Part I: The birth of religious naturalism -- Philosophical religious naturalism -- Theological religious naturalism -- Analyzing the issues -- Interlude religious naturalism in literature -- Part II: The rebirth of religious naturalism -- Sources of religious insight -- Current issues in religious naturalism -- Other current religious naturalists -- Conclusion: Living religiously as a naturalist.

Accession Number: ATLA0001712114; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 108-123.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 121-123.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From (...) a philosophical perspective, this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself. The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jrgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a re-reading of "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life," William James's most well known work on ethics. I show that while James defends a naturalistic account of the basis of morality in the essay, he also makes a practical argument for religious faith, one that closely connects the piece to such works as "The Will to Believe" and The Varieties of Religious Experience. After discussing some of the strengths and weaknesses of James's (...) moral theory and metaethical views, I argue that the religious aspect of the essay—which has tended to be either ignored or downplayed by previous interpreters—is of crucial importance for understanding James's ethics, and that his practical argument is valid and worthy of serious consideration. (shrink)

Science and Religious Anthropology explores the convergence of the biological sciences, human sciences, and humanities around a spiritually evocative, naturalistic vision of human life. The disciplinary contributions are at different levels of complexity, from evolution of brains to existential longings, and from embodied sociality to ecosystem habitat. The resulting interpretation of the human condition supports some aspects of traditional theological thinking in the world's religious traditions while seriously challenging other aspects. Wesley Wildman draws out these implications for philosophical (...) and religious anthropology and argues that the modern secular interpretation of humanity is most compatible with a religious form of naturalistic humanism.This book resists the reduction of meaning and value questions while taking scientific theories about human life with full seriousness. It argues for a religious interpretation of human beings as bodily creatures emerging within a natural environment that permits engagement with the valuational potentials of reality. This engagement promotes socially borne spiritual quests to realize and harmonize values in everything human beings do, from the forging of cultures to the crafting of personal convictions. (shrink)

This volume features new essays on the application and role of naturalism in philosophical inquiry. It serves as an important update on current controversies about naturalism. The contributors include leading figures who have written on naturalism and its relevance to a wide range of issues across philosophical subdisciplines. The chapter discuss how naturalism can be properly employed in different philosophical areas such as epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of religion, philosophy of time, (...) philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of memory, cognitive science, ethics, meta-ethics, and normativity. Naturalism and Its Challenges will be of interest to scholars and advance students working in a wide range of philosophical disciplines. (shrink)

Naturalism's Philosophy of the Sacred furthers the tradition of religious naturalism by offering an approach to the sacred through the metaphysical categories of ordinality and ontological parity put forward by twentieth-century American naturalist Justus Buchler. The book's chief argument is that the most effective antidote to religious violence is an aesthetic interpretation of the sacred understood as an order in and of nature.

Religious naturalism and three scientific revolutions: Introduction -- The cosmological revolution -- The evolutionary revolution -- The ecological revolution -- Inwardness and awareness in nature: Introduction -- Inwardness of life and inwardness of mind -- Mind and consciousness in nature -- The range of conscious awareness on earth -- Presumptive rights and conflicts of rights: Introduction -- Rs of the thou of nature -- A scheme of presumptive natural rights -- A fourth R of the thou of nature (...) -- Conflicts of rights -- Hunting and fishing : Introduction -- Hunting -- Fishing -- Responses to the charge of impractical idealism -- Eating and wearing: Introduction -- Using animals for food -- The vegetarian response -- Using animals for apparel and other purposes -- Other areas of responsibility and concern: Introduction -- Experimenting on animals -- Rodeos, circuses, zoos, and aquariums -- Endangered species and despoliations of natural environments -- The human population explosion -- The threat of global climate change -- A new moral and religious consciousness: Introduction -- Empowerment in religion of nature -- Objections and replies -- Principles and prescriptions. (shrink)

