In this engaging study Professor Clark sets out to show that there are good philosophical reasons for theism, and Christian theism in particular. He travels the breadth of our intellectual engagement with the world, from ethics to scientific knowledge, and his journey is vigorously argued, fresh, lively and readable. He explores the assumptions which underpin our philosophical and everyday thinking alike, examines the construction of the arguments used to support them, and tests the sturdiness and the makeup of their props and foundations.
Author(s): Stephen R. L. Clark
Edition: 1
Publisher: SPCK
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 177
City: London
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Religious Observances and Theories
Our World and the Real World and Religion
Seeing Through Religion
The Ethical Interpretation
Identifying This and That
The Noble Truths of Theism
2. Philosophy and the Betrayal of Thought
Misunderstanding the Enlightenment
Return to Rational Realism
The Metaphysics of Morals
The Reach of Reason
3. Truth Transcending Thought
Theology and Mental Microbes
The Perils of Philosophy
The Significance of Truth
The Meaning of Truth
The Duty to Discover Truth
Objectivism and the Love of Truth
4. Necessity and Unity
Necessity and Explanation
The Unity of Being
Matter and the Immaterial
The Omnipresence of the Necessary Being
5. Having the Mind of God
Intellect and Being
The Plotinian Argument
The Emergence of Conscious Being
The Context of Being
6. The Beautiful and True
The Road to Beauty
Moral Beauty
Naturalistic Explanation
Haldane, Lewis and Anscombe
7. Decency and Moral Truth
The Way of Knowledge
Objective Values, Final Causes
A Personal God
Reason and Revelations
8. Communities of Faith
The Importance of Tradition
Testimony and the Inner Light
The Limits of Understanding
9. The Last Things
Inexpugnable Realism
Ethics and Immortality
Looking beyond the World
Works Cited
Notes
Index
