This book offers a unique comparative study of ubuntu, a dominant ethical theory in African philosophy, and western monotheism. It is the first book to bring ubuntu to bear on the axiology of theism debate in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. A large motivating force behind this book is to explore the extent to which there is intersubjective ethical agreement and disagreement between ubuntu and Western worldviews like monotheism and naturalism. First, the author assesses the various arguments for anti-theism and pro-theism on the assumption that ubuntu is true. Ubuntu's communitarian focus might be so different from the Western tradition that it completely changes how we evaluate theism and atheism. Second, the author assesses the advantages and disadvantages of the truth of ubuntu for the world. Third and finally, he assesses the axiological status of faith for both monotheism and ubuntu. Ubuntu and Western Monotheism will be of interest to scholars and advanced students specializing in philosophy of religion, African religion and philosophy, and religious ethics.

Could it be that we have lost touch with some basic human realities in our day of high-tech efficiency, frenetic competition, and ceaseless consumption? Have we turned from the moral, the spiritual, and even the physical realities that make our lives meaningful? These are metaphysical questions -questions about the nature of reality- but they are not abstract questions. These are very down to earth questions that concern power and the collective frameworks of belief and action governing our daily lives. This book is an introduction to the history, theory, and application of Christian metaphysics. Yet this book is not just an introduction, it is also a passionately argued call for a profound change in the contemporary Christian mind. Paul Tyson argues that as Western culture's Christian Platonist understanding of reality was replaced by modern pragmatic realism, we turned not just from one outlook on reality to another, but away from reality itself. This book seeks to show that if we can recover this ancient Christian outlook on reality, reframed for our day, then we will be able to recover a way of life that is in harmony with human and divine truth.

For much of the modern period, theologians and philosophers of religion have struggled with the problem of proving that it is rational to believe in God. Drawing on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, this book lays the foundation for an innovative effort to overturn the longstanding problem of proving faith's rationality, and to establish instead that rationality requires to be explained by appeals to faith. To this end, Schumacher advances the constructive argument that rationality is not only an epistemological question concerning the soundness of human thoughts, which she defines in terms of 'intellectual virtue'. Ultimately, it is an ethical question whether knowledge is used in ways that promote an individual's own flourishing and that of others. That is to say, rationality in its paradigmatic form is a matter of moral virtue, which should nonetheless entail intellectual virtue. This conclusion sets the stage for Schumacher's argument in a companion book, Theological Philosophy, which explains how Christian faith provides an exceptionally robust rationale for rationality, so construed, and is intrinsically rational in that sense.

The 'theological turn' in continental philosophy and the 'turn to Paul' in political philosophy have occasioned a return to radical theology, a tradition whose philosophical heritage can be traced to the death of God announced in the work of Nietzsche and Hegel. John D. Caputo's deconstructive theology and Slavoj Zizek's materialist theology are two radical theologies that explore what it might mean to pass through the death of God and to abandon this experience as specifically Christian. Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity demonstrates how these theologies are transforming everyday religious practices through an examination of the work of Peter Rollins and Kester Brewin, two figures at the radical margins of a contemporary expression of Western religiosity called emerging Christianity. The author uses her analysis of all four figures to argue that deconstructive practices can enable religious communities to become part of a wider materialist collective in which the death of God continues to resonate. Pushing the methodological boundaries of philosophy of religion by examining religious practices as the site of philosophical signification, the book challenges scholars and practitioners alike to a new and more demanding dialogue between theory and practice.

