Defining Religion

List of Tables
Preface

Part I: Heuristics

Preliminary Remarks

1. Problems of Definition

2. A Heuristic Definition of Religion

3.Theory of Religion in a Pragmatic Philosophical Theology

4. Modeling Ultimate Reality: God, Consciousness, and Emergence

Part II: Pragmatics

Preliminary Remarks

5. A Pragmatic Approach to Religious Experience

6. Semiotics versus Phenomenology: Existential and Hermeneutic Dimensions

7. Hermeneutic and Validity Dimensions of Religious Experience

8. Self-Reliance and the Portability of Pragmatism

Part III: Religious Studies

Preliminary Remarks

9. Why All Theology Should Be Comparative

10. Does the Study of Religion Need Philosophy?

11. Some Recommendations for the Future of Liberal Theology

12. Naturalism: So Easily Wrong

Part IV: Philosophical Theology

Preliminary Remarks

13. A Respectful Alternative to Process Theology: A Letter of Grateful and Affectionate Response to David Ray Griffin's Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for Its Contemporary Relevance

14. The Triune God and Creation ex Nihilo, or "The One and the Many" Strikes Again

15. Perpetual Apophasis and the Existential Implosion of Worldviews

16. Ultimate Realities for the Sciences and Humanities

Part V: Players

Preliminary Remarks

17. John E. Smith: Doing Something with American Philosophy

18. Richard Rorty: Pragmatism, Metaphysics, Comparison, and Realism

19. William Desmond's Philosophical Theology

20. Nancy Frankenberry: Philosopher of Religion, Radical Empiricist, Herald of Contingency

Index