In this paper, I argue that, if ‘the overrepresentation of Christian theists in analytic philosophy of religion is unhealthy for the field, since they would be too much influenced by prior beliefs when evaluating religious arguments’ (De Cruz and De Smedt (2016), 119), then a first step toward a potential remedy is this: analytic philosophers of religion need to restructure their analytical tasks. For one way to mitigate the effects of confirmation bias, which may be (...) influencing how analytic philosophers of religion evaluate arguments in Analytical Philosophy of Religion (APR), is to consider other points of view. Applied to APR, this means considering religious beliefs, questions, and arguments couched in non-Christian terms. In this paper, I focus on Islam in particular. My aim is to show that Islam is a fertile ground of philosophical questions and arguments for analytic philosophers of religion to engage with. Engaging with questions and arguments couched in non-Christian terms would help make work in APR more diverse and inclusive of religions other than Christianity, which in turn would also be a first step toward attracting non-Christians to APR. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of 'analytic' philosophy of religion. It begins with a historical sketch. It then examines some of the kinds of questions that are investigated by 'analytic' philosophers of religion. It concludes with brief discussion of possible futures for 'analytic' philosophy of religion. There is also a very short appendix on the treatment of Islam and Arabic philosophy within 'analytic' philosophy of religion.

Analytic theology is often seen as an outgrowth of analytic philosophy of religion. It isn’t fully clear, however, whether it differs from analytic philosophy of religion in some important way. Is analytic theology really just a sub-field of analytic philosophy of religion, or can it be distinguished from the latter in virtue of fundamental differences at the level of subject matter or metholodology? These are pressing questions for the burgeoning (...) field of analytic theology. The aim of this article, then, will be to map out several forms that analytic theology might (and in some cases actually does) take before examining the extent to which each can be thought to be distinct from analytic philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Philosophers of religion of the Cracow Circle (1934-1944) are the principal precursors of what is now called the analytic philosophy of religion. The widespread claim that the analytic philosophy of religion was from the beginning an Anglo-American affair is an ill-informed one. It is demonstrable that the enterprise, although not the label "analytic philosophy of religion," appeared in Poland in the 1930’s. Józef Bochenski’s postwar work is a development of the (...) Cracow Circle’s prewar work in the analytic philosophy of religion, or at least of important elements of that earlier work. Bochenski’s approach in his ’Logic of Religion’ is quite original and might still be profitably studied and discussed by philosophers of religion of the analytic persuasion. (shrink)

I present and discuss recent work in analytic philosophy of religion on apophaticism and divine ineffability. I focus on three questions: how can we call God ineffable without contradicting ourselves? How can we refer to an ineffable God? What is the point of talking about an ineffable God?

There is a lively debate in contemporary Analytic Philosophy of Religion about the consistency of the Trinitarian doctrine. In this context, the notion of ‘mystery’ has become crucial. However, although it is currently considered the main challenge of Trinitarian theology, its definition remains rather partial and superficial. After a brief description of today’s Mysterianism, I analyse three ‘emblematic’ positions in light of the current debate: Aquinas, Leibniz and Hegel present three ways to believe in a mysterious Trinity. (...) I will point out a few possible weaknesses in the positions of the first two authors in order to better highlight the usefulness of the Hegelian position, often underestimated in the contemporary analytic debate. I will also analyse the connection between the three positions and their respective metaphysics, showing the epistemological premises (e.g., analogy and univocity) that need to be better investigated in the future. (shrink)

Short paper about debate on cognitive meaning of religious use of language in early analytic philosophy of religion. Published in Companion to Philosophy of Religion, edited by Janusz Salamon, Cracow: WAM, 2016.

The doctrine of the spiritual senses has played a significant role in the history of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox spirituality. What has been largely unremarked is that the doctrine also played a significant role in classical Protestant thought, and that analogous concepts can be found in Indian theism. In spite of the doctrine’s significance, however, the only analytic philosopher to consider it has been Nelson Pike. I will argue that his treatment is inadequate, show how the development of (...) the doctrine in Puritan thought and spirituality fills a serious lacuna in Pike’s treatment, and conclude with some suggestions as to where the discussion should go next. (shrink)

This book examines the philosophy of the nineteenth-century Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna and brings him into dialogue with Western philosophers of religion, primarily in the recent analytic tradition. Sri Ramakrishna’s expansive conception of God as the impersonal-personal Infinite Reality, Maharaj argues, opens up an entirely new paradigm for addressing central topics in the philosophy of religion, including divine infinitude, religious diversity, the nature and epistemology of mystical experience, and the problem of evil.

