Arguing About Religion

Arguing About Religion is an ideal collection for students interested in contemporary philosophy of religion and related disciplines. This volume brings together primary readings from over 40 of the world’s leading philosophers of religion, covering a broad range of issues. Set alongside these works of academic philosophy are excerpts from controversial popular works by Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, in order to introduce the philosophical issues in a way that demonstrates their relevance to everyday life and sets them in the context of contemporary cultural discourse.
The volume is divided into 6 parts, helping the student get to grips with classic and core arguments. Topics covered include:


methodological issues in philosophy of religion


God’s nature and existence


evil and divine hiddenness


providence and interaction


the afterlife


religion and contemporary life

Featuring lucid general and section introductions and a glossary by volume editor Kevin Timpe, Arguing About Religion is an ideal starting point for students coming to philosophy of religion for the first time.

Kevin Timpe is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego. He is the author of Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives, and the editor of Metaphysics and God. His articles have appeared in Philosophical Studies, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, American Philosophical Quarterly, Faith and Philosophy, and Religious Studies. He also serves as the philosophy of religion editor for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

I. Methodological Issues in Philosophy of Religion


Norman Kretzmann, "The Nature of Natural Theology"


Scott MacDonald, "What is Philosophical Theology?"


Al Plantinga, "The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology"


Richard Swinburne, "Rational Religious Belief"


John Hick, "Religious Pluralism and Salvation"


Keith Ward, "Truth and the Diversity of Religions"


Timothy O’Connor, "Religious Pluralism"


II. God’s Nature and Existence

Peter van Inwagen, "Necessary Existence: The Ontological Argument"


Alexander Pruss "Some Recent Work on the Cosmological Argument"


Wes Morriston, "A Critical Examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument"


Robin Collins, "A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God: The Fine-Tuning Design Argument"


Elliot Sober, "Design Arguments"


Louis Pojman, "A Critique of the Argument from Religious Experience"


C. Stephen Layman, "God and the Moral Order"


III. Evil and Divine Hiddenness

Peter van Inwagen, "The Argument from Evil"


Whitley Kaufman, "Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil"


Richard Swinburne, "Natural Evil and the Possibility of Knowledge"


William Rowe, "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism"


William Alston, "The Inductive Argument from Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition"


Peter van Inwagen, "The Hiddenness of God"


Michael Murray, "Coercion and the Hiddenness of God"


Robert Lovering, "Divine Hiddenness and Inculpable Ignorance"


IV. Providence and Interaction

Derk Pereboom, "Free Will, Evil, and Divine Providence"


William Lane Craig, "The Middle-Knowledge View"


William Hasker, "The Openness of God"


John Sanders, "Why Simple Foreknowledge Offers No More Providential Control than the Openness of God"


David Hunt, "The Providential Advantage of Divine Foreknowledge"


Norman Kretzmann, "Why Would God Create Anything at All?"


Eleonore Stump, "Petitionary Prayer"


Kevin Timpe, "Prayer for the Past"

V. The Afterlife

Kevin Corcoran, "Dualism, Materialism, and the Problem of Postmortem Survival"


Lynne Rudder Baker, "Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection"


Roger Ames, "Death as Transformation in Classical Daoism"


David Lewis, "Divine Evil"


Thomas Talbott, "The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment"


Eleonore Stump, "Dante’s Hell, Aquinas’s Moral Theory and the Love of God"


Sennett, James F. "Is There Freedom in Heaven?"


VI. Religion and Contemporary Life

Daniel Dennett, selection from Breaking the Spell


Richard Dawkins, selection from The God Delusion


Alister McGrath, selection from Dawkins’ God


Phillip Kitcher, "Born-Again Creationism"


Phillip Johnson, "Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism"


Robert Pennock, "Why Creationism Should Not be Taught in the Public Schools"


Alvin Plantinga, "Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal"


Paul Weithman, "Theism, Law, and Politics"