Stephen T. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199284597
- eISBN:
- 9780191603778
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199284598.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
According to the Christian faith, the reason why certain people do not believe in God is willful unbelief, i.e., spiritual blindness. Christians hold that God is ultimate reality and that God makes ...
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According to the Christian faith, the reason why certain people do not believe in God is willful unbelief, i.e., spiritual blindness. Christians hold that God is ultimate reality and that God makes covenants with human beings. People become convinced of God’s presence through the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, although natural theology can show that religious belief is warranted. Belief in God, even if it is based on private evidence, can be rational.Less
According to the Christian faith, the reason why certain people do not believe in God is willful unbelief, i.e., spiritual blindness. Christians hold that God is ultimate reality and that God makes covenants with human beings. People become convinced of God’s presence through the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, although natural theology can show that religious belief is warranted. Belief in God, even if it is based on private evidence, can be rational.
Stephen Bullivant
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199652563
- eISBN:
- 9780191740725
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199652563.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Church History
Since the Second Vatican Council (1962–5), the Catholic Church has formally declared the possibility of salvation for atheists: ‘those who, without fault, have not yet arrived at an express ...
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Since the Second Vatican Council (1962–5), the Catholic Church has formally declared the possibility of salvation for atheists: ‘those who, without fault, have not yet arrived at an express recognition of God’ (〉i〈Lumen Gentium〉/i〈 16). However, in the very same document, the Council reiterates the traditional doctrine of the necessity of faith, baptism, and the mediation of Church in order for someone to be saved (〉i〈LG〉/i〈 14). This monograph explores how these two, seemingly contradictory claims may satisfactorily be reconciled. Specifically, it asks – and ultimately answers – the question: 〉i〈How, within the parameters of Catholic dogmatic theology, is it possible for an atheist to be saved?〉/i〈As the first full-length study of this topic since Vatican II, the book discusses crucial foundational issues – the understanding of ‘atheist’ in Catholic theology; the historical and theological background to the Council’s engagement with unbelief – before interrogating the conciliar teaching itself. Considerable attention is then given to the classic solution of imputing an ‘implicit’ faith to righteous atheists, best known from Karl Rahner’s theory of ‘anonymous Christianity’ (though the basic idea was advocated by many other major figures, including Ratzinger, Schillebeeckx, de Lubac, Balthasar, and Küng). After discussing Rahner’s specific proposals in detail, this kind of approach is however shown to be untenable. Instead, a new way of understanding Vatican II’s optimism for atheists is developed in detail, in light of scripture, tradition, and magisterium. This draws principally on Christ’s descent into Hell, a renewed understanding of invincible ignorance, and a literal interpretation of Matthew 25.Less
Since the Second Vatican Council (1962–5), the Catholic Church has formally declared the possibility of salvation for atheists: ‘those who, without fault, have not yet arrived at an express recognition of God’ (〉i〈Lumen Gentium〉/i〈 16). However, in the very same document, the Council reiterates the traditional doctrine of the necessity of faith, baptism, and the mediation of Church in order for someone to be saved (〉i〈LG〉/i〈 14). This monograph explores how these two, seemingly contradictory claims may satisfactorily be reconciled. Specifically, it asks – and ultimately answers – the question: 〉i〈How, within the parameters of Catholic dogmatic theology, is it possible for an atheist to be saved?〉/i〈As the first full-length study of this topic since Vatican II, the book discusses crucial foundational issues – the understanding of ‘atheist’ in Catholic theology; the historical and theological background to the Council’s engagement with unbelief – before interrogating the conciliar teaching itself. Considerable attention is then given to the classic solution of imputing an ‘implicit’ faith to righteous atheists, best known from Karl Rahner’s theory of ‘anonymous Christianity’ (though the basic idea was advocated by many other major figures, including Ratzinger, Schillebeeckx, de Lubac, Balthasar, and Küng). After discussing Rahner’s specific proposals in detail, this kind of approach is however shown to be untenable. Instead, a new way of understanding Vatican II’s optimism for atheists is developed in detail, in light of scripture, tradition, and magisterium. This draws principally on Christ’s descent into Hell, a renewed understanding of invincible ignorance, and a literal interpretation of Matthew 25.
