Books in the Elements in the Philosophy of Religion series

This Element provides an introduction to the hiddenness argument, as presented by John Schellenberg, and its up-to-date discussion. Also includes a brief assessment of where things stand, from the author's point of view.

Are there good reasons for offering petitionary prayers to God, if God exists? Could such prayers make a difference in the world? Could we ever have good reason to think that such prayers had been answered? In this Element, the author will carefully explore these questions with special attention to recent philosophical discussions.

This Element critically explores the potential relevance of God or a soul for life's meaning as discussed in recent Anglo-American philosophical literature. There have been four broad views: God or a soul is necessary for meaning in our lives; neither is necessary for it; one or both would greatly enhance the meaning in our lives; one or both would substantially detract from it. This Element familiarizes readers with all four positions, paying particular attention to the latter two, and also presents prima facie objections to them, points out gaps in research agendas and suggests argumentative strategies that merit development.

Proving the existence of God is a perennial philosophical ambition. An armchair proof would be the jackpot. Ontological arguments promise as much. This Element studies the most famous ontological arguments from Anselm, Descartes, Plantinga, and others besides. While the verdict is that ontological arguments don't work, they get us entangled in fun philosophical puzzles, from philosophy of religion to philosophy of language, from metaphysics to ethics, and beyond.

This Element considers the relationship between the traditional view of God as all-powerful, all-knowing and wholly good on the one hand, and the idea of human free will on the other. It focuses on the potential threats to human free will arising from two divine attributes: God's exhaustive foreknowledge and God's providential control of creation.

This Element has two aims. The first is to discuss arguments philosophers have made about the difference God's existence might make to questions of general interest in metaethics. The second is to argue that it is a mistake to think we can get very far in answering these questions by assuming a thin conception of God, and to suggest that exploring the implications of thick theisms for metaethics would be more fruitful.

An introductory exploration on the nature of emotions, and examination of some of the critical issues surrounding the emotional life of God as they relate to happiness, empathy, love, and moral judgments. Covering the different criteria used in the debate between impassibility and passibility, readers can begin to think about which emotions can be predicated of God and which cannot.

If epistemology is roughly the study of knowledge, justification, warrant, and rationality, then religious epistemology is the study of how these epistemic concepts relate to religious belief and practice. This Element, while surveying various religious epistemologies, argues specifically for Plantingian religious epistemology. It makes the case for proper functionalism and Plantinga's AC models, while it also responds to debunking arguments informed by cognitive science of religion. It serves as a bridge between religious epistemology and natural theology.

This Element is an elementary introduction to atheism and agnosticism. It begins with a careful characterisation of atheism and agnosticism, distinguishing them from many other things with which they are often conflated. After a brief discussion of the theoretical framework within which atheism and agnosticism are properly evaluated, it then turns to the sketching of cases for atheism and agnosticism. In both cases, the aim is not conviction, but rather advancement of understanding: the point of the cases is to make it intelligible why some take themselves to have compelling reason to adopt atheism or agnosticism.

What is someone who has a perspective on religious matters to say about those who endorse other perspectives? What should they say about other religions? For example, might some of their beliefs be true? What stage are we human beings at in our religious development? Are we close to maturity, religiously speaking, so that most of the important religious ideas and innovations there will ever be have already appeared? Or are we starting out in our religious evolution, so that religious developments to date are merely the first rude efforts of a species in its religious infancy?

This Element is an introduction to contemporary religious fictionalism, its motivation and challenges. Among the issues raised are: can religion be viewed as a game of make-believe? In what ways does religious fictionalism parallel positions often labelled 'fictionalist' in ethics and metaphysics? Does religious fictionalism represent an advance over its rivals? Can fictionalism provide an adequate understanding of the characteristic features of the religious life, such as worship, prayer, moral commitment? Does fictionalism face its own version of the problem of evil? Is realism about theistic (God-centred) language less religiously serious than fictionalism?

This Element focuses on some core conceptual and ontological issues related to pantheistic conceptions of God by engaging with recent work in analytic philosophy of religion on this topic.

This Element looks at religious experience and the role it has played in philosophy of religion. It critically explores the history of the intertwined discourses on mysticism and religious experience, before turning to a few specific discussions within contemporary philosophy of religion.

Theism is the view that God exists; naturalism is the view that there are no supernatural beings, processes, mechanisms, or forces. This Element explores whether things are better, worse, or neither on theism relative to naturalism.

Addresses some important preliminary issues before exploring the question of how an incompatibility argument from evil is best formulated, and possible responses to such arguments. Then focuses on skeptical theism. Finally discusses evidential arguments from evil, and four different kinds of evidential argument are set out and critically examined.

This Element explores science and religion in a global context by examining two ways in which humans have understood the natural world - by reference to observable regularities in the behavior of things and by reference to the work of gods, spirits, and ancestors. Three varieties of science and three kinds of religion are examined in detail.

What does it mean to use language religiously? How does religious language differ from ordinary linguistic practices? Can religious language have meaning? These questions are part of the so-called problem of religious language, originating from the peculiar object of many religious claims, that is, the transcendent, or more precisely, God.

The Doctrine of the Incarnation, that Jesus Christ was both truly God and truly human, is the cornerstone of traditional Christian theism. This Element analyses what the traditional teaching meant by person, divinity, and humanity to showcase various solutions that have been offered to the question of how one person can be both God and human.

This book clarifies the concepts involved and the problem that arises from believing in both God and abstract objects. Presents the possible kinds of solutions to that problem. Discusses a new kind of solution to the problem, according to which reality is most fundamentally made of information.

Presents key elements from the writings on religion of philosophers working in the continental tradition. Argues for a hybrid methodology which enables transformational religious responses to the problems associated with human existence to be supported by reasoned argument, revelation, narrative philosophy, and experiential verification.

This Element analyzes the various forms of design arguments: the complex adaptive features that organisms have, and the argument for fine-tuning, which contends that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed even slightly from their actual values.

This Element discusses the nature of time in relation to God, examining both history and scientific findings, alongside religion.

This Element examines what we can learn from religious disagreement, focusing on disagreement with possible selves and former selves, the epistemic significance of religious agreement, the problem of disagreements between religious experts, and the significance of philosophy of religion.

This book discusses the concept of God as the most perfect being and argues that the atemporalist conception of God is to be preferred over the temporalist's on the grounds of perfect being theology.

Discusses the structure, content, and evaluation of cosmological arguments by investigating their essential features, and positing that their traditional features of appeal to change, causation, contigency, or objective becoming in the world are not significant in their formulation.

This Element is a critical overview of the manner in which the concept of miracle is understood and discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. It focuses on key conceptual epistemological, and theological issues that this definition of the miracles continue to raise.

This book explores the meaning of the word 'atonement' and how Christ's death led to the reconciliation with God. It approaches the word from both the biblical sense and philosophical theories.