Faith and Reason

Paul Helm, ed. (Oxford University Press: Mar 25, 1999) 432 pages.

The philosophy of religion is an intrinsic part of the richness of Western philosophy. Faith and Reason displays in historical perspective some of the rich dialogue between religion and philosophy over two millennia, beginning with Greek reflections about God and the gods and ending with twentieth-century debate about faith in a world that tends to reserve its reverence for science. Paul Helm uses as a case study the question of whether the world is eternal or whether it was created out of nothing, following this theme from Plato through medieval thought to modern scientific speculation about the beginnings of the universe. This Oxford Reader also includes discussion of many other fundamental issues raised by the juxtaposition of faith and reason, including arguments for and against the existence of God, the relationship between religion and ethics, the contrast between reason and revelation as sources of knowledge, and the implications of religious belief for freedom of the will. ~ Product Description

- Introduction 3
I The Classical Background
- 1 The Form of the Good 18
- 2 Creation 20
- 3 The Existence of the Gods 22
- 4 The Everlastingness of Motion 24
- 5 The Unmoved Mover 27
- 6 Divine Thought 30
- 7 Creation and Providence 31
- 8 The Innate Idea of the Gods 33
- 9 The Existence of the Gods 35
- 10 Concerning God 38
- 11 Death is Nothing to Us 40
- 12 The One 43
II The Interaction of Judaeo-Christianity and the Classical World
- 13 The Bible: Selections 50
- 14 On the Creation 52
- 15 True Philosophy 54
- 16 Philosophy and the Comprehension of Divine Truth 56
- 17 Christianity and Plato 58
- 18 Revelation before Human Reason 61
- 19 Is the World Eternal? 64
- 20 Faith and Reason 65
- 21 Plato and Christianity 69
- 22 The Creation 71
- 23 The Perfection of Happiness 73
- 24 Knowing God 76
- 25 Creation out of Nothing 78
- 26 Philosophy, Scripture, and Reason 83
III The Medieval Period
- 27 The Ontological Argument 88
- 28 Divine Omnipotence 90
- 29 Language and Creation 92
- 30 How Creatures Manifest God 98
- 31 Theology and Science 100
- 32 Whether there is a God 101
- 33 Faith and Reason 106
- 34 The Inner Act of Faith 112
- 35 The Beginning 115
- 36 A Kalam Cosmological Argument 118
- 37 The Journey of the Mind to God 122
- 38 Proofs for God 124
- 39 Can it be Proved that there is Only One God? 130
- 40 On his own Ignorance 131
IV Renaissance and Reformation
- 41 The Freedom of the Will 137
- 42 The Bondage of the Will 138
- 43 Faith in the Justice of God 141
- 44 The Sensus Divinitatis 143
- 45 The Testimony of the Spirit 146
- 46 True Religion 148
- 47 Science and the Interpretation of the Bible 151
- 48 Faith and Reason 156
- 49 Of Religion 159
- 50 Christianity Conceived Only by Faith 161
- 51 The Light of Nature 163
- 52 The Reason of Faith 166
- 53 Reason and Religion 169
V The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
- 54 The Existence of God 175
- 55 Reason and Scripture 179
- 56 Faith beyond Reason 182
- 57 The Provinces of Faith and Reason 185
- 58 The Argument from Design 189
- 59 Analogies and Disanalogies 192
- 60 Probability the Guide to Life 194
- 61 Logic and Reason in Faith and Science 197
- 62 Denying Knowledge to Make Room for Faith 201
- 63 Faith as Feeling 204
- 64 Faith is More than Feeling 207
- 65 The Conformity of Faith with Reason 211
- 66 Reason, God, and Duty 215
- 67 Reason No Substitute for Revelation 219
VI The Nineteenth Century
- 68 God as a Projection 226
- 69 Religion as Opium: Man Makes Religion Bèurgerkrieg in Frankreich. English229
- 70 The Absolute Paradox 230 71
- Religion as Wish-Fulfilment 232
- 72 Religion as a Social Construction 235
- 73 The Ethics of Belief 238
- 74 The Will to Believe 240
- 75 Reason, Conviction, Indifference 244
- 76 The Limits of Religious Thought 246
- 77 The Infinite Goodness of God 249
- 78 Reason and Revealed Religion 251
- 79 Nature and Purpose 254
- 80 Darwin and Design 256
VII The Twentieth Century: I. Faith and Hard Science
- 81 Doomed Rivals 262
- 82 Evolution and True Belief 264
- 83 Genesis and Evolution 267
- 84 Fine Tuning 273
- 85 A Self-Contained Universe 277
- 86 The Beginning of the Universe 280
- 87 Creation and Cosmology 283
- 88 Theism, Spirituality, and Science 285
- 89 Theism and Science 289
VIII The Twentieth Century: II. Faith, Realism, and Pluralism
- 90 The Meaninglessness of Theological Statements 296
- 91 Theology and Falsification 297
- 92 The Meaningfulness of Theological Language 299
- 93 Anti-Realist Faith 301
- 94 Against Anti-Realist Faith 303
- 95 Atheism and Religious Practice 306
- 96 Faith, Scepticism, and Religious Understanding 310
- 97 Taking the Curse off Language-Games 313
- 98 Is Understanding Religion Compatible with Believing? 315
- 99 Understanding a Primitive Society 317
- 100 Revelation 320
- 101 Reason and Revelation 323
- 102 Revelation 325
- 103 The Pluralistic Hypothesis 327
- 104 Epistemic Objections to Exclusivism 329
IX The Twentieth Century: III. Reason and Belief in God
- 105 The Presumption of Atheism 336
- 106 The Agnostic's Dilemma 338
- 107 The World and its Order 342
- 108 Is Belief in God Properly Basic? 346
- 109 Sin and Reason 355
- 110 The Irrelevance of Proof to Religion 357
- 111 Faith and Criticism 362
- 112 Experience in Religious Belief 366
- 113 Clifford's Principle 370
- 114 The Voluntariness of Faith 373
- 115 Faith and Merit 375
- 116 The Sin of Unbelief 378
- Select Bibliography 383
- Biographical Notes 390
- Source Acknowledgements 401
- Index

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