Teaching Philosophy 35:3, September 2012

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Reviews
Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction Michael B. Wilkinson and Hugh N. Campbell
New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010, x + 394 pp. $29.95 pbk. ISBN 978-1-4411-6773-6

TIMOTHY CHAMBERS
I do not want to deny the reality of God, that God really exists. But it is not yet settled what the reality of God consists inFr. Gareth Moore

Wilkinson and Campbell offer a textbook in the philosophy of religion that achieves two goals. It treats the basic topics teachers can expect from such an introductory text, while at the same time treating those topics from a distinctive perspective inspired by the late philosopher D. Z. Phillips. These two features make for a text which will intrigue teachers as well as inspire students to discuss, not only the familiar disputes religion engenders, but also to train a careful eye on the methodological matters of how such disputes should be canvassed and considered. Topics: Wilkinson and Campells text covers the range of topics common to most introductions to the philosophy of religion. The authors emphasize topics drawn primarily from the Judeo-Christian tradition (especially as considered by what we might call the analytic philosophical orientation). Students will encounter such classic issues as those involving the Divine Attributes (Part III), Aquinass Five Ways (Part IV), the Problem of Evil and theodicies for meeting it (Part V), William James on Religious Experience and Hume on Miracles (Part VIII), as well as Aquinas and St. Paul on the Resurrection and Immortality (Part IX). Students who read this text will also achieve a working acquaintance with a robust budget of contemporary philosophers and controversies. The Russell-Copleston debate makes its obligatory appearance (13739), as does Ayers verificationist criterion of meaning (22941), and the Flew/Hare/ Mitchell symposium on theology and falsification (24251). Both Richard Swinburnes Bayesian arguments for God (15154) and his controversial theodicy (18183) receive probing discussion. The authors also air, briefly, Michael Behes remarks on irreducible complexity and his critics rejoinders (21114). In sum, three of the more contemporary philosophers who receive the most recurring attention are Richard Dawkins (especially his book, The God Delusion), the late John Hick, and Richard Swinburne. Wilkinson and Campbells treatment of cutting-edge concerns (in Part VII) also comprises the most challenging sections in their text. (The authors are
Teaching Philosophy, 2012. All rights reserved. 0145-5788 DOI: 10.5840/teachphil201235331 pp. 305308

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aware of this (294).) Its difficult to image students navigating the discussion of Plantinga, Foundationalism and Reformed Epistemology (297306) without having had prior exposure to epistemology. Still more challenging is the texts treatment, in chapter 25, of issues pertaining to the well-worn Realism debate(s). The authors rightly counsel that [t]he major source of muddle in grappling with issues of contemporary realism and anti-realism is a confusion of terms (289); Im not entirely sure, though, that students will feel secure in the nuances of all these termsrealism, anti-realism, non-realism, Idealism, non-cognitivism, foundationalism, externalism, justificationism, mind-dependence, mind-resistance, bivalence, coherence, non-metaphysical realism, and practical realismby the end of the authors ten pages.1 Perspective: The authors methodology owes a particular debt to the work of the late D. Z. Philips (iv). It would be difficult to overstate how Phillipss insights have informed the authors labors. The texts notable Phillipian Stance (to coin a phrase) distinguishes this book from most other introductory works; it also might present a distinctive challenge to studentsthough this promises to be, I think, a constructive challenge. If we were to ask a philosophy class, Does God exist?, we can pretty much predict the discussion that would ensue. Believers might point to worldly Design or how God has manifested Himself in their own lives. Critics might retort by citing worldly Suffering or how their own personal experience lacks any oceanic feeling (to borrow Freuds phrase). Either way, students reflexively respond to Does God exist? much as they might respond to any worldly question of the form Does X exist?to wit, by, first, citing features of the world and/or personal perceptions, and then, in textbook abductive manner, testify that theism/atheism is to be inferred as the best explanation of those features of world and perception. At the very outset, the authors, echoing Phillips, caution us to arrest and question this (Humean [18]) reflex before allowing our inquiry to lurch into these familiar ruts. Whatever God is, the authors caution repeatedly, He does not exist in the sense in which we might inquire whether the Loch Ness Monster or (for all its remoteness from everyday human experience) the Higgs boson exists. If anything, the existence of God is a religious quest, not a scientific one (214). For this reason, the authors follow Phillips in positing that the task of philosophy is not to settle the question of whether a man is talking to God or not, but to ask what it means to affirm or deny that a man is talking to God (274).2 As the authors continually stress, Phillipss position, at once, both contradicts the atheist Richard Dawkinss stance (i.e., that propositions involving God are failed scientific propositions) as well as that of Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne (who avers that propositions about God can be vindicated by scientific considerations). Unsurprisingly, the Phillipian metaphysical backdrop engenders a distinctive epistemology. Some philosophers, like Alvin Plantinga, advance a

