The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism

J. L. Schellenberg

ISBN 10: 0801478510 / ISBN 13: 9780801478512

Published by Cornell University Press, 2012

About this Item

Num Pages: 344 pages, 6, 6 figures. BIC Classification: HRAB. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 147 x 225 x 20. Weight in Grams: 444. . 2012. Reprint. paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780801478512

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801478510
• ISBN 13: 9780801478512
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The Wisdom to Doubt is a major contribution to the contemporary literature on the epistemology of religious belief. Continuing the inquiry begun in his previous book, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, J. L. Schellenberg here argues that given our limitations and especially our immaturity as a species, there is no reasonable choice but to withhold judgment about the existence of an ultimate salvific reality.

Schellenberg defends this conclusion against arguments from religious experience and naturalistic arguments that might seem to make either religious belief or religious disbelief preferable to his skeptical stance. In so doing, he canvasses virtually all of the important recent work on the epistemology of religion. Of particular interest is his call for at least skepticism about theism, the most common religious claim among philosophers. The Wisdom to Doubt expands the author's well-known hiddenness argument against theism and situates it within a larger atheistic argument, itself made to serve the purposes of his broader skeptical case. That case need not, on Schellenberg's view, lead to a dead end but rather functions as a gateway to important new insights about intellectual tasks and religious possibilities.

About the Author

J. L. Schellenberg is Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint Vincent University. He is the author of Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason and Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, also from Cornell.