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Religion, Reason and Truth: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Religion
Book by McMurrin, Sterling M.
287 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
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August 13, 2016
I love Sterling McMurrin. He collected 11 essays written over several decades on the philosophy of religion with only minor updates to publish this volume. McMurrin's own intellectual journey is summarized in the preface:
"Perhaps I should confess that I am tinged with idealism, singed by positivism, and severely infected with pragmatism; that I am suspicious of existentialism and strongly attracted to realism. I am less a liberal in religion than a renegade, fascinated by theology but distrustful of all theology and theologians, an advocate of rationality who is convinced that reason both purifies and destroys the religious. I am contemptuous of dogmatism and am possessed of an uneasy union of skepticism with what seems to me to be a genuine religious disposition and quite profound religious feeling. In the philosophy of religion I must settle for some kind of naturalistic humanism despite the precious promises and the consolations of the soul that are the gifts of a proper theism."
He evaluates many of the major problems and categories of the intersection of philosophy and religion in a forthright way and with attention paid to the various streams of thought mentioned above. For an interesting, concise introduction to the field as it stood after the midpoint of last century, you could do a lot worse than read this book.
"Perhaps I should confess that I am tinged with idealism, singed by positivism, and severely infected with pragmatism; that I am suspicious of existentialism and strongly attracted to realism. I am less a liberal in religion than a renegade, fascinated by theology but distrustful of all theology and theologians, an advocate of rationality who is convinced that reason both purifies and destroys the religious. I am contemptuous of dogmatism and am possessed of an uneasy union of skepticism with what seems to me to be a genuine religious disposition and quite profound religious feeling. In the philosophy of religion I must settle for some kind of naturalistic humanism despite the precious promises and the consolations of the soul that are the gifts of a proper theism."
He evaluates many of the major problems and categories of the intersection of philosophy and religion in a forthright way and with attention paid to the various streams of thought mentioned above. For an interesting, concise introduction to the field as it stood after the midpoint of last century, you could do a lot worse than read this book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review