Index of philosophy of religion articles
Encyclopedia
This is a list of articles in philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...

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  • A Grief Observed
    A Grief Observed
    A Grief Observed is a collection of C. S. Lewis's reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, Joy Gresham, in 1960. The book was first published in 1961 under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk as Lewis wished to avoid identification as the author...

  • A History of God
    A History of God
    A History of God is a best-selling book by Karen Armstrong. It details the history of the three major monotheistic traditions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Also included in the book are Buddhism and Hinduism...

  • A Letter Concerning Toleration
    A Letter Concerning Toleration
    A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke was originally published in 1689. Its initial publication was in Latin, though it was immediately translated into other languages. Locke's work appeared amidst a fear that Catholicism might be taking over England, and responds to the problem of religion...

  • A New Model of the Universe
  • A Secular Humanist Declaration
    A Secular Humanist Declaration
    A Secular Humanist Declaration was an argument for and statement of support for democratic secular humanism. The document was issued in 1980 by The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism , now the Council for Secular Humanism...

  • A. H. Almaas
    A. H. Almaas
    Ali Hameed Almaas is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali, an author and spiritual teacher who writes about and teaches a mystical approach informed by modern psychology and therapy, which he calls the Diamond Approach....

  • A.P. Martinich
    A.P. Martinich
    Aloysius P. Martinich is an analytic philosopher and is the Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Professor History at University of Texas at Austin. His area of interest is the nature and practice of interpretation; history of modern philosophy; the philosophy of language and...

  • Abandonment (existentialism)
    Abandonment (existentialism)
    Abandonment or forlornness is a central idea of atheist existentialism put forward by Jean-Paul Sartre. According to this theory, God does not exist and existence therefore has no intrinsic purpose or meaning. Humanity has been abandoned in the world and each must create his or her own meaning and...

  • Abd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin al-Qushayri
    Abd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin al-Qushayri
    Abd Ul Karim ibn Hawazin al-Qushayri, was born in 986 CE in Nishapur which is in the Khurasan province of Iran...

  • Abhidharma
    Abhidharma
    Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...

  • Abraham Joshua Heschel
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century.-Biography:...

  • Absolute (philosophy)
    Absolute (philosophy)
    The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...

  • Absolute atheism
  • Absolute Infinite
    Absolute Infinite
    The Absolute Infinite is mathematician Georg Cantor's concept of an "infinity" that transcended the transfinite numbers. Cantor equated the Absolute Infinite with God...

  • Abstinence
    Abstinence
    Abstinence is a voluntary restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to sexual abstinence, or abstention from alcohol or food. The practice can arise from religious prohibitions or practical...

  • Abu'l Hasan Muhammad Ibn Yusuf al-'Amiri
    Abu'l Hasan Muhammad Ibn Yusuf al-'Amiri
    Abu al-Hassan Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Amiri was a Muslim theologian and philosopher of Persian origin, who attempted to reconcile philosophy with religion, and Sufism with conventional Islam. While al-'Amiri believed the revealed truths of Islam were superior to the logical conclusions of...

  • Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani
    Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani
    Abu Sulayman Muhammad Sijistani, also called al-Mantiqi , , named for his origins in Sijistan or Sistan province in present-day Iran, became the leading philosopher of Islamic humanism in the Baghdad of his time....

  • Accidentalism
    Accidentalism
    Accidentalism may refer to:* In philosophy, it is used for any system of thought which denies the causal nexus and maintains that events succeed one another haphazardly or by chance . In metaphysics, accidentalism denies the doctrine that everything occurs or results from a definite cause...

  • Acosmism
    Acosmism
    Acosmism, in contrast to pantheism, denies the reality of the universe, seeing it as ultimately illusory, , and only the infinite unmanifest Absolute as real....

  • Actus purus
    Actus purus
    Actus Purus is a term employed in scholastic philosophy to express the absolute perfection of God. It literally means, "pure act."Created beings have potentiality that is not actuality, imperfections as well as perfection. Only God is simultaneously all that He can be, infinitely real and...

