Philosophy of Religion

How and why should hope play a key role in a 21st-century democratic politics? This book offers a philosophical exploration of the theme, contending that a modern construction of hope as an emotion is deficient. It revives the medieval understanding of hope as a virtue, reconstructing this in a contemporary philosophical idiom. In this framework, hope is less a spontaneous reaction than it is a choice against despair; a decision to live with confidence and expectation, based on a rational assessment of possibility and a faith in the underlying goodness of life. In cultures shaped by biblical teaching, hope is thought praiseworthy. The book explores the religious origins of the concept of hope in the Hebrew Scriptures, New Testament, rabbinic literature, and Augustine. It traces the roots of both the praise of hope, in Jewish and Christian thought, and the criticism of hope in Greco-Roman thought and in the tradition of philosophical pessimism. Arguing on behalf of a straightened, sober form of hope, it relates hope-as-a-virtue to the tasks of democratic citizenship. Without diminishing the wisdom found in tragedy, a strong argument emerges in favour of hope as a way of taking responsibility for the world. Drawing on insights from scriptural and classical texts, philosophers, and theologians — ancient and modern, the book builds a compelling case for placing hope at the centre of democratic political systems.

The book draws out the critique of Christian nationalism that is implicit throughout the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, an analysis that is inseparable from his wider aim of reintroducing Christianity into Christendom. ‘Christian nationalism’ refers to the set of ideas in which belief in the development and superiority of one's national group is combined with, or underwritten by, Christian theology and practice. The book examines the nationalist theologies of H.L. Martensen and N.F.S. Grundtvig, important cultural leaders and contemporaries of Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard's response to their thought forms the backbone of his own philosophical and theological project, namely his attempt to form authentic Christian individuals through the use of ‘the moment’, ‘the leap’ and ‘contemporaneity’. This Kierkegaardian critique is brought into conversation with current political science theories of religious nationalism, and is expanded to address movements and theologies beyond the historical context of Kierkegaard's Golden Age Denmark. The implications of Kierkegaard's approach are undoubtedly radical and unsettling to politicians and church leaders alike, yet there is much to commend it to the reality of modern religious and social life. As a theological thinker keenly aware of the unique problems posed by Christendom, Kierkegaard's critique is timely for any Christian culture that is tempted to confuse its faith with patriotism or national affiliation.

The cross of Christ has proven to be no less of a “stumbling block” for Christians living in the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, than it was in the 1st century, when the newly established community of friends and followers of Jesus Christ sought to define the foundation of their faith over against the critiques of their Jewish and Greek contemporaries. This book presents a theological reception of the contemporary feminist challenge to classical christology by means of an explicit feminist retrieval and reconstruction of a theology of the cross. This book argues that a feminist theology of the cross serves a dual purpose in feminist christology: it discloses the patriarchal distortion of traditional christology, and can also reveal lost dimensions in the understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Although the book argues that feminist critique is an indispensable element of contemporary christology, it also claims that there is a redemptive message in the cross of Christ that is retrievable for women today. Despite its potential for abuse and indeed its well-documented history of misuse against women in the past, a theology of the cross proclaims Jesus as a divine co-sufferer who brings good news to the poor and oppressed, and as such can be a source of healing and empowerment for suffering women. The constructive task of this book is to show that a theology of the cross can indeed become a theology of hope today, offering women meaning and strength from a God who takes human form and enters redemptively into their situations of suffering.

There has been a recent revival of interest in the just‐war tradition. But can a medieval theory help us answer twenty‐first‐century security concerns? The book explores how just‐war thinking needs to be developed to provide such guidance. Part One examines challenges to just‐war thinking, including those posed by moral scepticism and relativism. It explores the nature and grounds of moral reasoning; the relation between public and private morality; and how just‐war teaching needs to be refashioned to provide practical guidance not just to politicians and generals but to ordinary service people. The complexity and difficulty of moral decision‐making require a new ethical approach—characterized as virtuous consequentialism—that recognizes the importance of both the internal quality and the external effects of agency; and of the moral principles and virtues needed to enact them. Virtuous consequentialism restores to the virtues an importance lost in recent just‐war thinking. Just‐war teaching, so reinforced, is applied in Part Two to address key contemporary security challenges, including the changing nature of war, military pre‐emption and torture, the morality of the Iraq War, and humanitarian intervention. The book concludes that, with the ending of the strategic certainties of the cold war, the need for moral clarity over when, where, and how to start, conduct, and conclude war has never been greater. The just‐war tradition provides not only a robust but also an indispensable guide for addressing the security challenges of the twenty‐first century.

Can those who appreciate the explanatory power of modern science still believe in traditional religious accounts of the nature and purpose of the universe? This book is intended for those who care about that question and are dissatisfied with the rigid dichotomies that dominate the contemporary debate. The extremists won’t be interested – those who assume that science answers all the questions that matter, and those so certain of their religious faith that dialogue with science, philosophy, or other faith traditions seems unnecessary. But far more people today recognize that matters of faith are complex, that doubt is endemic to belief, and that dialogue is indispensable in our day. In eight probing chapters, the authors of The Predicament of Belief consider the most urgent reasons for doubting that religious claims – in particular, those embedded in the Christian tradition – are likely to be true. They develop a version of Christian faith that preserves the tradition’s core insights but also gauges the varying degrees of certainty with which those insights can still be affirmed. Along the way, they address such questions as the ultimate origin of the universe, the existence of innocent suffering, the challenge of religious plurality, and how to understand the extraordinary claim that an ancient teacher rose from the dead. They end with a discussion of what their conclusions imply about the present state and future structure of churches and other communities in which Christian affirmations are made.

How far can religion play a part in the public sphere, or should it be only a private matter? In this book, the author examines this question in the context of today's pluralist societies, where many different beliefs clamour for attention. Should we celebrate diversity, or are matters of truth at stake? In particular, can we maintain our love of freedom, while cutting it off from religious roots? In societies in which there are many conflicting beliefs, the place of religion is a growing political issue. Should all religions be equally welcomed in the public square? Favouring one religion over others may appear to be a failure to treat all citizens equally, yet for citizens in many countries Christian heritage is woven into their way of life. Whether it is the issue of same-sex marriages, the right of French schoolgirls to wear Islamic headscarves, or just the public display of Christmas trees, all societies have to work out a consistent approach to the public influence of religion.

Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel analyzes Hegel's philosophy of religion and develops its significance for ongoing debates about the relation between religion and politics as well as the history of the conceptualization of religion. One of the most vital currents in contemporary Hegel scholarship argues that Hegel radicalizes, rather than reneges upon, Kant's critique of metaphysics. Critics have claimed that this new scholarship cannot account for Hegel's treatment of religion. Addressing an important lacuna in the scholarship, Lewis argues that reading Hegel's philosophy of religion in relation to these non-traditional interpretations of his intellectual project as a whole opens up a dramatically new understanding of Hegel on religion. In relation to the conceptualization of religion, Hegel's complex and multi-faceted account of religion reconciles common contrasts, presenting religion as both personal and social, both emotional and cognitive, both theoretical and practical. In relation to politics, it is public without being theocratic and gives a decisive importance to individual conscience. Attending closely to Hegel's social, political, and intellectual context, the book begins with Hegel's early concerns with a modern civil religion in the tumultuous 1790s. After analyzing Hegel's crucial engagement with post-Kantian idealism, Lewis elaborates Hegel's mature philosophy of religion as presented in his Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The resulting interpretation advances the non-traditionalist reading of Hegel's project as a whole and inspires a promising conception of religion that challenges those that have dominated both public discourse and religious studies scholarship.