This chapter deals with the socially oriented, pragmatically naturalist conception of religious faith John Dewey developed in A Common Faith and elsewhere, as well as Dewey’s influence on later pragmatist and naturalist currents in the philosophy of religion. In particular, Dewey’s distinction between “the religious”, on the one hand, and actual historical religions, on the other, is explained and discussed. According to Dewey--the most important classical pragmatist following James--the religious aspects of experience can be appreciated without metaphysical (...) commitments to anything supernatural. Dewey’s pragmatism thus seeks to emancipate “the religious” from the dogmatism and supernaturalism typical of traditional religious metaphysics. Dewey’s relation to Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, and the role played by metaphysics and the criticism of metaphysics in both, are also examined. (shrink)

A collection of original essays offering a comprehensive history of the emergence of scientific naturalism. Beginning with the naturalists of ancient Greece, and proceeding through the middle ages, the scientific revolution, and into the nineteenth century, the contributors examine past ideas about 'nature' and 'the supernatural'. Ranging over different scientific disciplines and historical periods, they show how past thinkers often relied upon theological ideas and presuppositions in their systematic investigations of the world. In addition to providing material that contributes (...) to a history of 'nature' and naturalism, this collection challenges a number of widely held misconceptions about the history of scientific naturalism. (shrink)

The essence of religion was once widely thought to be a unique form of experience that could not be explained in neurological, psychological, or sociological terms. In recent decades scholars have questioned the privileging of the idea of religious experience in the study of religion, an approach that effectively isolated the study of religion from the social and natural sciences. Religious Experience Reconsidered lays out a framework for research into religious phenomena that reclaims experience as a central (...) concept while bridging the divide between religious studies and the sciences. Ann Taves shifts the focus from "religious experience," conceived as a fixed and stable thing, to an examination of the processes by which people attribute meaning to their experiences. She proposes a new approach that unites the study of religion with fields as diverse as neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to better understand how these processes are incorporated into the broader cultural formations we think of as religious or spiritual. Taves addresses a series of key questions: how can we set up studies without obscuring contestations over meaning and value? What is the relationship between experience and consciousness? How can research into consciousness help us access and interpret the experiences of others? Why do people individually or collectively explain their experiences in religious terms? How can we set up studies that allow us to compare experiences across times and cultures? Religious Experience Reconsidered demonstrates how methods from the sciences can be combined with those from the humanities to advance a naturalistic understanding of the experiences that people deem religious. (shrink)

