What do you think?
Rate this book
Philosophy of Religion 4th (forth) edition Text Only
This excellent anthology in the philosophy of religion examines the basic classical and a host of contemporary issues in thirteen thematic sections. Assuming little or no familiarity with the religious concepts it addresses, it provides a well-balanced and accessible approach to the field. The articles cover the standard topics, including religious experience, theistic arguments, the problem of evil, and miracles, as well as topics that have gained the attention of philosophers of religion in the last fifteen years, such as reformed as epistemology, the philosophical analysis of theological doctrine, and the kalam theological argument. The collection also includes topics often requested by instructors but seldom covered in competing texts, such as religion and science, religious pluralism, process theism, and religious ethics, offering greater flexibility in choosing exact topics for use in courses. The format of the book makes it an ideal teaching text, as each section begins with a brief introduction to the central topic or issue treated by the readings which follow. Each reading is preceded by a paragraph summary, and a bibliography of suggested readings follows each section. Philosophy of Religion functions well as a stand-alone textbook for courses in the philosophy of religion, and is readily compatible for use as a primary source reader in conjunction with a secondary text.
Paperback
First published January 25, 1996
12 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
Michael Peterson
106 books6 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 7, 2016
On of the best anthologies in philosophy of religion in the analytic tradition.
March 17, 2019
A really good anthology.
Since I couldn't find an English copy I read it's Turkish translation and translation was so bad. Probably nobody read the book before publishing it. Sentences are incomprehensible, full of mistakes.
Since I couldn't find an English copy I read it's Turkish translation and translation was so bad. Probably nobody read the book before publishing it. Sentences are incomprehensible, full of mistakes.
May 16, 2019
Note that I read most of the essays of this book, but not all. I read it in order to support my wife while she took a college course in Religious Philosophy. As a side note: try very hard to avoid taking a course in religious philosophy. They just haven't worked it all out yet. All they seem to do is to beat up on Christian ideas. I am not a Christian in any sense whatsoever. I am, in fact, an Orthodox Jew. I am not here to defend Christianity, but I get torqued off when I see a religious group being attacked simply because they are a convenient target. I'm sure you understand.
This is a college textbook collection of primary source essays on the philosophy of religion. It mostly concentrates on an analysis of Christianity. It includes some essays on Buddhism, but with very little analysis. Judaism is touched upon occasionally, again without much analysis. It seems that the purpose of the book is to provide a baseline of texts that a professor can have a class read between class lectures.
If you are taking an online course, this book should be used in conjunction with "Reason and Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion". If you are on your own, I suppose any edition would work, but my wife's college course is using edition 5. In edition 5, they added a couple of chapters, updated the examples, and changed some of the study questions they asked compared to the 1st edition. Just so you know.
The college course is over. I doubt I will be reading this book again.
This is a college textbook collection of primary source essays on the philosophy of religion. It mostly concentrates on an analysis of Christianity. It includes some essays on Buddhism, but with very little analysis. Judaism is touched upon occasionally, again without much analysis. It seems that the purpose of the book is to provide a baseline of texts that a professor can have a class read between class lectures.
If you are taking an online course, this book should be used in conjunction with "Reason and Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion". If you are on your own, I suppose any edition would work, but my wife's college course is using edition 5. In edition 5, they added a couple of chapters, updated the examples, and changed some of the study questions they asked compared to the 1st edition. Just so you know.
The college course is over. I doubt I will be reading this book again.
October 25, 2020
Made a good text for the class
March 17, 2010
Religious belief is a significant factor in the lives of most people in the world today. Some understanding of the nature of particular religious beliefs and an ability to engage in discussion on the subject in a thoughtful and reasoned way are, in an increasingly globalized and diverse society, perhaps even more valuable than they have been in the past. Living as we do in a nation which is notable for its extreme secularity, an approach to the discussion of religious beliefs in a philosophical way could be an attractive option, and I suggest that reading Brian Davies’ An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion might be a good place to start.
