Does modern physics provide insight into major philosophical questions? Questions such as Is human behavior determined? Do humans have free will? Are humans entirely physical beings? Is time travel to the past possible? Are the past and the future just as real as the present? Is time an illusion? The renowned physicist Carlo Rovelli has written a series of best-selling books that combine accounts of modern physics with reflections on important philosophical issues. Time, Free Will, and the...

Are there any good reasons to regard the Bible as authoritative, as divinely inspired, and/or as a revelation from God? This book provides a thoughtful discussion of the difficulties in establishing that the Bible is a divinely authorized collection of writings. Recent philosophical contributions by Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Abraham, and Edwin Curley receive special attention. Do problematic moral passages in the Bible undermine any attempt to show that it is a revelation...

There are no haunted houses, right? No ghosts. No warlocks. No invisible evil presences. No messages from the dead. And yet the reports keep pouring in. How can a person cope when life is complicated by paranormal events? The stories in this collection explore answers to that question.

This book explores a wide range of philosophical issues in their connection with theism, including views of free will, ethical theories, theories of mind, naturalism, and karma-plus-reincarnation.In this clear and logical guide, C. Stephen Layman takes up eight important philosophical questions about God: Does God exist? Why does God permit evil? Why think God is good? Why is God hidden? What is God’s relationship to ethics? Is divine foreknowledge compatible with ...

Morality and religion: intimately wed, violently opposed, or something else? Discussion of this issue appears in pop culture, the academy, and the media-often generating radically opposed views. At one end of the spectrum are those who think that unless God exists, ethics is unfounded and the moral life is unmotivated. At the other end are those who think that religious belief is unnecessary for-and even a threat to-ethical knowledge and the moral life.This volume provides an acces...

When people encounter an argument for or against God's existence, it often raises more questions than it answers. In Letters to Doubting Thomas, C. Stephen Layman offers a fresh, insightful approach to the issue of God's existence--a way to organize what can seem like a blizzard of claims and concepts--bringing clarity to a debate often mired in confusion. Layman explores the evidence for the existence of God in a series of fictionalized letters between two characters--Zachary, a ...

In this "tour de force of modern nature writing," a passionate naturalist explores what it's really like to be an animal—by living like them ( The Guardian, UK).In Being a Beast, Charles Foster tests the limits of our ability to walk in another's footsteps. He lives alongside badgers for weeks, sleeping in a sett in a Welsh hillside and eating earthworms, learning to sense the landscape through his nose rather than his eyes. He catches fish in his ...

Despite the recent ferocious public debate about belief, the concept most central to the discussion-God-frequently remains vaguely and obscurely described. Are those engaged in these arguments even talking about the same thing? In a wide-ranging response to this confusion, esteemed scholar David Bentley Hart pursues a clarification of how the word God” functions in the world’s great theistic faiths. Ranging broadly across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hind...

On RTÉ's The Meaning of Life, Gay Byrne has spoken with public figures about these questions and many others.

In his praise for Part I of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, the eminent Kierkegaard scholar Eduard Geismar said, "I am of the opinion that nothing of what he has written is to such a degree before the face of God. Anyone who really wants to understand Kierkegaard does well to begin with it." These discourses, composed after Kierkegaard had initially intended to end his public writing career, constitute the first work of his "second authorship."Characterized by Ki...

`My present intention is to clear myself of any suspicion of partiality by presenting the views of the generality of philosophers concerning the nature of the gods.' Cicero's philosophical works are now exciting renewed interest, in part because he provides vital evidence of the views of the (largely lost) Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic age, and partly because of the light he casts on the intellectual life of first century Rome. The Nature of the Gods is a ...

Global Pentecostalism is a twenty-first century phenomenon. Yet in North America, where the movement was born, it has stalled. Courey uncovers the cause of this plateau in the triumphalism that is characteristic of both North American Protestantism and Pentecostalism. Through the identification of parallels between Martin Luther and contemporary Pentecostals, Courey detects in Luther's Theology of the Cross a potent remedy for this tension. Utilising this insight, Courey reflects on other ...