World Views and Perceiving God

The essays in this volume were originally published in a broad range of journals and books in philosophy and religion. They appear here as originally published except for minor changes (primarily to achieve a consistent gender-neutral language in the earliest essays). Because the essays were initially meant to stand independently, and since they develop interconnected ideas, this leaves an occasional overlap "This collection of essays presents a systematic analysis of some of the foremost issues in the philosophy of religion. The focus is on the epistemology of religion, the most significant area of recent interest in the field. After developing a religious epistemology in the first half of the book, that epistemology is both further expanded, and explicitly applied to salient issues in the contemporary discussion." "The central question throughout the essays is how our world-views affect our perception, especially our perception of God. The first essays set out a general epistemology of perception. The next two sets of essays build upon this in assessing the cognitive value of religious experience, and analyzing the proper epistemic foundations for belief in God. Then, in view of the role of faith developed in those essays, the final essays address the dual challenges to traditional theism of theological non-realism and of religious pluralism."--BOOK JACKET Front Matter....Pages i-xxiii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 The Propositional Structure of Perception....Pages 3-22 The Radical Conceptualization of Perceptual Experience....Pages 23-44 Front Matter....Pages 45-45 Visions, Pictures and Rules....Pages 47-66 Conceptual Relativism and Religious Experience....Pages 67-93 Front Matter....Pages 95-95 Kant on Reason and Justified Belief in God....Pages 97-114 World-Views and the Epistemic Foundations of Theism....Pages 115-141 Front Matter....Pages 143-143 Realism, Non-Realism and Atheism: Why Believe in an Objectively Real God?....Pages 145-170 Ethics and the Challenge of Theological Non-Realism....Pages 171-190 Front Matter....Pages 191-191 God, Commitment, and Other Faiths: Pluralism vs Relativism....Pages 193-218 Perceiving God, World-Views and Faith: Meeting the Problem of Religious Pluralism....Pages 219-239 Back Matter....Pages 240-244 This collection of essays presents a systematic analysis of some of the foremost issues in the philosophy of religion. The focus is on the epistemology of religion, the most significant area of recent interest in the field. Joseph Runzo is the author of "Reason, Relativism and God".