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Is the Justification of Religious Belief a Possible Enterprise?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Michael Durrant
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University College, Cardiff

Extract

In a recent article Professor Phillips has argued against Mascall's contention that the role of philosophy in relation to religious belief is to justify that belief by seeking ‘rational grounds for asserting the existence of God’. In this paper I shall investigate the case Phillips presents and the argument he utilises from Winch to establish the conclusion that it is a fundamental misunderstanding to think that one could justify religious belief and I shall further point out a serious dilemma in Phillips's position on the question of religious truth. It is my claim that Phillips does not establish that Mascall's enterprise is an impossible one and that his own position in criticising Mascall leads him into the dilemma I have alluded to.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

page 449 note 1 ‘Philosophy, Theology and the Reality of God’ reprinted in Phillips, D. Z.: Faith and Philosophical Enquiry, London, Routledge 1970, pp. 112.Google Scholar

page 449 note 2 In Existence and Analogy.

page 449 note 3 P. 7.

page 450 note 1 op. cit., p. 7.

page 450 note 2 op. cit., p. 100; Phillips, op. cit., p. 8.

page 454 note 1 Romans i. 20.

page 454 note 2 pp. 11–12.

page 454 note 3 p. 11.