  • Adevism
    Adevism
    Adevism is a term introduced by Friedrich Max Müller to imply the denial of gods, in particular, the legendary gods of Hinduism. Müller used it in the Gifford Lectures in connection with the Vedanta philosophy, for the correlative of ignorance or nescience...

  • Adi Shankara
    Adi Shankara
    Adi Shankara Adi Shankara Adi Shankara (IAST: pronounced , (Sanskrit: , ) (788 CE - 820 CE), also known as ' and ' was an Indian philosopher from Kalady of present day Kerala who consolidated the doctrine of advaita vedānta...

  • Adriaan Koerbagh
    Adriaan Koerbagh
    Adriaan Koerbagh was a Dutch scholar and writer best known as a critic of religion and conventional morality.-Life:...

  • Afshin Ellian
  • Afterlife
    Afterlife
    The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...

  • Age of Enlightenment
    Age of Enlightenment
    The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

  • Agnostic atheism
    Agnostic atheism
    Agnostic atheism, also called atheistic agnosticism, is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either...

  • Agnostic theism
    Agnostic theism
    Agnostic theism is the philosophical view that encompasses both theism and agnosticism. An agnostic theist believes the proposition at least one deity exists is true, but regards the truth or falsehood of this proposition as unknown or inherently unknowable...

  • Agnosticism
    Agnosticism
    Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....

  • Ahimsa
    Ahimsa
    Ahimsa is a term meaning to do no harm . The word is derived from the Sanskrit root hims – to strike; himsa is injury or harm, a-himsa is the opposite of this, i.e. non harming or nonviolence. It is an important tenet of the Indian religions...

  • Ahmad Sirhindi
    Ahmad Sirhindi
    Imām Rabbānī Shaykh Ahmad al-Farūqī al-Sirhindī was an Indian Islamic scholar from Punjab, a Hanafi jurist, and a prominent member of the Naqshbandī Sufi order. He is described as Mujaddid Alf Thānī, meaning the "reviver of the second millennium", for his work in rejuvenating Islam and opposing...

  • Al-Farabi
    Al-Farabi
    ' known in the West as Alpharabius , was a scientist and philosopher of the Islamic world...

  • Al-Ghazali
    Al-Ghazali
    Abu Hāmed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzālī , known as Algazel to the western medieval world, born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia was a Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic....

  • Al-Kindi
    Al-Kindi
    ' , known as "the Philosopher of the Arabs", was a Muslim Arab philosopher, mathematician, physician, and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim peripatetic philosophers, and is unanimously hailed as the "father of Islamic or Arabic philosophy" for his synthesis, adaptation and promotion...

  • Al-Shahrastani
    Al-Shahrastani
    Tāj al-Dīn Abū al-Fath Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Karīm ash-Shahrastānī was an influential Persian historian of religions and a historiographer. His book, Kitab al–Milal wa al-Nihal was one of the pioneers in developing a scientific approach to the study of religions...

  • Al-Tabarani
    Al-Tabarani
    Abu al-Qasim Sulaiman ibn Ahmad ibn Al-Tabarani was born sometime in 260 AH and lived until 360 AH . He narrated numerous aḥadīth.-Students:...

  • Al-Zamakhshari
    Al-Zamakhshari
    Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari. Known widely as al-Zamakhshari . Also called Jar Allah was a medieval Muslim scholar of Chorasmian-Iranian origin, who subscribed to the Muʿtazilite theological doctrine, who was born in Khwarezmia, but lived most of his life in Bukhara, Samarkand, and...

  • Albrecht Ritschl
    Albrecht Ritschl
    Albrecht Ritschl was a German theologian.Starting in 1852, Ritschl lectured on "Systematic Theology". According to this system, faith was understood to be irreducible to other experiences, beyond the scope of reason. Faith, he said, came not from facts but from value judgments...

