This paper examines the nature of religion. A definition of religion is proposed, and a major rival interpretation -- that of John Hick -- is examined and rejected. It is then explained how religions can be evaluated.

Christian theology can and should interact with modern philosophical trends and ideas to remain relevant to contemporary society. The roots of critical engagement between theology and philosophy are ancient, going back to the nature of the Triune God and the Bible itself and his broad kingdom redemptive commission to the Church. Scripture is finite, anchored in space and time, but the truths within it can generate responses to new situations. Theology sits alongside other disciplines in a relationship of ‘first among (...) equals’, benefitting from and critiquing human thought. (shrink)

In the paper I voice my dissatisfaction with the author's essay because I think that the proposed “McClellean shift” from skeptical to trusting theism faces serious problems. The troubles are mainly caused by the way in which McClellan suggests to extend and “amend” the theist’s argument via the Moorean shift (which is intended to be a counter-argument to the atheist’s evidential argument from evil). But McClellan's proposal is no amendment at all, as it robs the theist's Moore-inspired argument its entire (...) logico-probabilistic force. (shrink)

This paper lays out the first step towards a complete methodology of interreligious investigation, emphasizing the issue of how we should treat individual religions while not committing ourselves to religious apologetics in general. From that perspective, I introduce two theoretical requirements that the methodology of interreligious exploration should fulfill, what we call the constraint of consistency and ontology and the constraint of absoluteness and plurality. The article expounds how and on what grounds those two methodological constraints can be fulfilled by (...) the philosophical notions of “naturalism” and “religion as grammar.” In doing so we reach the following methodological canons: When initiating interreligious exploration, (1) adopt an “open-ended minimal naturalism” in which transcendent realities appearing in individual religions are neither affirmed nor denied in advance, and (2) on the basis of that naturalism, take individual religions as different systems of grammar, that is, distinct linguistic-conceptual frameworks upon which one can see and understand various religious worlds in a constitutive way. The paper is the exposition and defense of these ideas. (shrink)