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In Strange, Surprising, Sure, Robert Cummings Neville presents a theory of being, change, and value, and engages other philosophers who deal with these concepts. The book's central thesis is that the entire created world includes everything determinate, and thus the creator does not exist within creation. Strangely, this reverses nearly everything in the Western tradition. Surprisingly, this thesis is approached from a great many angles, all of which are within the Western, South Asian, or East Asian traditions. Surely put, this thesis will win out in the long run. Although Neville writes for an English-reading audience, he engages with thinkers from all these traditions.'

The relationship between faith and reason is multifaceted. Faith transcends reason in that it is more than reason alone can contain or fully guarantee, yet it is neither unreasonable nor something to which reason is irrelevant--and reason says some pretty fine things about it! This volume updates nine previously published articles on faith and reason by a Christian philosopher who has been studying these matters for two decades, alongside one new essay and a philosophical dialogue. These articles explain and integrate key ideas on faith and reason, including Alvin Plantinga's account of how Christian belief can be knowledge even without evidence; defenses of faith from Augustine and William James; accounts of empirical evidence for faith from different world religions; the distinction between faith and sight in the New Testament; the structure of the evidence for the authority of the Bible; the idea that faith transcends reason because some articles of faith are beyond human comprehension, even if we have evidence that they are true; and the nature of faith as a total commitment beyond what the evidence alone can guarantee.

This book addresses the place of religious knowledge in religion, particularly within Christianity. The book begins by examining the difference between the general concepts of knowledge and belief, the relation between faith and knowledge, and reasons why belief as faith, and not knowledge, is central to the Abrahamic religions.The book explores the ambivalence about religious knowledge within Christianity. Some religious thinkers explicitly accepted and sought religious knowledge, as did St. Thomas Aquinas, while others, notably Søren Kierkegaard, cast knowledge and seeking it as incompatible with faith. The book also examines two antithetical religious intuitions about knowledge, both at home in the Christian tradition. For one, faith requires a struggle with doubt. For the other, faith requires a certainty that excludes doubt. For the first, religious knowledge would destroy faith. For the second, religious knowledge is compatible with faith and completes it.Though the book focuses on the Christian tradition, it also considers other traditions, including a chapter on the place of religious knowledge in nontheistic religious traditions. The final chapter examines how coming to Wisdom as personified in the Jewish and Christian traditions may be distinct from attaining religious knowledge.

Based on the categories of mainstream philosophy of religion, we must ask the question if said categories are adequate to describe the conceptual frameworks of traditions not philosophically dependent on Western theistic understandings, such as religious traditions and philosophies of life emerging from the continent of Africa and appearing in the United States, the Caribbean, North, Central, and South America, and Europe. This book host students from Pomona College and Pitzer College (Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California) who have analyzed the field of philosophy of religion as it stands to determine which of its insights can be applied to Afro-diasporic and Afrofuturist notions of'religion'and which ones cannot. Their reflections in these chapters will ask: how do we define Afro-diasporic religion, what would a robust philosophy of religion of Afro-diasporic and Afrofuturist religions draw from, what categories would/should it contain, how would we construct such a non-Western methodology of philosophy of religion, and what sources would we use to construct such a philosophy of religion? In an attempt to aesthetically experience what Afro-diasporic and Afrofuturist philosophies of religion are/could be, the text will rely heavily on fiction novels, poetry, music, movies, and texts written by Afro-diasporic people from various social locations and perspectives on some African notions of religion, among other centers of reflection.

This volume examines the relationship between Christian legal theory and the fields of private law.Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in private law theory, and this book contributes to that discussion by drawing on the historical, theological, and philosophical resources of the Christian tradition. The book begins with an introduction from the editors that lays out the understanding of'private law'and what distinguishes private law topics from other fields of law. This section includes two survey chapters on natural law and biblical sources. The remaining sections of the book move sequentially through the fields of property, contracts, and torts. Several chapters focus on historical sources and show the ways in which the evolution of legal doctrine in areas of private law has been heavily influenced by Christian thinkers. Other chapters draw out more contemporary and public policy-related implications for private law.While this book is focused on the relationship of Christianity to private law, it will be of broad interest to those who might not share that faith perspective. In particular, legal historians and philosophers of law will find much of interest in the original scholarship in this volume. The book will be attractive to teachers of law, political science, and theology. It will be of special interest to the many law faculty in property, contracts, and torts, as it provides a set of often overlooked historical and theoretical perspectives on these fields.

A defense of the New Testament view that all things are to be united in Christ, which entails that the ultimate destiny of the universe, and of all that is in it, is to be united in God. Keith Ward argues that this conflicts with classical ideas of God as simple, impassible, and changeless--ideas that many modern theologians espouse, and which Ward subjects to careful and critical scrutiny. He defends the claim that the cosmos contributes something substantial to--and in that way changes--the divine nature, and the cosmos is destined to manifest and express the essential creativity and relationality of a God of beatific, agapic, redemptive, and unitive love.

