Download or read book Faith and Philosophical Enquiry written by D.Z. Phillips and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concern of this book is the nature of religious belief and the ways in which philosophical enquiry is related to it. Six chapters present the positive arguments the author wishes to put forward to discusses religion and rationality, scepticism about religion, language-games, belief and the loss of belief. The remaining chapters include criticisms of some contemporary philosophers of religion in the light of the earlier discussions, and the implications for more specific topics, such as religious education, are investigated. The book ends with a general attempt to say something about the character of philosophical enquiry, and to show how important it is to realise this character in the philosophy of religion.
Download or read book Mystical Experience of God written by Jerome Gellman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2001: Engaging contemporary discussion concerning the validity of mystical experiences of God, Jerome Gellman presents the best evidential case in favor of validity and its implications for belief in God. Gellman vigorously defends the coherence of the concept of a mystical experience of God against philosophical objections, and evaluates attempts to provide alternative explanations from sociology and neuropsychology. He then carefully examines feminist objections to male philosophers' treatments of mystical experience of God and to the traditional hierarchal concept of God. Gellman finds none of the objections decisive, and concludes that while the initial evidential case is not rationally compelling for some, it can be rationally compelling for others. Offering important new perspectives on the evidential value of experiences of God, and the concept of God more broadly, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers including those with an interest in philosophy of religion, religious studies, mysticism and epistemology.
Download or read book Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry written by Wesley J. Wildman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2010-11-05 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can philosophy contribute to the study of religion? This book argues that the study of religion needs philosophy in the form of multidisciplinary comparative inquiry. Contradicting the current tendency to regard philosophical reflection and the academic study of religion as independent endeavors best kept apart, Wesley J. Wildman brings them together, offering a broader vision than that of traditional "philosophy of religion" and surmounting many of its difficulties. His newer conception of "religious philosophy" is well suited to the modern, multicultural, secular university. Through multidisciplinary comparative inquiry, religious philosophy allows for a variety of approaches—from historical and analytical work to evocative description and theoretical evaluation of truth claims—and both secular and religious thinkers participate. The tasks and varieties of religious philosophy as they arc across the world's religions and philosophies are discussed along with religious philosophy's modern and postmodern contexts. Wildman's thoughtful and thought-provoking book will be essential reading for all those concerned with the study of religion, present and future.
Download or read book Theology and Philosophical Inquiry written by Vincent Brummer and published by Springer. This book was released on 1984-03-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On a Complex Theory of a Simple God written by Christopher Hughes and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hughes discusses Aquinus' work regarding the apparently irreconcilable theses of natural and revealed theology, and he argues that Aquinas fails in his attempt to reconcile absolute simplicity with the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Hughes also offers a provocative account of divine simplicity and explores its implications for the Thomistic doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation.
Download or read book Philosophy written by James K. Dew, Jr. and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two experienced educators offer an up-to-date introduction to philosophy from a Christian perspective that covers the four major areas of philosophical thought: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and ethics. Written from an analytic perspective, the book introduces key concepts and issues within the main areas of philosophical inquiry in a comprehensive yet accessible way, inviting readers on a quest for goodness, truth, and beauty that ultimately points to Jesus as the source of all.
Download or read book Believing Philosophy written by Dolores G. Morris and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Believing Philosophy introduces Christians to philosophy and the tools it provides believers, helping them understand, articulate, and defend their faith in an age of unbelief. Philosophy has been a part of Christianity since its earliest days, and theistic philosophy predates Christianity by thousands of years. But Christians today often don't realize or are skeptical of all that philosophy can offer them. In Part 1, author Dolores G. Morris explains why Christians should read and study philosophy. She begins with a historical overview of Christian philosophy from the church fathers to contemporary philosophers and then introduces the basic resources of philosophical reasoning: the role and aim of reason, distinctions between truth and reason and provability, and learning to read like a philosopher. These chapters address three foundational questions: What is philosophy? Why should a Christian study philosophy? How should a Christian study philosophy? In Part 2, Morris introduces students to philosophical arguments and questions relevant to Christians. She presents arguments by three key branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and practical philosophy. Building on concepts introduced in Part 1, she explains what philosophical arguments are and how they ought to be evaluated from a philosophical and Christian perspective. The following chapters examine specific questions most pressing for Christians today: The problem of evil Rationality and faith Free will Skeptical theism The moral argument for the existence of God Reformed epistemology Each chapter introduces the problem, explains Christian responses, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each response, and leaves the final verdict to the reader. Finally, each chapter concludes with a list of recommended further readings.
Download or read book Spheres of Philosophical Inquiry and the Historiography of Medieval Philosophy written by John Inglis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1998 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a genealogy of the modern historiography of medieval philosophy up to the present, rediscovers fifty years of German scholarship, criticizes what has become the standard approach, and proposes an historically sensitive alternative.