Johannes Quack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199812608
- eISBN:
- 9780199919406
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199812608.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
In academic no less than popular thought, India is frequently represented as the quintessential land of religion. Disenchanting India qualifies this representation through an analysis of the ...
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In academic no less than popular thought, India is frequently represented as the quintessential land of religion. Disenchanting India qualifies this representation through an analysis of the contemporary Indian rationalist organisations (those that affirm the values and attitudes of atheism, humanism or free-thinking).To understand the genesis of organised rationalism in India the book addresses the rationalists’ emphasis on maintaining links to atheism and materialism in ancient India and outlines their strong ties to the intellectual currents of modern European history. At the heart of Disenchanting India lies an ethnography of the organisation “Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti” (Organisation for the Eradication of Superstition) based in Maharashtra. This account describes the organization’s efforts to promote a scientific temper and combat the beliefs and practices it regards as superstitious. It also includes an analysis of rationalism in the day to day lives of its members and in relation to the organization’s controversial position within Indian society.The book outlines the distinguishing characteristics of this organisation through a depiction of the rationalists’ specific “mode of unbelief” in comparison to “modes of religiosity”. Alongside a critical engagement with the work of Max Weber and Charles Taylor, the theoretical discussion of modes of unbelief further provides an original basis for comparative studies of similar movements in a trans-cultural perspective. Finally, Disenchanting India can be situated within the contemporary debates about the nature of rationalism in Indian intellectual life and cultural politics. It thereby engages with debates that are as crucial for Anthropology and Religious Studies as they are for Post-colonial Studies, Sociology and History.Less
In academic no less than popular thought, India is frequently represented as the quintessential land of religion. Disenchanting India qualifies this representation through an analysis of the contemporary Indian rationalist organisations (those that affirm the values and attitudes of atheism, humanism or free-thinking).To understand the genesis of organised rationalism in India the book addresses the rationalists’ emphasis on maintaining links to atheism and materialism in ancient India and outlines their strong ties to the intellectual currents of modern European history. At the heart of Disenchanting India lies an ethnography of the organisation “Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti” (Organisation for the Eradication of Superstition) based in Maharashtra. This account describes the organization’s efforts to promote a scientific temper and combat the beliefs and practices it regards as superstitious. It also includes an analysis of rationalism in the day to day lives of its members and in relation to the organization’s controversial position within Indian society.The book outlines the distinguishing characteristics of this organisation through a depiction of the rationalists’ specific “mode of unbelief” in comparison to “modes of religiosity”. Alongside a critical engagement with the work of Max Weber and Charles Taylor, the theoretical discussion of modes of unbelief further provides an original basis for comparative studies of similar movements in a trans-cultural perspective. Finally, Disenchanting India can be situated within the contemporary debates about the nature of rationalism in Indian intellectual life and cultural politics. It thereby engages with debates that are as crucial for Anthropology and Religious Studies as they are for Post-colonial Studies, Sociology and History.
Johannes Quack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199812608
- eISBN:
- 9780199919406
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199812608.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The Introduction provides an overview of the structure and arguments of the book. On the basis of a brief description of the Indian rationalist movement and the relevance of the work of Ulrich ...
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The Introduction provides an overview of the structure and arguments of the book. On the basis of a brief description of the Indian rationalist movement and the relevance of the work of Ulrich Berner, Charles Taylor, Max Weber and various post-colonial scholars, the introduction highlights the ways in which Disenchanting India makes an important empirical as well as theoretical contribution to a field of study that has widely been neglected: the spectrum of non-religiosity and unbelief in India, from religious indifferences to outright criticism of religion(s).Less
The Introduction provides an overview of the structure and arguments of the book. On the basis of a brief description of the Indian rationalist movement and the relevance of the work of Ulrich Berner, Charles Taylor, Max Weber and various post-colonial scholars, the introduction highlights the ways in which Disenchanting India makes an important empirical as well as theoretical contribution to a field of study that has widely been neglected: the spectrum of non-religiosity and unbelief in India, from religious indifferences to outright criticism of religion(s).
