First comprehensive book on comparative religion. Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, James Freeman Clarke attended the Boston Latin School, graduated from Harvard College in 1829, and Harvard Divinity School in 1833. Ordained into the Unitarian church he first became an active minister at Louisville, Kentucky, then a slave state and soon threw himself into the national movement for the abolition of slavery.

Colby Dickinson proposes a new political theology rooted in the intersections between continental philosophy, heterodox theology, and orthodox theology. Moving beyond the idea that there is an irresolvable tension at the heart of theological discourse, the conflict between the two poles of theology is made intelligible. Dickinson discusses the opposing poles simply as manifestations of reform and revolution, characteristics intrinsic to the nature of theological discourse itself. Outlining the illuminating space of theology, Theological Poverty in Continental Philosophy breaks new ground for critical theology and continental philosophy. Within the theology of poverty, the believer renounces the worldly for the divine. Through this focus on the poverty intrinsic to religious calling, the potential for cross-pollination between the theological and the secular is highlighted. Ultimately situating the virtue of theological poverty within a poststructuralist, postmodern world, Dickinson is not content to position Christian philosophy as the superior theological position, moving away from the absolute values of one tradition over another. This universalising of theological poverty through core and uniting concepts like grace, negation, violence and paradox reveal the theory’s transmutable strength. By joining up critical theology and the philosophy of religion in this way, the book broadens the possibility of a critical dialogue both between and within disciplines.

Experimental philosophy has blossomed into a variety of philosophical fields including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. But there has been very little experimental philosophical research in the domain of philosophy of religion. Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy demonstrates how cognitive science of religion has the methodological and conceptual resources to become a form of experimental philosophy of religion. Addressing a wide variety of empirical claims that are of interest to philosophers and psychologists of religion, a team of psychologists and philosophers apply data from the psychology of religion to important problems in the philosophy of religion including the psychology of religious diversity; the psychology of substance dualism; the problem of evil and the relation between religious belief and empathy; and the cognitive science explaining the formation of intuitions that unwittingly guide philosophers of religion when formulating arguments. Bringing together authors and researchers who have made important contributions to interdisciplinary research on religion in the last decade, Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy provides new ways of approaching core philosophical and psychological problems.

For centuries, philosophers have addressed the ontological question of whether God exists. Most recently, philosophers have begun to explore the axiological question of what value impact, if any, God's existence has (or would have) on our world. This book brings together four prestigious philosophers, Michael Almeida, Travis Dumsday, Perry Hendricks and Graham Oppy, to present different views on the axiological question about God. Each contributor expresses a position on axiology, which is then met with responses from the remaining contributors. This structure makes for genuine discussion and developed exploration of the key issues at stake, and shows that the axiological question is more complicated than it first appears. Chapters explore a range of relevant issues, including the relationship between Judeo-Christian theism and non-naturalist alternatives such as pantheism, polytheism, and animism/panpsychism. Further chapters consider the attitudes and emotions of atheists within the theism conversation, and develop and evaluate the best arguments for doxastic pro-theism and doxastic anti-theism. Of interest to those working on philosophy of religion, theism and ethics, this book presents lively accounts of an important topic in an exciting and collaborative way, offered by renowned experts in this area.

This is a bilingual edition of the selected peer-reviewed papers that were submitted for the International Symposium on Jesuit Studies on the thought of the Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548-1617). The symposium was co-organized in Seville in 2018 by the Departamento de Humanidades y Filosofia at Universidad Loyola Andalucia and the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College.

The subject of Christology has been a struggle for the church from the very beginning. It has resulted in divisions, crusades, inquisitions, persecutions, and a wide range of creeds. Each group claims it possesses the truth-a truth revealed to them, a particular turn on belief they alone rightly proclaim. In "And Jacob Digged a Well," author Pastor Theodore M. Snider provides a commentary on religion-where it's been, where it's headed, and how it fits in the modern world. He seeks to answer this question: why do we believe what we believe?

Snider discusses how scientific and technological discoveries have changed not only our worldviews but also our Godviews and how consciousness and brain research are altering the way we understand each other and how beliefs are formed. He compiles a diverse amount of information on topics relevant to both secular and religious audiences, including creationism, evolution, intelligent design, and artificial intelligence through historical, scientific, cognitive, and psychological avenues.

And Jacob Digged a Well reminds us that "natural" may not be as clear as we once thought. Faith in the twenty-first century needs to look quite different from the past century.

This title presents an analysis of 'messianism' in Continental philosophy, using a case study of Levinas to uncover its underlying philosophical intelligibility. There is no greater testament to Emmanuel Levinas' reputation as an enigmatic thinker than in his mediations on eschatology and its relevance for contemporary thought. Levinas has come to be seen as a principle representative in Continental philosophy - alongside the likes of Heidegger, Benjamin, Adorno and Zizek - of a certain philosophical messianism, differing from its religious counterpart in being formulated apparently without appeal to any dogmatic content. To date, however, Levinas' messianism has not received the same detailed attention as other aspects of his wide ranging ethical vision. Terence Holden attempts to redress this imbalance, tracing the evolution of the messianic idea across Levinas' career, emphasising the transformations or indeed displacements which this idea undergoes in taking on philosophical intelligibility. He suggests that, in order to crack the enigma which this idea represents, we must consider not only the Jewish tradition from which Levinas draws inspiration, but also Nietzsche, who ostensibly would represent the greatest rival to the messianic idea in the history of philosophy, with his notion of the 'parody' of messianism. This groundbreaking series offers original reflections on theory and method in the study of religions, and demonstrates new approaches to the way religious traditions are studied and presented. Studies published under its auspices look to clarify the role and place of Religious Studies in the academy, but not in a purely theoretical manner. Each study will demonstrate its theoretical aspects by applying them to the actual study of religions, often in the form of frontier research.