What makes the Bible more than ink on paper? The living word, Eberhard Arnold writes, is greater than the words of the Bible, which even the devil used to tempt Jesus. The scriptures on their own can never produce the righteousness, mercy, and faithfulness that count before God. But when the Holy Spirit speaks this living word into the hearts of those who have set out on the way of discipleship to Christ, the deepest meaning of the scriptures are opened up to them. Those who have accepted this living word, which never contradicts the Bible, also agree with one another. Transformed from within, they receive the strength, clarity, and unity they need to carry out the task God has given them - to make God's kingdom a reality on earth. The final volume of five in Inner Land, The Living Word includes a preface by Eberhard Arnold's son J. Heinrich Arnold, who has written elsewhere: "My father not only believed that Inner Land was the most important book he had written; he also believed and told me that he included in this book everything in his life he had ever experienced of Christ, of the suffering of humankind, of the murderous spirit of mammon, of human life and divine life altogether." About Innerland: It is hard to exaggerate the significance of Innerland, either for Eberhard Arnold or his readers. It absorbed his energies off and on for most of his adult life - from World War I, when he published the first chapter under the title War: A Call to Inwardness, to 1935, the last year of his life. Packed in metal boxes and buried at night for safekeeping from the Nazis, who raided the author's study a year before his death (and again a year after it), Innerland was not openly critical of Hitler's regime. Nevertheless, it attacked the spirits that animated German society: its murderous strains of racism and bigotry, its heady nationalistic fervor, its mindless mass hysteria, and its vulgar materialism. In this sense Innerland stands as starkly opposed to the zeitgeist of our own day as to that of the author's. At a glance, the focus of Innerland seems to be the cultivation of the spiritual life as an end in itself. Nothing could be more misleading. In fact, to Eberhard Arnold the very thought of encouraging the sort of selfish solitude whereby people seek their own private peace by shutting out the noise and rush of public life around them is anathema. He writes in The Inner Life: "These are times of distress. We cannot retreat, willfully blind to the overwhelming urgency of the tasks pressing on society. We cannot look for inner detachment in an inner and outer isolation...The only justification for withdrawing into the inner self to escape today's confusing, hectic whirl would be that fruitfulness is enriched by it. It is a question of gaining within, through unity with eternal powers, a strength of character ready to be tested in the stream of the world." Innerland, then, calls us not to passivity, but to action. It invites us to discover the abundance of a life lived for God. It opens our eyes to the possibilities of that "inner land of the invisible where our spirit can find the roots of its strength and thus enable us to press on to the mastery of life we are called to by God." Only there, says Eberhard Arnold, can our life be placed under the illuminating light of the eternal and seen for what it is. Only there will we find the clarity of vision we need to win the daily battle that is life, and the inner anchor without which we will lose our moorings.

Oliver Chase Quick (1885-1944) was one of the foremost and most widely read British theologians of his day. Oliver Quick and the Quest for a Christian Metaphysic presents the first major study of his work. Exploring Quick's understanding of the task of theology, his Christology, sacramental theology and doctrine of God, Hughes explains Quick's attempt to restructure the idea of divine transcendence. Expanding the narrative of twentieth-century historical theology, this book draws conclusions about shifts in English theology in the last century, particularly the persistence and vitality of a philosophically oriented Anglican theology. Offering fresh insights into twentieth-century English theology and its leading figures, this book will also appeal to those with an interest in philosophical theology, systematic theology and Christian doctrine.

The central aim of this book is to attempt to determine the response of the classic texts of Jewish traditions to the famous dilemma posed in Plato's Euthyphro: Does God freely determine morality, or is morality independent of God? The author argues that the picture that emerges from Jewish texts is significantly more complex and nuanced than most of the contemporary Jewish philosophical literature is prepared to concede. While providing an extensive discussion of the perspective of Jewish tradition on divine command ethics, this book develops a position that is distinct from and critical of other views that have recently been advanced in Jewish scholarship. At the same time, the book provides a substantial analysis of some Christian perspectives on divine command ethics. Relevant biblical, rabbinic and later Jewish texts are discussed, as well as some of the relevant views that have been taken in philosophical literature and in Christian and Jewish thought.

Avicenna believes that God must be understood in the first place as the Necessary Existent (waGib al-wuGud). In his various works, he provides different versions of an ingenious argument for the existence of the Necessary Existent-the so-called Proof of the Sincere (burhan al-siddiqin)-and argues that all the properties that are usually attributed to God can be extracted merely from God's having necessary existence. Considering the centrality of tawhid to Islam, the first thing Avicenna tries to extract from God's necessary existence is God's oneness. The aim of the present Element is to provide a detailed discussion of Avicenna's arguments for the existence and unity of God. Through this project, the author hopes to clarify how, for Avicenna, the Islamic concept of monotheism is intertwined with the concept of essential existence.

Sharing Friendship represents a post-liberal approach to ecclesiology and theology generated out of the history, practices and traditions of the Anglican Church. Drawing on the theological ethics of Stanley Hauerwas, this book explores the way friendship for the stranger emerges from contextually grounded reflection and conversations with contemporary Anglican theologians within the English tradition, including John Milbank, Oliver O'Donovan, Rowan Williams, Daniel Hardy and Anthony Thiselton. Avoiding abstract definitions of character, mission or friendship, John Thomson explores how the history of the English Church reflects a theology of friendship and how discipleship in the New Testament, the performance of worship, and the shape of Anglican ecclesiology are congruent with such a theology. The book concludes by rooting the theme of sharing friendship within the self-emptying kenotic performance of Jesus' mission, and looks at challenges to the character of contemporary Anglican ecclesiology represented by secularization and globalization as well as by arguments over appropriate new initiatives such as Fresh Expressions.

