Buddhas, gods, prophets and oracles are often depicted as asking questions. But what are we to understand when Jesus asks "Who do you say that I am?", or Mazu, the Classical Zen master asks, "Why do you seek outside?" Is their questioning a power or weakness? Is it something human beings are only capable of due to our finitude? Is there any kind of question that is a power? Focusing on three case studies of questions in divine discourse on the level of story - the god depicted in the Jewish Bible, the master Mazu in his recorded sayings literature, and Jesus as he is depicted in canonized Christian Gospels - Nathan Eric Dickman meditates on human responses to divine questions. He considers the purpose of interreligious dialogue and the provocative kind of questions that seem to purposefully decenter us, drawing on methods from confessionally-oriented hermeneutics and skills from critical thinking. He allows us to see alternative ways of interpreting religious texts through approaches that look beyond reading a text for the improvement of our own religion or for access to some metaphysically transcendent reality. This is the first step in a phenomenology of religions that is inclusive, diverse, relevant and grounded in the world we live in.

In The Essence of Christianity-this is the classic 1853 translation of the 1841 German original-Feuerbach discusses the "true or anthropological" root of religion, exploring how everything from the nature of God to the mysteries of mysticism and prayer can be viewed through such a prism. He goes on to examine the "false" essences of religion, including contradictions in ideas of the existence of a deity, and then how God and religion are merely expressions of human emotion. This is essential background reading for understanding everything from Marx's Communist Manifesto to modern apolitical philosophies of atheism.

He is considered one of the greatest novelists in any language in all of human history, but Leo Tolstoy was also an influential social reformer and peace advocate. Subtitled "Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but as a New Concept of Life," this powerful exploration of the preachings of Jesus from a pacifistic perspective. First published in 1893, it introduced such important 20th-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King to the concept of nonviolent resistance. This edition is vital reading for anyone wishing to understand the history of protest around the world or gain a deeper appreciation of pacifistic Christianity. Russian writer COUNT LEV ("LEO") NIKOLAYEVICH TOLSTOY (1828-1910) is best known for his novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Translation by Harvard professor of Slavic languages, Leo Weiner (1862-1939).

This book places the present Creationist opposition to the theory of evolution in historical context by setting out the ways in which, from the seventeenth century onwards, investigations of the history of the earth and of humanity have challenged the biblical views of chronology and human destiny, and the Christian responses to these challenges. The author's interest is not primarily directed to questions such as the epistemological status of scientific versus religious knowledge or the possibility of a Darwinian ethics, but rather to the problems, and various responses to the problems, raised in a particular historical period in the West for the Bible by the massive extension of the duration of geological time and human history.>

Kantian and Hegelian conceptions of freedom guide this collection of essays that engage with the linguistic turn in continental philosophy to explore contemporary interpretations of freedom. Using a broad approach to the tradition of German Idealism, this volume considers its modern recasting of philosophy as a rigorous thinking practice with profound implications for individual and communal praxis and wellbeing. Philosophy, Freedom, Language, and its Others further cultivates and demonstrates the freedom to think and engage philosophy in a critical dialogue with other fields of inquiry. This method is exemplified in the philosophy and teaching of Professor Jere P. Surber, whom this book honors by using his interdisciplinary method as a springboard for new understandings of freedom in contemporary life. Expert scholars working in the philosophy of language, continental philosophy of religion, ancient philosophy, critical theory, and ethics engage seminal thinkers on freedom including Plato, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Debord to provide a diverse range of perspectives on freedom. In so doing, they address the complex legacy of philosophical freedom across subjects from contemporary media and political patrimonial culture to literary imagination and the politics of Nelson Mandela.

Professor Plantinga is known for distinguished work in the fields of epistemology and philosophy of religion. In this companion volume to Warrant: The Current Debate, Plantinga develops an original approach to the question of what justifies belief and makes it knowledge. He argues that what is crucial to turning true belief into knowledge is the "proper functioning" of one's cognitive faculties, and this clears the way for the proposal that a belief is warranted whenever it is the product of properly functioning cognitive processes. Although this is in some sense a sequel to the companion volume, the arguments in no way presuppose those of the first book and it can therefore stand alone.

This book seeks to clarify the concept of irony and its relation to moral commitment. Frazier provides a discussion of the contrasting accounts of Richard Rorty and Soren Kierkegaard. He argues that, while Rorty's position is much more defensible and thoughtful than his detractors tend to recognize, it turns out to be surprisingly more parochial than Kierkegaard's.

Political philosophy in the English-speaking world has been dominated for more than two decades by various versions of liberal theory, which holds that political inquiry should proceed without reference to religious view. Although a number of philosophers have contested this stance, no one has succeeded in dislodging liberalism from its position of dominance

The most interesting challenges to liberalism have come from those outside of the discipline of philosophy. Sociologists, legal scholars, and religious ethicists have attacked liberalism's embodiment in practice, arguing that liberal practice -- particularly in the United States -- has produced a culture which trivializes religion. This culture, they argue, is at odds with the beliefs and practices of large numbers of citizens.

In the past, disciplinary barriers have limited scholarly exchange among philosophical liberals and their theological, sociological and legal critics. Religion and Contemporary Liberalism makes an important step towards increased dialogue among these scholars. A collection of original papers by philosophers, sociologists, theologians, and legal theorists, this volume will spark considerable debate in philosophy -- debate which will be significant for all of those concerned with the place of religion within a liberal society.