There have been recent calls to expand contemporary analytic philosophy of religion beyond the oft implicitly assumed Christian tradition. Instead of exploring moral reasons to expand the discipline, I argue that there are strong epistemic reasons to favour diversifying the philosophy of religion. Increasing diversity is likely to increase disagreement, and there are epistemic benefits to be gained from the existence of disagreement. I argue that such considerations quite clearly apply to the philosophy of (...) religion, and as such that there are epistemic reasons to diversify the field. I conclude by offering a number of practical steps we can take towards achieving this end which are relatively easy to implement. (shrink)

The article presents the main trends in the analytical epistemology of religious belief. Their interrelations and mutual influences are shown. The author argues that epistemology of religious belief has risen as one of the possible answers to the Gettier- problems. Therefore different trends in religious epistemology are bounded not only with each other, but also with trends in general epistemology. As a result of the analysis of all major trends in epistemology of religious belief (reformed epistemology, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, (...) problem of the epistemic authority) the author concludes that the core of each trend is an attempt of defining the phenomenon of religion itself. Hence it is possible to consider epistemology of religious belief as the next step in the history of such attempts. Since finding appropriate definition of the phenomenon of religion is a special task of philosophy of religion (both in analytic and continental traditions), the author argues that epistemology of religious belief is the essential part of philosophy of religion as a scholar discipline. (shrink)

Most analytic philosophers are atheists, but is there a deep connection between analytic philosophy and atheism? The paper argues a) that the founding fathers of analytic philosophy were mostly teenage atheists before they became philosophers; b) that analytic philosophy was invented partly because it was realized that the God-substitute provided by the previously fashionable philosophy - Absolute Idealism – could not cut the spiritual mustard; c) that analytic philosophy developed an (...) unhealthy obsession with meaninglessness which led to a new kind of atheism that dismissed talk of God as factually meaningless (neither true nor false) rather than meaningful but false; but d) that this new-fangled atheism (unlike the old-fashioned atheism of the founders) is false, since it relies on theories of meaning – verificationism and falsificationism – which are themselves false. The primary focus is on Bertrand Russell, though other analytic philosophers such as Ayer, Neurath and Flew are also extensively discussed. (shrink)

I urge philosophers of religion to investigate far more vigorously than they have until now the acceptability of varied components of the world religions and their epistemological underpinnings. By evaluating "acceptability" I mean evaluation of truth, morality, spiritual efficacy and human flourishing, in fact, any value religious devotees might think significant to their religious lives. Secondly, I urge that philosophers of religion give more attention to what scholars have called the "esoteric" level of world religions, including components of (...) strong ineffability, weak ineffability, and an alleged perennial philosophy. All this should involve a cooperative effort between analytic, comparative, and feminist philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The open secret of analytic philosophy of religion since its 20th century revival has been that it is for the most part a revival of philosophical theology, and particularly Christian philosophical theology. More recently, Christian analytic philosophers and theologians sympathetic to them have transformed this open secret into a research program by explicitly thematizing the use of analytic philosophical tools for the particular work of Christian theology. Dubbing this work as “analytic theology” (AT) Oliver (...) Crisp and Michael Rea have succeeded in inaugurating AT as a distinct subregion in the philosophy of religion. Besides prompting a spate of first-rate philosophical work theorizing a variety of Christian theological commitments, the advent of AT has also prompted a good deal of meta-theological reflection: Is AT more conducive for certain conceptions of Christian theology than others? Among the various kinds of theology produced by AT, liberation theology is notably absent. In this paper, I offer a diagnosis of why that might be, outline an argument for analytic engagement with liberation theology, and sketch what such an engagement might consist in. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the book "Relations: Ontology and Philosophy of Religion" which is a collection of invited and selected papers dealing with both ontology and the philosophy of religion. It aims at showing how the two disciplines can fruitfully interact and provide useful tools for philosophical investigation. The background is relational ontology and analytical philosophy.

