C. S. Lewis was one of the most influential Christian apologists of the 20th century. An Oxford don and former atheist who converted to Christianity in 1931, he gained a wide following during the 1940s as the author of a number of popular apologetic books such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain in which he argued for the truth of Christianity. Today his reputation is greater than ever-partly because of his books and partly because of the movie Shadowlands, starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. In advocating Christianity, Lewis did not appeal to blind faith, but to reason. Convinced that Christianity is rationally defensible, he boldly declared: "I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it." But do Lewis's arguments survive critical scrutiny? In this revised and expanded edition of his book originally published in 1985, philosopher John Beversluis takes Lewis at his word, sympathetically examines his "case for Christianity," and concludes that it fails. Beversluis examines Lewis's argument from desire-the "inconsolable longing" that he interpreted as a pointer to a higher reality; his moral argument for the existence of a Power behind the moral law; his contention that reason cannot be adequately explained in naturalistic terms; and his solution to the Problem of Evil, which many philosophers regard as the decisive objection to belief in Christianity. In addition, Beversluis considers issues in the philosophy of religion that developed late in Lewis's life-such as Antony Flew's criticisms of Christian theology. He concludes with a discussion of Lewis's crisis of faith after the death of his wife and answers the question: Did C. S. Lewis lose his faith? Finally, in this second edition, Beversluis replies to critics of the first edition. As the only critical study of C. S. Lewis's apologetic writings, this readable and intellectually stimulating book should be on the bookshelves of anyone interested in the philosophy of religion.

Why did science emerge in the West and how did scientific values come to be regarded as the yardstick for all other forms of knowledge? Stephen Gaukroger shows just how bitterly the cognitive and cultural standing of science was contested in its early development. Rejecting the traditional picture of secularization, he argues that science in the seventeenth century emerged not in opposition to religion but rather was in many respects driven by it. Moreover, science did not present a unified picture of nature but was an unstable field of different, often locally successful but just as often incompatible, programmes. To complicate matters, much depended on attempts to reshape the persona of the natural philosopher, and distinctive new notions of objectivity and impartiality were imported into natural philosophy, changing its character radically by redefining the qualities of its practitioners. The West's sense of itself, its relation to its past, and its sense of its future, have been profoundly altered since the seventeenth century, as cognitive values generally have gradually come to be shaped around scientific ones. Science has not merely brought a new set of such values to the task of understanding the world and our place in it, but rather has completely transformed the task, redefining the goals of enquiry. This distinctive feature of the development of a scientific culture in the West marks it out from other scientifically productive cultures. In The Emergence of a Scientific Culture, Stephen Gaukroger offers a detailed and comprehensive account of the formative stages of this development--and one which challenges the received wisdom that science was seen to be self-evidently the correct path to knowledge and that the benefits of science were immediately obvious to the disinterested observer.

A Frightening Love radically rethinks God and evil. It rejects theodicy and its impersonal conception of reason and morality. Faith survives evil through a miraculous love that resists philosophical rationalization. Authors criticised include Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Marilyn McCord Adams, Peter van Inwagen, John Haldane, William Hasker.

This book brings together scholars of a variety of the world's major civilisations to focus on the universal theme of inner transformation. The idea of the self is a cultural formation like any other, and models and conceptions of the inner world of the person vary widely from one civilisation to another. Nonetheless, all the world's great religions insist on the need to transform this inner world, however it is understood, in highly expressive and specific ways. Such transformations, often ritually enacted, reveal the primary intutitions, drives, and conflicts active within culuture. The individual essays - by such distinguished scholars as Wai-yee Li, Janet Gyatso, Wendy Doniger, Christiano Grottanelli, Charles Malamoud, Margalit Finkelberg, and Moshe Idel - study dramatic examples of these processes in a wide range of cultures, including China, India, Tibet, Greece and Rome, Late Antiquity, Islam, Judaism, and medieval and early-modern Chritian Europe.

Cattoi and McDaniel present a selection of articles on the role of the body and the spiritual senses--our transfigured channels of sensory perceptions--in the context of spiritual practice. The volume investigates this theme across a variety of different religious traditions, starting from early and medieval Christianity, addressing a number of Eastern traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism, and finally touching on some modern forms of spirituality and psychotherapy.

