The significance of religious experience
By: Howard Wettstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 223
ISBN-13: 9780199841363
Subjects: Religion; Philosophy; Experience (Religion)
Description: "Howard Wettstein explores the foundations of religious commitment. His orientation is broadly naturalistic, but not in the mode of reductionism or eliminativism. This collection explores questions of broad religious interest, but does so through a focus on the author's religious tradition, Judaism. Among the issues explored are the nature and role of awe, ritual, doctrine, religious experience; the distinction between belief and faith; problems of evil and suffering with special attention to the Book of Job and to the Akedah, the biblical story of the binding of Isaac; the virtue of forgiveness. One of the book's highlights is its literary (as opposed to philosophical) approach to theology that at the same time makes room for philosophical exploration of religion. Another is Wettstein's rejection of the usual picture that sees religious life as sitting atop a distinctive metaphysical foundation, one that stands in need of epistemological justification"--Book jacket.
Table of contents: title: Man thinks; god laughs; title: Awe and the religious life; title: Terra firma; title: Theological impressionism; title: Against theology; title: The significance of religious experience; title: Against theodicy; title: God's struggles; title: Coming to terms with exile; title: Forgiveness and moral reckoning; title: Ritual; title: Concluding remarks: religion without metaphysics.