How to Believe
1st Edition
Published on 19. November 2015
176 pages
978-1-4729-0745-5 (ISBN)
Description
In Why Believe? (Continuum) Professor John Cottingham argued that every human being possesses impulses and aspirations for which religious belief offers a home.
His new book, How to Believe is concerned not so much with why we should believe as with what leads a person to become a believer. Cottingham challenges believers and non-believers alike to think afresh about the need to change their lives and about what such change might involve.
Many people are deeply interested in the spiritual aspects of human existence but hold back from religious commitment because of doubts about the evidence for God. In this lucid and emotionally engaged study, John Cottingham charts a rational pathway towards religious belief by showing how it requires all the responses of the human mind.
Intellectual analysis has its place, but to grasp all the relevant evidence we also need emotional openness and imaginative sensitivity. Drawing on a rich array of literary, scriptural and poetic resources, the author locates religious belief in a transformative framework of meaning and value.
His new book, How to Believe is concerned not so much with why we should believe as with what leads a person to become a believer. Cottingham challenges believers and non-believers alike to think afresh about the need to change their lives and about what such change might involve.
Many people are deeply interested in the spiritual aspects of human existence but hold back from religious commitment because of doubts about the evidence for God. In this lucid and emotionally engaged study, John Cottingham charts a rational pathway towards religious belief by showing how it requires all the responses of the human mind.
Intellectual analysis has its place, but to grasp all the relevant evidence we also need emotional openness and imaginative sensitivity. Drawing on a rich array of literary, scriptural and poetic resources, the author locates religious belief in a transformative framework of meaning and value.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN-13
978-1-4729-0745-5 (9781472907455)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
John Cottingham
How to Believe
Book
11/2015
Bloomsbury Continuum
€41.07
Article exhausted; check different version
Person
John Cottingham is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading and an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. His much acclaimed recent titles include Philosophy and the Good Life, On the Meaning of Life and The Spiritual Dimension, and he is also well-known for his extensive writings in the history of philosophy and in ethics. He is President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and Editor of the journal Ratio.
Content
Foreword
Part 1: Contrasting Visions
1 The onset of autumn
2 An ambiguous world
3 Belief and comportment
4 Transformation and truth
Part 2: The World 'Beyond'
1 The closing of the windows
2 Dimensions of reality
3 Science, scientism and subjectivity
4 Transcendence and presence
Part 3: Adopting a Worldview
1 Outlooks, pictures, frameworks, lenses
2 The double helix
3 The dimension of praxis
4 Vision and enactment
Part 4: Religion as a Live Option
1 A secular age
2 The phenomenon of 'pervasiveness'
3 Uniqueness and particularity
4 Funnels of significance
Part 5: The Disclosure of the Sacred
1 Religion and art
2 Crossing the threshold
3 The sacred secularized?
4 The fires of arrogance
Part 6: Something of Great Constancy
1 From fancy to reality
2 The costs of belief
3 Embodied engagement
4 What are days for?
Bibliography
Index
Part 1: Contrasting Visions
1 The onset of autumn
2 An ambiguous world
3 Belief and comportment
4 Transformation and truth
Part 2: The World 'Beyond'
1 The closing of the windows
2 Dimensions of reality
3 Science, scientism and subjectivity
4 Transcendence and presence
Part 3: Adopting a Worldview
1 Outlooks, pictures, frameworks, lenses
2 The double helix
3 The dimension of praxis
4 Vision and enactment
Part 4: Religion as a Live Option
1 A secular age
2 The phenomenon of 'pervasiveness'
3 Uniqueness and particularity
4 Funnels of significance
Part 5: The Disclosure of the Sacred
1 Religion and art
2 Crossing the threshold
3 The sacred secularized?
4 The fires of arrogance
Part 6: Something of Great Constancy
1 From fancy to reality
2 The costs of belief
3 Embodied engagement
4 What are days for?
Bibliography
Index
