Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment: New Essays in the Philosophy of Religion.

Noûs ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 383
Author(s):  
William H. Austin ◽  
Robert Audi ◽  
William J. Wainwright
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Moral Commitment

How rational is rational theology? A reply to Mikael Stenmark

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-97
Author(s):  
VINCENT BRÜMMER
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
Truth Claims

In this response to Stenmark's critique of my views on rational theology, I concentrate on his distinction between the epistemic and the practical goals of religion and between descriptive and normative rational theology. With regard to the first distinction, I grant that truth claims play an essential role in religious belief and that it is indeed the task of philosophy of religion to decide on the meaning and rationality of such claims. I argue, however, that since such claims are internally related to the practical context of religious belief, their meaning and rationality cannot be determined apart from this context as is done in the kind of rational theology which Stenmark calls ‘scientific’. With regard to the second distinction, I reject Stenmark's view that philosophy of religion has a descriptive task with reference to religion, and hence also his claim that I have put forward a false description of ‘the religious language game’.

Deep Structure and the Comparative Philosophy of Religion

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-399
Author(s):  
Michael P. Levine
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Comparative Philosophy ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Moral Reason ◽  
Religious Thought

Through various applications of the ‘deep structure’ of moral and religious reasoning, I have sought to illustrate the value of a morally informed approach in helping us to understand the complexity of religious thought and practice…religions are primarily moved by rational moral concerns and…ethical theory provides the single most powerful methodology for understanding religious belief. Ronald Green, Religion and Moral Reason

Religion, history of philosophy of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William P. Alston
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Attributes Of God

The philosophy of religion comprises any philosophical discussion of questions arising from religion. This has primarily consisted in the clarification and critical evaluation of fundamental beliefs and concepts from one or another religious tradition. Major issues of concern in the philosophy of religion include arguments for and against the existence of God, problems about the attributes of God, the problem of evil, and the epistemology of religious belief. Of arguments for the existence of God, the most prominent ones can be assigned to four types. First, cosmological arguments, which go back to Plato and Aristotle, explain the existence of the universe by reference to a being on whom all else depends for its existence. Second, teleological arguments seek to explain adaptation in the world, for example, the way organisms have structures adapted to their needs, by positing an intelligent designer of the world. Third, ontological arguments, first introduced by Anselm, focus on the concept of a perfect being and argue that it is incoherent to deny that such a being exists. Finally, moral arguments maintain that objective moral statuses, distinctions or principles presuppose a divine being as the locus of their objectivity. Discussions of the attributes of God have focused on omniscience and omnipotence. These raise various problems, for example, whether complete divine foreknowledge of human actions is compatible with human free will. Moreover, these attributes, together with God’s perfect goodness give rise to the problem of evil. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good, how can there be wickedness, suffering and other undesirable states of affairs in the world? This problem has been repeatedly discussed from ancient times to the present. The epistemology of religious belief has to do with the questions of what is the proper approach to the assessment of religious belief (for rationality, justification, or whatever) and with the carrying out of such assessments. Much of the discussion has turned on the contrast between the roles of human reason and God’s revelation to us. A variety of views have been held on this. Many, such as Aquinas, have tried to forge a synthesis of the two; Kant and his followers have sought to ground religion solely on reason; others, most notably Kierkegaard, have held that the subjecting of religious belief to rational scrutiny is subversive of true religious faith. Recently, a group of ‘Reformed epistemologists’ (so-called because of the heavy influence of the Reformed theology of Calvin and his followers on their thinking) has attacked ‘evidentialism’ and has argued that religious beliefs can be rationally justified even if one has no reasons or evidence for them.

Conspiracy Theories and Religion: Reframing Conspiracy Theories as Bliks

Episteme ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn Y. Bezalel
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Area Of Study

Abstract Conspiracy theories have largely been framed by the academy as a stigmatised form of knowledge. Yet recent scholarship has included calls to take conspiracy theories more seriously as an area of study with a desire to judge them on their own merits rather than an a priori dismissal of them as a class of explanation. This paper argues that the debates within the philosophy of religion, long overlooked by scholars of conspiracy theories, can help sow the seeds for re-examining our understanding of conspiracy theories in a more balanced and nuanced way. The nature of religious belief is elemental to understanding the epistemological foundations of the conspiracy theorising worldview amidst what we may call ‘conspiratorial ambiguity’. Specifically, R.M. Hare's concept of bliks, which are unfalsifiable but meaningful worldviews, offers a way forward to reframe our approach towards the theory of conspiracy theories.

