Introduction

Introduction The field of philosophy of religion has blossomed in recent decades and is now flourishing internationally with creative, first-rate thinkers – many of whom are thought-leaders in other areas of philosophy as well – utilizing their philosophical expertise to tackle a host of religious topics. The range of those engaged in philosophy of religion is also rather broad and includes such diverse scholars as analytic and continental philosophers, feminists and ethicists, and Eastern and Western thinkers, among others. Given the breadth of the field, a number of topics could have been included in this book, and various approaches could have been taken as well. My goal in writing this book has been to construct a text which includes the major issues typically addressed in philosophy of religion textbooks and covered in philosophy of religion courses, but also to offer some atypical ones which are emerging in the field and quickly becoming notable topics of discussion. I have tried to write in a manner and style which is both accessible and interesting to undergraduate students in philosophy of religion, but which also has merit for graduate students and others interested in the field. I have sought to avoid unnecessary technical jargon as much as possible, and have defined and explained terms and ideas which would be unfamiliar to most undergraduates. Though the traditional “analytic/continental” dichotomy is not as sharply defined today as some would like to think, nevertheless the approach I take here generally follows the method and style of the analytic tradition in that I include positions, formal arguments for those positions, and objections or rebuttals to the arguments (and sometimes rebuttals to the rebuttals), sometimes without considering the history, context, or cultural milieu of the positions. This critical method was not always feasible or beneficial as some topics do not readily lend themselves to analytic style and argument forms.