Suppose that one is presented with a report of a miracle as an exception to nature's usual course. Should one believe the report and so come to favour the idea that a god has acted miraculously? Hume argued that no reasonable person should do anything of the kind. Many religiously sceptical philosophers agree with him, and have both defended and developed his reasoning. Some theologians concur or offer other reasons why those who are believers in God should also refuse to accept accounts of miracles as accurate reportage. This book argues to the contrary. For Houston, miracle stories may contribute towards the reasonableness of belief in God, and, appropriately attested, may be accepted by believers in God. To bolster his case he examines historically and intellectually significant writings about the miraculous. And having argued for the rejection of Hume, he explores the implications of this rejection for science, history and theology.

What do the great world religions say about the soul and its ultimate destiny? This book presents the beliefs of six major traditions about human nature, the way to immortality, and the end of the world. It offers a major philosophical analysis of beliefs in reincarnation and the resurrection of the body. Finally it constructs a Christian interpretation, in the light of scientific knowledge and a global religious worldview.

Richard Swinburne offers an answer to one of the most difficult problems of religious belief: why does a loving God allow humans to suffer so much? Swinburne argues that God wants much more for us than pleasure or freedom from suffering: he wants us to learn and to love, to make the choices which make great differences for good or evil to each other, to form our characters in the way we choose; above all, to be of great use to each other. If we are to have all this, there will inevitably be suffering for the short period of our lives on Earth. Because of the good that God gives to humans in this life, and makes possible, through our choice, thereafter, he does not wrong us in allowing suffering. Providence and the Problem of Evil is the final instalment of Swinburne's acclaimed four-volume philosophical examination of Christian doctrine.

The nine essays in The Appearing of God are situated on the fluid border of philosophy and theology, and follow a path leading from classic modern philosophical discussions of experience to some leading themes in contemporary phenomenology. After an introductory exploration of Kierkegaard's classic text that straddles the border between philosophy and theology, the reader is introduced to Husserl's account of perception, with its demonstration that the field of phenomena is wider than that of perceptible entities, allowing phenomena that give themselves primarily to feeling. Husserl's theory of reduction is then subjected to a critique, which identifies phenomena wholly resistant to reduction. John Paul II's encyclical on Faith and Reason elicits a critical rejection of its attempt to reify the boundary between natural and supernatural, the author asserting in its place that love is the distinguishing mark of the knowledge of God. This theme is continued in a discussion of Heidegger's Being and Time, where a passing reference to Pascal invites interrogation of the work's 'methodological atheism', which is found to leave more room than appears for love of the divine. The next three chapters deal with the themes of Anticipation, Gift and Self-Identity, all exploring aspects of a single theme, the relation of present experience to the passage of time, and especially to the future. The final chapter puts that theme, together with the theme of love and knowledge, to the service of an enquiry into how theology as an intellectual enterprise relates to the practice of worship.

Educated people have become bereft of sophisticated ways to develop their religious inclinations. A major reason for this is that theology has become vague and dull. In The Character of God, author Thomas E. Jenkins maintains that Protestant theology became boring by the late nineteenth century because the depictions of God as a character in theology became boring. He shows how in the early nineteenth century, American Protestant theologians downplayed biblical depictions of God's emotional complexity and refashioned his character according to their own notions, stressing emotional singularity. These notions came from many sources, but the major influences were the neoclassical and sentimental literary styles of characterization dominant at the time. The serene benevolence of neoclassicism and the tender sympathy of sentimentalism may have made God appealing in the mid-1800s, but by the end of the century, these styles had lost much of their cultural power and increasingly came to seem flat and vague. Despite this, both liberal and conservative theologians clung to these characterizations of God throughout the twentieth century.
Jenkins argues that a way out of this impasse can be found in romanticism, the literary style of characterization that supplanted neoclassicism and sentimentalism and dominated American literary culture throughout the twentieth century. Romanticism emphasized emotional complexity and resonated with biblical depictions of God. A few maverick religious writers-- such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, W. G. T. Shedd, and Horace Bushnell--did devise emotionally complex characterizations of God and in some cases drew directly from romanticism. But their strange andsometimes shocking depictions of God were largely forgotten in the twentieth century. s use "theological" as a pejorative term, implying that an argument is needlessly Jenkins urges a reassessment of their work and a greaterin understanding of the relationship between theology and literature. Recovering the lost literary power of American Protestantism, he claims, will make the character of God more compelling and help modern readers appreciate the peculiar power of the biblical characterization of God.

