This book discusses and exemplifies the philosophy of religion, or philosophical reflection on central themes of religion.

Each stage has its difficulties and its points of interest, and I will examine each in turn.

A text that would find a place for the realistic formalism of Aristotle, the scientific penetration of Peirce, the pedagogical soundness of Dewey, and the ...

Perhaps my Anselm's Discovery suffices to answer his objections; nevertheless, I wish to attempt here a more direct answer, at least in outline.

The following objection to the ‘ontological’ argument of St Anselm has a continuing importance. The argument begs the question by introducing into the first premise the name ‘God’. In order for something to be truly talked about, to have properties truly attributed to it—it has been said—it must exist; a statement containing a vacuous name must either be false, meaningless, or lacking in truth-value, if it is not a misleading formulation to be explained by paraphrase into other terms. In any (...) case the question of the divine existence is begged. (shrink)