TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE -- 5
I. ORIENTATION -- 11
§ 1. Empirical method in philosophy ofireligion -- 11
§ 2. Objections to empirical method by apriorists, logical positivists, and Barthians -- 11
§ 3. The justification of empirical method -- 13
§ 4. Experience: non-scientific and scientific -- 14
§ 5. What is religion ? -- 17
§ 6. Science of religion -- 19
§ 7. Philosophy -- 20
§ 8. Philosophy of religion (and theology) -- 21
§ 9. History of philosophy of religion -- 23
II. RELIGION AS A FACT -- 26
§ 1. Scientific and philosophical investigation of religion -- 26
§ 2. Sciences of religion -- 27
§ 3. History of religion: primitive -- 29
§ 4. History of religion : tribal -- 33
§ 5. History of religion: national (priestly) -- 33
§ 6. History of religion: universal (prophetic) -- 38
§ 7. History of religion: living religions -- 43
§ 8. Psychology of religion : psychology of conversion -- 45
§ 9. Psychology of religion: psychology of mysticism -- 45
§ 10. Psychology of religion: psychology of prayer and worship -- 46
§ 11. Psychology of religion: psychology of individual types -- 47
§ 12. Psychology of religion and the subconscious -- 48
§ 13. Psychology of religion and social psychology -- 48
§ 14. Sociology of religion: religion and social groups and institutions -- 49
§ 15. Sociology of religion: religion and economic forces -- 51
§ 16. Sociology of religion: religion and social reforms -- 51
§ 17. Chief religious beliefs -- 52
III. RELIGIOUS VALUES -- 55
§ 1. Religion as experience of value -- 55
§ 2. Fundamental definitions -- 56
§ 3. A table of values -- 59
§ 4. The uniqueness and the coalescence of the intrinsic values -- 62
§ 5. The uniqueness of religious values -- 64
§ 6. The coalescence of religious values with other values -- 65
§ 7. The relations of ideals to existence -- 65
IV. RELIGION AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM -- 67
§ 1. If religious values were unique and autonomous, religion might be independent of philosophy -- 67
§ 2. Even then it would be a problem for history, psychology, and sociology -- 69
§ 3. Reasons for treating it as philosophical problem -- 69
§ 4. What is the philosophical problem of religion? -- 70
§ 5. What is the method of philosophical interpretation? -- 70
§ 6. What is the criterion of religious truth? -- 74
§ 7. The problem of religious certainty -- 78
§ 8. The central beliefs of religion -- 79
V. CONCEPTIONS OF GOD -- 80
§ 1. Why begin with conceptions of God ? -- 80
§ 2. God as objective source and conserver of values - 81
§ 3. God as personified particular value (polytheism) -- 82
§ 4. God as personified national spirit (henotheism) -- 83
§ 5. God as supreme personal creator (monotheism) -- 83
§ 6. God as the whole of reality (pantheism) - 84
§ 7. God as the unknowable source of all being (agnostic realism) -- 85
§ 8. God as human aspiration for ideal values (humanism) -- 85
§ 9. God as superhuman and supernatural revealer of values (deistic supernaturalism) -- 86
§ 10. God as the system of ideal values (impersonal idealism) -- 87
§ 11. God as the tendency of nature to support or produce values (religious naturalism) -- 89
§ 12. Conceptions of God as revolutionary or evolutionary -- 91
§ 13. An evolutionary conception: God as conscious mind, immanent both in nature and in values (theism) -- 93
VI. WAYS OF KNOWING GOD -- 96
Introductory -- 96
§ 1. Immediate experience of God -- 99
§ 2. Revelation -- 101
§ 3. Faith -- 105
§ 4. A priori principles -- 107
§ 5. Action -- 109
§ 6. Coherence -- 110
§ 7. Knowing as certain or as heuristic -- 113
VII. THE PROBLEM OF BELIEF IN GOD -- 114
§ 1. Why is belief in God a problem ? -- 114
§ 2. How could the problem be solved ? -- 116
§ 3. Is there no God at all ? -- 117
§ 4. Is God one or many ? -- 118
§ 5. Is God human experience only ? -- 120
§ 6. Is God a part of nature ? -- 121
§ 7. Is nature a part of God ? -- 124
§ 8. Is God all that there is ? -- 125
§ 9. Is God wholly other than nature ? -- 127
§ 10. Is God unconscious axiogenesis ? -- 128
§ 11. Is God a person ? -- 129
§ 12. Is God a superperson ? -- 135
§ 13. Religion and theory -- 135
VIII. THE PROBLEM OF GOOD-AND-EVIL -- 137
