J. L. Schellenberg
NEW: I've added eight new papers from 2015-16.
My most recent books: The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God (Oxford, 2015) www.amazon.com/Hiddenness-Argument-Philosophys-Challenge-Belief/dp/0198733089
and Evolutionary Religion (new in paperback, Oxford 2015) www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Religion-J-L-Schellenberg/dp/0198744366
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.
One can be motivated in many ways, and also in ways which rise to conscious awareness only with difficulty or not at all. But at least one of my motives for pursuing such unusual ideas (I think it is central) stems from sheer delight in creative discovery. I'm always taken aback when people don't find new ideas about religion interesting, and when they ignore or oppose them apparently because of prior intellectual commitments, often also -- at least this is how it appears -- from the perspective of an activist (for or against religion) rather than that of a curious and open truth-seeker. I don't think religion or our -- or my -- reflection on religion will reach maturity until the latter perspective comes to dominate.
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 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 – potentially 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 recent work on philosophy of religion, concerned with deep time. But deep time has consequences for other areas of philosophy. One of them is epistemology, and I am presently hard at work exploring this connection in detail.
NEW: I've added eight new papers from 2015-16.
My most recent books: The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God (Oxford, 2015) www.amazon.com/Hiddenness-Argument-Philosophys-Challenge-Belief/dp/0198733089
and Evolutionary Religion (new in paperback, Oxford 2015) www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Religion-J-L-Schellenberg/dp/0198744366
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.
One can be motivated in many ways, and also in ways which rise to conscious awareness only with difficulty or not at all. But at least one of my motives for pursuing such unusual ideas (I think it is central) stems from sheer delight in creative discovery. I'm always taken aback when people don't find new ideas about religion interesting, and when they ignore or oppose them apparently because of prior intellectual commitments, often also -- at least this is how it appears -- from the perspective of an activist (for or against religion) rather than that of a curious and open truth-seeker. I don't think religion or our -- or my -- reflection on religion will reach maturity until the latter perspective comes to dominate.
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 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 – potentially 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 recent work on philosophy of religion, concerned with deep time. But deep time has consequences for other areas of philosophy. One of them is epistemology, and I am presently hard at work exploring this connection in detail.
