CONVENTIONAL AND ULTIMATE TRUTH: A KEY FOR FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGY by Joseph Stephen O'Leary, [Thresholds in Philosophy and Theology], University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2015, pp. xvii + 404, £47.95, pbk (original) (raw)

Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Reviewed by Pablo M. Iturrieta

The Incarnate Word Journal, 2011

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology is a collection of twenty-six essays or articles edited by Thomas Flint, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and Michael Rea, also a professor of philosophy at the same university. In the Introduction to this work, the editors give a definition of what they consider philosophical theology to be: “philosophical theology (as we understand it) is aimed primarily at theoretical understanding of the nature and attributes of God, and God’s relationship to the world and things in the world” (p. 1). With the publication of Alasdair Maclntyre and Anthony Flew’s New Essays in Philosophical Theology in 1955, there was a great revival of interest in the philosophy of religion in general and, in its wake, in philosophical theology in particular, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. The topics presented in the book were like the agenda for subsequent work in philosophy of religion for the next two or three decades, such as the meaningfulness of religious discourse and questions about the rationality of religious belief. This present work, however, covers a new focus of attention apart from those concerning the nature, rationality, and meaningfulness of theistic belief. In the last twenty years, as the editors remark, “a great deal of attention has been devoted recently to philosophical problems arising out of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement; there has been an explosion of work on questions about the nature of divine providence and its implications for human freedom; and a fair bit of recent work has also been done on questions about the metaphysical possibility of the resurrection of the dead” (p. 4). At the same time, the authors note that there is a very small literature on the topic of divine revelation and the inspiration of Scripture, only a handful of works on the topics of prayer, original sin, and the nature of heaven and hell, and virtually nothing on the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist from a philosophical standpoint. The book is divided into five parts covering five general topics: I. Theological Prolegomena II. Divine Attributes III. God and Creation IV. Topics in Christian Philosophical Theology V. Non-Christian Philosophical Theology

Extended abstracts, Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, JPTR, 2023, 25(2)

Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, 2023

Publisher: University of Qom, Editor-in-Chief: Zahra Khazaei Editorial Board: Edward Wierenga (Emiritus Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Rochester University, United States), Vincent Brümmer (Professor, University of Utrecht and Dean of the Theological Faculty, Netherland), Stephen R. Palmquist (Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University), Ahmad Beheshti (Professor, University of Tehran, Iran), Reinhard Hesse (Professor, University of Education Freiburg), Mohsen Javadi (Professor, University of Qom, Iran), Seyed Mostafa Mohaqeq Damad (Professor, Shahid Beheshti University, Iran), Nancey Murphy (Professor, PhD. Philosophy, ThD. Christian theology, Senior Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary, USA), Mohammad Zabihi (Professor, Univerisity of Qom, Iran), Einollah Khademi (Professor, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University, Iran), Zahra Khazaei (Professor, University of Qom, Iran), Hamidreza Ayatollahy (Professor, Allameh Tabatabaii University, Iran), Jafar Shanazari (Associate professor, University of Isfahan, Iran), Robert Kane (Distinguished Professor, University of Texas, USA), Ishtiyaque Haji (Professor, University of Calgary, Canada), Charles Taliaferro (emeritus Distinguished Emiritus Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College, USA), Roger Crisp (Professor of Philosophy, University of Oxford, UK), Henk bakker (Professor of Religion and Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) Journal of Philosophical Theological Research (JPTR) has been indexed in following databases: Scopus | Philosopher's Index | EBSCO | ProQuest | Ovid | PhilPapers | Atla | ISC | Index Copernicus | DOAJ | Ulrich | J-Gate | Advanced Sciences Index (ASI) | ROAD | Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) | DRJI | International Innovative Journal Impact Factor (IIJIF) | Universal Impact Factor | I2OR | General Impact Factor | Cosmos Impact Factor | Scientific World Index Journal (SWIJ) | Academic Resource Index | Google Scholar | WorldCat | Citefactor | ijifactor | Europub | esjindex (Eurasian scientific journal index) | Scientific indexing Services (SIS) | Academic Keys | Ricest | Magiran | SID | Noormags | Civilica. Journal of Philosophical Theological Research is a product of the joint activity of the University of Qom and The Iranian Association for Philosophy of Religion

Review of A Philosophy of the Christian Religion

Studies in Religion, 2020

Nancey Murphy (Fuller Theological Seminary) is a Christian philosopher best known for her "nonreductive physicalist" account of human nature, put forth in numerous publications. In A Philosophy of the Christian Religion, Murphy restates this position, but she does so as part of a much broader project. Here her intention is to offer a text that deals with the traditional questions of "faith and reason." She does this in a way that situates such questions firmly within the Christian tradition (as opposed to a generalized "philosophy of religion" approach) and takes into account the particular developments of late modernity. Murphy provides an expansive and interesting survey of the Western philosophical tradition in the process. The book consists of two parts. Part I, "A Brief History of Reason," surveys various ways that reason has been conceived in ancient, medieval, modern, and late modern contexts. In this section, Murphy sketches the situated and contextual nature of what counts as "reason," even while she argues that "the fact of historical change in knowledge does not entail that there is no knowledge at all" (6). She focuses on issues like early Christian appropriations of Greek thought, Aquinas' synthesis of the Aristotelian and Augustinian traditions, Descartes' epistemological revolution, and post-foundationalist approaches to reason in the twentieth century. One of the unique features of this survey is the way that Murphy highlights how particular metaphysical frameworks condition our understandings of reason. Part II, "Crises in Modern Christianity," explores the intellectual crises presented to the Christian tradition by modernity, as well as the ways that the tradition has succeed or failed at answering these questions. These include challenges like shifting theories of knowledge, the critical study of scripture, religious plurality, the problem of special divine action, the problem of evil and suffering, and various challenges to Christianity from the sciences. Murphy states that "in a sense, the whole of this text is an attempt to provide the best account that can be offered. .. of the rationality of the Western Tradition" (182). Murphy relies heavily on Alasdair MacIntyre's account of "large-scale traditions" of human reasoning. According to her reading of MacIntyre, "Traditions develop by means Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 1-3 ª The Author(s) / Le(s) auteur(s), 2020 Article reuse guidelines/ Directives de réutilisation des articles: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

Towards a Buddhist Theoretical Approach to the Study of Religion

Refutation of essentialist approaches found among Western scholars of religion. Essentialism in Occidental approaches to the study of religion von Harnack, Loisy and Troeltsch: the essence of Christianity. Modern theories concerning the 'essence' of religion Towards a Madhyamaka Historiography. A Nāgārjunan critique of essentialism.. The first leg of the tetralemma: negation of essence The second leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'no-essence' The third leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'there both is and is not an essence' Fourth leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'neither essence nor non-essence' Conventional essentialism relative to ultimate non-essentialism A MahĀyĀnist Methodology for the study of religion Occidental sympathizers: van der Leeuw and Bourdieu Proposal of a Mahayanist metatheory YogĀcĀrin insights into the relationship of religious praxis to non-essentialism The three natures and their implications for the relationship of theory to practice in the Mahāyāna tradition and for religious studies in general. The application of these for our study