Philosophy of Religion

A readable new textbook that takes a historical view. It covers all the conventional ground including arguments for the existence of God, approaches to religious belief, determinism and freedom, religion and morality, the problem of evil, death and the afterlife, problems of religious diversity, and the relationship between faith, reason and the ethics of belief. I found the way in which the arguments for the existence of God were set out extremely helpful, as the propositions on which they are based are made explicit and the evolution of the arguments becomes part of the narrative. It was also encouraging to find a discussion of near death experiences in the section on death and the afterlife. However, no mention is made of research work on memories of previous lives or of the evidence for survival of consciousness. These are still off-limits in conventional philosophy departments. In addition, the problem of evil is dealt with without reference to Jung's contribution. These reservations aside, there is much to commend this book.