The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Edited by THOMAS P. FLINT and MICHAEL C. REA.

Abstract

Like a number of recent publications (another example being Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology, edited by Oliver D. Crisp and Michael C. Rea and also published by Oxford University Press), this handbook explores the increasingly sophisticated and self-confident world of philosophical theology in the Anglo-American or analytic tradition—which even now, however, seems to enjoy relatively little influence outside its own circle of professional philosophers, most though not all of them orthodox (and indeed rather conservative) Christian believers. (This is not to say that some theologians, historical and systematic, have not employed an analytic approach in their work.) The essays in this volume vary (as one expects in any large-scale collective work) in method and purpose—some are surveys of their fields, others defences or developments of particular solutions to problems; some explore fresh avenues of thought, others build on their authors’ or others’ earlier writings. Most of the expected topics are covered (with several chapters devoted to the major issue of the problem of evil), but there are some gaps, notably ethics and ecclesiology (except insofar as the former is considered in relation to God's moral perfection and the latter in the chapter on authority). While many of the essays are excellent and some will no doubt soon be counted among the canonical literature on a theme, particular comments are unnecessary in the context of a brief notice.