This is a view of the work of philosopher Giorgio Agamben in relation to his own most basic theological premises and the discipline of theology. Though the work of Italian theorist Giorgio Agamben has been increasing in popularity over the last several years in the English-speaking world, little work has been done directly on the theological legacy which actually dominates the overall force of his critical analyses, a topic which has intrigued his readers since the publication of his short book on Saint Paul's 'Letter to the Romans'. "Agamben and Theology" intends to illuminate such a connection by examining the theologically inflected terms that have come to dominate his work over time, including the messianic, the sacred, sovereignty, glory, creation, original sin, redemption and revelation. "The Philosophy and Theology" series looks at major philosophers and explores their relevance to theological thought as well as the response of theology.

This edited collection of essays critically examines how diverse religions of the world represent, understand, theologize, theorize and respond to disability and/or chronic illness. Contributors employ a wide variety of methodological approaches including ethnography, historical, cultural, or textual analysis, personal narrative, and theological/philosophical investigation.

The volume will consist of a series of interpretative studies of Locke 's philosophical and religious thought in historical context and consider his contributions to the Enlightenment and modern liberal thought.

Christians look with hope to the resurrection of the dead and the restoration of all things. But what of those who have already died? Do they also await these things, or have they in some sense already happened for them? Within the Catholic theological community, this question has traditionally been answered in terms of the disembodied souls of human beings awaiting bodily resurrection. Since the 1960s, Catholic theologians have proposed two alternatives: resurrection at death into the Last Day and the consummation of all things, or resurrection in death into an interim state in which the embodied dead await, with us, the final consummation of all things. This book critically examines the Scriptural, philosophical and theological reasons for these alternatives and, on the basis of this analysis, offers an account of the traditional schema which makes clear that in spite of these challenges it remains the preferable option.

We live in a cynical age. Cynicism is in the air we breathe; it is a cultural norm; it is the default setting and lens through which many of us view the world. Why is cynicism so pervasive? What does it promise? How does it work? And what does it deliver? In this thorough, interdisciplinary exploration of cynicism, Dick Keyes probes the intellectual and cultural underpinnings of cynicism in its modern and postmodern manifestations. In analyzing our cynicism toward individuals, institutions and God, he gives cynicism the scrutiny it deserves, arguing for its merits as a tool for discernment while pointing out its limitations. Keyes subjects cynicism to its own critique and ultimately looks beyond cynicism to alternatives that wrestle honestly with suspicion, trust and hope. Wide-ranging and vast in scope, Seeing Through Cynicism offers meaty, substantive perspectives for faithful living in a cynical world.

The political writings of John Wesley (1703-1791) reveal a passionate campaigner engaged throughout his life with the care of the oppressed. His life was one of great paradox: as a high-churchman and Tory, living under the instruction of the Bible, tradition set him against radical change, yet few individuals could have been more responsible for upheaval in church and society. He believed scriptures set him against the cause of democracy, yet scarcely one other single person could have contributed more to its realization. His gospel religion inflamed in him an outrage at the social and political evils of his day that was barely matched by the more explicitly radical of his contemporaries. This volume collects addresses and pamphlets that capture Wesley's views on a variety of political subjects including the nature of political power, his response to Richard Price's Observations on Liberty, his views on slavery, on poverty, on the secession of the American colonies, and on the luxury of the rich. Together they make clear the relevance of Wesley to subsequent developments in the abolition of slavery and the evolution of labour politics. The book features an extensive new introduction by the editor.

Whether one agrees with him or not, there is no avoiding the challenge of Hume for contemporary philosophy of religion. The symposia in this stimulating collection reveal why, whether the discussions concern Hume on metaphysics and religion, 'true religion', religion and ethics, religion and superstition, or miracles. For some, Hume's criticisms of religion are so devastating that religion cannot withstand them. Others disagree, and claim that Hume can be answered on his own terms. For others, while Hume shows us paths we should not take, these open up the way for a consideration of religious possibilities he never considered. These are not peripheral matters. The responses to them determine the style and spirit in which one pursues philosophy of religion today.

Fr Pierre Johanns is a key figure in the history of Christian intellectual engagement with Hindu philosophy. He was the most articulate figure in a group of Belgian Jesuits in Calcutta who sought to develop the theological project initiated by Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, a convert to Catholicism whose theology conveyed a positive appreciation of aspects of Hindu advaitic philosophy. Johanns began to publish a steady stream of articles in the monthly Light of the East that analysed pertinent features of Vedantic thought from the perspective of his neo-Thomistic presuppositions. Johanns engaged in a thorough explication and analysis of the thinking of the Hindu teachers Sankara, Ramanuja, and Vallabha. He attempted to fashion a creative synthesis of their views, constructing a new, holistic metaphysic from the raw material of their respective philosophical theologies. This book examines the theological writings of Pierre Johanns by situating him within his historical context, by discussing how Johanns interacted with Vedantic philosophy, and by assessing the success of his project.