Bernie Cantens
Bernie Cantens is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Moravian University. We invited him to answer the question “What is Philosophy of Religion?” as part of our “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series.
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature, existence and reality of the supernatural world; its relation to the natural world; and the issues that arise from this relationship. Philosophy of religion’s method, unlike revealed theology, is solely reliant on empirical and rational approaches, as are modeled in other areas of philosophical studies. I can envision at least two ways to approach the task of clarifying what is philosophy of religion: first, we can describe it through its logical structure; second, we can describe it more organically, meaning the natural way philosophers come to address the subject matter. Let me begin with the logical structure.