Ancient Philosophical Influences
Plato and Aristotle offer contrasting accounts of reality, knowledge and purpose. Plato looks beyond the changing world to eternal Forms; Aristot…
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Philosophy of Religion
Nine themes covering ancient philosophy, mind and body, arguments for God, religious experience, evil, divine attributes and religious language.
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Soul, Mind and Body
Are human beings immaterial souls using bodies, inseparable mind-body unities, or entirely physical organisms? Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and ma…
Open guideArguments from Observation
Cosmological and teleological arguments reason from features of the experienced world to God. Their conclusions are inductive rather than definit…
Open guideArguments from Reason
The ontological argument is unusual because it reasons a priori from the concept of God rather than from observed features of the universe. Ansel…
Open guideReligious Experience
Religious experiences are interpreted as encounters with God or another transcendent reality. Their variety and transformative effects may suppor…
Open guideThe Problem of Evil
Evil challenges belief in a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good. Augustine explains evil through privation and the Fall; John Hi…
Open guideThe Nature and Attributes of God
Classical theism describes God as omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, necessary and eternal. Each attribute appears coherent alone, but diffi…
Open guideReligious Language: Negative, Analogical and Symbolic
If God transcends the world, ordinary words cannot apply in exactly their everyday sense. The via negativa, analogy and symbol each try to speak …
Open guideReligious Language: Twentieth-Century Perspectives
Twentieth-century philosophy asks whether religious utterances state facts, express basic commitments or operate within a form of life. Verificat…
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