What should Christian discourse look like after philosophical modernity? In one manner or another the essays in this volume seek to confront and intellectually exorcise the prevailing elements of philosophical modernity, which are inherently transgressive disfigurations and refigurations of the Christian story of creation, sin, and redemption. To enact these various forms and styles of Christian intellectual exorcism the essays in this volume make appeal to, and converse with, the magisterial corpus of Cyril O'Regan. The themes of the essays center around the gnostic return in modernity, apocalyptic theology, and the question of the bounds and borders of Christian orthodoxy. Along the way diverse figures are treated such as: Hegel, Shakespeare, von Balthasar, Przywara, Ricouer, Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, and Kristeva. Exorcising Philosophical Modernity: Cyril O'Regan and Christian Discourse after Modernity is a veritable feast of post-modern Christian thought.

An accessible introduction to Christian philosophical theologyPhilosophical or analytic theology seeks to employ philosophical tools while studying topics in Christian theology and examining the logical consistency or intelligibility of some of the key doctrines of the Christian faith. In this accessible primer, An Introduction to Christian Philosophical Theology, authors Stephen T. Davis and Eric T. Yang first explain the scope, relevance, and value of philosophical theology and then applies its conceptual tools to examine each of the core Christian doctrines:Revelation and ScriptureThe TrinityThe IncarnationRedemption and the atonement,Resurrection and life after deathThe final chapter briefly addresses some additional theological issues including petitionary prayer, eschatology, and original sin.Designed for beginning students and non-specialists this guide provides the ideal entry point for not only understanding what philosophical theology is but also for how it can provide valuable insights for how we think about the core doctrines of the Christian faith.

A guide to Christian philosophy that engages with the biblical storyAs human beings, we all qualify as philosophers, and Paul Copan contends that we take a position of trust (faith) shaped by philosophical stances but also personal heart commitments (worldviews). In this thoroughly revised and expanded second edition of Loving Wisdom, Copan explores philosophy of religion from a distinctively evangelical Christian perspective—biblically grounded, informed by apologetics, and engaging with questions about universal human longings. Copan presents a distinctively and deliberately biblical philosophy of religion in Loving Wisdom,addressing a wide range of topics and questions as they arise in the metanarrative of scripture. He acknowledges the difficulties, mystery, and disagreements in “religion,” while attempting to show how the Christian faith does a much more adequate job of responding to a wide range of challenges as well as addressing our deepest human yearnings. With discussion questions for each chapter and an accessible approach, Loving Wisdom is ideal for the classroom or small groups.

To survey harsh criticisms against Brian Douglas McLaren (1956‒), readers gain the inaccurate impression that he is a heretical relativist who denies objective truth and logic. While McLaren's inflammatory and provocative writing style is partly to blame, this study also suspects that his critics base much of their analyses on only small portions of his overall corpus. The result becomes a caricature of McLaren's actual philosophy of religion. What is argued in this book is that McLaren's philosophy of religion suggests a faith-based intersubjective relationship with the divine ought to result in an existential appropriation of Christ's religio-ethical teachings. When subjectively internalized, this appropriation will lead to the assimilation of Jesus'kingdom priorities, thereby transforming the believer's identity into one that actualizes Jesus'kingdom ideals. The hope of this book is that by tracing McLaren's philosophy of Christian religion, future researchers will not only be able to comprehend (and perhaps empathize with) McLaren's line of reasoning, but they will also possess a more nuanced discernment of where they agree and disagree with his overall rationale.

Get the full picture! Understand the whole story! Faith and Modern Thought is a jargon-busting and engaging introduction providing an imaginative and creative way into the great minds that have forged the modern world, especially Kant and Hegel and the revolutionary philosophies of existentialism and Marxism they inspired. Tim Hull provides the wider intellectual picture, the fuller philosophical story in which modern theology was forged. After an engaging introduction to the European Enlightenment and the cultural crisis it triggered, the stage is set to understand the essence of modern theology. From that essential background the radical faith of many of the most influential of modern theologians and philosophers of religion is explored, exposing a deep-rooted indebtedness to the Enlightenment tradition.

Herbert McCabe struck those who met him (Alasdair MacIntyre, Anthony Kenny, Terry Eagleton, Denys Turner) or those who read his writings (David Burrell, Stanley Hauerwas) for his high intelligence. He was the most intelligent philosopher after the death of Karl Popper. His philosophical inquiries on God and the Human Being have yet to be properly understood, not because they were abstruse (clarity was McCabe's inexorable sword!) but because of their dizzying depth, for which many are not yet prepared. This is the first comprehensive study of McCabe, a person who preferred speaking to writing and left only the short--fragmented and dispersed--texts of his lectures and sermons. But in this book, to use David Burrell's words, Manni has'managed to get inside McCabe's mind'and assemble together for the first time the disiecta membra of a powerful system of thought.

In the face of increasing attacks on Christianity by militant new atheists, Christians should be able to robustly defend their beliefs in the language spoken by Christianity's detractors—science. Atheists claim that science and religion are incompatible and in constant conflict, but this book argues that this is assuredly not true. In order to rebut the polemic agenda of the new atheists who want God banned from the public square, this book engages with the physical and natural sciences, social science, philosophy, and history. It shows that evidence from these diverse disciplines constitutes clear signposts to God and the benefits of Christianity for societies, families, and individuals. Answering the New Atheists begins by examining what new atheism is, before demolishing its claim that Christianity is harmful by showing the many benefits it has for freedom and democracy, morality, longevity, and physical and mental health. Many historians of science contend that science was given its impetus by the Christian principle that a rational God wants us to discover his fingerprints on nature. Thus, in subsequent chapters, Walsh presents a well-informed and philosophical-based analysis of the Big Bang and cosmic fine-tuning, the unimaginable improbability of factors that make this planet habitable, and the multiverse often called the “last refuge of the desperate atheist.” Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book adeptly explores the very problematic issues of the origin and evolution of life that have forced many top-rate scientists including Nobel Prize winners, who have thought deeply about the philosophical meaning of their work, to accept God as the Creator of everything.

