Synopses & Reviews
Philosophy of Religion: Introductory Essays is a straightforward introduction to the discipline. While many philosophy of religion books are comprised of short, primary readings from selected authors or brief overviews of particular questions, this book offers a significant introductory essay for a variety of key issues. This approach provides a stylistically uniform presentation of the ideas, allowing the reader to consider central concepts without having to struggle with widely divergent styles of historical texts. The first section addresses traditional arguments for the existence of God, including: Experiential argumentsCosmological argumentsTeleological argumentsOntological arguments Nontheistic arguments In addition to addressing standard issues in philosophy of religion, this book also offers complete essays on topics rarely found in other texts. These essays include discussions of each of the following topics as they relate to the philosophy of religion: divine love gender and race issues divine holiness religion and aesthetics the Trinity These novel offerings fill a void, while breaking new ground for introductory philosophy of religion texts.
Table of Contents
Section 1: Arguing the existence of God -- Introduction to section 1 / Brint Montgomery -- Experiential arguments / Terry Fach -- Cosmological arguments -- Brint Montgomery -- Teleological arguments / Lincoln Stevens -- Ontological arguments / Robert J. Thompson -- Atheistic and nontheistic arguments / Anthony Baker -- Section 2: Divine attributes -- Introduction to section 2 / Robert J. Thompson -- Divine love / Thomas Jay Oord -- Divine power / Kevin Timpe -- Divine presence / Bryan P. Stone -- Divine knowledge and relation to time / Amos Yong -- Divine holiness / Michael E. Lodahl -- Divinity in Trinity / Samuel M. Powell -- Section 3: Other issues -- Introduction to Section 3 / Michael E. Lodahl -- Faith and reason / Henry W. Spaulding II -- Theodicy / Thomas Jay Oord -- Religious ethics / T. Scott Daniels -- Religion and aesthetics / Kenton Stiles -- Do race and gender matter? / Christina M. Gschwandtner -- Religious pluralism / Mark Grear Mann -- Immortality and the afterlife / Eric Manchester.