Introduction! Philosophy and Theology

Between theologians and philosophers there has often been a strange love–hate relationship. On the one hand, philosophers have a fundamental interest in those features of human existence on which theologians reflect, while theologians are very much dependent on the methodological tools which philosophers provide. In fact, as we shall argue below, systematic theology can itself be interpreted as largely a philosophical enterprise. On the other hand, however, philosophers have often demanded that religious believers justify their truth claims by standards of rationality which these claims can never meet to the satisfaction of philosophers, and which many theologians consider to be quite inappropriate to the nature of the claims in question. In their view religious belief must be judged on its own terms and does not require any extraneous philosophical foundations or justifications. This opposition is well expressed by Anthony Kenny:

In the view of many philosophers, then, theology is so obscurantist as to lack all intellectual respectability, whereas many theologians have a deep distrust of philosophers whose intolerable demands are aimed at undermining the faith.