Download or read book Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason written by J. L. Schellenberg and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this clearly written and tightly argued book, J. L. Schellenberg addresses a fundamental yet neglected religious problem. If there is a God, he asks, why is his existence not more obvious? Traditionally, theists have claimed that God is hidden in order to account for the fact that the evidence of his existence is as weak as it is. Schellenberg maintains that, given the understanding of God's moral character to which theists are committed, this claim runs into serious difficulty. There are grounds, the author writes, for thinking that the perfectly loving God of theism would not be hidden, that such a God would put the fact of his existence beyond reasonable nonbelief. Since reasonable nonbelief occurs, Schellenberg argues, it follows that there is here an argument of considerable force for atheism. In developing his claim, Schellenberg carefully examines the relevant views of such theists as Pascal, Butler, Kierkegaard, Hick, and others. He clarifies their suggestions concerning Divine hiddenness and shows how they fall short of providing a rebuttal for the argument he presents. That argument, he concludes, poses a serious challenge to theism, to which contemporary theists must seek to respond. The first full-length treatment of its topic, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason will be of interest to anyone who has sought to reach a conclusion as to God's existence, and especially to theologians and philosophers of religion.
Download or read book Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason written by J. L. Schellenberg and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this clearly written and tightly argued book, J. L. Schellenberg addresses a fundamental yet neglected religious problem. If there is a God, he asks, why is his existence not more obvious? Traditionally, theists have claimed that God is hidden in order to account for the fact that the evidence of his existence is as weak as it is. Schellenberg maintains that, given the understanding of God's moral character to which theists are committed, this claim runs into serious difficulty. There are grounds, the author writes, for thinking that the perfectly loving God of theism would not be hidden, that such a God would put the fact of his existence beyond reasonable nonbelief. Since reasonable nonbelief occurs, Schellenberg argues, it follows that there is here an argument of considerable force for atheism. In developing his claim, Schellenberg carefully examines the relevant views of such theists as Pascal, Butler, Kierkegaard, Hick, and others. He clarifies their suggestions concerning Divine hiddenness and shows how they fall short of providing a rebuttal for the argument he presents. That argument, he concludes, poses a serious challenge to theism, to which contemporary theists must seek to respond. The first full-length treatment of its topic, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason will be of interest to anyone who has sought to reach a conclusion as to God's existence, and especially to theologians and philosophers of religion.
Download or read book Divine Hiddenness written by Daniel Howard-Snyder and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished group of philosophers of religion explore the question of divine hiddenness.
Download or read book The Hiddenness Argument written by J. L. Schellenberg and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. Some Basic Tools -- 2. A Conceptual Map -- 3. Why So Late to the Show? -- 4. The Main Premise -- 5. Add Insight and Stir -- 6. Nonresistant Nonbelief -- 7. Must a God Be Loving? -- 8. The Challenge -- Coda: After Personal Gods.
Download or read book The Hiddenness of God written by Michael C. Rea and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-19 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hiddenness of God addresses the problem of divine hiddenness which concerns the ambiguity of evidence for God's existence, the elusiveness of God's comforting presence, the palpable and devastating experience of divine absence and abandonment, and more; phenomena which are hard to reconcile with the idea, central to the Jewish and Christian scriptures, that there exists a God who is deeply and lovingly concerned with the lives of humans. Michael C. Rea argues that divine hiddenness is not a problem to be explained away but rather a consequence of the nature of God himself. He shows that it rests on unwarranted assumptions and expectations about God's love for human beings. Rea explains how scripture and tradition bear testimony not only to God's love, but to God's transcendence. He shows that God's transcendence should be understood as implying that all of God's intrinsic attributes—divine love included—elude our grasp in significant ways.
Download or read book Obstacles to Divine Revelation written by Rolfe King and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating, philosophical approach to the concept of divine revelation, exploring the implications this theory may have for generating a new concept of religious truth.
