General Philosophy of Religion / Theology

Abe, Masao. Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Edited by Timothy McDermott. Christian Classics Inc., 2000.

Augustine of Hippo, City of God. Edited by Betty Radice. translated by Henry Bettenson. Penguin, 1972.

Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity. Translated by Edmund Hill. New City Press, 1991.

Bartholomew, D. God of Chance. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1984.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.

Bowker, John. Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970.

Bowker, John. The Sense of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Buber, Martin. I and Thou. New York: Scribner, 1974.
One of the most influential philosophy books of the 20th C. argues for two types of relationship: I-It and I-Thou. There is an Ultimate Thou implicit in all our other relationships.

Burkert, Walter. Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Cenkner, William. ed. Evil and the Response of World Religion. St. Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House, 1997.

Clark, David K., Norman L. Geisler. Apologetics in the New Age: A Christian Critique of Pantheism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990.

Clark, Kelly James. Our Knowledge of God. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992.
Essays on various aspects of the deity, including eternity, impossibility, benevolence, etc.

Clayton, Philip. Explanation from Physics to Theology: An Essay in Rationality and Religion. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989.

Cobb, John, B., Jr. A Christian Natural Theology: Based on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965.
A reliable account of Whiteheadian philosophical theology.

Cobb, John, B., Jr. Beyond Dialogue: Toward a Mutual Transformation of Buddhism and Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.
The author shows how two religious traditions that are radically different are not necessarily contradictory, so that each can appropriate the main truth and value of the other.

Cobb, John, B., Jr. The Structure of Human Existence. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967.
Takes the Jaspers-Mumford idea of an axial transformation of human existence a step further, arguing that there are radically different ways to be human.

Copleston, Frederick Charles. Religion and the One: Philosophies East and West: The Gifford Lectures. London: Search Press, 1982.

Craig, Edward. The Mind of God and the Works of Man. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Craig, William Lane. Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001.
The author deals with views of divine eternity, divine timelessness, divine temporality, dynamic-static conceptions of time, God and the beginning of time.

Cupitt, Don. Creation Out of Nothing. London; Philadelphia: SCM Press; Trinity Press International, 1990.

Durrant, Michael. The Logical Status of "God" and the Function of Theological Sentences. London; New York: Macmillan; St. Martin's Press, 1973.

Eddy, Paul R., William Lane Craig, James K. Beilby. eds. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views. InterVarsity Press, 2001.

Evans, C. Stephen. The Historical Christ & The Jesus of History. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996.
Evans provides a philosophical treatment of the Christian narrative of incarnation. He argues that the concept of incarnation is free from logical inconsistency, and sketches a model according to which belief in the incarnation can be rationally justified.

Farrer, Austin. Finite and Infinite. Westminster, U.K. Dacre Press, 1943.
A book on philosophical theology that deals with the relation between finite and infinite, variety of metaphysical relationships. God as absolute existent. Discussions include the analogies to absolute existent and necessity of analogy.

Ferguson, Kitty. The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion & the Search for God. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994.

Ford, Adam. Faith and Science: Questions to Consider. Peterborough, GB: Epworth Press, 1999.

Frankl, Viktor, E. Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishers, 2000.

Gale, Richard M. On the Nature and Existence of God. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
A contemporary attack on proofs for the existence of God. A response to Plantinga, Swinburne and Alston, with a consideration of the problem of evil and pragmatic justification for theism.

Geisler, Norman L. Philosophy of Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1974.

Gelven, Michael. A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Meaning of Spiritual Existence. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1990.
Attacks the problem by asking what it means to be a spirit. This provides a philosophical basis for thinking about who we are, to the exclusion of naturalism.

Goodman, Felicitas D. Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternative Reality: Religion in a Pluralistic World. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1988.

Gregersen, Niels, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. eds. Rethinking Theology and Science: Six Models for the Current Dialogue. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.

Griffin, David. Evil Revisted: Responses and Reconsiderations. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991.
The book includes the author's responses to critics of his book, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (1976). Griffin provides an argument for why the perfectly loving God "cannot" prevent genuine evil. This argument relates to the questions of natural and moral evil, human and nonhuman suffering, and the possibility of life after death.

Griffin, David Ray. Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Grisez, Germain Gabriel. Beyond the New Theism: A Philosophy of Religion. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.

