabeth Burns
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317595467
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
What is this thing called Philosophy of Religion? grapples with the core topics studied on philosophy of religion undergraduate courses including: the meaning of religious language, including 20th century developments the nature of the Divine, including divine power, wisdom and action arguments for the existence of the Divine challenges to belief in the Divine, including the problems of evil, divine hiddenness and religious diversity believing without arguments arguments for life after death, including reincarnation. In addition to the in-depth coverage of the key themes within the subject area Elizabeth Burns explores the topics from the perspectives of the five main world religions, introducing students to the work of scholars from a variety of religious traditions and interpretations of belief. What is this thing called Philosophy of Religion? is the ideal introduction for those approaching the philosophy of religion for the first time, containing many helpful student-friendly features, such as a glossary of important terms, study questions and further reading.