The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (Oxford Handbooks)
Contents:
Please subscribe or login to access full text content. If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code. For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs , and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.
Publications Pages Publications Pages.
Edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea
Search within my subject: Politics Urban Studies U. History Law Linguistics Literature. Music Neuroscience Philosophy Physical Sciences. Flint and Michael C. Rea Abstract The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology attempts both to familiarize readers with the directions in which the scholarship of this discipline has gone and to pursue the discussion into hitherto under-examined areas. Flint Petitionary Prayer Scott A. Berthrong End Matter Index. Sign in to annotate. In my opinion, something closer to a genuine handbook or at least with briefer and simpler articles would have been more useful, especially in connecting these important but somewhat in-group discussions to a wider group of philosophers and theologians.
Second, what is meant by "philosophical theology" in the title? The term made me think of the MacIntyre-Flew classic, New Essays on Philosophical Theology , which had essays defending or attacking belief in God. Then I learned that there was also an Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion , on a somewhat different area. So how does this present volume differ from that one? Maybe I am slow, but I figured this out only after reading much of the book.
I concluded that "philosophical theology" here tends to be theology in that its premises presume a faith stance, usually a Christian one that appeals to the Bible and Christian tradition but of a philosophical slant so it uses philosophical tools and is concerned with foundational questions like "In what sense is the Bible inspired? I wished that the introduction had been clearer on this. Apart from these two reservations, I think that the book is well done, has top-notch articles from important people in the field, and makes a valuable contribution.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael Rea. Oxford Handbooks. Wide-ranging survey of contemporary. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology attempts both to familiarize readers with the directions in which the scholarship of this discipline has gone and.
It also shows how far we have come in analytic philosophy on discussions of religion. Fifty years ago, in the days of logical positivism, belief in God was generally scorned and ignored in analytic circles; belief was seen as irrational, superstitious, and a relic of the past.
Partly because of Alvin Plantinga and others that he inspired, this has changed; theism is now generally regarded as more respectable even among non-believing philosophers.
Among other things, this volume celebrates that change. The book has five parts. I will give a brief sketch sometimes simplifying a bit of the articles in each. Part 1, which has four essays, treats theological preliminaries and emphasizes the sources of Christian theology.
- A Honey of a Story.
- The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology!
- Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology - Oxford Handbooks.
- Philosophical Theology and Christian Doctrines - Research Portal, King's College, London.
- .
In the first essay, Richard Swinburne discusses revelation. While Christians generally regard the Bible as God's word, there are problems in taking all of it literally. For example, one part of the Bible urges the extermination of the Canaanite people, while another part advocates non-violence, and Genesis, if taken literally, clashes with modern science.
Early Christian thinkers like Origen and Augustine were aware of the apparent contradictions and cautioned against an exclusively literal reading; Augustine suggested that we not take a passage literally if it clashes with purity of life or soundness of doctrine. But why take the Bible as God's word at all? Swinburne argues that we can know God's existence from nature and that the Bible fits exceptionally well with how God could be expected to act.
He contrasts this view with that of Plantinga, who argues that Christian beliefs are warranted if they are produced by a process put into us by God in order to lead us to the truth.
- Tools list begins here;
- Universal Vibrations.
- Also Available In:.
- The CIAs Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 UNCLASSIFIED.
Stephen Davis discusses revelation and inspiration. God reveals himself so that humans may develop a personal and loving relationship with him. While God reveals himself in both actions and words, the words are important to clarify the actions. The Bible is a record and interpretation of God's revelation. There are various views about how inspiration works, going from a dictation account God dictates the biblical words to humans to a purely secular account the Bible is a purely human book, like other books, and can give us "inspirational" thoughts.
Davis struggles to develop a more balanced account that recognizes the influence of the Holy Spirit to insure somehow that the words of the inspired writers are appropriate. Del Ratzsch discusses science and religion. We can see the two as entirely unrelated, as in conflict so we must choose between them , or as in dialogue so that they can mutually enlighten each other ; he argues for a version of the last approach. When reading this, I was at first unclear how it fit into "theological preliminaries". Then I realized that how we interpret the Bible depends in part on what we do when it seems to clash with science or with other secular subjects, like history.
William Wainwright urges the importance of mystery in our halting understanding of God and he discusses forms that mystery can take. This essay would perhaps fit better in the next section, especially since Christian thinkers almost uniformly believe that God to a great degree is beyond our understanding. Part 2, containing six essays, is about divine attributes. First, Jeffrey Brower heroically defends the doctrine of God's simplicity. Many Christian thinkers today ignore this as verbal nonsense, as a category error, or as wrongly identifying God a person with properties like goodness.
Brower argues for an interpretation of the doctrine in terms of "truthmakers".
Main page content
Edward Wierenga analyses and defends God's omniscience. The chief problem here is how God can know perspectival truths like "I am feeling chilly now" as said by a specific person at a specific time and future free actions like "I will run later today". William Craig argues that we should not regard God as existing timelessly. This essay was a model of clarity and logical rigor -- and was my favorite essay of the book. Brian Leftow analyses and defends God's omnipotence.
The chief problem he considers that there seem to be things that God cannot do but that we can do -- like hate, or fail at a task, or take a walk. Hud Hudson discusses God's omnipresence, focusing on what it means to say that God is everywhere. Does it imply that God is a spatial, hence material, being?
2009.09.20
Or is the universe God's body? Or maybe God should be seen as a non-spatial being, like a number? Or maybe saying that God is everywhere simply means that he influences every point of space, sustaining it in existence? Laura Garcia explores God's moral perfection, his goodness.
Does this attribute mean that God created the best of all possible worlds, and is there any such thing? Or does it mean that he maximizes good consequences, or fulfills all of his duties, or acts from virtuous intentions?
If we take "good" to mean "what follows God's will" which perhaps we should not do , then is it not vacuous to say that God is "good" since then it only means that he follows his own will? Part 3, made up of seven essays, is about God and creation. First, Robin Collins asks why God would have created us by an indirect evolutionary process that took 14 billion years, depended on random factors, and caused much cruelty to animals.
He argues that this approach best realized different kinds of human connectiveness.
