Most approaches to the Philosophy of Religion tend to treat ‘religion’ as equivalent to classical theism – that is, belief in an all-powerful and loving creator possessing the traditional attributes accorded to him by the major faiths. For the most part, this is good practice...
Underlying any attempt to describe the nature of God is the recognition that such a being must be fundamentally different from ourselves. The world that we experience is imperfect, fragile and subject to change – God, on the other hand, represents perfection...
There are three traditional arguments for the existence of God, two of which derive from our direct experience of the world and one which depends only upon the concept of God. These arguments have recurred in various forms throughout the history of philosophy...
Accounts of religious or mystical experiences are frequently cited as evidence for the existence of God. Such experiences seem to defy ordinary explanations and demand the existence of a supernatural power to account for them. The argument from religious experience...
Scriptural accounts of miracles are often presented as persuasive evidence of the existence of God and his intervention in human affairs. Such accounts are common to most religions and are plentiful in the Bible: the parting of the Red Sea, the sun going backwards...
In addition to the traditional arguments for the existence of God, one issue has taken the form of an argument against God’s existence: that issue is the problem of evil. The first statement of this problem is usually attributed to Epicurus, but since the moral horrors...
Whatever your conclusions about the claims of classical theism, it is hard to deny that in the last two centuries traditional religion has lost its place at the heart of modern life. The natural sciences have offered a more convincing explanation of natural phenomena...
Philosophers have traditionally approached religious belief by examining its rational and evidential claims. Thomas Aquinas offered Five Ways to God based on reasoning from our experience; Descartes insisted that the existence of God could be proven...
“A wise man”, declared David Hume, “proportions his belief to the evidence”. Although the relationship between evidence and belief is sometimes complicated, this principle – which has become known as evidentialism – offers a straightforward rule-of-thumb....
Statements about God or religious phenomena are philosophically problematic. How are we to understand talk of ‘the infinite’ or ‘eternal life’ or ‘omnipresence’ when we have no direct experience of these concepts? What does it mean to say that ‘God loves us’...
Until quite recently, the authority of the state and the authority of the church were closely connected. Monarchs were understood to rule by divine right, and religious leaders enjoyed significant influence over political decisions. After the religious wars...
With the arrival of modern science in the seventeenth century came a new conception of God. Deists acknowledged the self-sufficiency of the physical universe and viewed God as merely the architect, setting in motion the mechanism but allowing it to run without intervention...
There are a number of distinct ways in which a person can be understood to ‘survive’ death. Most commonly, survival implies a continuation of the conscious self in an afterlife, often involving some form of reward or punishment. The medieval Christian notions...