The 2004 edition is a second revision of the initial 1982 publication and is used widely by undergraduates. It is the introductory companion to Philosophy of Religion: a Guide and Anthology, compiled by Davies, which includes important essays containing what he refers to in this book as the key arguments.
Over the past thirty years or so, contributions to the philosophy of religion have benefited from the release of renewed energies in the areas of logic, epistemology, and metaphysics which, drawing on Wittgenstein’s insight into the uses of language in particular contexts, caused the demise of logical positivism. Until the positivistic principle of verifiability, which imposed a tyranny of strict empiricism, was shown to be inadequate even for science, the intellectual climate was such that, according to the philosopher Michael Peterson, “it was difficult and even embarrassing for any self-respecting intellectual to take religious claims seriously”.1
This is not to say that the philosophy of religion is a new branch of philosophy, and indeed the greater part of Davies’ book examines the “natural theology” arguments of the patristic authors and the scholastic philosophers, notably Thomas Aquinas and those of a range of thinkers from the eighteenth century, notably David Hume, to the present day. Recent studies are represented in the arguments of Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga amongst many others, and also notable are the contributions of Elizabeth Anscombe, to whose memory the book is dedicated.
The first chapter is called “Concepts of God” and sets the stage for much of the following theistic (as opposed to theist-versus-atheist) disputes by describing two opposing concepts. The more traditional of these is “classical theism”, proposing the concept of God as simple, omnipotent and eternal that is founded upon his being the Creator. The other, which Davies calls “theistic personalism” (pp. 9-15) is a position held by many modern theologians and rejects classical theism for a variety of reasons. Some argue that it is “logically indefensible or in some way incoherent”, but the reason usually given is that the God of classical theism it describes does not conform to their “biblical picture” of God.
Introducing these two approaches in this way is, I think, not entirely fair as the “theistic personalist” position is made to seem less objective in the light of its dependence on Scripture rather than reason. Even Aquinas, in his meticulously logical Summa Theologiae, makes regular appeals to Scripture as the inspirer of his hypotheses.
The next chapter looks at the views of different schools of thought about what constitutes a justified conclusion about God, what a meaningful statement is, and what can be accepted as evidence. Davies concludes this chapter with an interesting discussion on the theory of “belief without evidence”, after quoting on p.37 Alvin Plantinga’s claim that “it is entirely right, rational, reasonable, and proper to believe in God without any evidence or argument at all”. After these arguments and commentaries upon them, the central questions which the philosophy of religion seeks to throw light on are presented in turn, chapter by chapter, in a reasoned progression beginning with a chapter on the cosmological argument for the existence of God and ending, nine chapters later, with a very curious chapter on life after death.
All of the arguments are presented in detail, with attention paid to all important claims and objections so that no pedant might be frustrated by an unturned stone. The confined nature of a short introduction does not allow for the varied affirmation of single ideas, but Davies’ sentences, despite the abstract nature of his subject, are always clear in their meaning. So he sums up Descartes’ ontological argument: “If God is by definition something supremely perfect, and if existence is a perfection, it follows that God exists and that to deny that this is so is to contradict oneself” (p.100).
It seems that part of the work of theistic philosophers is to repel the attacks of atheistic philosophers by rebutting their confident objections to the possibility of God. In doing this Brian Davies, a Roman Catholic priest and a Dominican friar, with all chivalry and fairness in an honest spirit of enquiry, certainly proves his mettle.
The 2004 edition is a second revision of the initial 1982 publication and is used widely by undergraduates. It is the introductory companion to Philosophy of Religion: a Guide and Anthology, compiled by Davies, which includes important essays containing what he refers to in this book as the key arguments.
