General Introduction 1

I The Philosophical Treatment of Religion 3

Introduction 5

1 The Nature of the Gods, Book 1 7
Cicero

II Classical Arguments for Theism 19

Introduction 21

A Teleological Arguments 23

1 The Design Argument 25
Cicero

2 The Fifth Way 27
Thomas Aquinas

3 The Watch and the Watchmaker 28
William Paley

4 Critique of the Design Argument 31
David Hume

5 The Teleological Argument 39
Robin Collins

6 The Argument from the Appearance of Design 51
J. J. C. Smart

B Cosmological Arguments 55

1 Plato’s Cosmological Argument 57
Plato

2 The Eternality of Motion and the Unmoved Mover 62
Aristotle

3 The Kalam Cosmological Argument 66
Al-GhazAli

4 The Existence and Oneness of God 68
Moses Maimonides

5 The First Three Ways 71
Thomas Aquinas

6 The Argument from Dependent Beings 73
Samuel Clarke

7 Critique of the Cosmological Argument 76
David Hume

C Ontological Arguments 79

1 Anselm’s Ontological Argument 81
Anselm

2 Descartes’s Ontological Argument 84
René Descartes

3 Kant’s Critique of the Three Traditional Proofs 90
Immanuel Kant

4 The Ontological Argument 98
Alvin Plantinga

III Other Approaches to Religious Belief 113

Introduction 115

A Experience and Revelation as Grounds for Religious Belief 117

1 The Numinous 119
Rudolf Otto

2 Mysticism and Religious Experience 123
William J. Wainwright

3 The Existence of God and the Existence of Homer: Rethinking Theism and Revelatory Claims 137
Sandra Menssen and Thomas D. Sullivan

B Fideism 151

1 Truth is Subjectivity 153
Søren Kierkegaard

2 Kierkegaard’s Arguments against Objective Reasoning in Religion 157
Robert M. Adams

3 Lectures on Religious Belief 168
Ludwig Wittgenstein

C Naturalistic Re-interpretations of Religious Belief 175

1 Origin of Religion 177
David Hume

2 The Essence of Religion in General 183
Ludwig Feuerbach

3 The Future of an Illusion 187
Sigmund Freud

IV Who or What is God? 191

Introduction 193

1 On Being 195
Melissus of Samos

2 The Final Cause 198
Aristotle

3 The Divine Darkness 201
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

4 Perfect Being 206
Anselm

5 On the Trinity 210
Richard of St Victor

6 Omnipotence 213
Peter Geach

7 Omniscience and Immutability 223
Norman Kretzmann

8 Atemporal Personhood 231
William L. Craig

V Fate, Freedom, and Foreknowledge 237

Introduction 239

1 The Sea Battle Argument 241
Aristotle

2 On Fate and On Divination 244
Cicero

3 God’s Timeless Knowing 246
Boethius

4 Ockham on God’s Foreknowledge, and Future Contingents 251
Marilyn Adams

5 Middle Knowledge 260
William Hasker

VI Religion and Morality 265

Introduction 267

A Is Religion Needed for Morality? 269

1 God is the Measure of All Things 271
Plato

2 The Moral Argument for the Existence of God 272
Immanuel Kant

B Divine Command Theory and Divine Motivation Theory 277

1 The Euthyphro Dilemma 279
Plato

2 Questions on the Books of the Sentences 283
Pierre d’Ailly

3 Lectures on Romans 286
Martin Luther

4 Divine Commands 288
Robert M. Adams

5 The Virtues of God and the Foundations of Ethics 299
Linda Zagzebski

C Natural Law 311

1 Selections from Treatise on Law 313
Thomas Aquinas

VII The Problem of Evil 319

Introduction 321

1 God is Not the Author of Evil 323
Plato

2 On the Anger of God 325
Lactantius

3 That Which Is, Is Good 327
Augustine

4 On the Free Choice of the Will 329
Augustine

5 Formal Summary of the Theodicy 332
Gottfried Leibniz

6 Myth of the Goddess Pallas 339
Gottfried Leibniz

7 Evil and Omnipotence 342
J. L. Mackie

8 The Free Will Defense 350
Alvin Plantinga

9 Soul-making Theodicy 369
John Hick

10 Friendly Atheism, Skeptical Theism, and the Problem of Evil 380
William L. Rowe

11 Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God 389
Marilyn Adams

VIII Death and Immortality 399

Introduction 401

A Is Death Bad? 403

1 Death is Nothing to Us 405
Epicurus

2 Death 407
Thomas Nagel

B Life after Death 413

1 The Separation of the Soul from the Body 415
Plato

2 The Future Life 417
Averroes (Ibn Rushd)

3 The Possibility of Immortality 420
René Descartes

4 Personal Identity and Consciousness 422
John Locke

5 Do We Survive Death? 427
Bertrand Russell

6 Religious and Near-death Experience in Relation to Belief in a Future Life 430
Paul Badham

IX The Diversity of Religions 441

Introduction 443

1 Religious Pluralism and Salvation 445
John Hick

2 The Bodhgaya Interview (1981) 455
The Dalai Lama

3 Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions 459
Karl Rahner

4 Self-trust and the Diversity of Religions 465
Linda Zagzebski

X Faith, Reason, and the Ethics of Belief 475

Introduction 477

A Faith and Reason 479

1 How Justin Found Philosophy 481
Justin Martyr

2 Prescriptions against the Heretics 487
Tertullian

3 In What Respect Philosophy Contributes to the Comprehension of Divine Truth 490
Clement of Alexandria

4 The Decisive Treatise, Determining the Nature of the Connection between Religion and Philosophy 492
Averroes (Ibn Rushd)

5 Faith and Reason 496
Thomas Aquinas

6 Belief in God is Natural 501
John Calvin

7 Faith, Reason, and Enthusiasm 504
John Locke

8 Return to Reason: The Irrationality of Evidentialism 515
Kelly James Clark

B Pragmatism and the Ethics of Belief 533

1 The Wager 535
Blaise Pascal

2 Pascalian Wagering 538
Thomas V. Morris

3 The Ethics of Belief 544
W. K. Clifford

4 The Will to Believe 549
William James

XI Science, Religion, and Naturalism 559

Introduction 561

A Miracles 563

1 Miracles 565
Thomas Aquinas

2 A Discourse of Miracles 567
John Locke

3 Of Miracles 572
David Hume

4 David Hume and the Probability of Miracles 583
George I. Mavrodes

B Science, Religion, and Naturalism 595

1 Letter to Castelli 597
Galileo Galilei

2 Signs of Intelligence 602
William A. Dembski

3 Atheism and Evolution 614
Daniel C. Dennett

4 Darwin, Design, and Divine Providence 624
John F. Haught

5 How Naturalism Implies Skepticism 636
Alvin Plantinga

6 A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand: Plantinga on the Self-defeat of Evolutionary Naturalism 648
Timothy O’Connor