Introduction to Philosophy and Religion: Readings » (1st Edition)

This anthology addresses traditional and some neglected philosophical issues and relates various issues under discussion to different religious reactions to those issues.

ontological, cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments for the existence of God; reasonableness of religious belief, possibility of religious discovery of God; gender of God issues; religious plurality; and religous realism.

For individuals interested in essays and readings on topics in philosophy of religion.

Preface

Introduction: Readings in Philosophy of Religion

Chapter 1 Religions of the World

Hinduism

From The Bhagavad-Gita

Buddhism

From The Dhammapada

From The Diamond Sutra

Judaism

Tanakh

From Genesis

From Exodus

From Leviticus

From Deuteronomy

From Isaiah

From Micah

From Psalms

From Job

From The Zohar

Christianity

The New Testament

From Matthew

From Luke

From John

From The Letter of Paul to the Romans

From The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

From The First Letter of John

Islam

Qur’an

Sura I The Opening

From Sura II The Cow

From Sura XIX Mary

Sura XXXII Adoration

Sura LV The Merciful

Sura XCIII The Brightness

Sura CVII Religion

Sura CXII The Unity

Chapter 2 Proving God’s Existence

The Ontological Argument

St. Anselm, from The Proslogion

Gaunilo, A Reply on Behalf of the Fool

St. Thomas Aquinas, Whether the Existence of God is Self-Evident?

Immanuel Kant, The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God

The Cosmological Argument

St. Thomas Aquinas, Whether God Exists?

F. C. Copleston and Bertrand Russell, The Existence of God–A Debate

The Teleological Argument

William Paley, from Natural Theology

David Hume, from Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Parts II and V)

The Moral Argument

Immanuel Kant, The Existence of God as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason

Chapter 3 Religious Faith and Proving

God’s Existence

1. A Proof for the Existence of God is Relevant to Religious Faith in that there must be Such a Proof in Order for Faith in God to be Proper.

W. K. Clifford, from The Ethics of Belief 1

T. H. Huxley, from Agnosticism

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from In Memoriam

H. H. Price, from Faith and Belief

2. A Proof for the Existence of God is in a Way Relevant to Religious Faith in that, while Proper Faith Does Not Require a Proof of God’s Existence, such a Proof is Helpful to the Religious and Does Not Hurt Depth in Religion.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, from Parts I and II

3. Proofs for the Existence of God are Irrelevant to Religious Faith and Can be Distracting to the Religious.

Norman Malcolm, from Is It a Religious Belief that “God exists”?

John Calvin, from Concerning Faith, Together with an Explanation of The Creed, which They Call Apostolic

Martin Buber, from Eclipse of God

Søren Kierkegaard, from Subjective Truth, Inwardness;Truth is Subjectivity

4. A Proof for the Existence of God is Relevant to Religious Faith in A Negative Way in that Such a Proof Would Destroy Faith.

Miguel de Unamuno, from The Agony of Christianity

Søren Kierkegaard, from Subjective Truth, Inwardness; Truth is Subjectivity

Chapter 4 Is Religious Belief Reasonable?

Blaise Pascal, The Wager

William James, from The Will to Believe

W. K. Clifford, from The Ethics of Belief

Alvin Plantinga, from Reason and Belief in God

William Alston, from Perceiving God

Chapter 5 Religious Discovery: Is the Discovery of God Possible?

St. Bonaventura, from The Mind’s Road to God

John Calvin, from The Knowledge of God Shines Forth in the Fashioning of the Universe and the Continuing Government of It

Martin Buber, from I and Thou

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, from The Revivification of Religion

Little Wound,Wakan

Wallace Black Elk, from The Sacred Ways of a Lakota

Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra,The Antichrist, and The Gay Science

Sigmund Freud, from The Future of an Illusion

Chapter 6 The Religious Problem of Evil

Fyoder Dostoyevsky, from Rebellion and Other Selections from The Brothers Karamazov

David Hume, from Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Parts X and XI

John Hick, An Irenaean Theodicy

H. J. McCloskey, God and Evil

James Kellenberger, God’s Goodness and God’s Evil

Chapter 7 Miracles

David Hume, Of Miracles

Richard Swinburne, from The Concept of Miracle

R. F. Holland, from The Miraculous

James Kellenberger, from Miracles

Chapter 8 Religion and Morality

D. Z. Phillips, Moral and Religious Conceptions of Duty: An Analysis

John Hick, The Ideal of Generous Goodwill, Love, Compassion

Plato, from Euthyphro

Robert Merrihew Adams, from A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness

St. Thomas Aquinas, from On The Various Kinds of Law and The Natural Law

Chapter 9 Religious Language, Metaphor, and Gender

Does Religious Language have Factual Meaning?

David Hume, from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Sec. XII, Pt. III)

Antony Flew, from Theology and Falsification

John Wisdom, from Gods

Metaphor

Meister Eckhart, Sermon: Now I Know

Dionysius, from The Divine Names and from The Mystical Theology

The Zohar, The Creation of Elohim and The Hidden Light

Rudolf Otto, from The Idea of the Holy

St. Thomas Aquinas, from The Names of God

The Gender Issue 446

Julian of Norwich, from Revelations of Divine Love

Rosemary Radford Ruether, from Sexism and God-Language: Male and Female Images of the Divine

Sallie McFague, from God the Father: Model or Idol?

William Harper, On Calling God “Mother”

George F. Isham, Is God Exclusively a Father?

Chapter 10 Religious Realism and the Meaning of God

Don Cupitt, The Meaning of God

D. Z. Phillips, Faith, Scepticism, and Religious Understanding

John Hick, from Contemporary Non-Realist Religion

Chapter 11 Religious Plurality: The Mutual-Opposition View, Exclusivism, Inclusivism, and Pluralism

David Hume, Of Miracles, Part 2

Alvin Plantinga, Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism

Karl Rahner, Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions

John Hick, Religious Pluralism and Salvation

John Hick, The Ideal of Generous Goodwill, Love, Compassion

Keith Ward, Divine Ineffability

Chapter 12 Other Ways of Understanding Religious Plurality

Leo Tolstoy, The Coffee-House of Surat

John Hick, The Ideal of Generous Goodwill, Love, Compassion

Ninian Smart, from Truth and Religions

John H. Whittaker, from Matters of Faith and Matters of Principle

Shivesh Thakur, from To What God . . . ?

Søren Kierkegaard, from Subjective Truth, Inwardness; Truth is Subjectivity

James Kellenberger, The Way of Relationships

Index