The destruction of the Egyptian army in the Book of Exodus is the primary story of salvation for Israel and center stage is a portrait of God in combat. Indeed, the annihilation of the enemy is commemorated by a victory hymn with the words of praise, "Yahweh is a warrior!" Such unleashing of divine power with militaristic imagery and nationalistic motives has long caught the attention of scholars. In God of War, Thomas B. Dozeman examines ancient Israel's confessions of divine power in the exodus. He interprets the story of the exodus as liturgy that undergoes change as Israelite worship was transformed through the experience of exile. The reinterpretation of the exodus, he argues, was achieved through additions to the story and not through the writing of new versions. Dozeman proposes that additions to Exodus were intended to modify plot structure and character interactions, creating, in the process, a new understanding of divine power. What began as a liturgy of the Day of Yahweh, celebrating God's triumph over Pharaoh at sea and kingship in the land, evolved into an extended account of salvation history, in which the life of faith becomes a wilderness march with divine kingship in the land a hope for the future. Through this process of literary and cultic change, divine power is also transformed; once perceived as static and independent, it becomes a more dynamic and interdependent force in the world. Combining the insights of literary and historical interpretation, this study elucidates the idea of divine power and makes a significant contribution to resurgent research on the Pentateuch as a whole.

Eleanor Davies (1590-1652) was one of the most prolific women writing in early seventeenth-century England. This volume includes thirty-eight of the sixty-some prophetic tracts that she published. Inspired to prophecy by a visionary experience in 1625, the year of Charles I's accession to the throne, she devoted herself to warning her contemporaries that the Day of Judgement was imminent. Her zeal and her intricately constructed tracts confounded contemporaries who called her mad. She experienced repeated imprisonment and also confinement to Bedlam, London's mental hospital. The tracts tell her own story as woman and prophet. They offer an opportunity to study her experiences as wife, mother, and widow; they also exhibit her extraordinary intellect, extensive education, and fascination with words. In showing how England's history was fulfilling the biblical prophecies in the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation, she commented about the political and religious controversies of the turbulent period preceding and during the English Civil War and Revolution.

In this elegant new book, the sequel to his earlier, much praised treatment of the Devil, Philip Almond reveals that - whether in Judaism, Christianity or Islam - God is seen to be at once utterly beyond our world yet at the same earnestly desiring to be at one with it. In the Christian chapter of this story the paradox arguably reaches its improbable zenith: in the fragile form of a human being the infinite became finite, the eternal temporal. The way these and other metaphysical tensions have been understood is, the author demonstrates, the key to unlocking the entire history of religion in the West. Expertly placing the narrative of divine presence within the wider history of ideas, Almond suggests that the notion of a deity has been the single greatest conundrum of medieval and modern civilization. In this rich, nuanced appraisal, 'God' is shown to be more complex and fascinating than ever before.

How can we, or should we, talk about God? What concepts are involved in the idea of a Supreme Being? This book is about the search to reconcile modern metaphysics with traditional theism - focusing on the seminal work of Austin Farrer who was Warden of Keble College, Oxford, until his death in 1968, and one of the most original and important philosophers of religion of this century.

In this volume, Peter Furlong delves into the question of divine determinism - the view that God has determined everything that has ever happened or will ever happen. This view, which has a long history among multiple religious and philosophical traditions, faces a host of counterarguments. It seems to rob humans of their free will, absolving them of all the wrongs they commit. It seems to make God the author of sin and thus blameworthy for all human wrongdoing. Additionally, it seems to undermine the popular 'Free Will Defense' of the problem of evil, to make a mockery of the claim that God loves us, and to make it inappropriate for God to blame and punish us. This work carefully formulates these and other objections to divine determinism and investigates possible responses to each of them, providing systematic and balanced discussion of this major philosophical and theological debate.

One of the more important developments in the field of theology in the past two decades has been a gradual but genuine revival of interest in the doctrine of the Trinity. This fundamental Christian doctrine had been neglected by theologians, who saw it as isolated from practical Christian faith and life. Recently, however, feminist and liberationist, as well as more traditional Catholic and Protestant theologians, have come to see the Trinity not as an abstract doctrine, but instead as dealing with the living and dynamic being and acts of God, and closely related to Jesus Christ and the resurrection as the mystery of salvation. This insight has in many ways become one of the central themes of contemporary theology. In this study, Irish Presbyterian theologian John Thompson provides a survey of the wide variety of modern thought on this important theme, examining the work of figures like Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Jurgen Moltmann, and their views on such issues as the relationship of the trinitarian doctrine to Scripture, the Church, philosophy, politics, and society.

