Religion, Revelation & ReasonThis book begins with a general consideration of religious experience and moves to a defense of the Christian revelation as the normative one for all other divine disclosures. This means that increasingly the book moves towards a defense of theistic thought as contrasted with other religious systems. This emphasis on the approach to the understanding of God typical of the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions has meant a preoccupation with issues particularly significant for this way of thinking- the nature of man, the understanding of the creative process, the problem of human survival beyond death, and the mystery of evil. I have, however, brought in the views of other religious systems and offered a critique of their relationship to the theistic position. Wherever thought has moved to the specific content of the Christian disclosure in Jesus Christ, I have stopped short. Philosophy of religion, and theistic philosophy in particular, are only prolegomena to the task of the Christian theologian. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 8 | |
| 16 | |
| 20 | |
The Religious Response To Reality | 25 |
Religion as Moral Behavior or as Rational Speculation | 28 |
Feelingful Awareness and Patterned Presence | 32 |
From Faith to ProofThe Value if Any of the Theistic Arguments | 84 |
Believing and Understanding | 99 |
Scientific Knowledge and Religious UnderstandingCreation and Evolution | 101 |
The Limitations of Scientific Method | 102 |
Nature as a Developing Process of Wholes and the Naturalistic Challenge | 109 |
Evolution and Emergence | 115 |
Absolute Creation and Its Religious Alternatives | 119 |
Continuous Creation Time and Process | 123 |
Imaginative Projection or Cosmic Disclosure | 39 |
The Divine Disclosure As Mediated Immediacy | 49 |
A Priori Awareness and General Revelation | 50 |
Revelation as a Mediated Disclosure | 51 |
The Cognitive Dimension of the Divine DisclosureMyth and Model | 55 |
Religious Diversity and Revelation Claims | 64 |
The Issue of Finality | 68 |
The Primacy of the Religious Response to the Universe | 73 |
The Place of ReasonFaith Proof and Understanding | 77 |
Theism and the JudaeaChristian Understanding of God | 79 |
ManHis Nature and Destiny | 129 |
The BodyMind Problem and Human SelfTranscendence | 131 |
Man as a Moral BeingFreedom and Determinism | 143 |
The Issue of Human Survival Beyond DeathImmortality or Resurrection? | 152 |
Theisms Most Crucial ChallengeThe Mystery of Evil | 163 |
Moral and Natural Evil | 164 |
Metaphysical Issues and Solutions | 167 |
Panentheism and Radical Monotheism Face the Challenge | 173 |
| 183 | |
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Common terms and phrases
A. N. Whitehead absolute presupposition activity analogy approach to reality argument aspect B. F. Skinner become behavior believe brain C. D. Broad Christian claim classical theism collective unconscious concerned contingent cosmological cosmological argument created creation creative creatures deism deity depths Descartes describe dimension divine disclosure divine Presence dualism emphasis energy environment existence express faith feeling final finite finitude freedom God's Hinduism Holy human experience human personality idea immanence immediate awareness inner Kant knowledge Leibnitz logical man's manifest meaning mental mind monads moral evil mystery mystical myths naturalistic objective ontological ontological argument organic panentheism panentheistic pantheism pattern philosophical physical rational regard religion religious consciousness religious experience religious response revelation Schleiermacher scientific seek self-awareness self-consciousness self-disclosure sense experience significant spirit structure suggests survival symbolic teleological argument theism theistic thinkers thinking thought Tillich ultimate reality unconscious understanding universe validity values whole