Gruning, Herb. How in the World Does God Act? Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000.

Harris, Errol E. Atheism and Theism. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993.

Hazo, Robert G. The Idea of Love. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1976.

Hefner, Philip. The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.
Especially important in this book is Hefner's chapter, "Altruism and Christian Love." The argument is made for the correspondence between altruism expressed by nonhumans and agape, as self-sacrificial love, expressed by Christians.

Heim, Karl. God the Transcendent: Foundation for a Christian Metaphysic. London: Niebet and Co., 1935.
Introduces higher-dimensional concept to theology.

Hick, John. An Interpretation of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Hick, John. Disputed Questions in Theology and the Philosophy of Religion. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1993.

Hick, John. God and the Universe of Faiths: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oneworld, 1993.
An attempt to find an idea of God that takes into account major world religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism.

Hick, John. The Metaphor of God Incarnate. London: SCM Press, 1993.

Hocking, William Ernest. The Meaning of God in Human Experience: A Philosophic Study of Religion. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1924.

Hodges, H. A. God Beyond Knowledge. London and Basingstoke, England: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1979.

Horváth, Tibor. Eternity and Eternal Life: Speculative Theology and Science in Discourse. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1993.

Huxley, Julian. Religion without Revelation. London: Max Parrish & Co., 1957.
Conception of an evolutionary humanistic world religion.

Inbody, Tyron. The Constructive Theology of Bernard Meland: Postliberal Empirical Realism. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995.

Jackson, Timothy. Love Disconsoled: Meditations on Christian Charity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Jonas, Hans. Mortality and Morality: A Search for the Good After Auschwitz. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996.

Kaufman, Gordon D. Constructing the Concept of God. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1981.

Kaufman, Gordon D. In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Within a Christian perspective Kaufman attempts to present a systematic view of God as “serendipitous creativity,” compatible with modern evolutionary ideas.

Keith, Ward. Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World's Religions. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Kenny, Anthony. The Five Ways: St. Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962.

Kropf, Richard. Evil and Evolution: A Theodicy. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickenson Univ. Press, 1984.

Küng, Hans. Eternal Life?: Life After Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and Theological Problem. Translated by Edward Quinn. New York: Crossroad, 1991.

Le Poidevin, Robin. Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Argues that theism does not solve the deepest questions of existence and presents a way of interpreting religious discourse that makes sense of the role of religion while God-talk is non-factual.

Leftow, Brian. Time and Eternity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Presents the view that God is outside of time, with its consequences for creation, foreknowledge, and human freedom; and defends this view against objections.

Levine, Michael P. Pantheism: A Non-theistic Concept of Deity. London: Routledge, 1994.

Lewis, C. S. Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God. London, UK: G. Bles, 1944.

Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1952.

Lossky, Vladimir. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976.

Macquarrie, John. The Humility of God. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1978.

Maloney, George A. A theology of "Uncreated Energies." Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1978.

Marion, Jean-Luc. God Without Being. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Presents a theology rejecting the attempt to join philosophical and revelational in favor of the latter.

McFague, Sallie. Models of God: Theology for Ecological, Nuclear Age. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987.

Mitchell, Basil. Morality: Religious and Secular: The Dilemma of the Traditional Conscience. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Mitchell, Basil. ed. The Philosophy of Religion. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Molnar, Thomas. God and the Knowledge of Reality. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1993.
Argues from a historical survey, that moderate realism is necessary to save philosophy from some absolutes, and either the divorce of reality from God or making God immanent on human soul. Both the latter views produce a pseudo-mysticism.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Theology of Hope. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
A breakthrough theological work recapturing the biblical theme of divine promise as the fundamental motif of biblical religion.

Moreland, J. P., K. Nielsen. Does God Exist? Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1993.

Murphy, Nancey, George F. R. Ellis. On the Moral Nature of the Universe. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1997.
The authors stress the helpfulness of kenotic love as a category by which to consider ethics in the light of science and cosmology. By "kenotic," the authors mean to emphasize personal self-sacrifice and nonviolence. Social sciences support this vision "from below," while theology supports it from "above."

