Philosophy of Religion

Vrefc ace In a way which has not been equally true for years, the philosophy of religion is now both possible and necessary. It is possible because our time has been marked by an astonishing amount of vigorous religious thinking; it is necessary because new challenges to belief are now fully articulate. On the one hand, we can profit by the thinking of Whitehead, Temple, Maritain, Tillich, Niebuhr and many more; on the other hand, we must have an adequate answer to all those who dismiss all theology as meaningless or irrelevant. The purpose of this book is to develop and to expound the essentials of a philosophy which enables men and women of this century to be both intellectually honest and sincerely devout. A ccordingly, I have sought to be continuously aware of both the hope and the danger which have been increasingly evident in our generation. The book arises out of the practical experience of teaching philosophy in several different institutions. In this experience I have learned from students, most of whom are now mature men and women and many of whom, if they read this book, will recognize ideas which have emerged in our common search. The present decision to do the best I can in a comprehensive effort comes, not only after years of teaching, but also after more than two decades of writing for publication. My first published book, now long out of print, written in the summer of 1935, was called The Essence of Spiritual Religion. That work was followed, after four years, by the 1939 Swarthmore Lecture, given and published in England with the title The Trustworthiness of Religious Experience. Later the argument was stated more fully in an American book, now also out of print, called The Knowledge of God. All of these were direct preparations for a philosophy of religion and led naturally toT heL ogic of Belief, published in 1942. This, the best comprehe(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)