Jan-Olav Henriksen reconstructs and analyzes Christianity as a cluster of practices that manifest a distinct historically and contextually shaped mode of being in the world. Henriksen suggests that these practices imply a complicated relationship between the tradition in which they originate, the community that emerges from and is constituted by that tradition, and the individuals who appropriate the tradition that these communities mediate through their practices. Thus, to think of Christianity simply in terms of belief is misleading and represents an underdetermination of its distinct character. Henriksen further argues this relationship needs to be described primarily as practices aimed at orientation and transformation. His analysis points to Christianity's similarity to other religions in regard to the functional or pragmatic dimensions it displays. Examining facets such as prayer, the use of scripture, preaching and doctrine, Henriksen emphasizes that the element that makes a practice distinctively Christian is how it relates to and is informed by the Jesus story.

This book examines key issues in Christianity from various philosophical points of view. It brings together European authors with American theologians and philosophers on an interconfessional basis. Coverage combines analytical and continental approaches in a unique way. This comprehensive, innovative analysis will help readers gain a deep understanding into a wide range of philosophical approaches to basic Christian problems. The novelty of this volume is the unique combination of philosophical and theological approaches. It merges these points-of-view in a rational manner which characterizes segments of Anglo-American and Continental thought. The scope of the work covers historical issues, contemporary problems of atheism, and also novel approaches to fundamental notions. Readers will learn about questions surrounding the French New Theology, Zizek's philosophical sources, the notion of revelation, and much more. As a work produced by European and United States scholars, this volume is an important contribution not only to the dialogue between various academic cultures, but also to the expression of their fruitful cooperation which grounds and inspires serious academic research. The readership of this work begins at an undergraduate level and reaches up to academic researchers and professors interested in borderline problems between philosophy and theology, history and contemporary issues.

Lively debates on controversial and compelling questions in the philosophy of religion — an updated edition of the bestselling title Building upon the reputation of the first edition, the extensively revised second edition of Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion features fifteen essays which present arguments on some of the most central and controversial topics in philosophy of religion from the discipline's most influential thinkers. Considering questions of both emerging and perennial interest from atheistic, theistic, and agnostic viewpoints, the book adopts the series structure which pairs essays espousing opposing perspectives on a particular question or theme in an engaging pro and con format. Following accessible introductions to each debate, the volume's new and newly-revised contributions set the stage for thoughtful and lively discourse between philosophers in philosophy of religion and analytic theology. Debates range from vigorous disagreements between theists and their critics to arguments between theists of different philosophical and theological persuasions, highlighting points of contrast for readers while showcasing the field's leading minds in dialogue. The head-to-head chapters offer forceful advocacy for some of the most compelling ideas, beliefs, and objections in the philosophy of religion, opening the conversation up to students to weigh the arguments and engage in comparative analysis of the concepts for themselves. Written to appeal to the non-specialist as well as the professional philosopher, Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion is ideal as both a provocative primary text for coursework in analytical theology and philosophy of religion, and as a broad survey of the field for scholars and general readers with an interest in the questions which underpin contemporary philosophy of religion and theology.

A Philosophy of the Christian Religion offers a new kind of introduction to the subject. Whereas most introductions in the past have attempted to deal with religion in general, this book focuses on philosophical issues of special importance to Christianity. In doing this, Nancey Murphy also takes full account of how conceptual revolutions in philosophy now mean that what older introductions termed'standard problems'have changed from the way they were dealt with in earlier eras.At the same time, this new introduction helps the reader to better understand how contemporary issues have come to take on their current force by placing them within the context of the most sophisticated account available of human reason: Alasdair MacIntyre's tradition-constituted rationality. ContentsPart One: A Brief History of Reason1. Ancient and Medieval Ways of Knowing the Divine2. Modern Epistemology and the Possibility of Theology3. Faith in Late Modern Reasoning4. Faith and Reason for the Twenty-First CenturyPart Two: Crises in Modern Christianity5. Three Epistemological Crises for Christianity in Modernity6. The Problem of Special Divine Action 7. Modern Problems of Evil and Suffering8. Science and Christianity9. Christian Anthropology, Philosophy, and Science10. The Development of Modern Naturalism

Letters to Young Scholars is designed primarily for college students, advanced high school students, and church and parachurch study groups on spiritual development. As a college text, the book introduces beginning students to the general education (or liberal arts) portion of a Christian college education. It gives major emphasis to the humanities and social science disciplines, the integration of the Christian faith with those disciplines, and the application of Christian thought to daily living (applied Christianity). It seeks to challenge the students to become broader in perspective and appreciation, more compassionate toward all of God's creatures, and more confident and committed as they develop their worldviews and personal values.

