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Author: Hans Van Eyghen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781003281139
Category : PHILOSOPHY
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"This book assesses whether religious epistemology can be expanded to argue for the justification of belief in spirits. It focuses specifically on experiences of spirits, animistic beliefs and belief in possession. Most work in philosophy of religion exclusively deals with the existence of God or the epistemic status of belief in God. Spirit beliefs are often regarded as aberrations, and the falsity of such beliefs is often assumed. This book argues that various beliefs concerning spirits can be regarded as justified when they are rooted in experiences that are not defeated. It argues that spirit-beliefs are not defeated by recent theories put forth by neuroscientists, cognitive scientists or evolutionary biologists. Additional arguments are made that traditional theistic belief is epistemically linked to spirit beliefs and that events can be explained in terms of spirit-activity. The book draws on theistic arguments, phenomenal conservatism, and defenses of religious experiences to argue for the justification of spirit-beliefs. The Epistemology of Spirit Beliefs will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of religion, religious epistemology, ethnography and cognitive neuroscience"--
Author: Hans Van Eyghen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781003281139
Category : PHILOSOPHY
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"This book assesses whether religious epistemology can be expanded to argue for the justification of belief in spirits. It focuses specifically on experiences of spirits, animistic beliefs and belief in possession. Most work in philosophy of religion exclusively deals with the existence of God or the epistemic status of belief in God. Spirit beliefs are often regarded as aberrations, and the falsity of such beliefs is often assumed. This book argues that various beliefs concerning spirits can be regarded as justified when they are rooted in experiences that are not defeated. It argues that spirit-beliefs are not defeated by recent theories put forth by neuroscientists, cognitive scientists or evolutionary biologists. Additional arguments are made that traditional theistic belief is epistemically linked to spirit beliefs and that events can be explained in terms of spirit-activity. The book draws on theistic arguments, phenomenal conservatism, and defenses of religious experiences to argue for the justification of spirit-beliefs. The Epistemology of Spirit Beliefs will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of religion, religious epistemology, ethnography and cognitive neuroscience"--
Author: W. Jay Wood
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830875069
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
In this study of how we know what we know, W. Jay Wood surveys current views of foundationalism, epistemic justification and reliabilism.
Author: John Gordon Stackhouse
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199790647
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
If a serious Christian wants to think seriously about a serious subject, what does he or she do? Grounded in the best of the Christian theological tradition, Need to Know sets out a comprehensive, coherent, and clear model of responsible Christian thinking.
Author: Kelly James Clark
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191619094
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
A fundamental question in philosophy of religion is whether religious belief must be based on evidence in order to be properly held. In recent years two prominent positions on this issue have been staked out: evidentialism, which claims that proper religious belief requires evidence; and Reformed epistemology, which claims that it does not. Evidence and Religious Belief contains eleven chapters by prominent philosophers which push the discussion in new directions. The volume has three parts. The first part explores the demand for evidence: some chapters object to it while others seek to restate it or find space for compromise between Reformed epistemology and evidentialism. The second part explores ways in which beliefs are related to evidence; that is, ways in which the evidence for or against religious belief that is available to a person can depend on that person's background beliefs and other circumstances. The third part contains chapters that discuss actual evidence for and against religious belief. Evidence for belief in God includes the so-called common consent of the human race and the way that such belief makes sense of the moral life; evidence against it includes profound puzzles about divine freedom which suggest that it is impossible for a being to be morally perfect.
Author: Paul K. Moser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521120081
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
Three questions motivate this book's account of evidence for the existence of God. First, if God's existence is hidden, why suppose He exists at all? Second, if God exists, why is He hidden, particularly if God seeks to communicate with people? Third, what are the implications of divine hiddenness for philosophy, theology, and religion's supposed knowledge of God? This book answers these questions on the basis of a new account of evidence and knowledge of divine reality that challenges skepticism about God's existence. The central thesis is that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposively available to humans, that is, available only in a manner suitable to divine purposes in self-revelation. This lesson generates a seismic shift in our understanding of evidence and knowledge of divine reality. The result is a needed reorienting of religious epistemology to accommodate the character and purposes of an authoritative, perfectly loving God.
Author: William P. Alston
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801471257
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335
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Book Description
In Perceiving God, William P. Alston offers a clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience. He argues that the "perception of God"—his term for direct experiential awareness of God—makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God among laypersons and famous mystics, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about God on the basis of mystical experience. Through the perception that God is sustaining one in being, for example, one can justifiably believe that God is indeed sustaining one in being. Alston offers a detailed discussion of our grounds for taking sense perception and other sources of belief—including introspection, memory, and mystical experience—to be reliable and to confer justification. He then uses this epistemic framework to explain how our perceptual beliefs about God can be justified. Alston carefully addresses objections to his chief claims, including problems posed by non-Christian religious traditions. He also examines the way in which mystical perception fits into the larger picture of grounds for religious belief. Suggesting that religious experience, rather than being a purely subjective phenomenon, has real cognitive value, Perceiving God will spark intense debate and will be indispensable reading for those interested in philosophy of religion, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, as well as for theologians.