§ 1. Belief in God raises the problem of good-and-evil -- 137
§ 2. Goods-and-evils as intrinsic and instrumental -- 137
§ 3. Intrinsic goods-and-evils -- 138
§ 4. Instrumental goods-and-evils -- 140
§ 5. The religious problem of good-and-evil -- 141
§ 6. The philosophical problem of good-and-evil -- 142
§ 7. The dialectic of desire 143
§ 8. Current solutions of the problem of evil examined -- 147
§ 9. The trilemma of religion -- 153
IX. THEISTIC ABSOLUTISM AND FINITISM -- 155
§ 1. Summary of possible solutions of the problem of good-and-evil -- 155
§ 2. The issues at stake -- 155
§ 3. Theistic absolutism vs. theistic finitism -- 157
§ 4. Historical sketch of theistic absolutism -- 159
§ 5. Historical sketch of theistic finitism -- 160
§ 6. What theistic absolutists and theistic finitists have in common -- 167
X. Is GOD FINITE? -- 170
§ 1. Argument for theistic absolutism -- 170
§ 2. Argument against theistic absolutism -- 171
§ 3. Argument for theistic finitism -- 174
§ 4. Argument against theistic finitism -- 180
§ 5. Restatement of the hypothesis of a trailer of The Given -- 186
§ 6. Perfection or perfectibility ? -- 188
XI. THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN PERSONALITY -- 190
§ 1. The importance of man for religion -- 190
§ 2. Why not then begin with man ? -- 190
§ 3. What is the problem of personality ? -- 191
§ 4. Definition of personality -- 192
§ 5. The unity and identity of personality -- 196
§ 6. Personality and its environment -- 198
§ 7. The reality of the spiritual life -- 200
§ 8. Personality human and divine : likenesses -- 200
§ 9. Personality human and divine: differences -- 201
XII. THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN PURPOSE -- 205
§ 1. Persons as purposers -- 205
§ 2. Religion as concern about purpose -- 205
§ 3. Teleology and mechanism: problem and definition -- 206
§4. Stages of thought about teleology and mechanism -- 207
§ 5. The validity of mechanism -- 208
§ 6. The limits of mechanism -- 208
§ 7. The evidence for teleology -- 209
§ 8. The problem of freedom -- 210
§ 9. Relations between mechanism and teleology -- 211
§ 10. Purpose and community -- 211
§ 11. Purpose and time -- 212
§ 12. Purpose and eternity -- 212
XIII. THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN IMMORTALITY -- 214
§ 1. Religious belief in immortality -- 214
§ 2. Belief in immortality as extension of experience of purpose -- 214
§ 3. Weak arguments -- 215
§ 4. Crucial argument against immortality: physiological psychology -- 218
§ 5. Crucial argument for immortality: the goodness of God -- 221
§ 6. Immortality and the problem of good-and-evil -- 223
§ 7. Conditional immortality -- 224
§ 8. The religious value of belief in immortality -- 225
XIV. THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE -- 227
§ 1. Religion as experience -- 227
§ 2. The meaning of experience -- 227
§ 3. The meaning of religious experience -- 229
§ 4. Foundations of religious experience -- 229
§ 5. Development of religious experience -- 233
§ 6. The validity of religious experience -- 240
XV. INTERNAL CRITICISMS OF RELIGION -- 240
§ 1. Philosophy of religion as critical interpretation of religion -- 241
§ 2. Internal and external criticism -- 241
§ 3. History of religion as a process of internal criticism -- 242
§ 4. Religious criticism of the present as disloyal to the past -- 243
§ 5. Religious criticism of the present and past as disloyal to the ideal -- 244
§ 6. Religious criticism of the present as disloyal to spiritual growth -- 247
§ 7. Religious criticism of the tendency of religion to extremes -- 248
XVI. EXTERNAL CRITICISM OF RELIGION -- 252
§ 1. The meaning and value of external criticism -- 252
§ 2. Religion as outgrowth of fear -- 253
§ 3. Religion as a rationalization of desire -- 252
§ 4. Religion as a device in the class struggle -- 259
§ 5. Origin as determining meaning and value -- 291
§ 6. Religion as free play of imagination -- 261
§ 7. Religion as inconsistent with science -- 263
§ 8. Religious beliefs as unverifiable -- 265
§ 9. Religion as providing no positive value -- 267
HISTORICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY -- 267
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY -- 271
INDEX . -- 285