Natural and supernatural religion
This thesis asks one fundamental question that is either implicit or explicit in each part. The underlying question is whether religious belief rests on a belief in a supernatural existence for its sense. I argue that this is not so, and that the sense of religious concepts does not presuppose any supernatural existence. In Part One I discuss the philosophical landscape that we have inherited from Hume, and how H.O. Mounceâs attempt to re-interpret Humeâs criticisms of religion, in the light of Humeâs own naturalist tendencies, still cannot reach any supernatural existence. In Part Two, I focus on two ways that seem to imply a supernatural existence âbeyondâ us. The first concerns the concept of power; the second concerns our ethical life. Both seem to presuppose some sort of a supernatural existence. The former seems to do so through the notion of the power of God as that which is experienced entering human life from another realm; the latter, because morality seems to require that the injustices we experience in life needs correcting, if not in this life, then in a life after death. In Part Three my concern is to explore the possibility of the religious sense of the supernatural. In this respect,
Williams, M.
Natural and supernatural religion. This thesis asks one fundamental question that is either implicit or explicit in each part. The underlying question is whether religious belief rests on a belief in a supernatural existence for its sense. I argue that this is not so, and that the sense of religious concepts does not presuppose any supernatural existence. In Part One I discuss the philosophical landscape that we have inherited from Hume, and how H.O. Mounceâs attempt to re-interpret Humeâs criticisms of religion, in the light of Humeâs own naturalist tendencies, still cannot reach any supernatural existence. In Part Two, I focus on two ways that seem to imply a supernatural existence âbeyondâ us. The first concerns the concept of power; the second concerns our ethical life. Both seem to presuppose some sort of a supernatural existence. The former seems to do so through the notion of the power of God as that which is experienced entering human life from another realm; the latter, because morality seems to require that the injustices we experience in life needs correcting, if not in this life, then in a life after death. In Part Three my concern is to explore the possibility of the religious sense of the supernatural. In this respect,
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