Defining Religion: Essays in Philosophy of Religion

Contents
List of Tables
Preface
	Notes
Part One: Heuristics
	Preliminary Remarks
		Chapter One Problems of Definition
			Confusions of Definition
			Defining Religion as a Harmony
			Ecologies of Harmonies
			Tunnels of Definition
			Notes
		Chapter Two A Heuristic Definition of Religion
			On Definition
			Ultimacy and Engagement in Religion
			Five Problematics of Religion
			Components of Authentic Religion
			Notes
		Chapter Three Theory of Religion in a Pragmatic Philosophical Theology
			Ultimate Realities
			Cognitive Articulations
			Existential Identifications
			Religious Life
			Notes
		Chapter Four Modeling Ultimate Reality: God, Consciousness, and Emergence
			Introduction
			Personhood, Consciousness, and Emergence
			The Ontological Creative Act
			Semiotics of Symbolic Engagement
			Notes
Part Two: Pragmatics
	Preliminary Remarks
		Chapter Five A Pragmatic Approach to Religious Experience
			Religious Experience
			Engagement and Reference
			What Makes Religious Symbols Religious?
			Reductionism
			Notes
		Chapter Six Semiotics versus Phenomenology: Existential and Hermeneutic Dimensions
			Defining Religious Experience: Phenomenology and Semiotics
			Existential Dimensions of Religious Experience
			Hermeneutic Dimensions: Intentionality
			Hermeneutic Dimensions: Signs
			Notes
		Chapter Seven Hermeneutic and Validity Dimensions of Religious Experience
			Hermeneutic Dimensions: Reference
			Hermeneutic Dimensions: Context
			Validity Dimensions
			Summary Dimensions of Religious Experience in Semiotic Analysis
			Notes
		Chapter Eight Self-Reliance and the Portability of Pragmatism
			American Philosophical Exceptionalism
			Transcendental Philosophy
			Putting Nature First
			The Pragmatic Model
			Notes
Part Three: Religious Studies
	Preliminary Remarks
		Chapter Nine Why All Theology Should Be Comparative
			A Logic of Comparison
			The Social Organization of Theological Comparison
			Motive for Theological Comparison
			Normativeness in Comparative Theology
			Notes
		Chapter Ten Does the Study of Religion Need Philosophy?
			Kinds of Philosophy in Religion
			Philosophy in the Definition of Religion
			Philosophy and Religious Symbolism
			Philosophy and Ultimate Reality
		Chapter Eleven Some Recommendations for the Future of Liberal Theology
			A New Framework
			Pragmatic Inquiry
			Pragmatic Realism
			Religious Experience
			Metaphysics and Apophatic Theology
			Notes
		Chapter Twelve Naturalism: So Easily Wrong
			Introduction
			The Positive Thesis
			The Unfrankenberry Thesis
			The Unwildman Thesis
			Notes
Part Four: Philosophical Theology
	Preliminary Remarks
		Chapter Thirteen 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
			Ontology
			Intimate Religious Sensibility
			Conceptions of God as Religiously Available
			Religious Language and Metaphysics
			Notes
		Chapter Fourteen The Triune God and Creation ex Nihilo, or “The One and the Many” Strikes Again
			Creativity According to Joseph Bracken
			The Problem of the One and the Many
			Eternal Creation
			An Eternal Act of Creation Ex Nihilo
			Notes
		Chapter Fifteen Perpetual Apophasis and the Existential Implosion of Worldviews
			On Religion
			Sacred Worldviews
			Apophatic Theology
			Existential Implosions
			Notes
		Chapter Sixteen Ultimate Realities for the Sciences and Humanities
			Ontological Ultimate Realities
			Cosmological Ultimate Realities
			Topics for Research
			Summary and Conclusion
			Notes
Part Five: Players
	Preliminary Remarks
		Chapter Seventeen John E. Smith: Doing Something with American Philosophy
			European and American Philosophy
			A New Theory of Experience
			Philosophy of Religion
			Ambiguities of Philosophical Ambition
			Notes
		Chapter Eighteen Richard Rorty: Pragmatism, Metaphysics, Comparison, and Realism
			Pragmatism
			Metaphysics
			Comparison
			Realism
			Notes
		Chapter Nineteen William Desmond’s Philosophical Theology
			Metaxology
			Harmony
			The Infinity of Respects of Interpretation
			Methods Compared
			Determinateness and the Ontological Ground of Mutual Relevance: God
			Being and Beings
			Ontological Creation
			God
			The Divine Nature
			Comparisons
			In Desmond’s Mirror
			Notes
		Chapter Twenty Nancy Frankenberry: Philosopher of Religion, Radical Empiricist, Herald of Contingency
			Introduction
			Frankenberry, Whitehead, and Davidson
			The Linguistic Turn
			Frankenberry’s Vision
			Notes
Index