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220 results in Philosophy of religion

Page 1 of 11

Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?
  • The Fundamental Problem of Ontology
  • Andrew Brenner
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    March 2026
    Print publication:
    31 March 2026
  • 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is a question that is arguably as old as philosophy itself. Nevertheless, despite the fact that it is of perennial philosophical, scientific, and religious interest, it receives less attention than many other classic questions in philosophy. And despite continued fascination with 'the Question', and its status as one of the great intellectual mysteries, there are few academic book-length discussions of the subject. This book serves as the definitive guide to the Question. It includes a discussion of the proper interpretation of the Question, whether it can be expected to have an answer, an overview of the major answers which have been proposed, and, most significantly, a new and innovative explanation for why there is something rather than nothing.

Human Nature, Human Goods
  • A Theory of Natural Perfectionism
  • Tom Angier
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    31 January 2026
  • Is there a human nature? Can knowledge of it help us live better lives? This book synthesises ancient and modern philosophical ideas and draws on scientific research to answer yes to both these questions. It develops an innovative normative theory on the basis of commonsensical, naturalistic, premisses; and it defends an Aristotelian normative theory -- whereby we should understand human goods as realisations or perfections of human nature -- against both traditional and emerging challenges to perfectionist ethics, including evolutionary biology and transhumanism. The result is a ground-breaking theory of 'natural perfectionism', which both returns perfectionistic ethics to its Aristotelian roots and shows how this is compatible with evolutionary biology and cognitive science. At a time when the very idea of human nature is viewed as something that can be readily transcended, this work recalls us to a realistic, sober and better-founded vision of it.

Judaism and the Philosophy of Religion
  • David Shatz
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    31 December 2025
  • Analytic philosophy of religion is a vibrant area of inquiry, but it has generally focused on generic forms of theism or on Christianity. David Shatz here offers a new and fresh approach to the field in a wide-ranging and engaging introduction to the analytic philosophy of religion from the perspective of Judaism.  Exploring classical Jewish texts about philosophical topics in light of the concepts and arguments at the heart of analytic philosophy, he demonstrates how each tradition illuminates the other, yielding a deeper understanding of both Jewish sources and general philosophical issues. Shatz also advances growing efforts to imagine Jewish philosophy not only as an engrossing, invaluable part of Jewish intellectual history, but also as a creative, constructive enterprise that mines the methods and literature of contemporary philosophy. His book offers new pathways to think deeply about God, evil, morality, freedom, ethics, and religious diversity, among other topics.

Saints as Divine Evidence
  • The Hagiological Argument for the Existence of God
  • Robert MacSwain
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    31 December 2025
  • In Saints As Divine Evidence, Robert MacSwain explores 'the hagiological argument' for God, that is, human holiness as evidence for the divine being. Providing an overview of the contested place of evidence in religious belief, and a case study of someone whose short but compelling life allegedly bore witness to the reality of God, MacSwain surveys sainthood as understood in philosophy of religion, ethics, Christian theology, church history, comparative religion, and cultural studies. With epistemological and hagiological frameworks established, he then further identifies and analyzes three distinct forms of the argument, which he calls the propositional, the perceptual, and the performative. Each version understands both evidence and sainthood differently, and the relevant concepts include exemplarity, inference, altruism, perception, religious experience, performativity, narrative, witness, and embodiment.  MacSwain's study expands the standard list of theistic arguments and moves the discussion from purely logical and empirical considerations to include spiritual, ethical, and personal issues as well.

God and Truth
  • An Essay on Reason and Religious Ideas
  • Lenn E. Goodman
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • Is God a necessary being? Infinite yet simple? Creator of a world that seems equally able to explain itself? In this volume, prize-winning philosopher Lenn Goodman probes key religious questions against the backdrop of sacred texts and philosophical classics. In dialogue with a range of philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Philo, Maimonides, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant, he examines the relationship between truth and the idea of God. Exploring the nexus between theism and logic, he probes ontological and design arguments, the anthropic principle, the problem of evil, the nature of justice and fairness, and the purpose and meaning of art. Goodman provocatively asks what science would look like if scientists allowed themselves to voice religious responses to their discoveries, as Einstein did. Finally, he probes the insights and examples of the morally virtuous, such as Moses, Albert Schweitzer, and Mahatma Gandhi.

