Natural Religion

This study offers students of religion and philosophy introductory chapters concerning the concept of natural religion. It holds that we can’t engage in useful discussion about the present concept of religion without a knowledge of the philosophical history that has shaped that concept. This is discussed with reference to the notion of natural religion to illustrate certain aspects of deism and its legacy. Originally published in 1989.

A comparison of the cognitive foundations of religion and science and an argument that religion is cognitively natural and that science is cognitively unnatural.

Driven by the dissatisfaction and turmoil in religion at the time this book was originally published in 1923, the author sets out a belief that all people have an inborn religion and investigates what the future of this religion might be as it changes from age to age. In the short chapters here the author reflects on the current trends in theology at the time and the history of Christianity. This is an early critique of formalised religion and a simple advocacy of natural religion which is a glimpse into the basic philosophy of the early twentieth century.

This book offers a rationale for a new ‘ramified natural theology’ that is in dialogue with both science and historical-critical study of the Bible. Traditionally, knowledge of God has been seen to come from two sources, nature and revelation. However, a rigid separation between these sources cannot be maintained, since what purports to be revelation cannot be accepted without qualification: rational argument is needed to infer both the existence of God from nature and the particular truth claims of the Christian faith from the Bible. Hence the distinction between ‘bare natural theology’ and ‘ramified natural theology.’ The book begins with bare natural theology as background to its main focus on ramified natural theology. Bayesian confirmation theory is utilised to evaluate competing hypotheses in both cases, in a similar manner to that by which competing hypotheses in science can be evaluated on the basis of empirical data. In this way a case is built up for the rationality of a Christian theist worldview. Addressing issues of science, theology and revelation in a new framework, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working in Religion and Science, Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology, and Science and Culture.

Charts the multiple histories of American nature religion and explores the moral and spiritual responses the encounter with nature has provoked throughout American history. Traces the connections between movements and individuals. Includes figures from popular culture such as the Hutchinson Family Singers and Davy Crockett as well as Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir.

Hume's brilliant and dispassionate essay "Of Miracles" has been added in this expanded edition of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, which also includes "Of the Immortality of the Soul," "Of Suicide," and Richard Popkin's illuminating Introduction.

This study offers students of religion and philosophy introductory chapters concerning the concept of natural religion. It holds that we can’t engage in useful discussion about the present concept of religion without a knowledge of the philosophical history that has shaped that concept. This is discussed with reference to the notion of natural religion to illustrate certain aspects of deism and its legacy. Originally published in 1989.

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work written by the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Through dialogue, three fictional characters named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God's existence. While all three agree that a god exists, they differ sharply in opinion on God's nature or attributes and how, or if, humankind can come to knowledge of a deity. In the Dialogues, Hume's characters debate a number of arguments for the existence of God, and arguments whose proponents believe through which we may come to know the nature of God. Such topics debated include the argument from design - for which Hume uses a house - and whether there is more suffering or good in the world (Argument from evil)