Reason and Religion
That being than which a greater cannot be conceived.' This was the way in which the living God of biblical tradition was described by the great Medieval philosophers such as Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas.
Contemporary philosophers find much to question, criticise and reject in the traditional analysis of that description. Some hold that the attributes traditionally ascribed to God - simplicity, necessity, immutability, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, creativity and goodness - are inherently incoherent individually, or mutually inconsistent. Others argue that the divinity described by philosophers cannot be the same as the providential God of revelation.
In Perfect Being Theology Katherin A. Rogers defends the traditional approach, considering contemporary criticisms but concluding that the most adequate account of the nature of God should build upon the foundation laid by the Medieval philosophers.
Written in a lively and accessible style and offering an important historical perspective, this book covers key areas of contention and many of the major ideas and thinkers from all sides of the debate are included.
Can a 'leap' of faith be justified? Ought we not to reject anything for which there is no evidence? C. Stephen Evans distinguishes between a faith which rejects all reason and a faith requiring that reason is self-critical. In this accessible book he addresses this central debate in the philosophy of religion in the light of the key arguments from Kierkegaard, Aquinas and Kant. The text leads the student gently through the traditional topics, such as knowledge of God's existence, the problem of evil, and how someone could know that his or her religion had been based on revelation from God.
How do we prove the existence of God? The second volume in the Reason and Religion series tackles head-on this fundamental question. It examines a cross-section of theistic proofs (ways of proving the existence of God) which have been offered by theologians and thinkers from Anselm to Paley, explaining in clear terms what theistic proofs are and what they try to accomplish. The book goes on to explain the relationship between theistic proofs and religious realism, the cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of God, the position known as foundationalism and the argument from religious experience.