Paphos Publishers offers a wide catalog of rare classic titles, published for a new generation. The Gospel of Nietzsche and the Gospel of Christ is a fascinating discussion of Nietzsche and Christianity.

If humans are not capable of immortality, then eschatological doctrines of heaven and hell make little sense. On that Christians agree. But not all Christians agree on whether humans are essentially immortal. Some hold that the early church was right to borrow from the ancient Greek philosophers and to bring their sense of immortality to bear on the interpretation of biblical passages about the afterlife. Others, however, suggest that we are inherently mortal, and only conditionally immortal. This latter view is usually associated with an annihilationist interpretation of the doctrine of hell and a rejection of eternal torment. In a philosophical analysis and argument, McLeod-Harrison proposes that humans are, indeed, immortal, but not essentially so. But neither are we immortal accidentally or conditionally. Instead, immortality is an enduring property--a property we cannot lose once created. McLeod-Harrison carefully delineates the sense of immortality he defends and provides a broadly Christian philosophical argument for it. The argument, if correct, leaves the recent suggestion that the unredeemed are annihilated on unsteady metaphysical feet. However, McLeod-Harrison does not defend eternal conscious punishment for the unredeemed, but suggests some ways to think about the possibility of a universal salvation.

Ours is an age full of desires but impoverished in its understanding of where those desires lead—an age that claims mastery over the world but also claims to find the world as a whole absurd or unintelligible. In The Vision of the Soul, James Matthew Wilson seeks to conserve the great insights of the western tradition by giving us a new account of them responsive to modern discontents. The western— or Christian Platonist—tradition, he argues, tells us that man is an intellectual animal, born to pursue the good, to know the true, and to contemplate all things in beauty. Wilson begins by reconceiving the intellectual conservatism born of Edmund Burke's jeremiad against the French Revolution as an eff­ort to preserve the West's vision of man and the cosmos as ordered by and to beauty. After defining the achievement of that vision and its tradition, Wilson off­ers an extended study of the nature of beauty and the role of the fine arts in shaping a culture but above all in opening the human intellect to the perception of the form of reality. Through close studies of Theodor W. Adorno and Jacques Maritain, he recovers the classical vision of beauty as a revelation of truth and being. Finally, he revisits the ancient distinction between reason and story-telling, between mythos and logos, in order to rejoin the two.Story-telling is foundational to the forms of the fine arts, but it is no less foundational to human reason. Human life in turn constitutes a specific kind of form—a story form. The ancient conception of human life as a pilgrimage to beauty itself is one that we can fully embrace only if we see the essential correlation between reason and story and the essential convertibility of truth, goodness and beauty in beauty. By turns a study in fundamental ontology, aesthetics, and political philosophy, Wilson's book invites its readers to a renewal of the West's intellectual tradition.

È possibile trovare una via d'uscita alla chiusura paradigmatica del logos occidentale, andare oltre l'idea auto-fondativa ed auto-referenziale della ragione che permetta di riscoprire il senso dialogico e relazionale della filosofia come incontro non polemico e non fagocitante con la verità dell'altro, che aspira ad essere esperienza viva e concreta di com-partecipazione delle rispettive “porzioni” di verità? È possibile riscoprire tale alterità come cifra essenziale della spiritualità ebraica e cristiana, come loro punto di incontro e svolta verso un pensiero della responsabilità per l'altro, antecedente ogni libertà e oltre ogni reciprocità,che funga da sprone per la ri-affermazione del valore etico dell'umano e la costruzione di rapporti autentici che ci facciano sentire non “monadi” isolate in balia degli eventi, ma individui che, proprio non nella consapevolezza di vivere tempi incerti e inquietanti, provino a ri-scoprirsi se non “fratelli”, almeno com-partecipi di un comune destino d'erranza?

“A thorough, considered, and provocative treatment of what justifiably remains Kierkegaard's most famous book.” —Marginalia Review of BooksSoren Kierkegaard's masterful work Fear and Trembling interrogates the story of Abraham and Isaac, finding there one of the most profound and critical dilemmas in all of religious philosophy. While several commentaries and critical editions exist, Jeffrey Hanson offers a distinctive approach to this crucial text.Hanson gives equal weight to all three of Kierkegaard's “problems,” dealing with Fear and Trembling as part of the entire corpus of Kierkegaard's thought and putting all parts into relation with each other. Additionally, he offers a distinctive analysis of the Abraham story and other biblical texts, giving particular attention to questions of poetics, language, and philosophy, especially as each relates to the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious.Presented in a thoughtful and fresh manner, Hanson's claims are original and edifying. This new reading of Kierkegaard will stimulate fruitful dialogue on well-traveled philosophical ground.