The Human Face of Naturalism: Putnam and Diamond on Religious Belief and the “Gulfs between Us”

The Monist ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (4) ◽  
pp. 404-414
Author(s):  
Sofia Miguens
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Cora Diamond

Abstract Hilary Putnam and Cora Diamond both wrote on Wittgenstein’s Three Lectures on Religious Belief. They did it quite differently; my ultimate aim in this article is to explore this difference. Putnam’s view of religion is largely a view of ethical life; I look thus into his writings on ethics and his proposals to face the relativist menace therein. Still, in his incursions into philosophy of religion, describing religious experience through authors such as Rosenzweig, Buber, or Levinas, Putnam deals with what Diamond calls, after Wittgenstein, “the gulfs between us.” Such gulfs, and the threat of relativism they bring, need to be accounted for. With that purpose in mind I complement Putnam’s reading of the Three Lectures with Diamond’s own reading.

Linguagem, Conhecimento e Religião: os diversos sentidos de ‘acreditar’. Wittgenstein e a especificidade da crença religiosa/Language, knowledge and religion: the various meanings of 'believe'. Wittgenstein and specificity of religious belief

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 188
Author(s):  
Eduardo Gomes de Siqueira
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
Good Medicine ◽  
Blowing Up ◽  
Language Knowledge

O objetivo do texto é mostrar a pertinência da discussão do conceito de crença religiosa tanto quanto à especificidade deste tipo de crença (objeto) quanto ao modo de fazê-lo (método), desde um ponto de vista wittgensteiniano, na interface entre a teoria do conhecimento e a filosofia da religião. Abordando a questão pelo ângulo da filosofia da linguagem do segundo Wittgenstein, procuramos mostrar alguns problemas semânticos e pragmáticos envolvidos na significação da palavra ‘crença’, um termo psicológico essencialmente vago, mas indispensável tanto para a discussão epistemológica (a justificação pública das crenças) como para a filosofia da religião (a especificidade das regras do jogo de linguagem religioso), além de possuir outros usos cotidianos dotados de sentido. O artigo quer mostrar, enfim, a particularidade do método descritivo-gramatical de Wittgenstein para obter uma visão perspícua (übersichtlich Darstellung) das regras dos diferentes jogos que jogamos quando falamos de acreditar em algo, em distintas circunstâncias, o que pode ser um bom remédio contra as confusões conceituais sistemáticas que promovemos entre os diversos sentidos de acreditar, confusões estas que parecem estar na base de posições neofundamentalistas (tanto as cientificistas/naturalizadas como as fideístas/dogmáticas) pelas quais voltamos a ser assolados neste confuso reinício de milênio.Abstract: The aim of this paper is showing the importance of the discussion about religious belief, about the specificity of this kind of belief (the issue) and about the way by which to do that (the method), for booth, Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion. Taking the question by the angle of the Philosophy of the Language of the second Wittgenstein, we are trying to show some semantic and pragmatic problems about the meaning of the word ‘belief’, a psychological term that is essentially blurred, but indispensable either for the discussion about epistemological issues (the public justification of the beliefs), than for the Philosophy of Religion (the specificity of the rules of the religious language game), beyond other quotidian uses with sense. The paper wants to show, then, the particularities of the descriptive-grammatical method of Wittgenstein to obtain a synoptic view (übersichtlich Darstellung) of the rules of the games that we are following when we talk about believing in something, in different circumstances, what can be a good medicine against the systematic conceptual confusions we promote between the diverse senses of ‘belief’, confusions which seems to be on the grounds of the neo-fundamentalist positions (either scientifics than religious) which are blowing up and crashing us in this new beginning of a millennium. Keywords: Wittgenstein; cognitive belief; religious belief; philosophical grammar, psychological terms. 

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