Religion, Dissonance, and Systems Theory
  • Comparing Spiritual Traditions
  • Ariel Glucklich
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • Religious belief systems are often marked by internal dissonance. Mitigating this dissonance can lead to surprising religious phenomena, including blood libels, scapegoating, religious violence, the worship of saints and martyrs, asceticism, austerities, as well as processions, fasting, and clowning. In this study, Ariel Glucklich provides a new approach to understanding how religious actions emerge in the context of belief systems. Providing an innovative psychological and social understanding of the causes that stimulate believers to action, he examines a range of religious phenomena in India, Israel, Austria, Italy, and the United States. Glucklich's new theory enables recognition of the patterns that account for the full complexity of actions inspired by religious beliefs and systems.  His systematic comparison of actions across traditional boundaries offers a novel approach to cause and effect in comparative religion and religious studies more broadly. Glucklich's book also generates new questions regarding a universal phenomenon that has escaped notice up to now.

Kierkegaard's Works of Love
  • A Critical Guide
  • Edited by Jeffrey Hanson, Wojciech Kaftanski
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2025
    Print publication:
    31 October 2025
  • Kierkegaard's Works of Love, published in 1847, is considered a monumental text on love from one of the nineteenth century's greatest thinkers. It considers different types of love including Christian love and love of God, as well as love of a parent, a spouse, and a friend. It was initially considered austere and unrewarding as a philosophical and religious text, but is now being appraised more appreciatively from a diverse range of perspectives. The essays in this Critical Guide engage with Kierkegaard's unique view of love and expand upon topics including duty, virtue, selfhood, friendship, authenticity, God, hermeneutics, environmentalism, politics, justice, self-righteousness, despair, equality, commitment, sociality, and meaning in life. Drawing on both analytic and continental European traditions, they revisit the vexed and contested questions of this book and demonstrate its continuing relevance and importance to present-day debates.

Civil Religion and the Renewal of American Politics
  • Amy E. Black, Douglas L. Koopman
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2025
    Print publication:
    30 September 2025
  • American culture is evolving rapidly as a result of shifts in its religious landscape. American civil religion is robust enough to make room for new perspectives, as religious pluralism is foundational for democracy. Moreover, as Amy Black and Douglas L. Koopman argue, American religion and politics are indivisible. In this study, they interrogate three visions of American identity: Christian nationalism, strict secularism, and civil religion. Whereas the growth of Christian nationalism and strict secularism foster division and threaten consensus, by contrast, a dynamic, self-critical civil religion strengthens democracy. When civil religion makes room for robust religious pluralism to thrive, religious and nonreligious people can coexist peacefully in the public square. Integrating insights from political science, history, religious studies, and sociology, Black and Koopman trace the role of religion in American politics and culture, assess the current religious and political landscape, and offer insights into paths by which the United States might reach a new working consensus that strengthens democracy.

Religious Experience
  • Implications for What Is Real
  • Phillip H. Wiebe
  • Published online:
    29 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2025
  • In this book, Phillip Wiebe examines religious, spiritual, and mystical experiences, assessing how these experiences appear to implicate a spiritual order. Despite the current prevalence of naturalism and atheism, he argues that experiences purporting to have a religious or spiritual significance deserve close empirical investigation. Wiebe surveys the broad scope of religious experience and considers different types of evidence that might give rise to a belief in phenomena such as spirits, paranormal events, God, and an afterlife. He demonstrates that there are different explanations and interpretations of religious experiences, both because they are typically personal accounts, and they suggest a reality that is often unobservable. Wiebe also addresses how to evaluate evidence for theories that postulate unobservables in general, and a Theory of Spirits in particular. Calling for more rigorous investigation of these phenomena, Wiebe frames the study of religious experience among other accepted social sciences that seek to understand religion.

Qoheleth and the Philosophy of Value
  • Jesse M. Peterson
  • Published online:
    25 June 2025
    Print publication:
    10 July 2025
  • The book of Ecclesiastes is the Bible's problem child. Its probing doubts, dark ruminations, self- reflexive dialogues, and unflinching observations have simultaneously puzzled and fascinated readers for over two millennia. Some read the book's message as hopelessly pessimistic, while others regard the text as too contradictory to bear any consistent message at all. In this study, Jesse Peterson offers a coherent portrait of the book and its author-the early Jewish sage known as Qoheleth-by examining both through a philosophical lens. Drawing from relevant contemporary philosophical literature on meaning in life, death, well-being, and enjoyment, Peterson outlines a clear and compelling portrait of Qoheleth and his philosophical assumptions about what is good and bad in the human experience. As Peterson argues, Qoheleth's grievances concerning the pursuit of meaning in life are paired with a genuine affirmation of life's value and the possibility of a joy-filled existence.