Johannes Quack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199812608
- eISBN:
- 9780199919406
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199812608.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This theoretical chapter builds upon the argument of Ulrich Berner that it is often more fruitful to heuristically structure religious fields not just along the lines of religion, but by ...
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This theoretical chapter builds upon the argument of Ulrich Berner that it is often more fruitful to heuristically structure religious fields not just along the lines of religion, but by distinguishing different “modes of religiosity”. It is argued that despite the important criticism against the concept of “belief,” as for example outlined by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, the notion “modes of unbelief” helps to not just capture the distinguishing characteristics of the Indian rationalists. It also provides the basis on which to conceptualize similarities and differences between specific modes of religiosity and unbelief, undermining thereby, the opposition between religion and atheism, as well as religiosity and unbelief.Less
This theoretical chapter builds upon the argument of Ulrich Berner that it is often more fruitful to heuristically structure religious fields not just along the lines of religion, but by distinguishing different “modes of religiosity”. It is argued that despite the important criticism against the concept of “belief,” as for example outlined by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, the notion “modes of unbelief” helps to not just capture the distinguishing characteristics of the Indian rationalists. It also provides the basis on which to conceptualize similarities and differences between specific modes of religiosity and unbelief, undermining thereby, the opposition between religion and atheism, as well as religiosity and unbelief.
Michael Hunter and David Wootton (eds)
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198227366
- eISBN:
- 9780191678684
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198227366.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, History of Religion
The rise of atheism and unbelief is a key feature in the development of the modern world, yet it is a topic which has been little explored by historians. This book presents a series of studies of ...
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The rise of atheism and unbelief is a key feature in the development of the modern world, yet it is a topic which has been little explored by historians. This book presents a series of studies of irreligious ideas in various parts of Europe during the two centuries following the Reformation. Atheism was illegal everywhere. The word itself first entered the vernacular languages soon after the Reformation, but it was not until the 18th century that the first systematic defences of unbelief began to appear in print. Its history in the intervening two centuries is significant but hitherto obscure.Less
The rise of atheism and unbelief is a key feature in the development of the modern world, yet it is a topic which has been little explored by historians. This book presents a series of studies of irreligious ideas in various parts of Europe during the two centuries following the Reformation. Atheism was illegal everywhere. The word itself first entered the vernacular languages soon after the Reformation, but it was not until the 18th century that the first systematic defences of unbelief began to appear in print. Its history in the intervening two centuries is significant but hitherto obscure.
Thomas Dixon
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264263
- eISBN:
- 9780191734816
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264263.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
The 1880s were the pivotal years in Victorian moral thought. A new wave of awareness of the plight of the urban poor was expressed in a range of both practical and intellectual activities. Some, such ...
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The 1880s were the pivotal years in Victorian moral thought. A new wave of awareness of the plight of the urban poor was expressed in a range of both practical and intellectual activities. Some, such as Charles Booth, committed themselves to a vast project of social-scientific surveying and classifying of the urban poor. The 1880s was also the decade that saw the flourishing of respectable unbelief. The atheist Charles Bradlaugh took his seat in Parliament, and the agnostic Thomas Huxley became president of the Royal Society. The best-selling novel of the decade, Mrs Humphry Ward’s Robert Elsmere (1888), told the story of an Anglican clergyman losing his faith and founding a new religious brotherhood in the East End of London based on a humanistic reinterpretation of Christianity.Less
The 1880s were the pivotal years in Victorian moral thought. A new wave of awareness of the plight of the urban poor was expressed in a range of both practical and intellectual activities. Some, such as Charles Booth, committed themselves to a vast project of social-scientific surveying and classifying of the urban poor. The 1880s was also the decade that saw the flourishing of respectable unbelief. The atheist Charles Bradlaugh took his seat in Parliament, and the agnostic Thomas Huxley became president of the Royal Society. The best-selling novel of the decade, Mrs Humphry Ward’s Robert Elsmere (1888), told the story of an Anglican clergyman losing his faith and founding a new religious brotherhood in the East End of London based on a humanistic reinterpretation of Christianity.
Paul Helm
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199256631
- eISBN:
- 9780191698330
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256631.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Faith requires beliefs of two sorts: beliefs which depend upon evidence of what is true, and beliefs about what the believer wants or needs, his goals and ideals. This chapter explores the idea that ...
