God and the Problem of Evidential Ambiguity

God and the Problem of Evidential Ambiguity
Author: Max Baker-Hytch
Publisher:
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2024-05-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1009269860

When it comes to what many of us think of as the deepest questions of existence, the answers can seem difficult to make out. This difficulty, or ambiguity, is the topic of this Element. The Element begins by offering a general account of what evidential ambiguity consists in and uses it to try to make sense of the idea that our world is religiously ambiguous in some sense. It goes on to consider the questions of how we ought to investigate the nature of ultimate reality and whether evidential ambiguity is itself a significant piece of evidence in the quest.

The Evidential Argument from Evil

The Evidential Argument from Evil
Author: William L. Rowe
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2008-10-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0253114098

Is evil evidence against the existence of God? A collection of essays by philosophers, theologians, and other scholars. Even if God and evil are compatible, it remains hotly contested whether evil renders belief in God unreasonable. The Evidential Argument from Evil presents five classic statements on this issue by eminent philosophers and theologians, and places them in dialogue with eleven original essays reflecting new thinking by these and other scholars. The volume focuses on two versions of the argument. The first affirms that there is no reason for God to permit either certain specific horrors or the variety and profusion of undeserved suffering. The second asserts that pleasure and pain, given their biological role, are better explained by hypotheses other than theism. Contributors include William P. Alston, Paul Draper, Richard M. Gale, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Alvin Plantinga, William L. Rowe, Bruce Russell, Eleonore Stump, Richard G. Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen, and Stephen John Wykstra.

God and Evidence

God and Evidence
Author: Rob Lovering
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2013-06-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1623569605

God and Evidence presents a new set of compelling problems for theistic philosophers. The problems pertain to three types of theistic philosopher, which Lovering defines here as 'theistic inferentialists,' 'theistic non-inferentialists,' and 'theistic fideists.' Theistic inferentialists believe that God exists, that there is inferential probabilifying evidence of God's existence, and that this evidence is discoverable not simply in principle but in practice. Theistic non-inferentialists believe that God exists, that there is non-inferential probabilifying evidence of God's existence, and that this evidence is discoverable not simply in principle but in practice. Theistic fideists believe that God exists, that there is no discoverable probabilifying evidence (inferential or non-inferential) of God's existence, and that it is nevertheless acceptable-morally if not otherwise-to have faith that God exists. Lovering argues that each type of theistic philosopher faces a problem unique to his type and that they all share two particular problems. Some of these problems take us down an entirely new discursive path; others down a new discursive path branching off from an old one.

God and Astrobiology

God and Astrobiology
Author: Richard Playford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 124
Release: 2024-02-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1009296167

The perception that life on other planets would be, problematic for religious people, and indeed for religion itself, is a longstanding one. It is partially rooted in fact: astrobiological speculations have, on occasion, engendered religious controversies. Historical discussions are often far more nuanced, and less one-sided than often imagined. 'Exotheology' is a lively subdiscipline within several religious traditions. This Element offers a wide-ranging introduction to the multifarious 'problems of God and astrobiology', real and perceived. It covers major topics within Christian theology (e.g., creation, incarnation, salvation), as well as issues specific to Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. It also discusses the very different perspectives offered by other (non)religious traditions, including Mormonism, various 'alien-positive' new religious movements (e.g., Heaven's Gate, Scientology, Raëlism), and the 'Ancient Astronaunt' theories popularized by Erich von Dāniken and the History channel's Ancient Aliens.

God, Religious Extremism and Violence

God, Religious Extremism and Violence
Author: Matthew Rowley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2024-02-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1009272292

Why do religious militants think their actions are right or righteous? What keeps me from acting like them? Why do some religious persons act on their beliefs in charitable, inspiring and deeply humane ways? Is secularism the solution to religious violence, or is it part of the problem? This Element explores the vexed issue of violence done in the name of God, looking at the topic through the lens of peace and conflict studies, religious studies and historical studies. The beliefs of various communities, religious and secular, are explored, looking at how convictions inhibit and enable violence. This Element aims to foster a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the promises and perils of religion so that readers can better respond to a world filled with violence.

Religious Experience and Religious Lives

Religious Experience and Religious Lives
Author: Walter Scott Stepanenko
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2023-09-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1666922021

Religious Experience and Religious Lives: An Epistemology defends a moderate approach to religious experiences in which they can contribute to the justification of central religious beliefs, most importantly belief in God. Epistemologists of religion disagree about what evidential value religious experiences have. Some argue that religious experiences have no evidential value while others argue that religious experiences constitute proof of God's existence. However, Walter Scott Stepanenko argues that religious experiences can contribute to these justificatory cases in several distinct ways and that several justificatory cases are philosophically viable. This book contends that this joint justificatory viability is best explained by the diversity and development of religious lives: as religious believers grow in a faith tradition, their access to an evidential base can develop and the contributory work religious experiences provide in defense of religious belief can change. This suggests that various epistemologies of religious experience implicitly emphasize different life stages or different prototypical religious believers and that a fully adequate epistemology of religious experience will be expansive, pluralistic, and responsive to the diversity of religious believers and their development in a religious tradition.