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belief in God on analogy with the belief in Other Minds: we can have direct evidence of neither, but the respective hypotheses are recommended by their greater explanatory power than the alternatives. In a different spirit, John Hick finds it significant that Christian immortality is a prediction that will be verified in ones experience if it is true but ... cant be falsified if it is false (249, quoting Hick). Against such valiant efforts, the authors (citing D. Z. Phillipss own essay A Reformed Epistemology) challenge whether Plantingas analogy can sustain the weight: To believe in God, the authors caution, is a belief of a different order to belief in other minds (306). A similar consideration would caution us against taking theological statements as appropriate subjects for talk of (eschatological) verification a la Hick. Beliefs concerning terrestrial events are subject to verification; a cosmic Hereafter is a different order of belief. The authors deep respect for D. Z. Phillips notwithstanding, Wilkinson and Campbell nonetheless consider two matters on which Phillipss doctrine, respectively, seems at odds with itselfand, more generally, whether his methodology leads more to mystery than illumination. As to the former, Phillips claims that the philosophers job is only to ask what it means to believe this, or that, about the afterlife. And yet, Phillipss interpretation that eternal life means a quality of this life..., not a mans continued survival after death (378, quoting Phillips; Tractatus 6.4311 deserves comparison here). One cant help but think that many a Believer wouldnt find such an interpretation of her views of the afterlife explained by such a doctrine, so much as explained away. More generally, the authors see the sweeping question which students are bound to pose after viewing religion through Phillipss lens: If God is so mysterious ... so unknown, why begin the debate at all, let alone in the terms we have suggested in the last several hundred pages? (38081) I admit: Im vexed. Early on, the authors cite Job 19:2526it is the implications of [this verse] that form the core of this book (31). Yet as my reading continued, I found the text more in spirit with the Acts of the Apostles, where Paul noticed an Athenian altar with the inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD (17:23). Then again, as one famous Athenian observed, the beginning of wisdom is to know that one does not know.

Notes
1. A quibble here: some of the just-listed terms (e.g., justificationism) do not appear in the Index. The index also fails to include the delectable word, onomatoids (16). I cant help but think that future editions would be more student-friendly if the index were more comprehensive. Even better: a glossary might go a long way to rescue students (and even their teachers!) from the muddle that results from confusions of terms. 2. A concrete example of this comes to mind, deriving from a puzzling remark by the late Pope John Paul II: Prayer is a search for God, he writes, but it is also a revelation

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of God (His Holiness John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, ed. Vittorio Messori [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994], 25). In this way, the logic of prayer seems quite unlike our usual scientific attitudes toward searching and revealing. Once the Loch Ness Monster is revealed, then the search immediately ceases. On the other hand, so long as were searching, we can infer that Nessies revelation is not yet at hand. If I understand the authors proposal correctly, the philosophers job isnt to conjecture whether the late Popes remarks are true or falsebut, rather, to try to sketch what this paradoxical remark might mean. (Menos Paradox might be of some service here.) Timothy Chambers, 126 Lawler Road, West Hartford CT 06117; tcham71@gmail.com

The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder and Distress John Marmysz

Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011, 445 pp., $56.95 pbk. ISBN 978-0495-50932-5.

DAVID W. DREBUSHENKO This book has a preface, an introduction, together with thirteen chapters covering the history of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to postmodernity, with an emphasis on Existentialism (and, of course, the most prominent thinkers of every movement in between). What is more, the book has a promising, better than average glossary. Happily, the author explicitly recognizes the peril inherent in a book of the kind he aims to produce (successfully); as we see in the following remarks: the book attempts to walk a line between comprehensiveness and depth. Some books, in their attempt to be comprehensive, fail to linger with the important issues and arguments that make philosophy profound. Other books, in their attempt to be conceptually deep, fail to offer a panorama of the philosophical and historical landscape. This book walks a middle path between the two extremes (xiii). Now I am certain the author knows that the last sentence is not to be taken as a goal that he has achieved to the compete satisfaction of every professionally interested party. I am equally certain he would not want it to be taken without qualification. If the crucial sentence, which may be plausibly read as a concise statement of what the author believes to have actually accomplished is taken just as it is written and without qualification, then it will be read as an announcement that he is set upon, and has satisfied, a standard that is a practical impossibility. The required qualification is obvious: the sentence expresses a theoretical ideal or, more exactly, it is a declaration that he aims to land somewhere in the vicinity of an optimal balance between range and depth (where there is a near minimal sacrifice in either direction). At least, that is my take on the authors intention. Ultimately, it is a matter of what may be reasonably expected from any author of such a work.
Teaching Philosophy, 2012. All rights reserved. 0145-5788 DOI: 10.5840/teachphil201235332 pp. 308311