Introduction i This work is a sustained argument for the rationality of belief in God based on the evidence that across various religions down through history people seem to have experienced God.1 If we conf1ne ourselves to rationality ...

There exists a diversity of "evidence-free" religions, contradicting one an- other. There will be an epistemic problem for a religious devotee either because evidence-free belief is in general not epistemically justified in the face of diversity, or because of a special problem in the religious case. I argue that in general evidence-free belief is epistemically justified in the face of diversity. Then I argue that recent arguments of Wykstra and Basinger fail to show that there is a special problem in (...) the religious case. Finally, I give reasons why religious belief is epistemically justified in the face of diversity. (shrink)

This chapter discusses wide and narrow definitions of “mystical experience” and of “religious experience”; categories and attributes of mystical experience; perennialism vs. constructivism; on the possibility of experiencing God; epistemology: The doxastic practice approach and the argument from perception; criticisms of the doxastic practice approach and the argument from perception; religious diversity; naturalistic explanations; and mysticism, religious experience, and gender.

Abraham! Abraham! is an adventure in contemporary theology addressing the akedah (the binding or sacrifice of Isaac) inspired by Kierkegaard and by the Hasidim, especially Rabbi Nachman of Breslav and Rabbi Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica. Gellman presents his version of Kierkegaard and compares and contrasts this with Hasidic thinkers. He then proceeds to employ Kierkegaardian and Hasidic themes to develop a contemporary reading of the story, and, in contrast, presents an understanding of the akedah from Sarah's point of view. (...) Appealing to a wide range of readers interested in existentialism, Hasidism, Christian thought, and feminist thought, Jerome Gellman illustrates the richness in Kierkegaard and Hasidic writings on the akedah. (shrink)

In what follows I wish to make a contribution to the clarification of the logic of the name . I will do so in two stages. In the first stage I will be investigating the meaning of names in general, and how names refer. In the second stage I will attempt to apply the findings of the first stage to the name , in light of the way that name functions in religious discourse.

MAIMONIDES the great systematizer of Jewish Law, left no systematic philosophy for later generations. His philosophical legacy consists mainly of his Guide of the Perplexed and a few lesser philosophical tracts. The Guide is notoriously informal and unsystematic, moving from topic to topic in a manner that appears at times to have no inner logic. The lesser tracts yield only fragments of a whole. In addition, for whatever reasons, Maimonides felt obliged to conceal at least some of his true philosophical (...) positions, displaying to the untrained eye one position, while hinting to the more discerning reader a "true" position lying behind the official one. There is nothing in Maimonides' writings that even begins to approach the monumental architectonic of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. (shrink)

In what follows I wish to make a contribution to the clarification of the logic of the name ‘God’. I will do so in two stages. In the first stage I will be investigating the meaning of names in general, and how names refer. In the second stage I will attempt to apply the findings of the first stage to the name ‘God’, in light of the way that name functions in religious discourse.

If an alleged experience of God can constitute evidence for God’s existence, then it must be possible for God to be a perceptual particular, that is, a substantive, enduring object of perception. Furthermore, if several such experiences are to be cumulative evidence for God’s existence, then it must be possible to reidentify God from experience to experience. I examine both a "conceptual" and an "epistemological" argument against these possibilities that is derived from the work of Richard Gale. I argue that (...) neither of these arguments is successful. For God to be a perceptual particular, he must have an inner life; for God to be reidentified across experiences, he need not exist in dimensions analogous to the spatiotemporal. (shrink)

When are sentences A and B the same belief? Following Quine, observation sentences A and B are the same belief when they share the same stimulus–meaning, similar patterns of assent and dissent by subjects when the sentences are queried in the presence of the same non–linguistic stimuli. As for non–observation sentences we note a suggestion of Karl Schick: apply linguistic stimuli in the form of utterances of the language, and map the connections between sentences in the language in terms of (...) linguistic conditioned–responses to utterances. The mapping will yield a network of relations between non–observation sentences themselves, and between the latter and observation sentences at the ‘periphery’. Thus, each sentence receives its place in the overall criss–crossing of relations in the network of the language. Out of a commitment to the ‘autonomy of meaning’, we can say that when A and B are non–observational, they are the same belief when they occupy similar places in the network of sentences in a given language, or corresponding places in corresponding networks of two languages. (shrink)

This book is an investigation into authenticity, certainty, and self-hood as they arise in the story of the binding of Isaac. Gellman provides a new interpretation of Kierkegaard with select Hasidic commentary. Contents: INTRODUCTION: Background to the Book; Hasidism and Existentialism; Preview of the Chapters; THE FEAR AND THE TREMBLING: Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; The Problem of Hearing and the Problem of Choice; The 'Ethical' for Kierkegaard; The 'Voice of God' for Kierkegaard; The Resolution of the Problems; THE UNCERTAINTY: Mordecai (...) Joseph Leiner of Izbica; Maimonides, Saadia, and Gersonides; The Existentialist Interpretation; The Theological Interpretation; SINNING FOR GOD: The Teleological Suspension of the Ethical; Averah Lishmah-Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica and Zadok Hakohen of Lublin; Divine Determinism; Repentance from Fear and from Love; Averah Lishmah and the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical; THE DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS: Abraham's Prophetic Utterance; Heavy and Light Double Mindedness; The Fire-Elimelech of Lyzhansk; Judah Aryeh Leib of Gur; Abraham's Double-Mindedness; THE PASSION: Abraham Issac Kook; Hegel and Kierkegaard on Religion and Philosophy; Abraham and Idolatry; The Akedah According to Rav Kook; God's Mercy; Rav Kook and Kierkegaard on the Self; Index. (shrink)