'This book may be described as an attempt to do two things; first, to explain religion through nature and man; and, secondly, to construe Christianity through religion. The author conceives religion to be a joint product of the mind within man and the nature around him, the mind being the source of the ideas which constitute its soul, the nature around determining the usages and customs which build up its body. He does not think, therefore, that any one of its special forms can be explained without the local nature which begot and shaped it, or that its general being can be resolved and construed without the reason or thought which is common to the race. He sees in religion the greatest of all man's unconscious creations, and the most potent of the means which the past, while it was still a living present, formed for the making of the man and the times that were yet to be.'-- From the Preface

Winner of a 2004 ECPA Gold Medallion AwardWinner of an Award of Excellence in the 2003 Chicago Book ClinicWhat is real?What is truth? What can we know? What should we believe? What should we do and why? Is there a God? Can we know him? Do Christian doctrines make sense? Can we believe in God in the face of evil?These are fundamental questions that any thinking person wants answers to. These are questions that philosophy addresses. And the answers we give to these kinds of questions serve as the foundation stones for constructing any kind of worldview. Now updated and expanded in this second edition, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig offers a comprehensive introduction to philosophy from a Christian perspective. In their broad sweep they seek to introduce readers to the principal subdisciplines of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics, and philosophy of religion. They do so with characteristic clarity and incisiveness. Arguments are clearly outlined, and rival theories are presented with fairness and accuracy.Philosophy, they contend, aids Christians in the tasks of apologetics, polemics, and systematic theology. It reflects our having been made in the image of God, helps us to extend biblical teaching into areas not expressly addressed in Scripture, facilitates the spiritual discipline of study, enhances the boldness and self-image of the Christian community, and is requisite to the essential task of integrating faith and learning.Here is a lively and thorough introduction to philosophy for all who want to know reality. This second edition now includes including enhanced arguments, updated bibliographies, and new chapters on atonement and the mind-body problem.

These studies in religion embrace Hindu, Buddhist and Christian themes and examine the spiritual insights and philosophical reflections of prominent thinkers from different religious traditions. Where appropriate comparisons are drawn between the views of representatives of the different traditions from an empathetic standpoint and in a way that would meet with the approval of adherents of those religions. The main aim of these essays in the pluralistic religious situation of today is to enable us to escape from the small island of our own cultural tradition and to explore the richness and diversity of other cultures with their wide variety of religious experiences.

Since the late 1970s, theologians have been attempting to integrate mimetic theory into different fields of theology, yet a distrust of mimetic theory persists in some theological camps. In René Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology, Grant Kaplan brings mimetic theory into conversation with theology both to elucidate the relevance of mimetic theory for the discipline of fundamental theology and to understand the work of René Girard within a theological framework. Rather than focus on Christology or atonement theory as the locus of interaction between Girard and theology, Kaplan centers his discussion on the apologetic quality of mimetic theory and the impact of mimetic theory on fundamental theology, the subdiscipline that grew to replace apologetics. His book explores the relation between Girard and fundamental theology in several keys. In one, it understands mimetic theory as a heuristic device that allows theological narratives and positions to become more intelligible and, by so doing, makes theology more persuasive. In another key, Kaplan shows how mimetic theory, when placed in dialogue with particular theologians, can advance theological discussion in areas where mimetic theory has seldom been invoked. On this level the book performs a dialogue with theology that both revisits earlier theological efforts and also demonstrates how mimetic theory brings valuable dimensions to questions of fundamental theology.

In our time nobody is content to stop with faith but wants to go further. It would perhaps be rash to ask where these people are going, but it is surely a sign of breeding and culture for me to assume that everybody has faith, for otherwise it would be queer for them to be... going further. In those old days it was different, then faith was a task for a whole lifetime, because it was assumed that dexterity in faith is not acquired in a few days or weeks. When the tried oldster drew near to his last hour, having fought the good fight and kept the faith, his heart was still young enough not to have forgotten that fear and trembling which chastened the youth, which the man indeed held in check, but which no man quite outgrows... except as he might succeed at the earliest opportunity in going further. Where these revered figures arrived, that is the point where everybody in our day begins to go further.

In his widely praised Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford, 2000) Alvin Plantinga discussed in great depth the question of the rationality, or sensibility, of Christian belief. In this book Plantinga presents the same ideas in a briefer, much more accessible fashion.Recognized worldwide as a leading Christian philosopher, Plantinga probes what exactly is meant by the claim that religious -- and specifically Christian -- belief is irrational and cannot sensibly be held. He argues that the criticisms of such well-known atheists as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens are completely wrong. Finally, Plantinga addresses several potential “defeaters” to Christian belief -- pluralism, science, evil and suffering -- and shows how they fail to successfully defeat rational Christian belief.

Diversity in the Structure of Christian Reasoning examines the effect of Christian commitments on rationality. When Christians read scripture, traditions supply concepts that shape what counts as normal, good, and true. This book offers an account of how different communities produce divergent readings of the Bible. It considers two examples from World Christianity, first a Bakongo community in central Africa, and then a Tamil bishop in southern India. Each case displays a relation between tradition and reason that reconfigures the hermeneutical picture developed by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. To see what transpires when readers decide about a correct interpretation, this book offers theologians and scholars of religion a fresh strategy that keeps in view the global character of modern Christianity.

