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Faith and Belief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Donald Evans
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto

Extract

What is religious faith? Contemporary philosophy of religion and philosophical theology provide a bewildering abundance of different answers to this question. In this essay I shall sketch an over-view of some of the literature, in the form of a classificatory schema. I hope that this schema will enable the reader to distinguish with greater clarity some of the various kinds of issue which arise. My focus will be on contrasts between faith and belief.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 5 note 1 Bultmann, Rudolf, Jesus Christ and Mythology (1960), p. 69.Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 Tillich, Paul, Dynamics of Faith, 1958.Google Scholar

page 6 note 2 For earlier versions of these contrasts see Evans, Donald, The Logic of Self-Involvement, 1963Google Scholar (ch. 1) and ‘Differences between scientific and religious assertions’, in Science and Religion, 1968.

page 7 note 1 For an excellent study of some of them, see Fingarette, Herbert, Self-Deception (London: Routledge, 1969).Google Scholar

page 8 note 1 For a more detailed consideration of onlooks, consult the index of subjects in Donald Evans, The Logic of Self-Involvement.

page 9 note 1 Christianity and History (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1949), p. 86.Google Scholar

page 9 note 2 Cf. Price, H. H., Belief (especially series II).Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 Hick, John in Faith and Knowledge, 1969Google Scholar, expounds an analysis of faith as ‘experiencing-as’ which combines features from what I call ‘onlooks’ and ‘grammar’.