  • Alice von Hildebrand
    Alice von Hildebrand
    Alice von Hildebrand is a Catholic philosopher and theologian and a former professor.She came to the U.S. in 1940 and began teaching at Hunter College in New York City in 1947...

  • All Truth Is God's Truth
    All Truth is God's Truth
    All Truth is God's Truth is a book written by Christian philosopher Arthur F. Holmes and published in 1977. This book has its place in Holmes' wider body of work on Christian higher education, as an application of Christian theology and philosophy to human learning...

  • Alvin Plantinga
    Alvin Plantinga
    Alvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...

  • American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
    The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal sponsored by the American Catholic Philosophical Association. It was founded in 1927 as The New Scholasticism and adopted its current title in 1990. The journal publishes articles and book reviews covering the entire...

  • Amsterdam Declaration
    Amsterdam Declaration
    The Amsterdam Declaration 2002 is a statement of the fundamental principles of modern Humanism passed unanimously by the General Assembly of the International Humanist and Ethical Union at the 50th anniversary World Humanist Congress in 2002...

  • An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism
  • Anāgāmi
    Anagami
    In Buddhism, an anāgāmi is a partially enlightened person who has cut off the first five chains that bind the ordinary mind. Anagami-ship is the third of the four stages of enlightenment....

  • Analects
  • Analytical Thomism
    Analytical Thomism
    Analytical Thomism is a philosophical movement which promotes the interchange of ideas between the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas , and modern analytic philosophy....

  • Ananda Coomaraswamy
    Ananda Coomaraswamy
    Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy was a Ceylonese philosopher and metaphysician, as well as a pioneering historian and philosopher of Indian art, particularly art history and symbolism, and an early interpreter of Indian culture to the West...

  • Anantarika-karma
    Anantarika-karma
    Anantarika-karma or ànantarika-kamma in Buddhism is a heinous crime, which through karmic process brings immediate disaster. Traditionally there are five such crimes:*patricide*matricide*killing an arahant*wounding a buddha...

  • Anarchism and Islam
  • Anatta
    Anatta
    In Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self." In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses are not really "I" or "mine," and for this reason one should not cling to them.In the same vein, the Pali...

  • Anava
    Anava
    Anava is a state - the consciousness of the ego, the sense of "I" and "mine". This represents a sense of individuality and a separation from a general existence of any "divine plan". One of the three Buddhist malas or bondages: anava, karma and maya...

  • Anders Nygren
    Anders Nygren
    Anders Theodor Samuel Nygren was a Swedish Lutheran theologian. He was professor of systematic theology at Lund University from 1924 and was elected Bishop of Lund in 1948...

  • Andrew Chignell
  • Anekantavada
    Anekantavada
    ' is one of the most important and fundamental doctrines of Jainism. It refers to the principles of pluralism and multiplicity of viewpoints, the notion that truth and reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, and that no single point of view is the complete truth.Jains...

  • Animals in Buddhism
    Animals in Buddhism
    The position and treatment of animals in Buddhism is important for the light it sheds on Buddhists' perception of their own relation to the natural world, on Buddhist humanitarian concerns in general, and on the relationship between Buddhist theory and Buddhist practice.-Animals in Buddhist...

  • Anselm of Canterbury
    Anselm of Canterbury
    Anselm of Canterbury , also called of Aosta for his birthplace, and of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, a philosopher, and a prelate of the church who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109...

  • Answer to Job
    Answer to Job
    Answer to Job is a 1952 book by Carl Gustav Jung addressing the moral, mythological and psychological implications of the Book of Job...

  • Anthony Kenny
    Anthony Kenny
    Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny FBA is an English philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the philosophy of religion...

  • Anthony Thiselton
    Anthony Thiselton
    Anthony Charles Thiselton has written a number of books and papers on Christian theology and the philosophy of religion. He has recently served on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, appointed by the Minister of Health...