The project : naturalist, theistic, and religious approaches to natural law -- Neo-Aristotelian naturalist ontology and anthropology and element 3) -- NAVE element 2) Anthropology and 3) the wish for wellbeing and its ingredients -- Element 4) Principles, precepts, and virtues -- Element 5) of NAVE -the method of determination in moral reasoning -- Physicalism is not proven -- Bringing back God and religion -- Select applications : organisational agency and ethics : states, churches, corporations -- Applying natural law (...) to violence : the NAVE and DGE positions -- Global poverty : the moral obligations of persons, organisations, and states to relieve poverty -- Natural law applications : sexuality and marriage -- Concepts of justice, benevolence and agape -- Justice and Satygraha/Agape Caritas : the rationality of unconditional non-violence (Ahisma). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Sacredness of Nature: Response to Six Objections to Religious NaturalismDonald A. Crosby (bio)The poet Mary Oliver speaks as a kind of religious naturalist when she writes in her book of prose and poetry Winter Hours, “I would not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me, the door to the woods is the door to the temple. Under the (...) trees, along the pale slopes of sand, I walk in an ascendent relationship to rapture, and with words, I celebrate the rapture. I see, and dote upon, the manifest.”1 She speaks as a poet and not as a philosopher or religious scholar, but she does so as one who is ardently in touch with the sacredness of nature. Her vocation as a poet is testimony to this constant attunement. Her daily walks in the woods and by the sea are her portals of access to the temple of the natural world. Her every step makes contact with holy ground.Oliver’s poetic vocation shows itself to be in deep sympathy with all of the living and nonliving aspects of nature, and thus with the imminent ecological crisis of our time, when she reflects later in this same book, “The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense of honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves—we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.”2Poet, philosopher, religious scholar, ecologist, and perceptive human being are bound together in Mary Oliver’s alert responses to the sacredness of nature. She captures in both her poetic and prose writing the essential spirit and outlook of religious naturalism. I do not claim that she is a religious naturalist; that would be going beyond what I am capable of knowing. But she certainly sounds like one in many respects throughout the poetry and prose of this book.I want us to keep constantly in mind her spirit and outlook as we ponder the cogency, adequacy, and appeal of religious naturalism as a way of thinking and living religiously, for they are the ultimate tests of that adequacy. I want us to do so by considering objections of various sorts arguing that religious [End Page 24] naturalism fails to be sufficiently religious in the way of satisfying the deepest discernments, needs, hopes, and foundations of authentic religious faith. My plan for this essay is to present what I surmise to be some of the most substantive objections, and to reply to each of them in turn.I do so in defense of the thesis that religious naturalism—at least as I have come to interpret and understand it over many years—is a strong contender for having an honored place among the religions of the world. My personal conception of religious naturalism is of course only one of many, and other religious naturalists might have different kinds of response to at least some of these objections. But my responses indicate the capability of religious naturalism to take such objections seriously into account and to provide plausible answers to them.The objections I want to respond to in this essay are six in number. All of them, as will be seen, assume a kind of panpsychism or the primordiality of some kind of mind or spirit, a view I find unnecessary and tending strongly toward an untenable mind-matter dualism in my defense of religious naturalism. 3 The first one is that nature by itself has no overarching purpose or reason for being. The second is that if mind and spirit are emergent rather than primordial, then they are reducible to blind physical processes, meaning that religion is implausibly reduced to physics. The third objection is that nature is just a mass of meaningless facts, with no objective, dependable values of any kind, including religious values. The fourth objection is that with impersonal nature rather than a personal, loving, God as its focus, religious naturalism lacks essential divine... (shrink)

Scientistic naturalism is an important current in contemporary philosophy, but it offers a skewed and impoverished account of nature, human existence, and the nature of philosophy. I first present and contrast this form of naturalism with two opposing varieties: extended and expansive naturalism. As I show, extended and especially expansive naturalism point toward a conception of philosophy as an “involved,” hermeneutic discipline, which is incompatible with scientistic naturalism. This conception of philosophy is then enriched by (...) taking into account Cottingham’s religious epistemology of involvement and Heidegger’s elaboration of the hermeneutic circle. As it turns out, a genuinely involved approach to philosophy requires, as its starting-point, a hermeneutics of the human predicament. Key aspects of such a hermeneutics are introduced by means of Luther’s existential theology. Finally, six main points of an involved philosophy, taken as a new model of religious understanding, are formulated. (shrink)

Scholars of African moral thought reject the possibility of an African religious ethics by invoking at least three major reasons. The first objection to ‘ethical supernaturalism’ argues that it is part of those aspects of African culture that are ‘anachronistic’ insofar as they are superstitious rather than rational; as such, they should be jettisoned. The second objection points out that ethical supernaturalism is incompatible with the utilitarian approach to religion that typically characterises some African peoples’ orientation to it. The (...) last objection argues that religious ethics by their very nature require the feature (of revelation), which is generally lacking in African religious experiences. The facet of revelation is crucial for a religious ethics since it solves the epistemological problem of knowing the will of God or the content of morality. In this article, I construct a vitality-based African religious moral theory; and, I argue that it can successfully meet these objections. (shrink)

Spirituality at least requires learning, accepting, and adapting to ultimate reality. Although psychedelic experiences are thought to facilitate these aspects of spirituality, those experiences are only related to ultimate reality by way of interpretations. Here I use naturalism to evaluate three interpretations. The first interpretation, which is religious, says psychedelic experiences reveal a world of non-natural spirits. For naturalists, this interpretation is false, and provides no genuine spiritual benefits. The second interpretation involves physicalistic naturalism. Although it has (...) excellent scientific support, it probably cannot account for some important spiritual aspects of psychedelic experiences. The third interpretation involves Platonic naturalism. It has good scientific support, and accounts for all the spiritual aspects of psychedelic experiences. But I end with a word of caution: psychedelic spirituality demands metaphysical pluralism. (shrink)

According to the simulation hypothesis, our universe is almost certainly a simulation created by posthuman programmers. Although the hypothesis has become an object of fascination and debate, little attention has been paid to its implications for religion and naturalism. An often-overlooked aspect of the hypothesis is Nick Bostrom’s suggestion that ‘the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings,’ and so on. This feature of his hypothesis has striking parallels with the cosmogonies of Gnosticism, Mormonism, and Neoplatonism. These parallels (...) demonstrate that the hypothesis raises challenges for naturalists by moving the boundary line between religion and naturalism. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show how two seemingly conflictual aspects of Nietzsche's thought, its naturalism and religiosity, can be interpreted as the coherent expression of a religious form of naturalism. A wide range of texts across Nietzsche's corpus are considered and the perspective developed related to contemporary debates within the philosophy of religion. In particular, Nietzsche's thought is shown to provide rich resources for overcoming the 'reductionism/anti-reductionism' dilemma.

It is widely assumed that theism is superior to metaphysical naturalism in explaining moral phenomena, especially with regard to the practical aspect of morality. In this article, I will firstly clarify what this practical aspect amounts to and present two challenges against metaphysical naturalism, by John Mackie and Richard Joyce. Then, I will critically engage with two main attempts to argue for the superiority of theism over metaphysical naturalism: One of them is the appeal to the existence (...) of afterlife, and the other is Robert Merrihew Adams’ divine command metaethics. I will argue that both are problematic for different reasons. Relying on the main aspects of Adams’ metaethical framework, I will advance my proposal to maintain the practical aspect of morality which lends theism superiority over metaphysical naturalism, and then follow with certain implications of the proposal for theistic metaethics. (shrink)

This volume exposes naturalism’s unnaturalness and defends theism’s naturalness and greater explanatory power to account for wide-ranging phenomena in the world and human experience. A broadening of naturalism to accommodate these features means borrowing heavily from—and thus more closely resembling—a theistic worldview.

Humanism and the Death of God is a critical exploration of secular humanism and its discontents. Through close readings of three exemplary nineteenth-century philosophical naturalists or materialists, who perhaps more than anyone set the stage for our contemporary quandaries when it comes to questions of human nature and moral obligation, Ronald E. Osborn argues that "the death of God" ultimately tends toward the death of liberal understandings of the human as well. Any fully persuasive defense of humanistic values--including the core (...) humanistic concepts of inviolable dignity, rights, and equality attaching to each individual--requires an essentially religious vision of personhood. Osborn shows such a vision is found in an especially dramatic and historically consequential way in the scandalous particularity of the Christian narrative of God becoming a human. He does not attempt to provide logical proofs for the central claims of Christian humanism along the lines some philosophers might demand. Instead, this study demonstrates how philosophical naturalism or materialism, and secular humanisms and anti-humanisms, might be persuasively read from the perspective of a classically orthodox Christian faith. (shrink)

The author’s thesis is that the Platonism which has had most influence on religious thought represents a Plato dimidiatus. “There are important aspects of Plato’s philosophy which have not been and yet could be applied in an important way to religion…”. In philosophy Plato is not only the objective idealist for whom the ideas alone have true existence. He is also the metaphysical realist for whom the sensible is no less objectively real than the intelligible. In religion he is (...) not only the heir of Orphic and Dionysiac enthusiasm, with its transcendental emphasis and its infinite intent. He is also the inheritor of the traditional Greek Olympic and Chthonic gods, with their regard for the natural and the significance of the finite. Aristotle alone preserved this second strand in Plato’s thought. Philo, the founder of Neoplatonism, and his successor Plotinus successively depressed his naturalism in favour of an exaggerated emphasis on the supernatural. It is the second alone which has since passed as Platonism. Even the 13th century discovery of Aristotle was the discovery of a Neoplatonically interpreted Aristotle. (shrink)

This is a terrific tome. Packed with interesting insights and supported with extensive research, this book has tremendous potential to shape certain aspects of Hume studies. In light of such potential, it is not surprising that the earlier hardback edition earned the 2008 Journal of the History of Philosophy History of Philosophy Book Prize. Why is this book so important? Quite simply, this is one of the best contextualist studies of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature ever written. To elaborate (...) a bit, this book provides a unique and fascinating interpretation of the Treatise by relating its structure and content to many of the most influential debates about re- ligion raging at Hume’s time. Even the best of books is not without its flaws, though. After summarizing a representative sample of Russell’s main claims, I will isolate a key weakness of his overall interpretive argument..... Although I am not convinced by the strong version of Russell’s thesis, I want to reiterate that this is one of the best books on Hume I have ever read. Russell’s points about Hume’s religious context are surely important for a complete understanding of the Treatise, even if they do not help to solve the sceptic/naturalist riddle. It is a book that all Hume scholars should read. (shrink)

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity--point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence and (...) continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder. A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence. (shrink)

Within The Varieties of Religious Experience lies the germ of a truly radical idea. It is that religious experience has something important and basic to contribute to the science of psychology. Yet now, a hundred years after the publication of James's monumental work, the mainstream academic fields of psychology are no closer to considering, let alone implementing, this idea than they were in James's day. Why? Surely one aspect of this is the way in which the categories and (...) imagery of our society envisage an otherworldly religion and a naturalistic psychology which are on different planes of existence and cannot communicate with one other. I believe that the Eastern meditation traditions can bridge this divide and that had William James been as familiar with Eastern religions as he was with Christianity, he would have had a great deal more specifically to say about what religion had to offer science. The purpose of this paper is to look again at James's material through the lens of Eastern, particularly Buddhist, thought and meditation. Ideally this will serve not only to provide a new perspective on James's classic work but to show a new direction in which the study of religious experience can impact research in psychology and in the emerging cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Examining James M. Gustafson's views on the relationships between the sciences, theology, and ethics from a scientifically based naturalistic philosophical perspective, I concur with his rejection of separatist and antagonistic interactionist positions and his adherence to a mutually supportive interactionist position with both descriptive and normative features. I next explore three aspects of this interactionism: religious empiricism, the connections between facts and values, and the centering of objective values in the divine. Here I find much accord between Gustafson's theocentrism (...) and a scientifically based naturalistic philosophical account of the relationships between the sciences, theology, and ethics. (shrink)

In this wide ranging work Yandell defends the thesis that religious experience provides evidence for religious belief, in particular for the existence of God. He is thereby led into a wide variety of issues—the epistemology of experiential evidence, claims to the ineffability of religious experience and of God, naturalistic explanations of religious experience and religious belief, the idea that religious experience is “self-authenticating”, and many others. A valuable aspect of the book is that it (...) goes beyond exclusive attention to theistic religious experience to include a consideration of “enlightenment experiences” and other forms of Eastern non-theistic experiences. (shrink)

It is sometimes thought that individual religious faith should be firmly fixed in the traditions of the past. That once it is established in someone's life, it should remain steadfast and unchanging throughout personal, cultural, or any other changes. This book subverts that idea by showing how it is actually ongoing inquiry, examination, and indeed change, requiring similarly ongoing acts of informed and responsible freedom, that will produce a dynamic and meaningful faith. Contending that religious faith should readily (...) encompass deliberate and ongoing acts of personal freedom, the text outlines various ways in which these dual aspects are more ally than enemy. It also demonstrates how the ongoing free choices that are required for genuine faith are not absolute, but are in fact contextualized and conditioned by genetic makeup, environmental conditioning, and present character traits produced in part by a person's past choices. Despite this caveat, personal freedom is presented as genuine and real, with a vitally important role to play in a person's religiosity. The book concludes with some observations of this process in practice in the author's own journey from a Christian theist worldview to that of a religious naturalist. This is a fascinating treatise on the role of personal freedom in religious faith. It will, therefore, be of significant interest to scholars of religion, theology, philosophy of religion and religious naturalism. (shrink)

When people talk about religion, most soon mention the major religious traditions of our times, but then, thinking further, most mention as well the religions of Indigenous peoples and of such vanished civilizations as ancient Greece and Egypt and Persia. That is, we have come to understand that there are-and have been-many different religions; anthropologists estimate the total in the thousands. They also estimate that there have been thousands of human cultures, which is to say that the making of (...) a culture and the making of its religion go together: each religion is embedded in its cultural history. True, certain religions have attempted, and variously succeeded, in crossing cultural boundaries to "convert the heathens," but the invaded cultures usually put their unmistakable stamp on what they import, as evinced by the pulsating percussive Catholic masses sung in Africa. In the end, each of these religions addresses two fundamental human concerns: How Things Are and Which Things Matter. How Things Are is articulated as a Cosmology or Cosmos: How the natural world came to be, how humans came to be, what happens after we die, the origins of evil and tragedy and natural disaster and love. Which Things Matter becomes codified as a Morality or Ethos: the Judaic Ten Commandments, the Christian Sermon on the Mount, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Buddhist Vinaya, the Confucian Five Relations, and the understandings inherent in numerous Indigenous traditions. The role of a religion is to integrate the Cosmology and the Morality, to render the cosmological narrative so rich and compelling that it elicits our allegiance and our commitment to its attendant moral understandings. As a culture evolves, a distinctive Cosmos and Ethos appears in its co-evolving religion. For billions of us, back to the early humans, the stories, ceremonies and art associated with our religions-of-origin have been central to our lives. I stand in awe of these religions. I have no need to take on their contradictions or immiscibility, any more than I would quarrel with the fact that Scottish bagpipe ceremonies coexist with Japanese tea ceremonies. And indeed, the failure of Soviet Marxism to obliterate Russian Orthodoxy, and of Maoism to obliterate Buddhism, Confucianism, or Daoism, and of Christianity to obliterate Indigenous understandings, reminds us that projects designed to overthrow religious traditions face strong headwinds. (shrink)

"This book is essential reading for those interested in the imagination, epistemology, naturalism, and the philosophy of religion." - Charles Taliaferro, Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College, Minnesota The role of imagination in psychology, ethics and aesthetics provides a good analogy for thinking about the imagination in religious belief. in dealing with the inner lives of other human beings, moral values or aesthetic qualities we need to employ the imagination: to suppose, form hypotheses, empathize or imaginatively engage with (...) alien people or worlds in order to understand. Just as we use the imagination to relate to other minds, appreciate beauty and understand goodness, we need imagination to engage with God's action in the world. (shrink)

Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy (...) and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. -/- Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world. (shrink)

Bonifac Badrov, a Neo-Scholastic philosopher, in his “History of Philosophy”, a textbook for students at Franciscan Theology in Sarajevo, defines the scholarly subject of the history of philosophy as a systematic representation of solving philosophical problems in various historic periods and a critical examination of their internal dynamics. Considering this clear and informative, well-structured, balanced and goaloriented text, we should not forget that his “History of Philosophy” was written for very specific type of students, with full awareness that some of (...) these students are encountering philosophy for the first time, and that, complementary to the educational system in theological universities, they are listening to it in parallel with scholastic philosophy. We should also bear in mind the author’s Neo-Scholastic philosophical orientation, and also mention that the religious aspect was not emphasised because the author was merely informing about some philosopher’s position on God and divine. This paper deals with Greek-Roman philosophy, and in accordance with Badrov’s structure it offers a review of the development of Greek-Roman philosophy in three periods with three distinctions: cosmological in Presocratics, emphasising monism, evolutionism, hylozoism, pantheism, anti-intellectualism and finally naturalism, metaphysical in classical antiquity, with an emphasis on subjectivism, relativism, agnosticism, ethics and monotheism, and dualism in all areas, that is metaphysics, and finally, ethical in Hellenistic period. The focus of the paper is Badrov’s critique of philosophers and philosophical systems, while historical data is put aside. For some philosophers, other places in Badrov’s other works are mentioned. (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 56, Issue 4, Page 1027-1038, December 2021.

The Scottish scholar James McCosh was a champion of the Free church, a successful and much-published philosophy professor at Belfast for 16 years, and an energetic and innovative President of Princeton University from 1868 to 1888. The Religious Aspect of Evolution was published in 1888, and this second edition from 1890 took account of A. R. Wallace's latest work, Darwinism. McCosh, who already in Ireland had developed a 'theory of the universe conditioned by Christian revelation' was one of very (...) few clergymen in America who defended evolutionary theory. He impressed upon his students that while there seemed to be great truth in Darwin's theory, the work of the coming age must be to separate that truth from the error springing up around it. This would enable scholars to follow and even embrace science while also retaining their faith in the Bible. (shrink)

This article explores the religious dimensions of Confucianism during the Ly-Tran dynasties (1009-1400 AD) in Vietnam, a period marked by significant sociopolitical and cultural transitions. Initially introduced as a moral and ethical philosophy from China, Confucianism underwent a complex process of localization, blending with indigenous Vietnamese beliefs and practices as well as Buddhism and Taoism. Through historical records, literary works, and ritual practices documented in “The Complete Annals of Đại Việt” and other classical texts, this study delves into how (...) Confucianism not only served as a guiding principle for governance, education, and social norms but also manifested religious aspects that influenced spiritual and religious life in Vietnam. The religious aspects of Confucianism during this era are evident in several key areas. Firstly, the concept of Heaven (Tian) and the Mandate of Heaven played a crucial role in legitimizing royal authority, with rulers and Confucian scholars frequently invoking divine will to justify political actions and social order. This sacralization of monarchy underpinned by Confucian ideals facilitated the integration of Confucianism into Vietnamese spiritual life. Secondly, the incorporation of Confucian rituals and practices, such as the Heaven Worship Ceremony (Tế Giao) and the veneration of Confucius and other sages at the Temple of Literature, highlights the religious dimensions of Confucian practice, emphasizing reverence, filial piety, and the moral obligations of rulers and subjects alike. Moreover, the article discusses how Confucianism interacted with and was influenced by Buddhism and Taoism, leading to a syncretic religious landscape in Vietnam. This interaction is illustrated through the blending of Confucian principles with Buddhist and Taoist ideals, affecting notions of kingship, governance, and the cosmological order. In conclusion, the religious aspect of Confucianism during the Ly-Tran dynasties significantly contributed to the shaping of Vietnamese identity, governance, and cultural heritage. By examining the religious dimensions of Confucianism, this article provides a more nuanced understanding of its role in Vietnamese society, highlighting the complex interplay between philosophy, religion, and politics in historical Vietnam. (shrink)

The widespread confusion of Nature with God and "natural" with holy has far-reaching negative consequences, from misinformation about everyday food and health choices to mistaken justifications of sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies.

English summary: The eleven articles of the present volume are to a large extent based upon papers delivered at a conference about Religion and Conflict, organized by Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Religionsphilosophie (DGR). The book containing these papers, plus a number of additional articles, is divided into two parts, both of which tackle conflicts within one or among different religion(s). Whereas the first part is primarily devoted to major ontological, ethical and anthropological - and thus, in effect, more abstract and general (...) - questions (for instance, questions about the nature, cause(s) and anthropological implications of religious conflicts), the second addresses a number of more specific issues, all of which are focused upon the chief question of how adequately to perceive and/or to solve religious conflicts in the sense described above. Discussed are, among other things, the concept of and the conflict between so-called 'sacred texts' in Christianity, Judaism and Islam; the conflict between naturalism and theology; the purported 'absolutism' of Christian monotheism as a source of interreligious conflict, etc. German text. German description: Die Beitrage des vorliegenden Bandes gehen grosstenteils auf eine Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Religionsphilosophie zuruck. Die erste Halfte ('Grundlagen: Zur Theorie religioser Konflikte') behandelt das Thema in sechs Beitragen aus philosophischer und fundamentaltheologischer Perspektive, und zwar primar mit Blick auf die ontologischen bzw. semantischen, handlungstheoretischen, ethischen, geschichtsphilosophischen, erkenntnistheoretischen und anthropologischen Implikationen religioser Konflikte. Der zweite Teil (Fallanalysen: Zur Wahrnehmung und Bewaltigung von Konflikten in und mit der Religion) bietet funf religionsphilosophische und hermeneutisch-theologische Analysen exemplarischer religioser Konfliktfelder unter der Leitfrage der Konfliktwahrnehmung und -bewaltigung. Diskutiert wird das Problem heiliger Schriften in Judentum, Christentum und Islam; der Konflikt zwischen Theologie und Naturalismus; der Absolutheitsanspruch des christlichen Monotheismus; das religiose Konfliktpotential politischer Umbruche am Beispiel Sudafrika; die dialogorientierte Interaktion als Konfliktbewaltigungsstrategie im Religionsunterricht. (shrink)

Provides an overview of the complex history of the secular tradition of science and its interactions with religions and spiritual traditions.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1913 Edition.

The national hero of the present-day Albania is Skanderbeg’s father, Gjon (Yuvan) Kastrioti. Despite the fact that the Albanians tried to resist the Ottomans expeditions during the reign of Gjon, they were eventually defeated. As a result of this defeat by Sultan Murad II in 1423, Gjon was forced to give his four sons as captives. The youngest of his children was Skanderbeg, who together with three older brothers was given as captive due to the defeat by the Ottomans, had (...) to reside in the palace for many years. During this time, he had the opportunity to obtain a remarkable Ottoman education and to benefit from other privileges provided for them. It is obvious that the facilities provided by the Ottomans as well as the personal abilities and skills he gained in the Ottoman Empire enabled him to achieve successes in various fields. Therefore, he was able to be promoted to important positions within the Ottoman Empire. However, some of his demands were rejected and he became deprived from some of privileges granted to him due to the promises and incentives of the opponents of the Ottomans and some small victories resulting from his father's dominance in the direction of rebellion. During this rebellion against the Ottomans, they have received both material and spiritual aid Western powers as result the warm relations they enjoyed with the Western powers. In addition, these warm relations gave the opportunity to be acquainted with the Western culture. In the course of events, it can easily be said that Skanderbeg became a renowned figure not only in the Eastern culture but also in the Western culture. After his rebellion against the Ottomans, he denounced Islam and returned to his former Christian faith. There have always been controversies about the sect he adopted related to the Christian belief whether became a Catholic or Orthodox Christian. Although he had close ties with the Pope, the greatest enemy of the Ottoman Empire, his rebellions against the Ottomans did not originate from his religion.In this study, we appealed mostly to the daily reports of the priests of the time, primarily in Albanian and Turkish and English as well. In terms of Ottoman and Turkish - Albanian relations, the issue is a very important one and therefore has occasionally been evaluated in view of the historical perspective of religions. (shrink)