The Thinker's Guide to God
What are the arguments for the existence of God? If terrible evil and suffering exist in the world, how can a good God exist? Where does God exist in space and time? Is any language adequate for talking about an eternal and immutable deity that transcends human categories of description? What is the relationship between faith and reason? Philosopher of religion Vardy (Heythrop College, University of London) addresses these questions and many others in this compact introduction to key issues in the philosophy of religion. He devotes each of the book's chapters to a particular topic-e.g., miracles and prayer, religious language, life after death-that forms part of the philosophical discussion of God. Using sidebars, tables, illustrations, case studies and drawing on the writings of philosophers from Plato and Aquinas to Leibniz and Kierkegaard, Vardy creates a collage-like survey of ways that philosophers talk about God. For example, in the chapter on the arguments for God's existence, Vardy rehashes in capsule form the major steps in Aquinas's cosmological argument, Anselm's ontological argument and Kant's moral argument, among several others. While Vardy's pastiche covers the highlights of the philosophical discussion of God, other studies such as John Hick's Philosophy of Religion provide the kind of depth necessary to more fully understand the major issues in the philosophy of religion.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.