Mit „Gewährleisteter Christlicher Glaube“ liegt nun endlich die deutsche Übersetzung des Hauptwerkes von Alvin Plantinga vor („Warranted Christian Belief“), dem einflussreichsten Religionsphilosophen der letzten Jahrzehnte. Mit dem schwer übersetzbaren Ausdruck „warrant“ (in etwa: Gewährleistung) meint Plantinga diejenige Eigenschaft, die eine wahre Überzeugung von Wissen unterscheidet. Genauer gesagt ist eine Meinung von S warranted, wenn S'auf Wahrheit ausgerichtetes Erkenntnisvermögen in einer angemessenen Umwelt bauplanmäßig funktioniert; und Plantingas Hauptthese lautet, dass religiöse Überzeugungen warrant haben können. Das religiöse Erkenntnisvermögen erläutert Plantinga als (erweitertes) Aquinas/Calvin-Modell: Menschen verfügen demnach über einen Sensus Divinitatis, der allerdings durch die Erbsünde verdorben sei, so dass sie der Hilfe des Heiligen Geistes bedürften. Dass eine (religiöse) Überzeugung warrant hat, heißt nicht, dass sie nicht widerlegt werden könnte; solchen Widerlegungsmöglichkeiten (Projektionstheorien, die historisch-kritische Bibelwissenschaft, Postmodernismus, Pluralismus, Theodizeeproblem) widmet Plantinga einen großen Teil seines Buches.

The book is historical-systematical. The author presents in interdisciplinary - philosophical, psychological and theological - perspective understandingly, sympathizingly, but also critically the function of Christianity in C.G. Jung. For him, the human being is inherently religious and experiences God in his soul. Consequently, the essence of Christianity lies in the experience in which the believer is overwhelmed by unconscious forces. Therefore, religious experience is an experience of archetypes of the collective unconsciousness, which means that God and the unconscious in the religious experience cannot be distinguished. Jung regards religion as true if it heals the diseases of the soul. They treat because the healing powers of the unconscious are exceedingly fertile.

Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief has very quickly become one of the most influential books in philosophy of religion. In this collection of essays, German philosophers, theologians and a mathematician deal critically with several aspects of Plantinga's seminal work. In a long essay, Plantinga answers to these critics.

François Laruelle's lifelong project of'nonphilosophy,'or'nonstandard philosophy,'thinks past the theoretical limits of Western philosophy to realize new relations between religion, science, politics, and art. In Christo-Fiction Laruelle targets the rigid, self-sustaining arguments of metaphysics, rooted in Judaic and Greek thought, and the radical potential of Christ, whose'crossing'disrupts their circular discourse. Laruelle's Christ is not the authoritative figure conjured by academic theology, the Apostles, or the Catholic Church. He is the embodiment of generic man, founder of a science of humans, and the herald of a gnostic messianism that calls forth an immanent faith. Explicitly inserting quantum science into religion, Laruelle recasts the temporality of the cross, the entombment, and the resurrection, arguing that it is God who is sacrificed on the cross so equals in faith may be born. Positioning itself against orthodox religion and naive atheism alike, Christo-Fiction is a daring, heretical experiment that ties religion to the human experience and the lived world.

Abed Azzam offers a fresh interpretation of Nietzsche's engagement with the work of Paul the Apostle, reorienting the relationship between the two thinkers while embedding modern philosophy within early Christian theology. Paying careful attention to Nietzsche's dialectics, Azzam situates the philosopher's thought within the history of Christianity, specifically the Pauline dialectics of law and faith, and reveals how atheism is constructed in relation to Christianity.Countering Heidegger's characterization of Nietzsche as an anti-Platonist, Azzam brings the philosopher closer to Paul through a radical rereading of his entire corpus against Christianity. This approach builds a compelling new history of the West resting on a logic of sublimation, from ancient Greece and early Judaism to the death of God. Azzam discovers in Nietzsche's philosophy a solid, tangible Pauline structure and virtual, fragile Greek content, positioning the thinker as a forerunner of the recent'return to Paul'led by Badiou, Agamben, Žižek, and Breton. By changing the focus of modern philosophical inquiry from'Nietzsche and philosophy'to'Nietzsche and Christianity,'Azzam initiates a major challenge to the primacy of Plato in the history of Western philosophy and narrow certainties regarding Nietzsche's relationship to Christian thought.

Taking Hugh of St. Victor's On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith as his source text, Dillard applies the methods of analytic philosophy to develop a systematic theology in the spirit of Christian Platonism, exploring questions that remain pressing for readers interested in philosophy, theology, religion, and the history of medieval thought.

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls'your hitchhiker's guide to the present'-- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times.Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers.Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who'we'are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on.

Walter Lowrie's classic, bestselling translation of Søren Kierkegaard's most important and popular books remains unmatched for its readability and literary quality. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death established Kierkegaard as the father of existentialism and have come to define his contribution to philosophy. Lowrie's translation, first published in 1941 and later revised, was the first in English, and it has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to Kierkegaard's thought. Kierkegaard counted Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death among'the most perfect books I have written,'and in them he introduces two terms--'the absurd'and'despair'--that have become key terms in modern thought. Fear and Trembling takes up the story of Abraham and Isaac to explore a faith that transcends the ethical, persists in the face of the absurd, and meets its reward in the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice, while The Sickness Unto Death examines the spiritual anxiety of despair. Walter Lowrie's magnificent translation of these seminal works continues to provide an ideal introduction to Kierkegaard. And, as Gordon Marino argues in a new introduction, these books are as relevant as ever in today's age of anxiety.

