God Naturalized

God Naturalized
Author: Halvor Kvandal
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2021-10-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030831787

This volume argues that theistic philosophy should be seen not as an “armchair” enterprise but rather as a critical endeavor to bring philosophy of religion into close contact with emerging sciences of religion. This text engages with the rationality of religious belief by investigating central problems and arguments in philosophy of religion from the perspective of new naturalistic research. A central question the book analyzes is whether findings in cognitive science of religion (CSR) falsify or undermine religious ideas and beliefs. With regard to CSR, this volume offers a sustained and critical investigation of the neutrality and positive-relevance view, before offering a re-appraisal of the conflict view. The text argues that when scrutinizing these views, much more attention must be paid to specific normative premises that allow empirical findings to have epistemic relevance. A novel feature is the theoretical application of analytical epistemology in virtue-epistemology to the central question of whether CSR undermines, supports, or is neutral with respect to religious belief. This book appeals to upper-level students and researchers in the field.

Leibniz's Naturalized Philosophy of Mind

Leibniz's Naturalized Philosophy of Mind
Author: Larry M. Jorgensen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2019-02-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191023973

Larry M. Jorgensen provides a systematic reappraisal of Leibniz's philosophy of mind, revealing the full metaphysical background that allowed Leibniz to see farther than most of his contemporaries. In recent philosophy much effort has been put into discovering a naturalized theory of mind. Leibniz's efforts to reach a similar goal three hundred years earlier offer a critical stance from which we can assess our own theories. But while the goals might be similar, the content of Leibniz's theory significantly diverges from that of today's thought. Perhaps surprisingly, Leibniz's theological commitments yielded a thoroughgoing naturalizing methodology: the properties of an object are explicable in terms of the object's nature. Larry M. Jorgensen shows how this methodology led Leibniz to a fully natural theory of mind.

The God I Have Come to Know (eBook)

The God I Have Come to Know (eBook)
Author: Arnold Mol
Publisher: Christian Art Publishers
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2013-06-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1432108190

So many people try to place God in a little box of what they think He should be like. In THE GOD I HAVE COME TO KNOW Dr Arnold Mol offers new insights and fascinating perspectives on the God of the Bible. Each chapter deals with a specific topic, including: • God’s Sovereignty • God’s Grace • God’s Fatherhood • God’s Glory. Dr Mol highlights several Scripture verses from the Bible and explains how he has applied it to his faith and personal walk with God. The book furthermore reveals the glory of God through personal testimonies and practical anecdotes. THE GOD I HAVE COME TO KNOW is a testimony of the many amazing things Dr Mol has discovered about God through his spiritual experiences and how it is possible for everyone to get to know God in the same way.

The God of Covenant and Creation

The God of Covenant and Creation
Author: Larry S. Chapp
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-05-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567595277

Larry Chapp develops a true "theology of nature" that begins and ends with strictly confessional Christian warrants. He begins by showing how modern naturalism arose out of a theological matrix and how it lost its way specifically as naturalism as soon as it rejected that theological matrix. Indeed, modern naturalism is not so much a-theological as it is a rival theology to that of the Church. All claims of ultimacy, including those of natural science, have inherently theological orientations embedded within them - however unconsciously. Therefore, what confronts us in the modern world is not so much a choice between a non-theological naturalism and a theological naturalism. Rather, what confronts us is a choice between two rival theologies - one agnostic and a-theistic in its implications while the other is revelocentric and Christian.

The Making of Jewish Universalism

The Making of Jewish Universalism
Author: Malka Simkovich
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2016-12-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498542433

This book explores two kinds of universalist thought that circulated among Jews in the Greco-Roman world. The first, which is founded on the idea that all people may worship the One True God in an engaged and sustained manner, originates in biblical prophetic literature. The second, which underscores a common ethic that all people share, arose in the second century bce. This study offers one definition of Jewish universalism that applies to both of these types of universalist thought: universalist literature presumes that all people, regardless of religion and ethnicity, have access to a relationship with the Israelite God and the benefits promised to those loyal to this God, without demanding that they participate in the Israelite community as a Jew. This book opens with an exploration of four types of relationships between Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical prophetic literature: Israel as Subjugators, Israel as Standard-Bearers, Naturalized Nations, and Universalized Worship. In all of these relationships, the foreign nations will acknowledge the One True God, but it is only the Universalized Worship model that offers a truly universalist vision of the end-time. The second section of this book examines how these four relationship models are expressed in Second Temple literature, and the third section studies late Second Temple texts that employ a second kind of universalist thought that emphasizes ethical behavior. This book closes with the suggestion that Ethical Universalist ideas expressed in late Second Temple texts reflect exposure to Stoic thinkers who were developing universalist ideas in the second century BCE.

Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul

Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul
Author: T. K. Seung
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2005
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780739111307

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is Nietzsche's most problematic text. There appears to be no thematic connection between its four Parts and numerous sections. To make it even worse, the book contains a number of thematic contradictions. The standard approach has been a method of selective reading, that is, most critics select a few brilliant passages for edification and ignore the rest. This approach has turned Nietzsche's text into a collection of disjointed fragments. Going against this prevalent approach, T.K. Seung presents the first unified reading of the whole book. He reads it as the record of Zarathustra's epic journey to find spiritual values in the secular world. The alleged thematic contradictions of the text are shown to indicate the turns and twists that are dictated by the hero's epic battle against his formidable opponent. His heroic struggle is eventually resolved by the power of a pantheistic nature-religion. Thus Nietzsche's ostensibly atheistic work turns out to be a highly religious text. The author uncovers this epic plot by reading Nietzsche's text as a baffling series of riddles and puzzles. Hence his reading is not only edifying but also breathtaking. In this unprecedented enterprise, the author takes a complex interdisciplinary approach, engaging the five disciplines of philosophy, psychology, religious studies, literary analysis, and cultural history.