Murphy, Nancey. Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. Cornell University, 1990.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, Oliver Leaman. A History of Islamic Philosophy: 2 vols. London: Routledge, 1996.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Religion & the Order of Nature. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Neville, Robert Cummings. God the Creator: On the Transcendence and Presence of God. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992.
Presents reasons for believing in creation ex nihilo, with its epistemological basis and empirical tests.

Neville, Robert Cummings. Religious Truth. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001.

Newport, John P. Life's Ultimate Questions: A Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Dallas, TX: World Publishing, 1989.

Nygren, Anders. Agape and Eros. New York: Harper and Row, 1957.

Ogden, Shubert. The Realtiy of God and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

Oppy, Graham. Ontological Arguments and Belief in God. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Presents a taxonomy of ontological arguments for the existence of God, an analysis of each and the objections thereto, and concludes that they are useless.

Padgett, Alan G. God, Eternity and the Nature of Time. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.
Theological exposition of time and the doctrine of divine timelessness covering from Absolute divine timelessness to stasis theory of time. Describes God as the ground of time and the lord of time.

Paine, Thomas. Age of Reason. New York: Peter Eckler, 1795.
One of the first, and still considered one of the best, studies of the Judaeo-Christian Bible, refuting the "Word-of-God" interpretation, which stood in the way of a naturalistic worldview.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematische Theologie: 3 vols. Gottingen: Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1991.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Theology and the Philosophy of Science. Westminster, 1976.

Pearcey, Nancy R., Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994.

Peters, Ted. God: The World's Future: Systematic Theology for a Postmodern Era. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992.

Peters, Ted. God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life. Louisville, KY: Westminster Press/John Knox Press, 1993.

Peterson, Michael. The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.

Pike, Nelson. God and Timelessness. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
A modern classic on theodicy. Plantinga shows that human free will solves most versions of the Problem of Evil—the claim that God is responsible for the existence of evil in the world.

Plantinga, Alvin. The Ontological Argument: From St. Anselm to Contemporary Philosophers. London: Macmillan, 1968.

Polkinghorne, John. Science and Providence: God's Interaction With the World. Boston, MA: New Science Library, 1989.

Polkinghorne, John. ed. The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001.
Essayists develop proposals and address issues related to kenosis (divine self-emptying love) as they relate to general topics (cosmology, evolution, neuroscience, psychology) in science. Essayists include Ian G. Barbour, Sarah Coakley, George F. R. Ellis, Paul S. Fiddes, Malcom Jeeves, Jürgen Moltmann, Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, Holmes Rolston III, Keith Ward and Michael Welker.

Pope, Stephen J. The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love. Washington, D.C. Georgetown University Press, 1994.
Theologian addresses methods and questions of ethics and science, with particular emphasis upon human nature in light of evolutionary theory. A proposal drawn from a Roman Catholic theological tradition is offered that affirms the natural gradation of altruism into the tradition's understanding of "ordered" or proper love.

Post, Stephen G. A Theory of Agape: On the Meaning of Christian Love. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1990.

Post, Stephen G., Jeffrey P. Underwood, Jeffrey P. Schloss. eds. Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Essayists consider views on the roles of altruism and egoism from the perspectives of science, philosophy, and spiritual traditions. Each grapples with current scientific questions about the existence of genuine altruism and explores the nature of human other-regarding motives and acts. Essayists include Dan Batson, Don Browning, Antonio R. Damasio, Hanna Damasio, Frans B. M. de Waal, William H. Durham, Gregory Fricchione, Ruben L. F. Habito, Hurlbut, Thomas R. Insel, Jerome Kagan, Melvin Konner, Krisen Renwick Monroe, Samuel Oliner, Stephen J. Pope, Post, Stephanie Preston, Michael Ruse, Schloss, Elliott Sober, Underwood, David Sloan Wilson, and Edith Wyschogrod.

Preus, J. Samuel. Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud. Scholars Press: Atlanta, GA, 1996.
A study of development of a modern naturalistic approach to religion. Includes the discussions on Bodin, Hume, Comte, Durkheim, Freud.

Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith. New York: Crossroad, 1978.
A synthesis of the innovative work of one of the most creative and influential Christian theologians of the twentieth century.

Richardson, W. Mark, Wesley J. Wildman. eds. Religion and Science: History, Method, and Dialogue. Routledge, 1996.

Ricoeur, Paul. The Symbolism of Evil. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.