Spirit's Gift is the first book in English devoted to the philosophy of Claude Bruaire (1936-1982). Its focus is the notion of gift, a notion that has recently been the subject of lively debate involving Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion, Marcel Mauss, and others. What makes Bruaire's approach to this subject distinctive is that he treats it ontologically. This book critically examines the two main insights that govern Bruaire's ontology of gift (ontodology). First, gift is being in its spiritual way of being. ""Spiritual"" in this case does not stand for one quality among others, but, more radically, it is what makes being be itself. Second, being itself (ipsum esse) is gift only because, as Christian Revelation suggests, the fullness proper to pure act is first of all an absolutely free donation in itself and to itself before being donation to another (creation). The coalescence of being, freedom, and spirit grounds the claim that being is gift. Bruaire's thought is presented in dialogue with his two main sources: German Idealism (Hegel and Schelling) and Christian revelation. Bruaire spent the bulk of his career as a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. Although not himself a Hegelian, he enjoyed and enjoys great standing as a scholar of and commentator on Hegel's philosophy. With Marion, Bruaire was a founding member of the French edition of the theological journal Communio, and he was held in high regard by the great Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Bruaire's metaphysical account of gift also has affinities to that offered by Karol Wojytla - and subsequently developed under his pontificate as John Paul II. While Bruaire's understanding of gift is decidedly philosophical, it is also of considerable theological interest, bearing as it does upon questions of Trinitarian theology, theological anthropology, and the Catholic sacrament of marriage. Rightly understood, his conception of gift sheds considerable light on the Thomistic understanding of Ipsum esse subsistens. It can also contribute to a philosophical retrieval of the category of causality and to the elucidation of the ontological ground of ethics.

William O'Malley provides persuasive answers to questions raised by the "new atheists," authors like Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) and Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) whose certitude that there is no God has sparked a national conversation between religious and scientific worldviews. Fr. O'Malley addresses the core issues with philosophical conviction and goes beyond the debate with heartfelt understanding for individuals, like himself, who sometimes doubt but always seek grace, understanding and truth. Help My Unbelief helps believers (and belief includes occasional doubt) to understand the issues, tolerate ambiguity in their lives, and continue their quest to see the invisible and know the unknowable. Knowing trumps believing. And O'Malley shows that there is a way of knowing that transcends argument and offers the possibility of moral certitude and certain assurance.

First published in 1959, Our Experience of God examines the relationship between philosophy and religion. The author argues that, we cannot construct a religion for ourselves out of merely philosophical elements, and that the attempt to provide some philosophical or similar substitute for religion, as it normally presents itself, is misconceived. It brings themes like religion and belief; belief and mystery; religion and transcendence; history and dogma; material factors in religion; symbolism and tradition; art and religion; religion and morality; and encounter and immediacy, to show that the place of philosophy in religion is not to provide proofs for beliefs but to make more explicit for us what is the nature and status of the beliefs we do hold and commend to others. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of religion, philosophy, and theology.

This volume focuses on contemporary issues in the philosophy of religion through an engagement with Eleonore Stump's seminal work in the field. Topics covered include: the metaphysics of the divine nature (e.g., divine simplicity and eternity); the nature of love and God's relation to human happiness; and the issue of human agency (e.g., the nature of the human soul and hell).

In this companion volume to Deity and Domination, David Nicholls broadens his examination of the relationship between religion and politics. Focusing on the images and concepts of God and the state predominant in eighteenth-century discourse, he shows how these were interrelated and reflect the language of the wider cultural contexts. Nicholls argues that the way a community pictures God will inevitably reflect (and also affect) its general understanding of authority, whether it be in state, in family or in other social institutions. Much language about God, for example, has a primarily political reference: in psalms, hymns and sermons God is called king, judge, lord, ruler and to him are ascribed might, majesty, dominion, power and sovereignty. But if political rhetoric is frequently incorporated into religious discourse, the reverse is also true: many key concepts of modern political theory are secularised theological concepts. In his consideration of this important and neglected relationship Nicholls sheds new light on religion and politics in the eighteenth century.