Over the past thirty years or so, contributions to the philosophy of religion have benefited from the release of renewed energies in the areas of logic, epistemology, and metaphysics which, drawing on Wittgenstein’s insight into the uses of language in particular contexts, caused the demise of logical positivism. Until the positivistic principle of verifiability, which imposed a tyranny of strict empiricism, was shown to be inadequate even for science, the intellectual climate was such that, according to the philosopher Michael Peterson, “it was difficult and even embarrassing for any self-respecting intellectual to take religious claims seriously”.1
This is not to say that the philosophy of religion is a new branch of philosophy, and indeed the greater part of Davies’ book examines the “natural theology” arguments of the patristic authors and the scholastic philosophers, notably Thomas Aquinas and those of a range of thinkers from the eighteenth century, notably David Hume, to the present day. Recent studies are represented in the arguments of Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga amongst many others, and also notable are the contributions of Elizabeth Anscombe, to whose memory the book is dedicated.
The first chapter is called “Concepts of God” and sets the stage for much of the following theistic (as opposed to theist-versus-atheist) disputes by describing two opposing concepts. The more traditional of these is “classical theism”, proposing the concept of God as simple, omnipotent and eternal that is founded upon his being the Creator. The other, which Davies calls “theistic personalism” (pp. 9-15) is a position held by many modern theologians and rejects classical theism for a variety of reasons. Some argue that it is “logically indefensible or in some way incoherent”, but the reason usually given is that the God of classical theism it describes does not conform to their “biblical picture” of God.
Introducing these two approaches in this way is, I think, not entirely fair as the “theistic personalist” position is made to seem less objective in the light of its dependence on Scripture rather than reason. Even Aquinas, in his meticulously logical Summa Theologiae, makes regular appeals to Scripture as the inspirer of his hypotheses.
The next chapter looks at the views of different schools of thought about what constitutes a justified conclusion about God, what a meaningful statement is, and what can be accepted as evidence. Davies concludes this chapter with an interesting discussion on the theory of “belief without evidence”, after quoting on p.37 Alvin Plantinga’s claim that “it is entirely right, rational, reasonable, and proper to believe in God without any evidence or argument at all”. After these arguments and commentaries upon them, the central questions which the philosophy of religion seeks to throw light on are presented in turn, chapter by chapter, in a reasoned progression beginning with a chapter on the cosmological argument for the existence of God and ending, nine chapters later, with a very curious chapter on life after death.
All of the arguments are presented in detail, with attention paid to all important claims and objections so that no pedant might be frustrated by an unturned stone. The confined nature of a short introduction does not allow for the varied affirmation of single ideas, but Davies’ sentences, despite the abstract nature of his subject, are always clear in their meaning. So he sums up Descartes’ ontological argument: “If God is by definition something supremely perfect, and if existence is a perfection, it follows that God exists and that to deny that this is so is to contradict oneself” (p.100).
It seems that part of the work of theistic philosophers is to repel the attacks of atheistic philosophers by rebutting their confident objections to the possibility of God. In doing this Brian Davies, a Roman Catholic priest and a Dominican friar, with all chivalry and fairness in an honest spirit of enquiry, certainly proves his mettle.
January 31, 2022
My wallet was playing fast and loose with this one. I really thought I would like it more than I did. Um these reading really bored me if I am being honest. There were some hidden gems but it’s not something im going to be picking up again.
September 9, 2016
Although I lack comparative works, it’s difficult to conceive of a more well-rounded introduction to the intersection of philosophy and religion than the plethora of essays presented here, encompassing a wide range of perspectives. Quite helpful are the section groupings and introductions provided by the editors as they aid navigation and highlight the differences between positions. The material here (as could only be expected) is predominantly dense and thus requires vigilant attention, but rewards such effort.
July 7, 2014
This is a substantial introduction to the philosophy of religion. I don't see the fifth edition on Goodreads, but that's the one I have. I'm uncertain how to "rate" a book like this since it offers so many different viewpoints. I give it four stars for having a good selection and for not pushing a particular agenda with its selections. It's focused primarily on western thinking about God, although it contains an occasional eastern text, especially Buddhist.
December 6, 2012
Great collection, could have done without Plantinga--for me he takes away from the other collected writings.
January 9, 2025
BYUI: Philosophy of Religion
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews