Evidence and Religious Belief

✍ Scribed by Kelly James Clark, Raymond J. VanArragon

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 222
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Title Page......Page 2
Contents......Page 3
viii......Page 4
ix......Page 5
x......Page 6
Kelly James Clark; Raymond J. VanArragon - Evidence and Religious Belief......Page 0
Title Pages......Page 7
Notes on Contributors......Page 9
Introduction......Page 10
1 - James Ross - Willing Belief and Rational Faith......Page 22
2 - Linda Zagzebski - Epistemic Self-Trust and the Consensus Gentium Argument......Page 33
3 - Religious Experience and the Question of Whether Belief in God Requires Evidence......Page 50
4 - Chris Tucker - Phenomenal Conservatism and Evidentialism in Religious Epistemology......Page 68
5 - William J. Wainwright - Theistic Proofs, Person Relativity, and the Rationality of Religious Belief......Page 94
6 - E. J. Coffman - Hiddenness, Evidence, and Idolatry......Page 116
7 - Thomas M. Crisp - An Evolutionary Objection to the Argument from Evil......Page 140
9 - Kelly James Clark - Morality and Happiness......Page 162
10 - William Rowe - Divine Perfection and Freedom......Page 183
11 - William Hasker - The Many Gods of Hick and Mavrodes......Page 197
John Hick......Page 216
Index......Page 217
211......Page 219
212......Page 220
213......Page 221
214......Page 222