J.L. Schellenberg
NEW: Here is a short reply to Keith Ward's review of Evolutionary Religion, in which I correct the record: click here
NEW: My book on Evolutionary Religion (OUP) is now out everywhere. Here's a related post I did for OUPblog: http://blog.oup.com/2013/07/john-schellenberg-evolutionary-religion/
The OUP ad for the book: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199673766.do
Buy it at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Religion-J-L-Schellenberg/dp/0199673764/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt
NEWISH: A special issue of the Cambridge journal Religious Studies containing critical discussion of my work in the philosophy of religion together with my responses appeared in June. My thanks to everyone involved.
For more information, click here
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I’m a Canadian philosopher known both for my atheism and for my defense of a broader skepticism compatible with atheism -- a form of skepticism which, as it happens, opens a path to a new evolutionary brand of religion.
In the late ‘80s of the last century I did a DPhil in philosophy at Oxford (studying with Richard Swinburne, David Brown, Maurice Wiles, and Anthony Kenny). Currently I am Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint Vincent University and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University.
My first book, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Cornell 1993; paperback 2006), introduced a new argument for atheism now known as the hiddenness argument. That argument has enjoyed a good deal of attention. As a result, 'the problem of divine hiddenness' is now commonly discussed alongside ‘the problem of evil’ in philosophy classrooms and texts.
But in the late ‘90s several factors conspired to push me beyond the theism/atheism debate and into more fundamental investigations in philosophy of religion. The result was three books that make a trilogy: Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism, and The Will to Imagine: A Justification of Skeptical Religion (Cornell 2005, 2007, 2009; paperback 2012). Contemporary philosophers of religion can be a little reluctant to think beyond theism, but my way of doing so is brand new.
Writing the trilogy was an interesting creative experience. And so was the realization, just as I was completing it, that there was an evolutionary framework waiting, as it were, to receive all my results. In a new book called Evolutionary Religion, published by Oxford University Press in 2013 and intended for a wide audience, I try to put that framework in place.
The emphasis here is on completing the shift from human to scientific timescales, and coming thereby to see how we exist at a very early stage in the development of intelligence on our planet, with many millions of years of future development – whether experienced by our species or others – lying ahead of us. Seeing this, we will also see that the central question about faith and reason is whether there is a form of religion appropriate to our place in time. What the trilogy calls ‘skeptical religion,’ an imaginative rather than believing species of faith, invites our attention (in part) because it appears to be thus appropriate.
Evolutionary Religion encapsulates my work on philosophy of religion. In my own future, I hope to take the general position it has helped me to formulate, which I call ‘scientific temporalism,’ into other areas of philosophy.
NEW: Here is a short reply to Keith Ward's review of Evolutionary Religion, in which I correct the record: click here
NEW: My book on Evolutionary Religion (OUP) is now out everywhere. Here's a related post I did for OUPblog: http://blog.oup.com/2013/07/john-schellenberg-evolutionary-religion/
The OUP ad for the book: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199673766.do
Buy it at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Religion-J-L-Schellenberg/dp/0199673764/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt
NEWISH: A special issue of the Cambridge journal Religious Studies containing critical discussion of my work in the philosophy of religion together with my responses appeared in June. My thanks to everyone involved.
For more information, click here
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m a Canadian philosopher known both for my atheism and for my defense of a broader skepticism compatible with atheism -- a form of skepticism which, as it happens, opens a path to a new evolutionary brand of religion.
In the late ‘80s of the last century I did a DPhil in philosophy at Oxford (studying with Richard Swinburne, David Brown, Maurice Wiles, and Anthony Kenny). Currently I am Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint Vincent University and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University.
My first book, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Cornell 1993; paperback 2006), introduced a new argument for atheism now known as the hiddenness argument. That argument has enjoyed a good deal of attention. As a result, 'the problem of divine hiddenness' is now commonly discussed alongside ‘the problem of evil’ in philosophy classrooms and texts.
But in the late ‘90s several factors conspired to push me beyond the theism/atheism debate and into more fundamental investigations in philosophy of religion. The result was three books that make a trilogy: Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism, and The Will to Imagine: A Justification of Skeptical Religion (Cornell 2005, 2007, 2009; paperback 2012). Contemporary philosophers of religion can be a little reluctant to think beyond theism, but my way of doing so is brand new.
Writing the trilogy was an interesting creative experience. And so was the realization, just as I was completing it, that there was an evolutionary framework waiting, as it were, to receive all my results. In a new book called Evolutionary Religion, published by Oxford University Press in 2013 and intended for a wide audience, I try to put that framework in place.
The emphasis here is on completing the shift from human to scientific timescales, and coming thereby to see how we exist at a very early stage in the development of intelligence on our planet, with many millions of years of future development – whether experienced by our species or others – lying ahead of us. Seeing this, we will also see that the central question about faith and reason is whether there is a form of religion appropriate to our place in time. What the trilogy calls ‘skeptical religion,’ an imaginative rather than believing species of faith, invites our attention (in part) because it appears to be thus appropriate.
Evolutionary Religion encapsulates my work on philosophy of religion. In my own future, I hope to take the general position it has helped me to formulate, which I call ‘scientific temporalism,’ into other areas of philosophy.
