Divine Teaching and the Way of the World: A Defense of Revealed ReligionSamuel Fleischacker defends what the Enlightenment called 'revealed religion': religions that regard a certain text or oral teaching as sacred, as wholly authoritative over one's life. At the same time, he maintains that revealed religions stand in danger of corruption or fanaticism unless they are combined with secular scientific practices and a secular morality. The first two parts of Divine Teaching and the Way of the World argue that the cognitive and moral practices of a society should prescind from religious commitments — they constitute a secular 'way of the world', to adapt a phrase from the Jewish tradition, allowing human beings to work together regardless of their religious differences. But the way of the world breaks down when it comes to the question of what we live for, and it is this that revealed religions can illumine. Fleischacker first suggests that secular conceptions of why life is worth living are often poorly grounded, before going on to explore what revelation is, how it can answer the question of worth better than secular worldviews do, and how the revealed and way-of-the-world elements of a religious tradition can be brought together. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Truth | 21 |
Ethics | 77 |
Worth | 165 |
Part IV Divine Teaching | 279 |
Part V Divine Teaching and the Way of the World | 411 |
Epilogue | 465 |
Proofs of God | 473 |
Maimonides on the Evidence for Revelation | 476 |
Kant on Art and Natural Beauty | 478 |
Notes | 481 |
543 | |
545 | |
Other editions - View all
Divine Teaching and the Way of the World: A Defense of Revealed Religion Samuel Fleischacker No preview available - 2011 |
Divine Teaching and the Way of the World: A Defense of Revealed Religion Samuel Fleischacker No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
accept achieve action activities allow answer appear argument beauty believe better bring chapter Christian claims comes commitment concepts condition consider course culture depends ethical existence experience explanation fact faith feel follow freedom give given grounds highest historical hold human idea imagine important individual interpretation Jewish Kant Kant’s Kantian kind lead least less lives matter means moral nature norms notion objective one’s ordinary ourselves particular path perhaps person philosophical pleasure political position possible practices Press principle question rational reason reflective regard religion religious requires respect revelation scientific secular seems sense share social society sort suggest supposed teaching telic tell theory things thought Torah tradition true trust truth ultimate understand University virtue vision whole worth worthwhile