The Philosophy of Worship
  • Divine and Human Aspects
  • Edited by Aaron Segal, Samuel Lebens
  • Published online:
    09 January 2025
    Print publication:
    23 January 2025
  • Worship is central to the lives of billions of people worldwide. Yet, despite the recent flourishing of analytical philosophy of religion, there has been very little attention paid to the philosophical questions raised by worship. This book is the first volume to explore the philosophy of worship. Written in a clear style that eschews unnecessary technical jargon, it considers the metaphysical, ethical, and psychological issues associated with worship, among them: What, if anything, is the point of worship? What, if anything, makes a being worthy of worship? Can worship hold value for atheists? What, if anything, might be wrong with idolatry? These questions, and more, sit at the heart of this book. With contributions from world renowned philosophers and important early career voices, this volume sets the agenda for future work in the philosophy of worship.

Salvation in the Block Universe
  • Time, Tillich, and Transformation
  • Emily Qureshi-Hurst
  • Foreword by Alister McGrath
  • Published online:
    09 January 2025
    Print publication:
    23 January 2025
  • Does time really pass? Should theology mould itself to fit with the findings of physics and philosophy? How should the interdisciplinary dialogue between science and religion proceed? In Salvation in the Block Universe, Emily Qureshi-Hurst tackles these important questions head-on. She offers a focused treatment of a particular problem – the problem of salvation in the block universe – and a broader exploration of a theological methodology that makes 'science and religion' not only possible but desirable via Paul Tillich's method of correlation. By bringing time and salvation into dialogue, Dr Emily Qureshi-Hurst's original insights move the 'science and religion' conversation forward into new and productive territory. Qureshi-Hurst also provides tools for other theologians and philosophers to do the same. Essential reading for anyone interested in the interactions between philosophy, religion, and science, she asks: without the reality of change, is personal salvation during one's lifetime even possible?

A Pictographic Naxi Origin Myth from Southwest China
  • An Annotated Translation
  • Duncan Poupard
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    19 December 2024
    Print publication:
    12 October 2023
  • Starting in the late nineteenth century, unusual pictographic books began to flow from a remote corner of Southwest China into the libraries of the Western world. What made these books so attractive? For one, they possessed the air of mystery that came with being 'magical' books almost indecipherable to all but a select few ritual specialists, but perhaps more importantly, they were written in what looked like an ancient form of picture writing.

    In these books, written in the Naxi dongba script of southwest China, the events unfold on the page visually. This book offers a full translation of a central Naxi origin myth in a level of detail never before seen: readers are invited to delve into this unique script in both its original form and digital recreation, alongside historic and updated translations and an accompanying explanation of each individual graph.

Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on the One God
  • J. Budziszewski
  • Published online:
    23 November 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024
  • Thomas Aquinas's classic Treatise on the One God is one of the greatest works ever written in the history of philosophy and theology. During the first half of the twentieth century, philosophy of religion was widely viewed as dead, not even a domain of serious questions but only of 'pseudo-questions.' Surprisingly, not only did the supposed corpse rise from the dead, but religion once again became one of the most active fields of philosophical investigation. The time could not be more fitting for a reinvestigation of Treatise on the One God, which opens the massive Summa theologiae. In this unparalleled exploration of the Treatise's penetrating arguments J. Budziszewski explores and illuminates the text with a luminous line-by-line commentary. Supplemented with thematic discussions, this book discusses not only the Treatise itself, but also its immediate relevance to contemporary thought and issues of the modern world. This work fittingly closes the author's series of commentaries on the Summa Theologiae.

Participation in the Divine
  • A Philosophical History, From Antiquity to the Modern Era
  • Edited by Douglas Hedley, Daniel J. Tolan
  • Published online:
    23 November 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024
  • The concept of participation in a transcendent domain of existence is central to the Platonic and the Judaeo-Christian traditions. It is how thinkers throughout history have justified existence itself, explaining temporal being vis-à-vis God. Yet in the wake of secularisation and the widespread phenomenon of disenchantment, this once ubiquitous and coveted notion has fallen into desuetude. The essays in this volume analyse and explore this key concept in the history of Western thought. They provide, for the first time, a rigorous and accessible account of participation, a pivotal concept in Western philosophy and theology, from antiquity to the modern era. Bringing together contributions by an international team of leading scholars of the Platonic tradition, the volume challenges a standard distinction between philosophy and theology. It also enables a comprehensive understanding of figures who do not fit neatly into the modern university's division of these subjects.