In contemporary philosophy of religion, the two most standard approaches to predicates of God are analogy and univocation. While analogy lacks precision and is best used in liturgical and sacred texts, univocal predicates are problematic because they seem to lead to ontological monism of sameness between God and creatures, which cannot be allowed within metaphysics of Absolute Being. In this article, I examine and contrast G. Frege’s approach to univocal predications and L. Wittgenstein’s notion of language-games, which allows (...) us to move away from univocation as a case of strong identity toward univocation as the extra-linguistic context of human activities. Indeed, that human context can be shared with ‘Goodness,’ ‘Wisdom,’ ‘Simplicity,’ ‘Love’ and many other predicates we attribute to God. I argue that our language of univocal predicates must reflect not the abstract concepts but that same context of divine and human activities in which names of God achieve univocal context. Key words: analogy, univocal predicates, G. Frege, L. Wittgenstein, contextual principle, language-games . (shrink)

The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world’s major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglected by scholars around the globe, (...) particularly those working in the West or Northern Hemisphere. It accomplishes this primarily by bringing it into conversation with topics in the Anglo-American philosophy of religion. (shrink)

According to Corey Brettschneider, we can protect freedom of religion and promote equality, by distinguishing religious groups’ claims to freedom of expression and association from their claims to financial and verbal support from the state. I am very sympathetic to this position, which fits well with my own views of democratic rights and duties, and with the importance of recognizing the scope for political choice which democratic politics offers to governments and to citizens. This room for political choice, I (...) believe, is necessary if people are to have any chance of reconciling the conflicting moral and political obligations they are likely to face, however idealized our conception of democracy or morality. Granted that no amount of personal and political choice will ever guarantee that we do not encounter tragic choices, and painfully conflicting moral demands, it is an important feature of democracy – or so I believe – that its rights reflect the importance of mitigating these conflicts so that people are able, as a rule, to act as they ought, so that they do not experience their moral sentiments, beliefs and capacities simply as grounds for recrimination, alienation and despair. I therefore believe that democracies have good reason not to force the consciences of the undemocratic and the intolerant, where it is possible to accommodate such people without threatening the rights of others. However, the fact that I share many of Brettschneider’s intuitions and beliefs does not mean that I share them all. In particular, I find his conception of democracy unduly narrow, and unduly based on a rather idealized conception of the American constitution which is unlikely to appeal to those whose conceptions of democracy are more republican, more socialist, more pragmatic and more international than his. I have explained these worries elsewhere and drawn out some of their implications for his arguments about privacy and judicial review. There is no need to repeat them here. I will also set to one side my worries about his uninflected, overly abstract and rather reified characterization of the State, in the hope that others will discuss this and that, in the end, a more nuanced conception of the State and a more lively appreciation of the conflicting people, institutions, histories and norms which make up most states, will prove consistent with his arguments. Finally, I do not propose to enter into a detailed discussion of the difficulties of Brettschneider’s overly abstract and reified conception of State ‘speech’ and ‘expression’ which, while motivated by the language of American constitutionalism, appears to cover pretty much anything a government might do, from raising and spending taxes, to accepting judicial interpretations of contested constitutional provisions, or to affirmatively pronouncing on the goals that will animate its legislative agenda and its aspirations for citizen’s lives. Again, while I would have wished for a more nuanced and analytical discussion of so central a concept as ‘expression’ and, in particular, expression by ‘the State’, I am uncertain that anything fundamental in Brettschneider’s account of citizen rights and duties would be altered in the process. Instead, then, I want to focus on points in Brettschneider’s argument that intrigue, and sometimes puzzle, me the most and where issues of nuance and clarification might make a substantial difference to our views of equality and religious freedom. (shrink)

This implies that something cannot be both a rule of grammar and at the same time a description of reality. This approach leaves the religious language game forever defining its own rules. The question is then prompted that if religious language does not get beyond itself to explore reality, how did it get started at all. -/- The fundamental reason that I myself stick to the idea that there are right and wrong moral judgments and better and worse moral outlooks, (...) and also right and wrong evaluative judgments and better and worse normative outlooks in areas other than morality, is not a metaphysical one. The reason is simply that that is the way that we—and I include myself in this \"we\"—talk and think, and also the way that we are going to go on talking and thinking. -/- Hume confessed that he left his scepticism about the material world behind as soon as he left his study; and I observe that no matter how sceptical or how relativistic philosophers may be in their conversation, they leave their scepticism or their relativism behind the minute they engage in serious discussion about almost any subject other than philosophy. (shrink)

David Hume (1711-1776) is widely recognized as one of the most influential and significant critics of religion in the history of philosophy. There remains, nevertheless, considerable disagreement about the exact nature of his views. According to some, he was a skeptic who regarded all conjectures relating to religious hypotheses to be beyond the scope of human understanding – he neither affirmed nor denied these conjectures. Others read him as embracing a highly refined form of “true religion” of (...) some kind. On the other side of this spectrum, it is claimed that Hume was committed to atheism, although due to social conditions at the time, this had to be (thinly) concealed or masked. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of Hume’s core concerns and arguments on this subject and to provide the reader with a framework for interpreting and assessing his various contributions. (shrink)