Brings together Paul Williams' previously published papers on the Indian and Tibetan interpretations of selected verses from the eighth and ninth chapters of the Bodhicaryavatara.

This study is a new look at the question of how God can act upon the world, and whether the world can affect God, examining contemporary work on the metaphysics of causation and laws of nature, and current work in the theory of knowledge and mysticism. It has been traditional to address such questions by appealing to God's omnipotence and omniscience, but this book claims that this is useless unless it can be shown how these two powers "work." Instead of treating the familiar problems associated with omnipotence and omniscience, this book asks directly whether, and how, causal interactions between God and His world could occur: both between God and the physical world (miracles) and between God and other minds (mystical experience), as well as between the world and God (divine perception). Fales examines current thinking (which is diverse) about the very nature of causation, laws of nature, and agency.

Fundamental to the Iona Community's understanding of spirituality is the conviction that God's Spirit permeates the whole of life - 'every blessed thing', as George MacLeod, the Community's founder, said. God is thus to be encountered and experienced in the busy daily routine of our lives, and through our relationships, not just in tranquil moments and remote, beautiful places like Iona. The Community's approach to spirituality does not distinguish between the sacred and the secular. Prayer and politics, work and worship are all of a piece. This holistic spirituality of engagement - rooted in prayer and scripture - stands in contrast to some of the more ethereal, nostalgic and self-indulgent approaches on offer these days. Pathways for Pilgrims is a timely resource for individuals and groups wishing to explore this integrated approach to spirituality. Each of the four weeks of the book covers an area of the Iona Community's engagement: with God, with the church, with the world, and engaging as community. The days include a 'community experience', a Bible reading, material for reflection, prayers and thoughts to ponder. The book was structured and edited by spiritual director and workshop leader Chris King, and written by members of the Iona Community, with contributions by Norman Shanks, Jan Sutch Pickard, Brian Woodcock, John Harvey, Peter Millar, Graeme Brown, Ruth Harvey and Neil Paynter. Pathways for Pilgrims is a companion book to Iona: God's Energy - the Vision and Spirituality of the Iona Community and Living by the Rule: The Rule of the Iona Community, also published by Wild Goose.

Choice Essential Read Did God create man or did man create God? In this book, Dianna Kenny examines religious belief through a variety of perspectives - psychoanalytic, cognitive, neuropsychological, sociological, historical and psychiatric - to provide a coherent account of why people might believe in God. She argues that psychoanalytic theory provides a fertile and creative approach to the study of religion that attempts to integrate religious belief with our innate human nature and developmental histories that have unfolded in the context of our socialization and cultural experiences. Freud argued that religion is so compelling because it solves the problems of our existence. It explains the origin of the universe, offers solace and protection from evil, and provides a blueprint about how we should live our lives, with just rewards for the righteous and due punishments for sinners and transgressors. Science, on the other hand, offers no such explanations about the universe or the meaning of our lives and no comfort for the unanswered longings of the human race. Is religion a form of wish-fulfilment, a collective delusion to which we cling as we try to fathom our place and purpose in the drama of cosmology? Can there be morality without faith? Are science and religion radically incompatible? What are the roots of fundamentalism and terror theology? These are some of the questions addressed in God, Freud and Religion, a book that will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychotherapists, students of psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy and theology and all those with an interest in religion and human behaviour. Dianna Kenny is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is the author of over 200 publications, including six books.

First published in 2003. This is Volume II of a series of Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion, written in 1969, this book is concerned with moral reasoning, and aims to bring out what is involved in the processes of reasoning by which people seek to justify their moral judgements.

Exploring the inner motivations of one of America's greatest religious thinkers, this book analyses the ways in which Jonathan Edwards' intense personal piety and deep experience of divine sovereignty drove an introverted intellectual along a course that would eventually develop into a mature and respected public intellectual. Throughout his life, the tension between his innately contemplative nature and the active demands of public office was a constant source of internal and public strife for Edwards. Approaching Jonathan Edwards offers a new theoretical approach to the study of Edwards, with an emphasis on his writing activity as the key strategy in shaping his legacy. Tracing Edwards' strategic self-fashioning of his persona through the many conflicts in which he was engaged, the critical turning points in his life, and his strategies for managing conflicts and crises, Carol Ball concludes that Edwards found his place as a superlative contemplative apologist and theorist of experiential spirituality.