The Routledge Companion to Theism

The Routledge Companion to Theism
Author: Charles Taliaferro
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 754
Release: 2013
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0415881641

There are deep and pervasive disagreements today in universities and colleges, and popular culture in general, over the credibility and value of belief in God. This has given rise to an urgent need for a balanced, comprehensive, accessible resource book that can inform the public and scholarly debate over theism. While scholars with as diverse interests as Daniel Dennett, Terry Eagleton, Richard Dawkins, Jrgen Habermas, and Rowan Williams have recently contributed books to this debate, "theism" as a concept remains poorly understood and requires a more thorough and systematic analysis than it has so far received in any single volume. The Routledge Companion to Theism addresses this need by investigating theism's history as well as its relationship to inquiry in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and to its wider cultural contexts. The contents are not confined within the philosophy of religion or even within the more expansive borders of philosophy. Rather, The Routledge Companion to Theism investigates its subject through the lens of a wide variety of disciplines and explores the ramifications of theism considered as a way of life as well as an intellectual conviction. The five parts of the volume indicate its inclusive scope: I. What is Theism?; II. Theism and Inquiry; III. Theism and the Socio-Political Realm; IV. Theism and Culture; V. Theism as a Way of Life. The result is a well ordered and thorough collection that should provide a wide spectrum of readers with a better understanding of a subject that's much discussed, but frequently misunderstood. As the editors note in their Introduction, while stimulating and informing the contemporary debate, a key aim of the volume is to open new avenues of inquiry into theism and thereby to encourage further research into this vital topic. Comprised of 54 essays by leading scholars in philosophy, history, theology, religious studies, political science, education and sociology, The Routledge Companion to Theism promises to be the most useful, comprehensive resource on an emerging subject of interest for students and scholars.

Problems of Religious Luck

Problems of Religious Luck
Author: Guy Axtell
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498550185

To speak of being religious lucky certainly sounds odd. But then, so does “My faith holds value in God’s plan, while yours does not.” This book argues that these two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — are inextricably connected. It argues that religious luck attributions can profitably be studied from a number of directions, not just theological, but also social scientific and philosophical. There is a strong tendency among adherents of different faith traditions to invoke asymmetric explanations of the religious value or salvific status of the home religion vis-à-vis all others. Attributions of good/bad religious luck and exclusivist dismissal of the significance of religious disagreement are the central phenomena that the book studies. Part I lays out a taxonomy of kinds of religious luck, a taxonomy that draws upon but extends work on moral and epistemic luck. It asks: What is going on when persons, theologies, or purported revelations ascribe various kinds of religiously-relevant traits to insiders and outsiders of a faith tradition in sharply asymmetric fashion? “I am saved but you are lost”; “My religion is holy but yours is idolatrous”; “My faith tradition is true, and valued by God, but yours is false and valueless.” Part II further develops the theory introduced in Part I, pushing forward both the descriptive/explanatory and normative sides of what the author terms his inductive risk account. Firstly, the concept of inductive risk is shown to contribute to the needed field of comparative fundamentalism by suggesting new psychological markers of fundamentalist orientation. The second side of what is termed an inductive risk account is concerned with the epistemology of religious belief, but more especially with an account of the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. Problems of inductively risky modes of belief-formation problematize claims to religion-specific knowledge. But the inductive risk account does not aim to set religion apart, or to challenge the reasonableness of religious belief tout court. Rather the burden of the argument is to challenge the reasonableness of attitudes of religious exclusivism, and to demotivate the “polemical apologetics” that exclusivists practice and hope to normalize.

Calvinism and the Problem of Evil

Calvinism and the Problem of Evil
Author: David E. Alexander
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2016-07-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1620325780

Contrary to what many philosophers believe, Calvinism neither makes the problem of evil worse nor is it obviously refuted by the presence of evil and suffering in our world. Or so most of the authors in this book claim. While Calvinism has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years amongst theologians and laypersons, many philosophers have yet to follow suit. The reason seems fairly clear: Calvinism, many think, cannot handle the problem of evil with the same kind of plausibility as other more popular views of the nature of God and the nature of God's relationship with His creation. This book seeks to challenge that untested assumption. With clarity and rigor, this collection of essays seeks to fill a significant hole in the literature on the problem of evil. The collection includes twelve original essays by David E. Alexander, James N. Anderson, James E. Bruce, Anthony Bryson, Christopher Green, Matthew J. Hart, Paul Helm, Daniel M. Johnson, Hugh J. McCann, Alexander R. Pruss, Greg Welty, and Heath White.

Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God

Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God
Author: Harold A. Netland
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2022-02-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493434896

For many Christians, personal experiences of God provide an important ground or justification for accepting the truth of the gospel. But we are sometimes mistaken about our experiences, and followers of other religions also provide impressive testimonies to support their religious beliefs. This book explores from a philosophical and theological perspective the viability of divine encounters as support for belief in God, arguing that some religious experiences can be accepted as genuine experiences of God and can provide evidence for Christian beliefs.