In this critical notice of Clifford Williams’ Religion and the meaning of life, I focus on his argumentation in favour of the moderate supernaturalist position that, while a meaningful life would be possible in a purely physical world, a much greater meaning would be possible only in a world with God and an eternal afterlife spent close to God. I begin by expounding and evaluating Williams’ views of the physical sources of meaning, providing reason to doubt both that he (...) has captured all the central ones and that he has provided the right explanation of why we ought to care about them. Then I address Williams’ account of why God would greatly enhance the meaning of our lives, arguing that, if God could do so, then God could by the same token reduce their meaning as well, such that it is unclear that a world with God would offer a net gain in meaning. Finally, I take up Williams’ position that an eternal afterlife with God would greatly enhance the meaning of our lives, contending that, if it would do so, then it would to such an enormous degree as to make it hard to capture the intuition that a meaningful life would be possible in a purely physical world. (shrink)

An overview of the recent debate on the Trinity in the analytic philosophy of religion. I move from putting forward the Logical Problem of the Trinity (LPT) according to R.Cartwright and M.Rea. I then define two useful notions in order to evaluate the interpretive force of the mainstream approaches to answer LPT; i.e. , be X a concept, I define maximally robust reading of X and sufficiently robust reading of X. In the subsequent section, I offer an (...) expository analysis of Latin Trinitarianism, Social Trinitarianism and Material Constitution Trinitarianism in line with such concepts. I finally advance some reasons why neither of these properly work. My main argument is that every traditional phrasing of the doctrine of the Trinity asks Christians to hold maximally robust reading both of the onefoldness of God and the threefoldness of Divine Persons. Now, while Latin Trinitarianism, Social Trinitarianism and Material Constitution Trinitarianism provide maximally robust account of God's onefoldness, they can't give a maximally robust account for Persons' threefoldness. (shrink)

The article aims to answer the question whether philosophy of religion can fulfil its research goals, that is discover the essence of religion, find out if any one of them is true and if faith and religious behavior are rational. In the face of a multitude of religions it is difficult to point to any common elements which makes it harder to discover the essence of religion. Trying to prove the consistency of the concept of God (...) as an object of religion and either His/Her existence or non-existence faces similar problems; this makes it impossible to conclusively decide whether religion is true or not. Therefore, it is also difficult to settle whether religious faith is rational or irrational. However, this failure does not deny the cognitive value of philosophy of religion, which can analyze various religious doctrines as it relates to their consistency, truthfulness, or the rationality of following them. (shrink)

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan De (...) Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)

Part of the Elements Philosophy of Religion series, this short book focuses on the spiritual dimensions of life’s meaning as they have been discussed in the recent English and mainly analytic philosophical literature. The overarching philosophical question that this literature has addressed is about the extent to which, and respects in which, spiritual realities such as God or a soul would confer meaning on our lives. There have been four broad answers to the question, namely: God or (...) a soul is necessary for meaning in our lives; they are not necessary for it; one or both would enhance the meaning in our lives; and they would detract from it. These views have been largely advanced in chronological order through the history of Western philosophy, with the view that life would be meaningless without God and a soul having been most prominent in the medieval period, the rejection of this claim having arisen in the modern era, and then sophisticated positions about enhancement or reduction having appeared in earnest only in the past 20 years. This book addresses all four positions, paying particular attention to the more recent views. Beyond familiarizing readers with these positions, it presents prima facie objections to them, points out gaps in research agendas, and suggests argumentative strategies that merit development. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays on the philosophy of life’s meaning in contemporary society. Topics range from antinatalism, meaning of life, the trolley problem, to painless civilization. I am now writing a comprehensive philosophy book on those topics, but it will take several years to complete; hence, I decided to make a handy book to provide readers with an outline of the philosophical approaches to the meaning of life that I have in mind. -/- Chapter One (...) discusses the definition, history, and category of antinatalism. Antinatalism is the thought that all human beings or all sentient beings should not be born. Although I am not an antinatalist, I believe that antinatalism poses an important question about procreation and the meaning of our lives. This is why I presented an overview of antinatalistic thoughts in the past and the present and also performed an analytical examination of their arguments. -/- In Chapter Two, I take up Philosopher Thaddeus Metz’s argument on meaning in life, especially his fundamentality theory, and claim that “the heart of meaning in life,” which is the concept I propose in this chapter, cannot be compared with anything whatsoever. -/- Chapter Three deals with the concept of “birth affirmation,” which means that I can say “yes” to my having been born. I believe that birth affirmation is one of the most promising ideas that can contribute to contemporary philosophical discussions on meaning in life, and I call this approach “an affirmation-based approach to meaning in life.” The concept of birth affirmation has two dimensions: the psychological dimension and the philosophical dimension. I would like to show in this chapter that it is difficult to clarify what it actually means to say “yes” to my having been born. -/- Chapter Four discusses the relationship between the dropping of the atomic bombs and the trolley problem. I argue that the dropping of atomic bombs was a typical example of the events that contained the logic of the trolley problem in both their decision-making processes and justifications. I further argue that the trolley problem has its own unique problems, which I call “the problem of the trolley problem.” This problem has been overlooked in academic discussions of the trolley problem. I also refer to a religious aspect of this problem. -/- In Chapter Five, I talk about the “philosophy of life” as an academic discipline. We have the philosophy of language, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history, but why don’t we have the philosophy of life in the field of philosophy? Of course, we have Lebensphilosophie, but it does not cover philosophical discourses in ancient worlds, nor current analytical approaches to the concepts of life and death. A new research field is required to advance contemporary philosophy. -/- In Chapter Six, I illustrate an outline of my “painless civilization” theory, a criticism of contemporary civilization that deprives us of a joy of life in exchange for eliminating pain and suffering. I also discuss the concept of “fundamental sense of security,” which is considered indispensable for us to be able to live a life without regret. (shrink)

