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11 results

The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology
  • Edited by Jonathan Fuqua, John Greco, Tyler McNabb
  • Published online:
    24 August 2023
    Print publication:
    17 August 2023
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology, the first to appear on the topic, introduces the current state of religious epistemology and provides a discussion of fundamental topics related to the epistemology of religious belief. Its wide-ranging chapters not only survey fundamental topics, but also develop non-traditional epistemic theories and explore the religious epistemology endorsed by non-Western traditions. In the first section, Faith and Rationality, readers will find new essays on Reformed epistemology, skepticism and religious belief, and on the nature of evidence with respect to religious belief. The rich second section, Religious Traditions, contains chapters on Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian epistemologies. The final section, New Directions, contains chapters ranging from applying disjunctivism and knowledge-first approaches to religious belief, to surveying responses to debunking arguments. Comprehensive and accessible, this Handbook will advance the field for years to come.

  • Introduction

  • Edited by Jonathan Fuqua, Conception Seminary College, Missouri, John Greco, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Tyler McNabb, Saint Francis University, Pennsylvania
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology
    Published online:
    24 August 2023
    Print publication:
    17 August 2023, pp 1-10

  • Summary

    The questions of faith and reason, taken up in this book in great detail, are universal across time and place; nor have they gone away with the Enlightenment, the rise of modern science, or the epistemological cynicism of postmodernism. One finds extensive and serious philosophical discussion of things divine, of God and the gods, throughout the history of philosophy, East and West, down to the present day. The human being is an animal, but in most cases is also a “believer.” In a nod to the extensive body of scientific work on humanity’s religious proclivities, some have even called the human being “the believing primate” (Schloss and Murray 2009). As the “believing primate” designation suggests, religious belief seems to bear an interesting and unclear relationship with reason. For one thing, without reason, no one could have any religious beliefs nor engage in any religious practices based on those beliefs. To be a believing primate, you have to be a rational animal (the latter designation being, of course, Aristotle’s famous definition of the human person). In that sense, at least, religion is rational: To be religious you have to be rational.