Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

In recent years, many analytic philosophers of religion have agreed that much of the challenge of the verifiability and falsifiability theories of meaning has been met, and that while questions remain concerning the meaning and truth of religious language, talk of God may be recognized as intelligible. This concurrence and recent developments in epistemology have initiated a new phase in the analytic approach to the philosophy of religion that focuses on religious knowledge and the search for new accounts of the rationality of religious belief. Many leading analytic philosophers of religion also identify themselves as traditional theists, and this has helped stimulate significant interest in classical theism and the attributes of God. In addition, analytic philosophers of religion have contributed to discussions of religious ethics and even more typically theological subjects, including the Christian doctrines of the trinity and atonement, Biblical interpretation and the search for the historical Jesus. Given the diverse subjects covered and the purposes of this book, it is not possible to provide a comprehensive picture of these developments. I have elected for the most part to focus on questions relating to religious knowledge and the justification of religious belief, which seems to be the most influential development in analytic philosophy of religion during the most recent decades. I will also discuss briefly the attributes of God and the coherence of classical theism.KeywordsReligious BeliefReligious ExperienceAnalytic PhilosophyReligious FaithBasic BeliefThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.