Art plays a significant role in Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy, a major part of which may be interpreted as a proposal for the revision of religious belief. In this paper, I identify within Murdoch’s philosophical writings five distinct but related ways in which great art can assist moral/religious belief and practice: art can reveal to us “the world as we were never able so clearly to see it before”; this revelatory capacity provides us with evidence for the existence of (...) the Good, a metaphor for a transcendent reality of which God was also a symbol; art is a “hall of reflection” in which “everything under the sun can be examined and considered”; art provides us with an analogue for the way in which we should try to perceive our world; and art enables us to transcend our selfish concerns. I consider three possible objections: that Murdoch’s theory is not applicable to all forms of art; that the meaning of works of art is often ambiguous; and that there is disagreement about what constitutes a great work of art. I argue that none of these objections are decisive, and that all forms of art have at least the potential to furnish us with important tools for developing the insight required to live a moral/religious life. (shrink)

In this paper I consider two books of Vladimir Shokhin, a distinguished philosopher in Russia, on philosophy of religion and philosophical theology as one project aimed at drawing the demarcation between these two disciplines. In what follows I will present Shokhin’s project and show briefly how it fits in with the current discussion on the topic, then, draw some consequences from his position, and make some critical notes, and at the end I will briefly present some my views (...) on the problem of drawing clear lines of demarcation between philosophy of religion and philosophical theology on the basis of the following questions: what is the topic of the disciplines, what are their methods, what are their guiding lines, and who may exercise them? (shrink)

Analytic theology is often described as something like the application of analytic philosophy's tools to theological studies, but what this means can be unclear. In this paper, I offer a primer on analytic theology which clarifies this common description of the field. Particularly, following Sarah Coakley, I sketch an account of analytic theology on which it consists of a relation of familial resemblance. That is, analytic theologians are those who investigate theological loci in ways (...) akin to those seen in contemporary analytic philosophy. In so doing, I also briefly describe how analytic theology is conceptually distinct from both philosophical theology and analytic philosophy of religion. I then provide a threefold typology for understanding analytic theology's literary landscape whereby its practitioners can generally be understood to produce works which are either philosophically-inclined, theologically-inclined, or mixed in their inclination. Finally, I offer a brief survey of new frontiers being explored by analytic theologians. (shrink)