Rolston, III, Holmes. Genes, Genesis and God: Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Challenging the sociobiological orthodoxy, Rolston argues that genetic processes are neither entirely blind nor entirely selfish. Furthermore, nature possesses and expresses emergent value. Contemporary questions of altruism and egoism play a fundamental part in the author's ethical and religious arguments.

Rowe, William L. The Cosmological Argument. New York: Fordham Press, 1998.
A careful analysis of the argument for God as First Cause put forward in the 18th century by Samuel Clarke, a close associate of Isaac Newton. Analyzes the cosmological argument beginning with Aquinas and Duns Scotus down to the eighteenth century, and considers its current relevance for justifying belief in God's existence.

Russell, Robert John, Nancey Murphy, C. J. Isham. eds. Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. University of Notre Dame, 1993.

Russell, Robert John, Nancey Murphy, Arthur A. Peacocke. eds. Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Notre Dame, IN: CTNS/ Notre Dame University Press, 1995.
Contains a variety of essays from leading scholars in the field of both science and theology, including the editors.

Russell, Robert John, William R. Stoeger, Francisco J. Ayala. eds. Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Vatican City State and Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory Publications and CTNS, 1998.

Russell, Robert John, Michael A. Arbib, Nancey Murphy. eds. Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Notre Dame, IN: CTNS/ Notre Dame University Press, 2000.

Schleiermacher, Fredrich. On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Dispisers. Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1994.
Religion is defended against the Enlightenment, on Romantic grounds. Religion is grounded in a feeling of the oneness of all things; and their dependence on One who is beyond this world.

Smith, Norman Kamp. Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. New York: Macmillan, 1963.
In the section "Antinomies of Pure Reason" Kant argues that all classic proofs for the existence of God degenerate into paradoxes.

Stevenson, Ian. Cases of the Reincarnation Type. 4 vols. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1987.

Stone, Jerome Arthur. The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence: A Naturalist Philosophy of Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992.

Suckiel, Ellen Kappy. Heaven's Champion: William James's Philosophy of Religion. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1996.

Swinburne, Richard. The Concept of Miracle. London: Macmillan, 1970.
A defense of miracles against Hume and other skeptics.

Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
This book, the second in Swinburne's acclaimed trilogy on the philosophy of religion, examines the most important arguments for and against the existence of God--including the cosmological argument and arguments from design, consciousness and moral awareness, and miracles and religious experience. He concludes that the existence of God is more probable than not using the tools of contemporary probability calculus. This revised edition includes two new appendices. In the first, Swinburne replies to criticisms of his arguments made by J. L. Mackie in his The Miracle of Theism and in the second, he assesses the evidential force of recent scientific discoveries of the extent to which the universe is "fine-tuned" to the production of animals and humankind.

Swinburne, Richard. The Coherence of Theism. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1977.
Author argues that the concept of omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being is free from logical inconsistency.

Swinburne, Richard. The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Templeton, John M. ed. How Large is God?: The Voices of Scientists and Theologians. Templeton Foundation Press, 1997.

Tillich, Paul. Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1955.
An preeminent theologian of the 20th century tries to bridge the gap between biblical language and philosophical thought within liberal Christianity.

Thomas, Owen C. ed. God's Activity in the World: The Contemporary Problem. Chico, CA: Scholars Press / AAR, 1983.
A collection of contemporary essays on the age-old problem of "divine action" by prominent theologians such as Ernest Wright, Langdon Gilkey, Rudolf Bultmann, John Cobb, Gordon Kaufman, Frank Kirkpatrick, Austin Farrer.

Torrance, Thomas F. Reality and Scientific Theology. Scottish Academy, 1985.

Torrance, Thomas F. Space, Time and Incarnation. New York: Galaxy Books, 1978.

Torrance, Thomas F. Space, Time and Resurrection. Tokyo, Japan: Otaku, 1984.

Van der Meer, Jitse M. ed. Facets of Faith and Science: Volume 4: Interpreting God's Action in the World. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1996.

Van Huyssteen, Wentzel. Duet or Duel?: Theology and Science in a Postmodern World. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1998.

Ward, Keith. Religion and Human Nature. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Welker, Michael. God the Spirit. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.

Wong, P. T., P. S. Fry. The Human Quest for Meaning. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999.