Invoking the biblical motif of Jacob's struggle with the Face of God (Genesis 32), Simon D. Podmore undertakes a constructive theological account of'spiritual trial'(tentatio; known in German mystical and Lutheran tradition as Anfechtung) in relation to enduring questions of the otherness and hiddenness of God and the self, the problem of suffering and evil, the freedom of Spirit, and the anxious relationship between temptation and ordeal, fear and desire. This book traces a genealogy of spiritual trial from medieval German mystical theology, through Lutheran and Pietistic thought (Tauler; Luther; Arndt; Boehme), and reconstructs Kierkegaard's innovative yet under-examined recovery of the category (AnfAegtelse: a Danish cognate for Anfechtung) within the modern context of the'spiritless'decline of Christendom. Developing the relationship between struggle (Anfechtung) and release (Gelassenheit), Podmore proposes a Kierkegaardian theology of spiritual trial which elaborates the kenosis of the self before God in terms of Spirit's restless longing to rest transparently in God. Offering an original rehabilitation of the temptation of spiritual trial, this book strives for a renewed theological hermeneutic which speaks to the enduring human struggle to realise the unchanging love of God in the face of spiritual darkness.

In a careful study of the writings of Karl Rahner and John Macmurray, this book presents a renewed understanding of the theological notion of the human person. This understanding of person is developed by examining the relational depths of Karl Rahner's theological anthropology in conversation with John Macmurray's understanding of agency found in his work on «persons-in-relationship». What makes this dialogue enriching and striking is that both thinkers arrive at a corresponding notion of person from very different starting points: Rahner commences his reflections as a theologian focusing on the mystery of God at the heart of his study of person. Macmurray on the other hand begins with the human person and ultimately arrives at a philosophical notion of God as personal agent.

For a serious book of philosophy, where better to begin to canvass various philosophical concepts and arguments than in relation to what is so familiar to every one of us –– the fact that we all have many and varied beliefs. The book is an introduction of philosophy, indeed intended as an introductory textbook. The author, as he wrote it, had both the teacher and the student in mind. He hopes it will prove a worthy contribution in the college, seminary and university classroom, both interesting and serious.\ As well as thirteen clearly written chapters introducing the various topics, it is also provided with helpful summaries, tutorials, and work sheets. In considering belief we raise raises many of the central problems philosophers have discussed: knowledge, truth, justification, rationality, meaning, explanation, self deception, interpretation, reality, cause and effect, personal identity, theories, laws, hypotheses, the self, survival, God. Since belief is a universal phenomenon, it has unfortunately become common to understand the unqualified term ‘believer'of the religious person. It seems strange to ask the question, ‘Are you a believer?'outside the religious context. But we do when we are thinking of a particular theory or ideology or political attitude. We sometimes want to know whether she is ‘one of us!'The author sometimes finds it convenient to illustrate his exposition by referring to religious beliefs. One does not have to be a religious believer to see that it is relevant and indeed interesting to do so. The history of philosophy provides many classical examples of such discussion. The book is of wide general interest. As well as doing service in the classroom, it will also prove its worth within other contexts. It will serve the aims of serious discussion groups, as well as providing a basis for regular and earnest individual study. We hope also that it will find a place with inquiring people of religious faith.

The Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Fund For four decades, the Fund operated a publishing wing, Argo Books, which published many of Rosenstock-Huessy's English-language works and unpublished manuscripts as books. (The German Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Gesellschaft undertook similar efforts with the German-language works; the Dutch group Respondeo published a number of translations into Dutch.) The Fund recently decided to pass on responsibility for Rosenstock-Huessy's works to another publisher, and his English-language works are now available on Amazon, sold by Wipf and Stock of Eugene, OR, who also publish Jacques Ellul and William Stringfellow.)

Philosophy and the Christian Worldview is a collection of new essays written by fifteen philosophers of religion. Bringing together some of the leading lights in current academic philosophy of religion, including William Hasker, Charles Taliaferro and Keith Yandell, it offers a fresh perspective on four major areas of discussion: Religion and Epistemology; Religion and Morality; Religion and Metaphysics; and Religion and Worldview Assessment. United by the argument that the core claims of religion have metaphysical, epistemic and moral entailments, these essays represent a state of the art discussion in contemporary philosophy of religion.

In our time nobody is content to stop with faith but wants to go further. It would perhaps be rash to ask where these people are going, but it is surely a sign of breeding and culture for me to assume that everybody has faith, for otherwise it would be queer for them to be... going further. In those old days it was different, then faith was a task for a whole lifetime, because it was assumed that dexterity in faith is not acquired in a few days or weeks. When the tried oldster drew near to his last hour, having fought the good fight and kept the faith, his heart was still young enough not to have forgotten that fear and trembling which chastened the youth, which the man indeed held in check, but which no man quite outgrows... except as he might succeed at the earliest opportunity in going further. Where these revered figures arrived, that is the point where everybody in our day begins to go further.