Why should there be anything at all? Why, in particular, should a material world exist? Bede Rundle advances clear, non-technical answers to these perplexing questions. If, as the theist maintains, God is a being who cannot but exist, his existence explains why there is something rather than nothing. However, this can also be explained on the basis of a weaker claim. Not that there is some particular being that has to be, but simply that there has to be something or other. Rundle proffers arguments for thinking that that is indeed how the question is to be put to rest. Traditionally, the existence of the physical universe is held to depend on God, but the theist faces a major difficulty in making clear how a being outside space and time, as God is customarily conceived to be, could stand in an intelligible relation to the world, whether as its creator or as the author of events within it. Rundle argues that a creator of physical reality is not required, since there is no alternative to its existence. There has to be something, and a physical universe is the only real possibility. He supports this claim by eliminating rival contenders; he dismisses the supernatural, and argues that, while other forms of being, notably the abstract and the mental, are not reducible to the physical, they presuppose its existence. The question whether ultimate explanations can ever be given is forever in the background, and the book concludes with an investigation of this issue and of the possibility that the universe could have existed for an infinite time. Other topics discussed include causality, space, verifiability, essence, existence, necessity, spirit, fine tuning, and laws of Nature. Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing offers an explanation of fundamental facts of existence in purely philosophical terms, without appeal either to theology or cosmology. It will provoke and intrigue anyone who wonders about these questions.

The Berlin lectures in The Grounding of Positive Philosophy, appearing here for the first time in English, advance Schelling's final existential system as an alternative to modernity's reduction of philosophy to a purely formal science of reason. His account of the ecstatic nature of existence and reason proved to be decisive for the work of Paul Tillich and Martin Heidegger. Also, Schelling's critique of reason's quixotic attempt at self-grounding anticipates similar criticisms leveled by poststructuralism, but without sacrificing philosophy's power to provide a positive account of truth and meaning. The Berlin lectures provide fascinating insight into the thought processes of one of the most provocative yet least understood thinkers of nineteenth-century German philosophy.

Noted philosopher William Hasker explores a full range of questions concerning the problem of evil. Hasker forges constructive answers in some depth showing why the evil in the world does not provide evidence of a moral fault in God, the world's creator and governor.

This collection of essays explores the philosophy of human knowledge from a multitude of perspectives, with a particular emphasis upon the justification component of the classical analysis of knowledge and with an excursion along the way to explore the role of knowledge in Texas Hold 'Em poker. An important theme of the collection is the role of knowledge in religion, including a detailed argument for agnosticism. A number of the essays touch upon issues in philosophical logic, among them a fascinating new counter-example to Modus Ponens. The collection is rounded out with essays on causality and the philosophy of mind. The author's perspective on the philosophy of human knowledge is fresh and challenging, as evidenced by essays entitled "On Epistemic Preferability;" "On Being Unjustified;" "The Logic of 'Unless'" and "Is 'This sentence is true.' True?" An interesting feature of The Logic of Philosophy: Pesky Essays is the inclusion of responses to several of its key essays, contributed by such prominent contemporary philosophers as Roderick Chisholm, Ted Sider and Tomas Kapitan.

Die Religion wurde von der kritischen Aufklärung als ein gesellschaftlicher Schonraum angesehen, ein Ort des Rückzugs von den gesellschaftlichen Konflikten, in dem mit der Suggestion allgemeiner Harmonie von ihrer Austragung und ihrer Reflexion abgelenkt wurde. Die Religionswissenschaft hat gezeigt, daß Religionen mehr sind. Sie sind selber aus gesellschaftlichen Konflikten entstanden. In ihnen sind Lösungen historischer Konflikte festgeschrieben worden. Weil diese Formulierungen zur Deutung der Realität im ganzen verallgemeinert wurden, waren sie als Konfliktlösung nicht mehr zu erkennen. Aber die Möglichkeit, sie als solche wiederzuerkennen, konnte niemals ganz aus den Religionen vertrieben werden. Sie zeigte sich nicht zuletzt an den Unstimmigkeiten und Rissen in ihrer Theorie. Diese wurden in der Umbruchsituation des 18. Jahrhunderts als Argumente gegen die Religion - und für die Säkularisierung gebraucht. Damit zerbrach die Einheit der religiösen Theorie. Ein neuer Blick auf ihre historischen Ursprünge wurde möglich, ebenso wie, damit verbunden, ein Blick auf jene Motive im säkularen Bewußtsein, die selbst aus der religiösen Überlieferung stammten. Besonders die prophetischen Motive sind während des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem institutionellen Zusammenhang in Kultur und Politik ausgewandert. Aber auch die Erbschaft der archaischen Mutterkulte wurde im romantischen 19. Jahrhundert wieder erkennbar. Die in diesem Band gesammelten Vorträge und Aufsätze bemühen sich um den Nachweis, daß auch die gegenwärtigen gesellschaftlichen Spannungen, Enttäuschungen und Hoffnungen ohne Rückgriff auf das kritische, aber auch das Wunsch-Potential in den religiösen Überlieferungen nicht hinreichend zu verstehen sind.

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.

Paul Helm presents a new, expanded edition of his much praised 1988 book Eternal God , which defends the view that God exists in timeless eternity. This is the classical Christian view of God, but it is claimed by many theologians and philosophers of religion to be incoherent. Paul Helm rebuts the charge of incoherence, arguing that divine timelessness is grounded in the idea of God as creator, and that this alone makes possible a proper account of divine omniscience. He develops some of the consequences of divine timelessness, particularly as it affects both divine and human freedom, and considers some of the alleged problems about referring to God. The book thus constitutes a unified treatment of the main concepts of philosophical theology. Helm's revised edition includes four new chapters that develop and extend his account of God and time, taking account of significant work in the area that has appeared since the publication of the first edition, by such prominent figures as William Lane Craig, Brian Leftow, and Richard Swinburne. This new discussion takes the reader into further areas, notably timelessness and creation and the nature of divine causality.