Prof. (Dr.) Balwant Singh Dhillon, a much-acclaimed Sikh-historian, a dedicated researcher, a prolific writer, and a profound scholar of religion, was born in 1950, at Village Ran Singh Wala, District Faridkot, Punjab, India. With his keen interest in learning, he received a B.A. degree from SGGS College, Chandigarh, in 1972, and an M.A. (History) degree from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur in 1974. During his younger days, he nurtured a keen interest in sports. On attaining the National Level Athlete (...) ranking, he was enthusiastic about pursuing a career in sports. Thereby, he joined Master Course for Coaching in athletics at the National Institute of Sports, Patiala, in 1974. Herein, he came in contact with Prof. Labh Singh of the Institute of Sikh Studies (IOSS, now Gurmat College), who inspired him to take up Sikh studies. This interaction brought a sea change in his life motive, and he committed himself to pursue a career in Sikh studies. After receiving M.A. (Religious Studies) degree from the IOSS in July 1976, he joined M. Lit. (Religious Studies) course at Punjabi University, Patiala. Here he had the opportunity to learn from several eminent scholars, e.g., Prof. Harbans Singh, Prof. Gurbachan Singh Talib, Prof. L.M. Joshi, and Dr. A.N. Sinha, etc., which made his resolve steadfast. In January 1977, he joined the Department of Guru Nanak Studies at Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar, to pursue his research activities for a Ph.D. degree. In March 1985, he was awarded a Ph. D. degree by GNDU, for his outstanding research work on "The Sikh Gurus and the Mughal State." Starting, in April 1979, as a Research Assistant at the Department of Guru Nanak Studies, he rose to the position of Professor and Head of the department. He retired in June 2010. During his tenure at the university, he had also served as Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Religious Studies, Senator and Syndic of the University. As Head of the Department of Guru Nanak Studies, he played a vital role in starting the teaching of M.A. (Religious Studies and Philosophy)at GNDU, Amritsar. Under his stewardship, the research projects on "Sikh Religion and Philosophy," "Sikh History," and "Sikh Literature" were taken up, which led to a research and development grant of Rs. 3.2 Million from U.G.C., New Delhi, during 2006-2011. Dr. Dhillon was instrumental in establishing the Centre on Studies in Sri Guru Granth Sahib at the university, in April 2011, and served as its founding Director till February 2015. He has also served as the Editor-in-Chief for reputed Sikh research journals, "Journal of Sikh Studies" and "Perspectives on Guru Granth Sahib," published by the GNDU. In his forty years long professional career, he has been credited with authoring/publishing about a dozen books and over 100 articles in various research journals, books, and encyclopedias. Besides chairing several international seminars/conferences, he played a vital role in organizing many such events at the Department of Guru Nanak Studies and Centre on Studies in Guru Granth Sahib. He has the honour of representing India at many conferences/ seminars within Canada, America, England, Germany, and Australia. With his continuous dedication to religious studies, he has established himself as an exponent of interfaith dialogue and an eminent writer in the field of Sikh history. Through his well-researched and analytic writings, he has created an indelible mark of scholarship on his readers' minds. For his outstanding contributions in the fields of Sikh history and literature, he has been honoured by several literary and social organizations. Despite his great love and commitment to Sikh History and Religion, Dr. Dhillon subscribes to the idea that Sikh Gurus' Philosophy is perennial and universal in its approach to understand cosmology, Nature, life, and human behaviour in the present era. Furthermore, He asserts that the Sikh Gurus' ideology, its beliefs and practices, social order, worldview, and devotional pattern, as propounded in Sri Guru Granth Sahib, address the basics befitting the 21st century. His views on various aspects of Sikh history and philosophy are presented here for the benefit of readers. (shrink)

This loosely-argued manifesto contains some suggestions regarding what the philosophy of religion might become in the 21st century. It was written for a brainstorming workshop over a decade ago, and some of the recommendations and predictions it contains have already been partly actualized (that’s why it is now a bit "untimely"). The goal is to sketch three aspects of a salutary “liturgical turn” in philosophy of religion. (Note: “liturgy” here refers very broadly to communal religious service (...) and experience generally, not anything specifically “high church.”) The first involves the attitudes that characterize what I call the “liturgical stance" towards various doctrines. The second focuses on the “vested” propositional objects of those attitudes. The third looks at how those doctrines are represented, evoked, and embodied in liturgical contexts. My untimely rallying-cry is that younger philosophers of religion might do well to set aside debates regarding knowledge and justified belief, just as their elders set aside debates regarding religious language. When we set aside knowledge in this way, we make room for discussions of faith that in turn shed light on neglected but philosophically-interesting aspects of lived religious practice. (shrink)

A primary fault line in the analytic philosophy of action is the debate between causal/Davidsonian and interpretivist/Anscombian theories of action. The fundamental problem of the former is producing a criterion for distinguishing intentional from non-intentional causal chains; the fundamental problem of the latter is producing an account of the relation between reasons and actions that is represented by the ‘because’ in the claim that the agent acted because she had the reason. It is argued that Hegel’s conception of (...) teleology can be used to develop the interpretivist position by solving both its and the causal theory’s fundamental problems. (shrink)

