《宗教哲学经典选读》

There is probably no area in contemporary Western philosophy more exciting and engaging than philosophy of religion. The plethora of books and articles on topics falling within its domain evidences unmistakably the avid interest of philosophers, both those disposed to religious belief as well as those inclined to reject it. This is partly due to the interconnectedness of the topics generally associated with philosophy of religion. Some find a never-ending fascination with trying to weave various initially discordant strands into a coherent meaningful whole, while others, contrariwise, see nothing but loose ends and disconnectedness. For example, some, notably atheists, view the existence of evil as incompatible with one or more of God's attributes. Others argue that the amount of evil in the world makes God's existence strongly improbable. Theists have tried to address the former problem with various consistency strategies and the latter with evidential arguments designed to hold the line for the probability of God's existence. There is also a cluster of troublesome and difficult questions relating to Christian theistic beliefs about God's sovereignty and how it relates to human freedom and responsibility. The questions are indeed multivarious and often perplexing if not daunting; the stakes are as high as any life presents.

But perhaps the chief reason for philosophy of religion's attraction is the fact that considerations having to do with the existence and nature of a Supreme Being raises issues of ultimate concern. No issue surpasses it in terms of importance, ramification and implication. All else one endeavors to affirm in philosophy pivots, and rightly so, on claims made regarding whether such a being exists, and what sort of beliefs properly follow from affirmation or denial of God's existence.

Two basic orientations prevail in the literature in the West, the analytic way of thinking, or as some prefer to call it, Anglo-American philosophy, and Continental philosophy. The latter finds some representation in this collection, but some readers no doubt may think it not enough. The analytic is given greater attention for a number of reasons, only a few of which are only briefly stated here. Scant if any attention is given to arguments for the existence of God by Continental authors. Other topics typically included in Western philosophy of religion texts are also sparsely covered if at all, such as miracles, and other evidential sorts of topics, like the problem of evil.

As for further representative balance, not only are the non-theists given a significant voice, authors from the three mainstream Christian traditions, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox can be found in their respective distinctiveness. A choice is apparent with regard to numbers of authors. Wholeness of an essay has been an important criterion rather than numbers of authors. We've attempted to put together the best of the most recent materials available, some of which appears in book form for the first time.

The topics selected are something of an index to the bulk of the literature: faith and reason, arguments for the existence of God, the problem of evil, the attributes of God, miracles, religion and science, religion and ethics, death, identity, immortality and resurrection, and religious pluralism. Unlike my earlier anthology, Philosophy of Religion, An Anthology of Contemporary Views (also in a Chinese Edition), this new collection includes historical as well as contemporary authors. Philosophy can't be properly grasped apart from its historical context. One regret is that page constraints didn't allow a fuller historical panorama. The topics are briefly described below.