A Philosopher Looks at Friendship
  • Sophie Grace Chappell
  • Published online:
    09 November 2024
    Print publication:
    18 July 2024
  • What is it to be a friend? What does the role of friend involve, and why? How do the obligations and prerogatives associated with that role follow on from it, and how might they mesh, or clash, with our other duties and privileges? Philosophy often treats friendship as something systematic, serious, and earnest, and much philosophical thought has gone into how 'friendship' can formally be defined. How indeed can friendship be good for us if it doesn't fit into a philosopher's neat, systematising theory of the good? For Sophie Grace Chappell, friendship is neither systematic nor earnest, yet is certainly one of the greatest goods of life. Drawing on well-known examples from popular culture, and examining these alongside recent philosophical, political, social, and theological debates, Chappell demystifies and redefines friendship as a highly untidy and many-sided good, and certainly also as one of the most central goods of human experience.

The Theological Imagination
  • Perception and Interpretation in Life, Art, and Faith
  • Judith Wolfe
  • Published online:
    09 November 2024
    Print publication:
    07 November 2024
  • How can we live truthfully in a world riddled with ambiguity, contradiction, and clashing viewpoints? We make sense of the world imaginatively, resolving ambiguous and incomplete impressions into distinct forms and wholes. But the images, objects, words, and even lives of which we make sense in this way always have more or other possible meanings. Judith Wolfe argues that faith gives us courage both to shape our world creatively, and reverently to let things be more than we can imagine. Drawing on complementary materials from literature, psychology, art, and philosophy, her remarkable book demonstrates that Christian theology offers a potent way of imagining the world even as it brings us to the limits of our capacity to imagine. In revealing the significance of unseen depths – of what does not yet make sense to us, and the incomplete – Wolfe characterizes faith as trust in God that surpasses all imagination.

Jesus and the Genome
  • The Intersection of Christology and Biology
  • Michael L. Peterson, Timothy J. Pawl, Ben F. Brammell
  • Published online:
    07 November 2024
    Print publication:
    28 November 2024
  • Is a coherent worldview that embraces both classical Christology and modern evolutionary biology possible? This volume explores this fundamental question through an engaged inquiry into key topics, including the Incarnation, the process of evolution, modes of divine action, the nature of rationality, morality, chance and love, and even the meaning of life.  Grounded alike in the history and philosophy of science, Christian theology, and the scientific basis for evolutionary biology and genetics, the volume discusses diverse thinkers, both medieval and modern, ranging from Augustine and Aquinas to contemporary voices like Richard Dawkins and Michael Ruse. Aiming to show how a biologically informed Christian worldview is scientifically, theologically, and philosophically viable, it offers important perspectives on the worldview of evolutionary naturalism, a prominent perspective in current science–religion discussions. The authors argue for the intellectual plausibility of a comprehensive worldview perspective that embraces both Christology and evolution biology in intimate relationship.

Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
  • Faces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect
  • Mateusz Stróżyński
  • Published online:
    03 September 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024
  • In this study, Mateusz Stróżyński offers an experiential and practical way of understanding Plotinus' thought and philosophy through a focus on the act of contemplation. He argues that contemplation, or direct seeing of the principles of reality, is not merely a part of Plotinus' thought, but rather a significant dimension of it. Moreover, he argues that Plotinus understands metaphysics as a conceptual and propositional description of reality from a third-person perspective, as well as an expression of an experience of that reality from a first-person perspective. Stróżyński focuses on the first phase of the journey to the Good, namely, on the contemplation of the intelligible world: Nature, Soul, and Intellect. He describes the fall of the soul and her return through the lens of the so-called “Great Kinds”: Being, Movement, Rest, Difference, and Identity. Stróżyński also shows how this concept, derived from Plato's Sophist, is creatively used by Plotinus to explain both the loss and the restoration of our ability to contemplate through philosophical practice.

The Cambridge Platonists and Early Modern Philosophy
  • Inventing the Philosophy of Religion
  • Samuel M. Kaldas
  • Published online:
    09 May 2024
    Print publication:
    16 May 2024
  • Often neglected by historians today, the seventeenth-century philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists were recognised in their time as some of the most influential and controversial philosophers in England. Whereas most studies of the Cambridge Platonists have discussed their later careers, this book focuses on their early, formative years at Cambridge during the English Civil Wars. Samuel M. Kaldas explores how the Cambridge Platonists addressed issues central to philosophy of religion as we know it today through their engagement with early seventeenth-century religious controversies about predestination, the character and nature of God, and the role of reason in religion. His study serves as an accessible introduction to both the Cambridge Platonists, and to English religious controversies that contributed to the birth of the modern philosophy of religion. At the same time, Kaldas provides context for and fresh insights into the Cambridge Platonists' intellectual development and the coherence of their thought.

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