Existenzdenken und Pragmatismus bezeichnen zwei Orientierungszentren der Philosophie seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, deren Differenz und Zusammenhang erst heute wirklich bewusst werden. Die Vorrangigkeit der Aufgabe des Existierens eines einzelnen Menschen und das naturwissenschaftlich-pragmatische Methodenbewusstsein haben ihre Gemeinsamkeit in der Entdeckung und Verteidigung der kreativen Lebens-, Entscheidungs- und Handlungssituation allen Verstehens. Hinzu kommt die parallel entwickelte Kritik idealistischer wie materialistischer Metaphysik der europäischen Denktradition, allerdings in der unübersehbaren Tendenz einer Philosophie des Geistes, die zu einer allgemeinen – und insofern in neuem Sinn durchaus metaphysischen – Begründung von Religionstheorie und Theologie in der Lage ist. Charles S. Peirce'kategoriale Semiotik liefert die zeitgemäßen Denkbedingungen, um sowohl der Eigenständigkeit der Religiosität wie ihrer wissenschaftlichen Darstellungsfähigkeit entsprechen zu können.Die hier vorgelegten Aufsätze aus dreißig Jahren sind einerseits auf bestimmte Phasen der Kierkegaard-Rezeption bezogen, andererseits auf Detailstudien zu systematisch-theologischen und religionsphilosophischen Texten, Werken, Methodenfragen, und auf Konfliktfelder in der gegenwärtigen Diskussion (darunter William James'Religionsauffassung, Paul Tillichs Symbolbegriff, Kierkegaards Christologie, Vergleichspunkte zu Schleiermacher, Thomas Manns Mythosbegriff, Semiotik, Trinität, Kontingenz und Evolution). Im Ganzen entsteht das Bild eines kreativen Einflussraumes existentieller und wissenschaftlicher Wahrheit, in der sich wirkliches Leben und religiöse Idealität des Geistes verbinden.

Long past the time when philosophers from different perspectives had joined the funeral procession that declared the death of God, a renewed interest has arisen in regard to the questions of God and religion in philosophy. The turn to secularization has produced its own opposing force. Although they declared themselves from the start as not being religious, thinkers such as Derrida, Vattimo, Zizek, and Badiou have nonetheless maintained an interest in religion. This book brings some of these philosophical views together to present an overview of the philosophical scene in its dealings with religion, but also to move beyond the outsider's perspective. Reflecting on these philosophical interpretations from a fundamental theological perspective, the authors discover in what way these interpretations can challenge an understanding of today's faith. Bringing together thinkers with an established reputation - Kearney, Caputo, Ward, Desmond, Hart, Armour - along with young scholars, this book challenges a range of perspectives by putting them in a new context.

One of the most important and controversial themes in the contemporary dialogue among scientists and Christian theologians is the issue of'divine action'in the world. This volume brings together contributions from leading scholars on this topic, which emerged out of the Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action project, co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and Natural Science. This multi-year collaboration involved over 50 authors meeting at five international conferences. The essays collected here demonstrate the pervasive role of philosophy in this dialogue.Contributors include: Ian Barbour, Philip Clayton, George F. R. Ellis, Nancey Murphy, Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, Robert John Russell, F. LeRon Shults, William Stoeger, Thomas F. Tracy and Wesley Wildman.

A militant Marxist atheist and a “Radical Orthodox” Christian theologian square off on everything from the meaning of theology and Christ to the war machine of corporate mafia.“What matters is not so much that Žižek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of Christian belief.”—John Milbank“To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank.”—Slavoj ŽižekIn this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a militant atheist who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, “Radical Orthodox” theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have not only proven themselves worthy adversaries, they have shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed. Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, Universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others. Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with “paradox.” The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation. Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher and cultural critic. He has published over thirty books, including Looking Awry, The Puppet and the Dwarf, and The Parallax View (these three published by the MIT Press). John Milbank is an influential Christian theologian and the author of Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason and other books. Creston Davis, who conceived of this encounter, studied under both Žižek and Milbank.

It has long been assumed that the more modern we become, the less religious we will be. Yet a recent resurrection in faith has challenged the certainty of this belief. In these original essays and interviews, leading hermeneutical philosophers and postmodern theorists John D. Caputo and Gianni Vattimo engage with each other's past and present work on the subject and reflect on our transition from secularism to postsecularism.As two of the figures who have contributed the most to the theoretical reflections on the contemporary philosophical turn to religion, Caputo and Vattimo explore the changes, distortions, and reforms that are a part of our postmodern faith and the forces shaping the religious imagination today. Incisively and imaginatively connecting their argument to issues ranging from terrorism to fanaticism and from politics to media and culture, these thinkers continue to reinvent the field of hermeneutic philosophy with wit, grace, and passion.

How do we come by our worldviews and philosophies? What impact did Christianity have on the worldviews that are common to Western civilization? Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine demonstrates the decisive impact that the growth of Christianity had in transforming the outlook of pagan Roman culture into one that—based on biblical concepts of humanity and its relationship with God—established virtually all the positive aspects of Western civilization.The two-pronged assault in our time on the biblically based worldview by postmodern philosophy and the writings of neo-atheists has made it even more crucial that we acknowledge and defend its historical roots.This authoritative, accessible survey discusses Western worldviews as a continuous narrative rather than as simply a catalogue of ideas. Why You Think the Way You Do:Traces the effects that changes in worldview had on society.Helps you understand your own worldview and those of other people.Helps you recognize the ways that your worldview, philosophies, beliefs, and presuppositions affect the way you think about everything.