Download or read book The Wisdom to Doubt written by J. L. Schellenberg and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wisdom to Doubt is a major contribution to the contemporary literature on the epistemology of religious belief. Continuing the inquiry begun in his previous book, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, J. L. Schellenberg here argues that given our limitations and especially our immaturity as a species, there is no reasonable choice but to withhold judgment about the existence of an ultimate salvific reality. Schellenberg defends this conclusion against arguments from religious experience and naturalistic arguments that might seem to make either religious belief or religious disbelief preferable to his skeptical stance. In so doing, he canvasses virtually all of the important recent work on the epistemology of religion. Of particular interest is his call for at least skepticism about theism, the most common religious claim among philosophers. The Wisdom to Doubt expands the author's well-known hiddenness argument against theism and situates it within a larger atheistic argument, itself made to serve the purposes of his broader skeptical case. That case need not, on Schellenberg's view, lead to a dead end but rather functions as a gateway to important new insights about intellectual tasks and religious possibilities.
Download or read book Hidden Divinity and Religious Belief written by Adam Green and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of new essays is a groundbreaking examination of divine hiddenness from the perspectives of different faiths.
Download or read book Debating Christian Religious Epistemology written by John M. DePoe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-06 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to believe in God? What passes as evidence for belief in God? What issues arise when considering the rationality of belief in God? Debating Christian Religious Epistemology introduces core questions in the philosophy of religion by bringing five competing viewpoints on the knowledge of God into critical dialogue with one another. Each chapter introduces an epistemic viewpoint, providing an overview of its main arguments and explaining why it justifies belief. The validity of that viewpoint is then explored and tested in a critical response from an expert in an opposing tradition. Featuring a wide range of different philosophical positions, traditions and methods, this introduction: - Covers classical evidentialism, phenomenal conservatism, proper functionalism, covenantal epistemology and traditions-based perspectivalism - Draws on MacIntyre's account of rationality and ideas from the Analytic and Conservatism traditions - Addresses issues in social epistemology - Considers the role of religious experience and religious texts Packed with lively debates, this is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in understanding the major positions in contemporary religious epistemology and how religious concepts and practices relate to belief and knowledge.
Download or read book God in Proof written by Nathan Schneider and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this tour of the history of arguments for and against the existence of God, Nathan Schneider embarks on a remarkable intellectual, historical, and theological journey through the centuries of believers and unbelieversÑfrom ancient Greeks, to medieval Arabs, to todayÕs most eminent philosophers and the New Atheists. Framed by an account of SchneiderÕs own unique journey, God in Proof illuminates the great minds who wrestled with one of historyÕs biggest questions together with their arguments, bringing them to life in their time, and our own. SchneiderÕs sure-handed portrayal of the characters and ideas involved in the search for proof challenges how we normally think about doubt and faith while showing that, in their quest for certainty and the proofs to declare it, thinkers on either side of the God divide are often closer to one another than they would like to think.
Download or read book Evolutionary Religion written by J. L. Schellenberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J.L. Schellenberg offers a path to a new kind of religious outlook. Reflection on our early stage in the evolutionary process leads to skepticism about religion, but also offers a new answer to the problem of faith and reason, and the possibility of a new, evolutionary form of religion.
Download or read book Philosophy of Religion written by Tim Bayne and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the philosophy of religion? How can we distinguish it from theology on the one hand and the psychology/sociology of religious belief on the other? What does it mean to describe God as eternal? And should religious people want there to be good arguments for the existence of God, or is religious belief only authentic in the absence of these good arguments? In this Very Short Introduction Tim Bayne introduces the field of philosophy of religion, and engages with some of the most burning questions that philosophers discuss. Considering how religion should be defined, and whether we even need to be able to define it in order to engage in the philosophy of religion, he goes on to discuss whether the existence of God matters. Exploring the problem of evil, Bayne also debates the connection between faith and reason, and the related question of what role reason should play in religious contexts. Shedding light on the relationship between science and religion, Bayne finishes by considering the topics of reincarnation and the afterlife. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book The Best Argument against God written by G. Oppy and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: .... compares two theories—Naturalism and Theism—on a wide range of relevant data. It concludes that Naturalism should be preferred to Theism on that data. The central idea behind the argument is that, while Naturalism is simpler than Theism, there is no relevant data that Naturalism fails to explain at least as well as Theism does.