The teachings of Jesus examined by one of the leading philosophers of our day The teachings of Jesus Christ, as presented in the Bible, are familiar to millions, but do we really understand them? Keith Ward argues that, by scrutinizing the Gospels through the lens of contemporary philosophy, we can discover perspectives that are not always apparent in traditional church teaching. Ward's analysis of what Jesus really said uncovers four central themes: that the Gospel is for everyone; that the Second Coming will lead to a future in a spiritual realm, not a physical world; that Jesus presents a moral ideal for life rather than a literal set of rules; and that God is expressed initially through the incarnation of Jesus, but ultimately through the whole of creation.

Contemporary discussions of problems of selfhood and knowledge have offered a wide range of solutions, from calls for a new Enlightenment (in the face of the resurgence of myth and the irrational), to attempts to "re-enchant the world" (in the face of the growth of an impersonal instrumental Reason). In "Between Vision and Obedience - Rethinking Theological Epistemology," George Ille offers a theological response to these competing views, with the specific purpose of evaluating the present state of epistemological rationality in theology. Ille anchors his concerns historically and thematically through the work of the philosophers Paul Ricouer and G.F.W. Hegel. Invoking theological insights from Eastern and Western philosophies, and seeking recourse to a number of philosophers and theologians from both the continental and analytical traditions, he traces the contours of a theological rationality freed from both modern and post-modern hermeneutical anxieties. He proposes a rationality that follows the drama of God's engagement with the world through dying and resurrection, ascesis and abundance, suffering witness and eucharistic communion. This important text challenges and reframes existing theological and philosophical engagements with hermeneutics and epistemology. The new critical perspective it offers will be an invaluable resource for academics and scholars across the humanities. George Ille is Affiliate Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Asbury Theological Seminary. "George Ille is a fine scholar and a creative mind. His book breaks new ground by both examining a wide range of attempts (and failures) to connect theology and epistemology and by offering insights into the exploration of an explicitly theological epistemology." Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University. "This is an exceptionally bold exercise that seeks to break the logjam between the continental and analytic traditions. On the one hand, it is firmly rooted in the work of Ricoeur; on the other, it engages the work of Audi. Most importantly, it argues that epistemology can and should be rooted in a robust Trinitarian vision of divine action. This is a sophisticated, learned, and accessible volume that advances the discussion in ways that are both illuminating and surprising." William J. Abraham, Southern Methodist University.

Indian culture relies greatly on visual expression, and this book uses both classical Indian and contemporary Western philosophies and current studies on cognitive sciences, and applies them to contextualize Tantric visual culture. The work selects aspects of Tantric language and the practice of visualization, with the central premise to engage cognitive theories while studying images. It utilizes the contemporary theories of metaphor and cognitive blend, the theory of metonymy, and a holographic theory of epistemology with a focus on concept formation and its application to the study of myths and images. In addition, it applies the classical aesthetic theory of rasa to unravel the meaning of opaque images. This philosophical and cognitive analysis allows materials from Indian culture to be understood in a new light, while engaging contemporary theories of cognitive science and semantics. The book demonstrates how the domains of meaning and philosophy can be addressed within any culture without reducing their intrinsic cultural significance. By addressing these key aspects of Tantric traditions through this approach, this book initiates a much-needed dialogue between Indian and Western theories, while encouraging introspection within the Indic traditions themselves. It will be of interest to those studying and researching Religion, Philosophy and South Asian Culture.

The popular field of 'science and religion' is a lively and well-established area. It is however a domain which has long been characterised by certain traits. In the first place, it tends towards an adversarial dialectic in which the separate disciplines, now conjoined, are forever locked in a kind of mortal combat. Secondly, 'science and religion' has a tendency towards disentanglement, where 'science' does one sort of thing and 'religion' another. And thirdly, the duo are frequently pushed towards some sort of attempted synthesis, wherein their aims either coincide or else are brought more closely together. In attempting something fresh, and different, this volume tries to move beyond tried and tested tropes. Bringing philosophy and theology to the fore in a way rarely attempted before, the book shows how fruitful new conversations between science and religion can at last move beyond the increasingly tired options of either conflict or dialogue.

This study offers a new interpretation of Hegelian recognition focusing on positive ethical behaviours, such as love and forgiveness. Building on the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, Disley reassesses Hegel's work on the subject/object dialectic and explores the previously neglected theological dimensions of his work.