Religious Studies articles from December 1994

Religious Studies archives from December 1994

Leaps and circles: Kierkegaard and Newman on faith and reason.
December 1, 1994... Soren Kierkegaard and John Henry Newman, from Lutheran and Roman Catholic traditions respectively, have starkly opposed formulations of the relation between faith and reason. What makes their differences particularly intriguing is that they...

Schleiermacher contra Lindbeck on the status of doctrinal sentences. (George Lindbeck)
December 1, 1994... In The Nature of Doctrine (1984), George Lindbeck advances what he takes to be a new theory of religion in general and of doctrinal sentences in particular. He identifies his approach to the analysis of religion as `cultural--linguistic', and...

Hermeneutics and post-modernism: can we have a radical reader-response theory? (part 1)
December 1, 1994... I As the interest in `literary approaches' to the Bible continues to grow, it is perhaps inevitable that the methodological questions which are currently being debated in literary circles will increasingly find their way into the work...

Calvin, Bernard and the freedom of the will.
December 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION: CALVIN AND BERNARD `Before the first man was created, God in his eternal counsel had determined what he willed to be done with the whole human race. In the hidden counsel of God it was determined that Adam should fall...

Calvin and Bernard on freedom and necessity: a reply to Brummer. (article by Vincent Brummer in this issue, p. 437)
December 1, 1994... In `Calvin, Bernard and the Freedom of the Will' Vincent Brummer argues that there are striking affinities between Bernard of Clairvaux and John Calvin on the freedom of the will. According to Brummer, these similarities are acknowledged by...

Religious pluralism and the divine: another look at John Hick's neo-Kantian proposal.
December 1, 1994... John Hick offers one of the most sophisticated and influential pluralistic philosophies of world religions currently available. It is the purpose of this study to examine the heart of Hick's model -- namely his answer to the problem of...

Wagering belief: examining two objections to Pascal's wager.
December 1, 1994... Pascal's wager has been the subject of protracted philosophical interest since its posthumous appearance over three centuries ago. As Terence Penelhum has noted, many `philosophers feel it is somehow a professional obligation not to accept...

Belief-in revisited: a reply to Williams. (J.N. Williams, Religious Studies, vol. 28, p. 401, 1992)
December 1, 1994... There is a general consensus of opinion about the central features of the notion of `believing-in' and in `Belief-In and Belief in God' J. N. Williams refreshingly rejects a number of the central points of this consensus.(1) It is always...

Contradictions are ontological arguments.
December 1, 1994... I Analytic philosophers who reject the very possibility of ontological arguments, and hence the very possibility of necessary beings, claim that a purely conceptual analysis must be factually sterile. The justifications for this...

Feminism, constructivism and numinous experience.
December 1, 1994... In Europe and America, Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy remains the most widely known attempt to isolate and distil the essentially religious, perennial and immediate quality of the numinous event in which a person encounters a divine...

Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology.
December 1, 1994... William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith. Pp. x + 342. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.) 35-00 [pounds] hb. The central scene of Raphael's School of Athens provides an appropriate cover illustration for this book: Plato pointing upwards to...

Kierkegaard and Modern Continental Philosophy: An Introduction.
December 1, 1994... Michael Weston. Pp. x + 200. (London: Routledge, 1994.) 37-50 [pounds] hb, 11.99 [pounds] pb. Writers and artists know that if you want to express your opposition to a vigilant and suspicious totalitarian regime, you will need to use...

Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication.
December 1, 1994... Roger Poole, (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1993.) Roger Poole's Kierkegaard is one of a large number of new treatments of Kierkegaard that read the Danish writer as an early precursor of `post-modernism'....

Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Ethical.
December 1, 1994... Anthony Rudd. Pp. xi + 184. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.) 25 [pounds] hb. In the conclusion to this book, Anthony Rudd expresses his overall intention as having been `to root out some confusions and to make clearer some of what is...

Religion and Cultural Freedom.
December 1, 1994... E. M. Adams. Pp. 193. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.) $39-95. Although the author describes this book as `a study of the nature and grounds of religion and its function in life and culture' (preface, p. x) it turns out to...

The Model of Love.
December 1, 1994... Vincent Brummer. (Cambridge University Press, 1993.) 32.50[pounds] hb; 10.95[pounds] pb. To propose the model of love as paradigmatic for theology would, at first glance, seem hardly innovatory: that `God is love' comes as no surprise to...

Myth from the Ice Age to Mickey Mouse.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1994... Robert W. Brockway. Pp. x + 187. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.) $16.95. Despite its (rather peculiar) title, this book does not function as a survey of mythology, but rather tries to isolate the nature of mythical...

After All: Religion Without Alienation.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1994... Don Cupitt. Pp. 121. (London: SCM Press, 1994.) 9.95[pounds] pb. Cupitt continues his attempt to propose a new form of religion which can abandon what he sees as the confused and alienating features of the old faith. Here the battle is...

Religion as a Province of Meaning: The Kantian Foundations of Modern Theology.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1994... Adina Davidovich. Pp. xvii + 338. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.) In this closely argued book, Adina Davidovich presents an alternative to what she characterizes as Kant's `official' philosophy of religion. According to this...

The One Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1994... Immanuel Kant. Translated and introduced by Gordon Treash. Pp. 247. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1994.) 11.95[pounds] pb. This is a paperback reprint of one of Kant's most important pre-critical works. The fact that...

The Primacy of Persons and the Language of Culture.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1994... William H. Poteat. (Essays by William H. Poteat, edited by J. M. Nickell and J. W, Stines.) Pp. 343. (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1993.) 44.95[pounds]. This is a wide-ranging collection of essays which, as the...

Aquinas' Five Arguments in the Summa Theologiae 1a 2, 3.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1994... Luber Velecky. Pp. xi + 140. (Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1994. Dfl. 65. In this book, which strikes a perfect balance between detailed argument and passionate vision, Lubor Velecky subverts the received view...

The Life of Irony and the Ethics of Belief.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1994... David Wisdo. Pp. x + 153. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.) $44.50 hb, $14.95 pb. Enquiries concerning the ethics of belief generally focus on the idea that, in W. K. Clifford's formulation, `it is wrong always,...