Download or read book Progressive Atheism written by J. L. Schellenberg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-08 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Progressive Atheism shows how atheism can make progress in humanity's future. It presents a new way of arguing that God doesn't exist, based on a portrayal of God so positive that you may sometimes wonder whether you're reading the thoughts of a believer. Starting with the simple idea that our understanding of what it takes to be a good person has changed and grown over time, J. L. Schellenberg argues that our understanding of the goodness of God must now change too. Masculine images of God as haughty King or distant Father have to be replaced by God as a paragon of nonviolence and relational openness. This more evolved conception of God is incredibly attractive and admirable. But by the same token it has become less believable. Each moral advance, applied to God, makes it even clearer that such a being would never create a world like ours. Atheists have often approached the subject of God with disdain. Progressive Atheism proves that admiration will be far more powerful.
Download or read book Free Will and Theism written by Kevin Timpe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concerns both about the nature of free will and about the credibility of theistic belief and commitment have long preoccupied philosophers. In addition, there can be no denying that the history of philosophical inquiry into these two issues has been dynamic and, at least to some degree, integrated. In a great many cases, classical treatments of one have influenced classical treatments of the other--and in a variety of ways. Without pretending to be able to trace all the historical integrations of these treatments, there is no real question that these philosophical interrelations exist and are worthy of further exploration. In addition, contemporary discussions contain more than a few hints of suspicion that theistic belief is adversely affecting the purity of inquiry into contours of human free will. Nevertheless, until now there has been no volume systematically exploring the relationship between religious beliefs and various accounts of free will in the contemporary domain. With a particular eye on how the former might be--either legitimately or illegitimately--affecting the latter, this collection fills an important gap in the current debate. Here, sixteen leading philosophers focus their attention on a crucial point of intellectual intersection, with surprising and illuminating results.
Download or read book A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy written by Graham Oppy and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-05-06 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PROSE 2020 Single Volume Reference Finalist! Philosophers throughout history have debated the existence of gods, but it is only in recent years that the absence of such a belief has become a significant topic of philosophical analysis, in particular for philosophers of religion. Although it is difficult to trace the historical contours of atheism as the lack of belief in a higher power, the reasoned, reflective, and thoughtful rejection of theism has become commonplace in many modern intellectual circles, including academic philosophy where disciplinary data indicates that a large majority of philosophers self-identify as atheists. As the first book of its kind to bring together a collection of writing on the philosophical aspects of atheism both historical and contemporary, the Companion to Atheism and Philosophy stages an explicit, constructive, and comprehensive conversation between philosophy and atheism to examine the ways in which atheist thought intersects with ideas and positions from a variety of philosophical and theological sub-disciplines. The Companion begins by addressing the foundational questions and lingering controversies which underpin philosophical thought about atheism, exploring the implications of major developments in the history of philosophy for the modern atheistic worldview. Divided into eight distinct sections, essays consider a range of thinkers who were widely believed to have been atheists—including David Hume, Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton—and survey different kinds of objections to theism and atheism, including logical, evidential, normative, and prudential. Later chapters trace the relationship between atheism and metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy oriented around topics such as pragmatism, postmodernism, freedom, education, violence, and happiness. Deftly curated and thoughtfully composed, A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy is the most ambitious and authoritative account of philosophical thinking on atheism available, and is a first-rate resource for academics, professionals, and students of philosophy, religious studies, and theology.
Download or read book Why Hidden Divine Hiddenness Love and Revelation written by Richard H. Corrigan and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The purpose of this book is to outline the principal difficulties that the 'hiddenness' of God poses, and to offer solutions to the question of why God does not incontrovertibly and indubitably reveal His existence to everyone." This concise book introduces the reader to the current debate about the issue of divine hiddenness. The author critically assesses the views of many leading philosophers, and proceeds to offer his own solutions and insights. This is a book that will be of interest not only to the academic, but also to anyone who has ever wondered why God does not simply make his existence known to everyone.
