Matheson Russell

Matheson Russell is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. We invited him to answer the question “What is Philosophy of Religion?” as part of our “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series.

Philosophers of religion exhibit their understanding of what it is to do philosophy of religion in what they choose to write about and in the way they write about it. When we survey the philosophy of religion literature, then, what tasks do we find philosophers of religion taking up? What topics and questions do we find them tackling? I think it’s possible to discern four main streams in the contemporary literature. As I shall try to indicate, these four are dialectically interrelated.

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Laura Biron

Laura Biron is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. We invited her to answer the question “What is Philosophy of Religion?” as part of our “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series.

One reason that ‘philosophy of religion’ may turn out to be such an elusive field is that it defies easy classification into any of philosophy’s main sub-disciplines. Understanding some of the classical theistic arguments—based on a priori ontological definitions of ‘God’, cosmological principles or experiential evidence of the teleological purposiveness of the world—makes philosophy of religion quite understandably a species of metaphysics. Indeed, much great work in contemporary philosophy of religion has been carried out within metaphysics and by metaphysicians, and it is often through metaphysics that students first encounter philosophy of religion as a subject.

However, as soon as one probes further into these arguments, questions arise that are best answered by drawing on other sub-disciplines of philosophy. Continue reading →

Nigel Zimmermann

Nigel Zimmermann is Lecturer in Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Australia, and the author of Levinas and Theology (T&T Clark Bloomsbury, 2013). 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 an enticingly nebulous branch of philosophy that invites thought into a shared space with belief. Such a space is of course richly pluralistic, offering complex layers of religious commitment and practice to the imprecise scrutiny of the modern and the postmodern philosopher alike.

However, what seems interesting to me is not the diversity on display which is to be expected, but that for all the fruits of philosophy of religion, it is not the space that changes – indeed agents of religion happily live out their faith without any need to enquire what philosophers might be saying about them – but rather it is the nature of thought that changes because it comes into contact with religion. Continue reading →