  • Anthropopath
    Anthropopath
    Anthropopathism, from the Greek "Anthropos", meaning "man" and "Pathos", meaning to feel or suffer. This is the assignation of human emotional characteristics to a non-human subject, when these are traits they do not possess....

  • Anti-clericalism
    Anti-clericalism
    Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...

  • Anti-communism
    Anti-communism
    Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

  • Anti-Supernaturalism
    Anti-supernaturalism
    Anti-Supernaturalism is a philosophical presupposition that claims one should, on principle, avoid any belief or explanation that involves supernatural causation.-For Anti-Supernaturalism:*-Against Anti-Supernaturalism:*...

  • Antihumanism
    Antihumanism
    Antihumanism is a term referring to a number of perspectives that are opposed to the project of philosophical anthropology...

  • Antireligion
    Antireligion
    Antireligion is opposition to religion. Antireligion is distinct from atheism and antitheism , although antireligionists may be atheists or antitheists...

  • Antitheism
    Antitheism
    Antitheism is active opposition to theism. The etymological roots of the word are the Greek 'anti-' and 'theismos'...

  • Anton Kržan
    Anton Kržan
    Anton Kržan was a Croatian philosopher, university professor and a rector.Professor Kržan was the third rector magnificus of the University of Zagreb, in the academic year 1876/1877. Since that year, the choice of rector is per turnum . He received his Ph.D...

  • Anton LaVey
    Anton LaVey
    Anton Szandor LaVey , born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician...

  • Apatheism
    Apatheism
    Apatheism , also known as pragmatic atheism or as practical atheism, is acting with apathy, disregard, or lack of interest towards belief or lack of belief in a deity. Apatheism describes the manner of acting towards a belief or lack of a belief in a deity; so applies to both theism and atheism...

  • Apocalypticism
    Apocalypticism
    Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one's own lifetime...

  • Apologetics
    Apologetics
    Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...

  • Argument from a proper basis
    Argument from a proper basis
    The Argument from a proper basis is an ontological argument for the existence of God related to fideism. Alvin Plantinga argued that belief in God is a properly basic belief, and so no basis for belief in God is necessary.- References :...

  • Argument from beauty
    Argument from beauty
    The argument from beauty is an argument for the existence of God as against materialism.-Outline logical structure:Its logical structure is essentially as follows:...

  • Argument from consciousness
    Argument from consciousness
    The argument from consciousness is an argument for the existence of God based on consciousness.-Philosophical summary of the argument:The argument may be stated in inductive or deductive form-Inductive form:...

  • Argument from degree
    Argument from degree
    The argument from degrees or the degrees of perfection argument is an argument for the existence of God first proposed by mediaeval Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas as one of the five ways to philosophically argue for God in his Summa Theologica. It is based on ontological and theological...

  • Argument from desire
    Argument from desire
    The argument from desire is an argument for the existence of God. It is most known in recent times through the writings of C. S. Lewis, for whom it played pivotal role in his own conversion to theism and thence to Christianity....

  • Argument from free will
    Argument from free will
    The argument from free will contends that omniscience and free will are incompatible, and that any conception of God that incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory. The argument may focus on the incoherence of people having free will, or else God himself having free will...

  • Argument from inconsistent revelations
    Argument from inconsistent revelations
    The argument from inconsistent revelations, also known as the avoiding the wrong hell problem, is an argument against the existence of God. It asserts that it is unlikely that God exists because many theologians and faithful adherents have produced conflicting and mutually exclusive revelations...

  • Argument from love
    Argument from love
    The Argument from love is an argument for the existence of God, as against materialism and reductionist forms of physicalism.-Outline of argument:...

  • Argument from miracles
    Argument from miracles
    The argument from miracles is an argument for the existence of God relying on eyewitness testimony of the occurrence of miracles to establish the active intervention of a supernatural being...

  • Argument from morality
    Argument from morality
    The argument from morality is one of many arguments for the existence of God. It comes in different forms, all aiming to support the claim that God exists with observations about morality...

