Abstract

This book is an interweaving of an introduction to philosophy of religion with extended argumentation regarding the relationship of religion and reason, including the implications of this argument for numerous problems of religious thought. The volume concentrates upon, and contains rather detailed discussion of philosophy of religion as it has been approached in recent analytic philosophy. After establishing the proper analysis of the role of philosophy in religious thought, it devotes special attention to the problems of evil, creation, miracles, prayer, foreknowledge, ethics, and immortality. The book is written with a sympathy for a carefully delineated religious perspective, and, for the purposes of the volume, religion is considered explicitly from the Christian perspective. The author attempts to establish quite precisely the boundaries of philosophical reflection in the establishment of religious proposals. Philosophy is religiously neutral and can neither establish nor destroy religious conviction, although it can clarify the meaning of religious proposals. Religion is rational in the sense that it is not irrational. Philosophy can show that religious proposals do not need to conflict with scientific knowledge, nor end in self-contradiction, nor lack clarity. This is all of the defense of religion that one can expect from philosophy. Philosophy can also do the same for skepticism.