The Why and the How of Renewal in Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

Recently, we co-edited a volume of essays (Draper & Schellenberg 2017) dedicated to the proposition that our field, the philosophy of religion, is not all that it could be.  The new set of essays we’re joining here shows that this sentiment is, at the least, not going away.  That’s encouraging, but how can we get beyond sentiment?  In this our own essay we hope to do so by focusing very precisely and persuasively on problems and solutions: on why our field needs renewal and how to achieve it. More specifically, we hope to get every reader to recognize and accept at least one problem from the range of problems in the field as it exists today that we propose to identify, and to select for special thought and supportive effort at least one solution from the range of solutions we’ll be promoting.  Let’s adjust that slightly: one extra problem and one extra solution – for we’re going to start by setting the right mood with some thoughts about a very basic problem/solution pair that we should all be able to recognize/support.