Essays On A Polytheistic Philosophy Of Religion

These essays lay the groundwork for a practice of philosophical inquiry adequate to polytheistic or "Pagan" religious traditions, including in particular the non-reductive hermeneutics of myth and the theory of the polycentric divine manifold. Includes the previously published articles "The Theological Interpretation of Myth", "Offering to the Gods: A Neoplatonic Perspective", "Polycentric Polytheism and the Philosophy of Religion", as well as the previously unpublished "Neoplatonism and Polytheism" and "A Theological Exegesis of the Iliad, Book One".

The essays in this book provide the principal theoretical foundation for the 'henadological' approach to theology in the polytheistic philosophy of religion. Previously published articles by author, gathered into one volume "without comment or elaboration". Also includes two previously unpublished works from 2010 and 2012.

Theology, the discipline that analyzes, examines, and seeks to explain religious ideas, is a vibrant area of inquiry. Scholars and philosophers have produced countless works of theology over the past several thousand years.In the West, however, virtually all theology concerns monotheistic faith systems. Polytheism escapes the notice of most scholars, and those who do address it rarely write books intended for a general, non-academic audience. Polytheology must become its own active discipline if modern Pagan practice is to deepen and grow. Monotheistic assumptions so pervade our culture that even those few people born into polytheist religions (or those who grew up with no religion at all) cannot help but be influenced by them. Polytheology raises questions that cannot be adequately addressed by answers originally developed in a monotheistic context. Because polytheism is inherently open to variation, the goal of polytheology is not to arrive at a single truth so much as to elucidate the possibilities, to honor and embrace differences, to explore the nature of the Gods and their relationship to humanity. These philosophical ideas provide a greater understanding of the Cosmos, Gods and humanity, and topics such as morality, mortality, and myth. This volume -- with contributions from Edward P. Butler, Patrick Dunn, John Michael Greer, Brandon Hensley, Wayne Keysor, and Gwendolyn Reece -- is, we hope, a useful addition to this young but growing field.

This book contains programmatic essays that focus on broad-ranging proposals for re-envisioning a discipline of comparative philosophy of religions. It also contains a number of case studies focussing on the interpretation of particular religio-historical data from comparatively oriented philosophical perspectives.

An important collection of essays from a range of philosophers from different backgrounds, focusing on the growing importance of the philosophy of religion in providing a 'multi-perspective' approach to the subject area.

Traditional theistic proofs are often understood as evidence intended to compel belief in a divinity. John Clayton explores the surprisingly varied applications of such proofs in the work of philosophers and theologians from several periods and traditions, thinkers as varied as Ramanuja, al-Ghazali, Anselm, and Jefferson. He shows how the gradual disembedding of theistic proofs from their diverse and local religious contexts is concurrent with the development of natural theologies and atheism as social and intellectual options in early modern Europe and America. Clayton offers a fresh reading of the early modern history of philosophy and theology, arguing that awareness of such history, and the local uses of theistic argument, offer important ways of managing religious and cultural difference in the public sphere. He argues for the importance of historically grounded philosophy of religion to the field of religious studies and public debate on religious pluralism and cultural diversity.

First Published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.