The early modern period (roughly, 1600–1800 ce) in Europe brought tremendous changes in intellectual, political, and cultural life. It was a period in which philosophical debates were inevitably bound up with questions about the nature and sources of religious truth. A chronological examination of some of the period’s major thinkers highlights two issues that were central to the development of philosophy of religion in the period. The first concerns the relations between God, the soul, and the body; the (...) other concerns the relationship between human reason and divine revelation. (shrink)

While experimental philosophy has fruitfully applied the tools and resources of psychology and cognitive science to debates within epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, relatively little work has been done within philosophy of religion. And this isn’t due to a lack of need! Philosophers of religion frequently rely on empirical claims that can be either verified or disproven, but without exploring whether they are. And philosophers of religion frequently appeal to intuitions which may vary wildly according to (...) education level, theological background, etc., without concern for whether or not the psychological mechanisms that underwrite those intuitions are broadly shared or reliable. In this chapter, I explore some of the fruit and possibilities for the emerging field of experimental philosophy of religion. First, in Section 1, I will elucidate some of the historical grounding for experimental philosophy of religion. Then in Section 2, I briefly consider how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be fruitfully applied to a seminal topic within philosophy of religion, namely, the problem of evil. In Section 3, we’ll sketch some broader applications of experimental philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Review of Terence Cuneo, "Ritualized Faith: Essays on the Philosophy of Liturgy", Oxford Univ. Press 2016, 228pp.

On why Kant may not have shown what modern theologians often take him to have shown. -/- .

In this article, author expressed the meaning of “belief”, possible effective factors in human life, and how these factors can be effective on person and/or communities. With this respect, the meaning of religion, the possible interaction and relation between religion and science evaluated. 42 past/present theories of religion and evaluation of the past/present works of the 87 philosophers of religion are explained. Author considered new synthesis (R-Synthesis), and also new era philosophy, new and re-constructed branches (...) of philosophy, and some systems/constructions to express the new perspective for philosophy of religion. Author applied 27(+) possible definitive/certain result cases of the synthesis for R-Religion discipline specifically, and did the followings under new perspective: (i) eliminated some religious subjects, (ii) unified some religious subjects, (iii) modified some religious subjects, (iv) united some religious subjects in upper phase, (v) separated some religious subject, (vi) defined all religious subjects under one framework, (vii) integrated all religious subjects, (viii) defined new religious subjects, (ix) re-defined some religious subjects, (x) removed some religious subjects and put new religious subjects instead, (xi) added some religious subjects, (xii) kept/protected some religious subjects, (xiii) proposed progression for religious subjects, (xiv) changed the priority of some religious subjects, (xv) increased the importance of some religious subjects, (xvi) strengthened the ethics, (xvii) integrated philosophy branches under one framework, (xviii) others. Some of the purposes of this article are: (i) to define new synthesis method, (ii) to define good and/or correct new perspective and structure for philosophy of religion, science of religion, theories of religion, and related subjects, (iii) to extend the definition/limits of philosophy of religion with new perspective, (iv) others. As result of the synthesis, new perspective for philosophy of religion explained by considering the following concepts/sections: (a) theories of religion, (b) 17 upper constructional philosophies and philosophy of religion, (c) eight complementary branches of philosophy of religion, (d) 14 lower constructional philosophies and philosophy of religion, (e) science of religion, (f) new theory of religion and its relations with other disciplines. Author defined New Era Theory, New Era Religion, New Era Belief, Progressive Religion and their relations with other religions, beliefs, religious/non-religious movements, and the relation with other theories of religion. Also, power authorities and functional position levels in the New Era Belief, and Religion of God, Knowledge of God/gods, Nature of God/gods concepts are explained generally/specifically. (shrink)

Review of Chad Meister's "Introducing Philosophy of Religion".