Download or read book The Great Riddle written by Stephen Mulhall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can we talk meaningfully about God? The theological movement known as Grammatical Thomism affirms that religious language is nonsensical, because the reality of God is beyond our capacity for expression. Stephen Mulhall critically evaluates the claims of this movement (as exemplified in the work of Herbert McCabe and David Burrell) to be a legitimate inheritor of Wittgenstein's philosophical methods as well as Aquinas's theological project. The major obstacle to this claim is that Grammatical Thomism makes the nonsensicality of religious language when applied to God a touchstone of Thomist insight, whereas 'nonsense' is standardly taken to be solely a term of criticism in Wittgenstein's work. Mulhall argues that, if Wittgenstein is read in the terms provided by the work of Cora Diamond and Stanley Cavell, then a place can be found in both his early work and his later writings for a more positive role to be assigned to nonsensical utterances—one which depends on exploiting an analogy between religious language and riddles. And once this alignment between Wittgenstein and Aquinas is established, it also allows us to see various ways in which his later work has a perfectionist dimension—in that it overlaps with the concerns of moral perfectionism, and in that it attributes great philosophical significance to what theology and philosophy have traditionally called 'perfections' and 'transcendentals', particularly concepts such as Being, Truth, and Unity or Oneness. This results in a radical reconception of the role of analogous usage in language, and so in the relation between philosophy and theology.
Download or read book Alternative Concepts of God written by Andrei A. Buckareff and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of God according to traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism minimally includes the following theses: (i) There is one God; (ii) God is an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect agent; (iii) God is the creator ex nihilo of the universe and the sustainer of all that exists; and (iv) God is an immaterial substance that is ontologically distinct from the universe. Proponents of alternative concepts of God, such as pantheism, panentheism, religious anti-realism, developmental theism, and religious naturalism, exclude at least one of these claims. A number of prominent philosophers and scientists have expressed sympathy with alternative concepts of the divine. However, voices raised in defense of these concepts tend not to be taken seriously in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. This volume aims to shed light on alternative concepts of God and to thoroughly consider their merits and demerits. The contributors are leading analytic philosophers of religion, including critics of these views as well as sympathizers. This is the first contemporary edited collection featuring the work of analytic philosophers of religion covering such a wide range of alternative concepts of God.
Download or read book Cicero on the Philosophy of Religion written by J. P. F. Wynne and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do the gods love you? Cicero gives deep and surprising answers in two philosophical dialogues on traditional Roman religion.
Download or read book The Trinity written by H.E. Baber and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: he doctrine of the Trinity developed in response to a range of theological interests—among them the project of reconciling claims about the divinity of Christ with monotheism and massaging Christian doctrine into the ambient (largely Platonic) philosophical framework of the period. More recently the Trinity doctrine has been deployed to promote normative claims concerning human nature, human relationships and social justice. During the past two decades analytic philosophers of religion have increasingly engaged with the doctrine. There are, however, a number of foundational questions that have not been addressed in the philosophical literature. The Trinity: A Philosophical Investigation considers the competing accounts of the Trinity doctrine, whether orthodox or heterodox, and aims to respond to objections and explicate their motivations and entailments.
Download or read book Speaking of a Personal God written by Vincent Brümmer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-11-05 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short work, written by an influential philosopher of religion, shows how systematic theology is itself largely a philosophical enterprise.
Download or read book Out of the Cave written by Edna Ullmann-Margalit and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at the Essene connection, the archaeology of Qumran, and the sectarian nature of the scrolls community, this work explores the different arenas, and ways, in which contesting theories of the scrolls do battle. In this context, it finds examples that exercise philosophers of science as well as the general public.
Download or read book Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality written by Ayon Maharaj and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sri Ramakrishna is widely known as a nineteenth-century Indian mystic who affirmed the harmony of all religions on the basis of his richly varied spiritual experiences and eclectic religious practices, both Hindu and non-Hindu. In Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality, Ayon Maharaj argues that Sri Ramakrishna was also a sophisticated philosopher of great contemporary relevance. Through a careful study of Sri Ramakrishna's recorded oral teachings in the original Bengali, Maharaj reconstructs his philosophical positions and analyzes them from a cross-cultural perspective. Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual journey culminated in the exalted state of "vijñana," his term for the "intimate knowledge" of God as the Infinite Reality that is both personal and impersonal, with and without form, immanent in the universe and beyond it. This expansive spiritual standpoint of vijñana, Maharaj contends, opens up a new paradigm for addressing central issues in cross-cultural philosophy of religion, including divine infinitude, religious pluralism, mystical experience, and the problem of evil. Sri Ramakrishna's vijñana-based religious pluralism--when grasped in all its subtlety--proves to have major philosophical advantages over dominant Western models. Moreover, his mystical testimony and teachings not only cut across long-standing debates about the nature of mystical experience but also bolster recent defenses of its epistemic value. Maharaj further demonstrates that Sri Ramakrishna's unique response to the problem of evil resonates strongly with Western "soul-making" theodicies and contemporary theories of skeptical theism. A pioneering interdisciplinary study of one of India's most important philosopher-mystics, Maharaj's book is essential reading for scholars and students in philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and Hindu studies.
Download or read book The God Relationship written by Paul K. Moser and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul K. Moser proposes a new approach to inquiry about God, including a new discipline of the ethics for such inquiry.
Download or read book Issues in the Philosophy of Religion written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
