This collection of new essays written by an international team of scholars is a groundbreaking examination of the problem of divine hiddenness, one of the most dynamic areas in current philosophy of religion. Together, the essays constitute a wide-ranging dialogue on the problem. They balance atheistic and theistic standpoints, and they bring to bear not only on the standard philosophical perspectives but also on insights from Jewish, Muslim, and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The apophatic and the mystical are well-represented too. As a result, the volume throws fresh light on this familiar but important topic in the philosophy of religion. In the process, the volume incorporates contemporary work in epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. For all these reasons, this book will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of religion and theology.
Combines philosophical investigations concerning the truth of religious convictions with empirical research on the origins and functions of religious beliefs. This book focuses on two core questions: (1) How probable is it that any particular god exists? (2) How should we account for the occurrence of religious beliefs in human societies?
In many places and times, and for many people, God's existence has been rather less than a clear fact. According to the hiddenness argument, this is actually a reason to suppose that it is not a fact at all. The hiddenness argument is a new argument for atheism that has come to prominence in philosophy over the past two decades. J. L. Schellenberg first developed the argument in 1993, and this book offers a short and vigorous statement of its central claims and ideas. Logically sharp but so clear that anyone can understand, the book addresses little-discussed issues such as why it took so long for hiddenness reasoning to emerge in philosophy, and how the hiddenness problem is distinct from the problem of evil. It concludes with the fascinating thought that retiring the last of the personal gods might leave us nearer the beginning of religion than the end. Though an atheist, Schellenberg writes sensitively and with a nuanced insider's grasp of the religious life. Pertinent aspects of his experience as a believer and as a nonbeliever, and of his own engagement with hiddenness issues, are included. Set in this personal context, and against an authoritative background on relevant logical, conceptual, and historical matters, The Hiddenness Argument's careful but provocative reasoning makes crystal clear just what this new argument is and why it matters.
This book offers a reinterpretation of the general relations between religion, science, and philosophy, arguing that scientific theories depend on religious commitments.
Philosophy of religion in the Anglo-American tradition experienced a 'rebirth' following the 1955 publication of New Essays in Philosophical Theology (eds. Antony Flew and Alisdair MacIntyre). Fifty years later, this volume of essays offers a sampling of the best work in what is now a very active field, written by some of its most prominent members. A substantial introduction sketches the developments of the last half-century, while also describing the 'ethics of belief' debate in epistemology and showing how it connects to explicitly religious concerns and to the topics of the individual contributions. These topics include: the relationship between God and the natural laws; the metaphysics of bodily resurrection; the role of appeal to 'mystery' in the religious life; the justification of both theistic belief generally and more specific doctrinal beliefs; and the social-political aspects of religious faith and practice.
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.
Presenting an original global theory of culture, Girard explores the social function of violence and the mechanism of the social scapegoat. His vision is a challenge to conventional views of literature, anthropology, religion and psychoanalysis. Rene Gerard is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of French Language, Literature and Civilization at Stanford University, USA.
Academic theology is in need of a new genre. In "Transgressive Devotion" Natalie Wigg-Stevenson articulates a theological vision of that genre as performance art. She argues that theology done as performance art stops trying to describe who God is, and starts trying to make God appear. Recognising that the act of studying theology or practicing ministry is always a performance, where the boundaries between what we see, feel, experience and learn are not just blurred but potentially invisible, Wigg-Stevenson brings together ethnographic theological fieldwork, historical and contemporary Christian theological traditions, and performance artworks themselves. A daring vision of theology which will energise anybody feeling ‘boxed in’ by the discipline, Transgressive Devotion blurs borders between orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heresy to reveal how the very act of doing theology makes God and humanity vulnerable to each other. This is theology which is a liturgy of Divine incantation. In other words: this is theology which is also prayer.