Author: David L. Wolfe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780877843405
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 104
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Book Description
The Contours of Christian Philosophy series will consist of short introductory-level textbooks in the various fields of philosophy. These books will introduce readers to major problems and alternative ways of dealing with those problems. These books, however, will differ from most in that they will evaluate alternative viewpoints not only with regard to their general strength, but also with regard to their value in the construction of a Christian world and life view. Thus, the books will explore the implications of the various views for Christian theology as well as the implications that Christian convictions might have for the philosophical issues discussed. It is crucial that Christians attain a greater degree of philosophical awareness in order to improve the quality of general scholarship and evangelical theology.
Author: Matthew A. Benton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198798709
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356
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Book Description
Recent decades have seen a fertile period of theorizing within mainstream epistemology which has had a dramatic impact on how epistemology is done. Investigations into contextualist and pragmatic dimensions of knowledge suggest radically new ways of meeting skeptical challenges and of understanding the relation between the epistemological and practical environment. New insights from social epistemology and formal epistemology about defeat, testimony, a priority, probability, and the nature of evidence all have a potentially revolutionary effect on how we understand our epistemological place in the world. Religion is the place where such rethinking can potentially have its deepest impact and importance. Yet there has been surprisingly little infiltration of these new ideas into philosophy of religion and the epistemology of religious belief. Knowledge, Belief, and God incorporates these myriad new developments in mainstream epistemology, and extends these developments to questions and arguments in religious epistemology. The investigations proposed in this volume offer substantial new life, breadth, and sophistication to issues in the philosophy of religion and analytic theology. They pose original questions and shed new light on long-standing issues in religious epistemology; and these developments will in turn generate contributions to epistemology itself, since religious belief provides a vital testing ground for recent epistemological ideas.
Author: R. Douglas Geivett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190225394
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
The theme of the testimony of the Spirit of God is found in various Biblical writings, but it has received inadequate attention in recent theology, Biblical studies, and the philosophy of religion. This book corrects that inadequacy from an interdisciplinary perspective, including theology, Biblical studies, philosophy of religion, ethics, psychology, aesthetics, and apologetics. The book includes previously unpublished work on the topic of the testimony of the Spirit in connection with: its role in Biblical literature, an ontology of the Spirit, conscience and the voice of God, moral knowledge, religious diversity and spiritual testimony, psychology and neuroscience, community and language, art and beauty, desire and gender, apologetics, and the church and discernment. The book includes a General Introduction that identifies some key theological and philosophical topics that bear on the topic of the testimony of the Spirit, and it concludes with a bibliography on the testimony of the Spirit. The book pursues its topics in a manner accessible to a wide range of readers from various disciplines, including college students, educated non-academics, and researchers.
Author: William James Abraham
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019966224X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 657
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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology brings together leading scholars in the fields of theology and epistemology to examine and articulate what can be categorized as appropriate epistemic evaluation in theology. Part one focuses on some of the epistemic concepts that have been traditionally employed in theology such as knowledge of God, revelation and scripture, reason and faith, experience, and tradition. This section also considers concepts that have not received sufficient epistemological attention in theology, such as saints, authority, ecclesial practices, spiritual formation, and discernment. Part two concentrates on epistemic concepts that have received significant attention in contemporary epistemology and can be related to theology such as understanding, wisdom, testimony, virtue, evidence, foundationalism, realism/antirealism, skepticism, and disagreement. Part three offers examples from key figures in the Christian tradition and investigates the relevant epistemological issues and insights in these writers, as well as recognizing the challenges of connecting insights from contemporary epistemology with the subject of theology proper, namely, God. Part four centers on five emerging areas that warrant further epistemological consideration: Liberation Theology, Continental Philosophy, modern Orthodox writers, Feminism, and Pentecostalism. This authoritative collection explores how the various topics, figures, and emerging conversations can be reconceived and addressed in light of recent developments in epistemology. Each chapter provides an analysis of the crucial moves, positions, and debates, while also identifying relevant epistemic considerations. This Handbook fulfils the need for the development of this new conversation that will take its natural place in the intersection of theology and epistemology. It links the fields of theology and epistemology in robust, meaningful, and significant ways.