The article deals with the problem of the divine light in the mystical works of St Symeon the New Theologian in the context of the Eastern Christian ascetical tradition. The author focuses on the passages referring to the divine light in the works of Evagrios Pontikos, St Isaac the Syrian, St Maximus the Confessor, and in the Makarian corpus. As is shown in the present contribution, none of these authors created a fully-developed theory of the vision of the divine light. (...) Being close to these writers in many ideas, St Symeon was generally independent of any of them in his treatment of the theme of vision of light, always basing himself primarily upon his own experience. (shrink)

The theorizing about the doctrine of the Trinity by contemporary analytic philosophers of religion has recently been imbued with an air of enthusiastic excitement and self-confidence. My intuition is that there’s room for saying something more in support to the embarrassment and puzzlement traditionally related to the predication of God’s onefoldness and threefoldness. My purpose is to deliver a general argument for (weak) trinitarian skepticism. My view is that the argument provides substantive reasons in support to the common (...) sense intuition that either God’s onefoldness and threefoldness aren’t actually compatible or God’s onefoldness and threefoldness aren’t robustly construed. (shrink)

This paper introduces the special issue on Logic and Philosophy of Religion of the journal Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions (Springer). The issue contains the following articles: Logic and Philosophy of Religion, by Ricardo Sousa Silvestre and Jean-Yvez Béziau; The End of Eternity, by Jamie Carlin Watson; The Vagueness of the Muse—The Logic of Peirce’s Humble Argument for the Reality of God, by Cassiano Terra Rodrigues; Misunderstanding the Talk(s) of the Divine: Theodicy in (...) the Wittgensteinian Tradition, by Ondřej Beran; On the Concept of Theodicy, by Ricardo Sousa Silvestre; The Logical Problem of the Trinity and the Strong Theory of Relative Identity, by Daniel Molto; Thomas Aquinas on Logic, Being, and Power, and Contemporary Problems for Divine Omnipotence, by Errin D. Clark. -/- . (shrink)

There are three chief aims of the paper. First, it presents in short the beginning of the analytic philosophy of religion, its development, issues, and methods. Second, it puts forward a hypothesis that in the last five decades analytic philosophy of religion has been dominated by the epistemological paradigm, i.e. in most cases, any problem in question has been studied as part of the general problem of rationality of religious belief. That situation is changing (...) slowly towards achieving more balance between the issues of epistemology of religion and those concerned with philosophical theology. Third, the paper provides criteria for the classification of the different ways to understand the rationality of religious belief: the rationalistic and evidentialist approach, the natural theology approach, the Wittgensteinian fideism and Reformed epistemology approaches. A brief description of each of those four positions in epistemology of religion is included. (shrink)

The existence of God is once again the focus of vivid philosophical discussion. From the point of view of analytic theology, however, people often talk past each other when they debate about the putative existence or nonexistence of God. In the worst case, for instance, atheists deny the existence of a God, which no theists ever claimed to exist. In order to avoid confusions like this we need to be clear about the function of the term 'God' in its (...) different contexts of use. In what follows, I distinguish between the functions of 'God' in philosophical contexts on the one hand and in theological contexts on the other in order to provide a schema, which helps to avoid confusion in the debate on the existence or non-existence of God. (shrink)

It is no surprise that the philosophy of religion, the many disciplines counted within the study of religion and theology, and religion-specific studies, all have their own methods and interests, and often proceed necessarily as conversations among small groups of experts. But the intellectual cogency and credibility of such studies also entails a problematization of the boundaries that divide them. While disciplinary distinctions are necessary and valuable, a freer flow of ideas and questions across boundaries is (...) to the benefit of all concerned. In particular, the philosophy of religion proceeds more fruitfully if, among its several dimensions, it is also intentionally comparative and inter-religious, vulnerable to the questions raised by insiders to traditions, and open to the implications of ideas for religious practice. (shrink)

Whether Trinitarianism is coherent depends not only on whether some account of the Trinity is coherent, but on which accounts of the Trinity count as "Trinitarian." After all, Arianism and Modalism are both accounts of the Trinity, but neither counts as Trinitarian (which is why defenses of Arianism or Modalism don’t count as defenses of Trinitarianism). This raises the question, if not just any account of the Trinity counts as Trinitarian, which do? Dale Tuggy is one of very few philosophers (...) to give explicit definitions of Trinitarian (versus Unitarian) theology. But they are no mere formalities. They are essential to his central criticisms of both historical and contemporary forms of Trinitarianism. In this paper, I offer my own definitions of Trinitarian and Unitarian theology, contrast them with Tuggy’s, and argue for the superiority of my definitions to Tuggy’s. If Trinitarianism and Unitarianism are what Tuggy says they are, the outlook for Trinitarianism is bleak indeed. If they are what I say they are, Tuggy’s central objection to Trinitarianism fails. To show what is at stake in these pairs of definitions, I examine a doctrine much neglected in Analytic Theology, but central to Nicene Trinitarianism—the Monarchy of the Father. (shrink)