Do people know about God just by being human beings? Or do they need special divine assistance, through the Bible and the church? `Natural Theology' is the idea that human beings `by nature', that is just through being human, know something of God; or that perhaps they gain such knowledge from observing the world we live in. Its opposite is `revealed theology', or the knowledge of God communicated only through special channels - through Jesus Christ, through the Bible, through the church. Natural theology was long accepted as a basic ingredient in all theology, but in the twentieth century it was rejected by important theologians, especially Karl Barth. His views denied all natural theology and placed greater emphasis on the Bible. But what if the Bible itself uses, depends on, and supports natural theology? In this book, Professor Barr pursues these questions within the Bible itself and within the history of ideas, earlier and more recent; and he looks at their implications for religion and theology in the future.

What is it for there to be a God, and what reason is there for supposing Him to conform to the claims of Christian doctrine? Working within a rigorous framework of modern analytic philosophy, Richard Swinburne spells out the simplest possible account of the divine nature, and goes on to assess the specifically Christian doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation.

In Our Own Image is a work of comparative philosophical theology. It is a study of the roles anthropomorphism and apophaticism play in the construction of conceptual models of ultimate reality. Leading scholar Wesley J. Wildman considers whether we create our ideas of God. He offers a comparative analysis of three major classes of ultimacy models, paying particular attention to the way those classes are impacted by anthropomorphism while tracing their relative strengths and weaknesses. Wildman provides a constructive theological argument on behalf of an apophatic understanding of ultimate reality, showing how this understanding subsumes, challenges, and relates ultimacy models from the three classes being compared. He describes and compares competing ultimacy models, fairly and sympathetically. The conclusion is that all models cognitively break on the shoals of ultimate reality, but that the ground-of-being class of models carries us further than the others in regard to the comparative criteria that matter most.

The theme that God suffers with his world has become a familiar one in recent years, but a careful examination is needed of what it means to talk about the suffering of God, avoiding the danger of a merely sentimental belief. This book offers a consistent way of thinking about a God who suffers supremely and yet is still the kind of God to whom the Christian tradition has witnessed, and also about a God who suffers universally and yet is still present uniquely in the cross of Christ. It is at once both a survey of recent thought about the suffering of God and a proposal for a way forward in this important area of Christian theology. The author surveys four main trends of recent thought: the "theology of the cross" in modern German theology (as represented particularly in the work of Karl Barth, Jurgen Moltmann and Eberhard Jungel); American process theology; the "death of God" theology and the rejection of the whole idea of divine passibility by modern followers of classical theism. This thematic structure enables an idea of divine suffering to be developed throughout the book, affirming that God freely chooses to limit Himself, to suffer change, to journey through time and even to

This provocative book examines some of the principal attributes traditionally ascribed to God in western theism, particularly omniscience and omnipotence. From his discussion of a number of related topics, including a comprehensive treatment of the problem of the relations between divine foreknowledge and human freedom, Kenny concludes that there can be no such being as the God of traditional natural theology.

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious experience. He claims that while none of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion.

Although the idea that all human beings are descended from Adam is a long-standing conviction in the West, another version of this narrative exists: human beings inhabited the Earth before, or alongside, Adam, and their descendants still occupy the planet.

In this engaging and provocative work, David N. Livingstone traces the history of the idea of non-adamic humanity, and the debates surrounding it, from the Middle Ages to the present day. From a multidisciplinary perspective, Livingstone examines how this alternative idea has been used for cultural, religious, and political purposes. He reveals how what began as biblical criticism became a theological apologetic to reconcile religion with science--evolution in particular--and was later used to support arguments for white supremacy and segregation.

From heresy to orthodoxy, from radicalism to conservatism, from humanitarianism to racism, "Adam's Ancestors" tells an intriguing tale of twists and turns in the cultural politics surrounding the age-old question, "Where did we come from?"

A persistent problem for Christian theologians and philosophers of religion has been the compatibility of the doctrine of divine foreknowledge with belief in human free will. Zagzebski presents a systematic treatment of this intractable dilemma. She critically analyses the three major traditional solutions - the Boethian, the Ockhamist, and the Molinist - arguing that none of them succeeds. She then develops and defends three new solutions of her own, discovering a new dilemma of foreknowledge and time, independent of the question of free will, which alters the range of acceptable solutions to the foreknowledge/freedom dilemma. She concludes with a general discussion of the way in which a rational person ought to proceed when confronted with dilemmas which threaten important religious beliefs.