Customer Reviews

Exploring the Philosophy of Religion (5th Edition)

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This is an incredible work that will introduce the reader with such topics as defining "Religious Experience," "Arguments for the Existence of God," "Faith and Reason," "The Problem of Evil," "Death and Human Destiny," and much more. This book is laid out nicely to present various perspectives and opposing viewpoints. The "textbook" approach presents readings from notable thinkers such as William James, Rene Descartes, Anthony Flew, John Stewart Mill, Paul Tillich, and many others. It includes discussion questions that will challenge the reader to think about the material that is presented. As this work is written in the layman's language, I think that it will guide readers to EXPLORE the philosophy of religion, and that it will serve as a handbook to prepare arguments for beliefs and disposition.

I received the Sixth Edition of EXPLORING THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION in the mail. Most of such "complimentary copies" of various textbooks are hardly worth reading, but this book is a delightful exception. All of the major themes are covered in excellent detail.
Stewart includes sections on mysticism, theodicy, evil, morality, theistic arguments, faith vs. reason,
religious language, the soul, and the will to believe. Adequate coverage of feminist themes and Asian thought is appreciated, especially in a fairly short volume. I would recommend this
book as a core text in philosophy of religion courses, using Whitehead-RELIGION IN THE MAKING and Bergson-TWO SOURCES as supplemental readings. The Stewart text could also be used as a supplemental text for intro. to phil. and ethics courses.
My only criticism is inadequate length-- the professor using this text as the sole text for a course would need to provide plenty of lecture material from outside sources or from her own research. I do not believe that this work could support a whole 15-week semester by itself.

Read EPR if you LOVE philosophy. Otherwise, this probably will be irrelevant and boring especially for a gen-ed course. Topics include ultimate reality, concepts about God, the afterlife, source of evil, supernatural elements, and the human being. The author is complicated and does not explain himself plainly either. His references are also complex. But to best understand him, skim over a chapter then read it again. Also, purchase the book used. However, the book can provide insight on something, so it's not entirely meaningless.

I was exposed to this book back in college. I enjoyed it immensely back then, and am enjoying re-reading it now.

This is a boring book with poor articles for their topic. All of the authors have great cradentials but the pieces of works chosen were poor choices.