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Faith requires beliefs of two sorts: beliefs which depend upon evidence of what is true, and beliefs about what the believer wants or needs, his goals and ideals. This chapter explores the idea that one reason for failure to believe may be that the one who fails to believe has an interest in not believing. It examines the connection between having an interest and the appreciation of evidence and looks at how unbelief is to be accounted for. Three questions are considered: whether at least some failures to believe are like the failure to recognise an obligation like having a moral block; whether other failures are like situations where one recognises an obligation but, due to weakness of will, fails to honour it; and whether it is always rational, in the interests of objectivity, to suppress the influence of our moral nature as far as possible in our assessment of evidence. The fact of moral bias and the connectedness between facts and values are also discussed.Less
Faith requires beliefs of two sorts: beliefs which depend upon evidence of what is true, and beliefs about what the believer wants or needs, his goals and ideals. This chapter explores the idea that one reason for failure to believe may be that the one who fails to believe has an interest in not believing. It examines the connection between having an interest and the appreciation of evidence and looks at how unbelief is to be accounted for. Three questions are considered: whether at least some failures to believe are like the failure to recognise an obligation like having a moral block; whether other failures are like situations where one recognises an obligation but, due to weakness of will, fails to honour it; and whether it is always rational, in the interests of objectivity, to suppress the influence of our moral nature as far as possible in our assessment of evidence. The fact of moral bias and the connectedness between facts and values are also discussed.
Andrew Lincoln
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183143
- eISBN:
- 9780191673948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183143.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter examines The Four Zoas and the developments in its narrative that can be compared to developments in natural philosophy during the 17th and 18th centuries wherein the principle of ...
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This chapter examines The Four Zoas and the developments in its narrative that can be compared to developments in natural philosophy during the 17th and 18th centuries wherein the principle of ‘Unbelief’ lent powerful support to religious faith of the kind that true Epicurean philosophers sought to undermine. This chapter focuses on the pattern of reconstruction in the poem's myth which reflects Blake's sense of relationship between the scientific world-view of his own age and the cosmic order it replaced. The myth in the poem explores the ontological and epistemological foundations that needed to be formed before the scientific world-view could be developed. In the study presented in this chapter, Blake's use of biblical symbolism suggests that he saw the assumptions that underlie modern science inscribed in the Mosaic vision of the Old Testament.Less
This chapter examines The Four Zoas and the developments in its narrative that can be compared to developments in natural philosophy during the 17th and 18th centuries wherein the principle of ‘Unbelief’ lent powerful support to religious faith of the kind that true Epicurean philosophers sought to undermine. This chapter focuses on the pattern of reconstruction in the poem's myth which reflects Blake's sense of relationship between the scientific world-view of his own age and the cosmic order it replaced. The myth in the poem explores the ontological and epistemological foundations that needed to be formed before the scientific world-view could be developed. In the study presented in this chapter, Blake's use of biblical symbolism suggests that he saw the assumptions that underlie modern science inscribed in the Mosaic vision of the Old Testament.
Murray A. Rae
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198269403
- eISBN:
- 9780191683633
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198269403.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter investigates the account of transition from unbelief to faith and account of how one learns the Truth presented in Chapter 1 of Søren Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. In this ...
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This chapter investigates the account of transition from unbelief to faith and account of how one learns the Truth presented in Chapter 1 of Søren Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. In this chapter, the problem of becoming a Christian, the difficulty of distinguishing Christianity and culture and the difficulty in understanding what Christianity is are discussed and analyzed within the context of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. The chapter also discusses the connection between Søren Kierkegaard and Johannes Climacus and to what extent Kierkegaard himself approves the ordo salutis proposed by his pseudonym.Less
This chapter investigates the account of transition from unbelief to faith and account of how one learns the Truth presented in Chapter 1 of Søren Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. In this chapter, the problem of becoming a Christian, the difficulty of distinguishing Christianity and culture and the difficulty in understanding what Christianity is are discussed and analyzed within the context of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. The chapter also discusses the connection between Søren Kierkegaard and Johannes Climacus and to what extent Kierkegaard himself approves the ordo salutis proposed by his pseudonym.