  • Argument from nonbelief
    Argument from nonbelief
    The argument from nonbelief is a philosophical argument against the existence of God, specifically, the God of theism...

  • Argument from poor design
    Argument from poor design
    The dysteleological argument or argument from poor design is an argument against the existence of God, specifically against the existence of a creator God...

  • Argument from religious experience
    Argument from religious experience
    The Argument from religious experience is an argument for the existence of God, as against materialism.-Outline logical structure:Its logical structure is essentially as follows:...

  • Arhat
  • Aristotelian view of a god
  • Arya
  • Ashtamangala
    Ashtamangala
    Ashtamangala or Zhaxi Daggyai are a sacred suite of Eight Auspicious Signs endemic to a number of Dharmic Traditions such as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. The symbols or 'symbolic attributes' are yidam and teaching tools...

  • Atheism
    Atheism
    Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

  • Atheist's Wager
    Atheist's Wager
    The Atheist's Wager is an atheistic response to Blaise Pascal's Wager. While Pascal suggested that it is better to take the chance of believing in a god that might not exist rather than to risk losing infinite happiness by disbelieving in a god that does, the Atheist's Wager suggests...

  • Atheist existentialism
    Atheist existentialism
    Atheist existentialism or atheistic existentialism is a kind of existentialism which strongly diverged from the Christian works of Søren Kierkegaard and has developed within the context of an atheistic worldview....

  • Ātman (Buddhism)
    Atman (Buddhism)
    The word Ātman or Atta refers to a self. Occasionally the terms "soul" or "ego" are also used. The words ātman and atta derive from the Indo-European root *ēt-men and are cognate with the Old English æthm and German Atem....

  • Augustine of Hippo
    Augustine of Hippo
    Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

  • Avadhuta Gita
    Avadhuta Gita
    Avadhuta Gita is a Hindu text based on the principles of Advaita Vedanta . The singer of the Avadhuta Gita is Dattatreya, an Avadhuta, and according to the Nath Sampradaya, the work was heard and transcribed by two of Dattatreya's disciples—Swami and Kartika...

  • Averroes
    Averroes
    ' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...

  • Avidyā (Buddhism)
    Avidya (Buddhism)
    Avidyā or avijjā means "ignorance" or "delusion" and is the opposite of 'vidyā' and 'rig pa'...

  • Avraham son of Rambam
    Avraham son of Rambam
    Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon was the son of Maimonides who succeeded his father as Nagid of the Egyptian Jewish community....

  • Ayatana
  • Ayyavazhi phenomenology
    Ayyavazhi phenomenology
    Ayyavazhi phenomenology is the phenomenological variations found in Ayyavazhi society, worship centers etc. from their holy text Akilattirattu Ammanai....

  • Baptists in the history of separation of church and state
    Baptists in the history of separation of church and state
    Separation of church and state is one of the primary theological distinctions of the Baptist tradition.-History:Originally, Baptists supported separation of church and state in England and America...

  • Bardo
    Bardo
    The Tibetan word Bardo means literally "intermediate state" - also translated as "transitional state" or "in-between state" or "liminal state". In Sanskrit the concept has the name antarabhāva...

  • Basic Points Unifying the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna
    Basic Points Unifying the Theravada and the Mahayana
    The Basic Points Unifying the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna is an important Buddhist ecumenical statement created in 1967 during the First Congress of the World Buddhist Sangha Council , where its founder Secretary-General, the late Venerable Pandita Pimbure Sorata Thera, requested the Ven...

  • Beatific vision
    Beatific vision
    The beatific vision - in Christian theology is the ultimate direct self communication of God to the individual person, when she or he reaches, as a member of redeemed humanity in the communion of saints, perfect salvation in its entirety, i.e. heaven...

  • Best of all possible worlds
    Best of all possible worlds
    The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" was coined by the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal...

  • Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival
    Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival
    Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival, the first of The Science Network's annual Beyond Belief symposia, held from November 5 to November 7, 2006, was described by the New York Times, as "a free-for-all on science and religion," which seemed at times like "the founding convention...

  • Bhagavad Gita
    Bhagavad Gita
    The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...

  • Bhava
    Bhava
    The term bhāva is often translated as feeling, emotion, mood, devotional state of mind. In Buddhist thought, bhāva denotes the continuity of life and death, including reincarnation, and the maturation arising therefrom...

  • Bhumi (Buddhism)
    Bhumi (Buddhism)
    The bodhisattva's path of awakening in the Mahayana tradition progresses through ten hierarchically arranged stages, referred to as the "bodhisattva bhūmis"...

  • Biblical literalism
    Biblical literalism
    Biblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...

  • Bilocation
    Bilocation
    Bilocation, or sometimes multilocation, is a term used to describe the ability/instances in which an individual or object is said to be, or appears to be, located in two distinct places at the same instant in time...

  • Biosophy
    Biosophy
    Biosophy, meaning wisdom of life, is a humanist movement heavily influenced by the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. It is "the science and art of intelligent living based on the awareness and practice of spiritual values, ethical-social principles and character qualities essential to...

  • Bodhi
    Bodhi
    Bodhi is both a Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English with the word "enlightenment", but which means awakened. In Buddhism it is the knowledge possessed by a Buddha into the nature of things...

  • Bodhimandala
    Bodhimandala
    Bodhimaṇḍa is a term used in Buddhism meaning the "position of awakening." According to Haribhadra, it is "a place used as a seat, where the essence of enlightenment is present." Although spelled similarly, a bodhimaṇḍa is not synonymous with a bodhimaṇḍala, which is a "circle of...

  • Bodhisattva Precepts
    Bodhisattva Precepts
    The Bodhisattva Precepts are a set of moral codes used in Mahayana Buddhism to advance a practitioner along the path to becoming a Bodhisattva. Traditionally, monastics observed the basic moral code in Buddhism, the Pratimoksha, but in the Mahayana tradition, monks would additionally observe the...

  • Brahmacharya
    Brahmacharya
    Brahmacharya is one of the four stages of life in an age-based social system as laid out in the Manu Smrti and later Classical Sanskrit texts in Hinduism. It refers to an educational period of 14–20 years which starts before the age of puberty. During this time the traditional vedic sciences are...

  • Brahman
    Brahman
    In Hinduism, Brahman is the one supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead which is the Divine Ground of all being...

  • Brahmavihara
    Brahmavihara
    The brahmavihāras are a series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them. They are also known as the four immeasurables...

  • Brian Davies (philosopher)
    Brian Davies (philosopher)
    Brian Evan Anthony Davies OP is Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University , and author of the classic, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, now available in a third English edition and translated into five Asian and European languages.-Education:Brian Davies read Theology at the...

  • Brights movement
    Brights movement
    The Brights movement is a social movement that aims to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, including equal civil rights and acceptance for people who hold a naturalistic worldview. It was co-founded by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell in 2003...

  • British Humanist Association
    British Humanist Association
    The British Humanist Association is an organisation of the United Kingdom which promotes Humanism and represents "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." The BHA is committed to secularism, human rights, democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect...

  • Bruno Bauer
    Bruno Bauer
    Bruno Bauer was a German philosopher and historian. As a student of GWF Hegel, Bauer was a radical Rationalist in philosophy, politics and Biblical criticism...

  • Buddha-nature
    Buddha-nature
    Buddha-nature, Buddha-dhatu or Buddha Principle , is taught differently in various Mahayana Buddhism traditions. Broadly speaking Buddha-nature is concerned with ascertaining what allows sentient beings to become Buddhas...

  • Buddhism and evolution
    Buddhism and evolution
    As no major principles of Buddhism contradict it, many Buddhists tacitly accept the theory of evolution. Questions about the eternity or infinity of the universe at large are counted among the 14 unanswerable questions which the Buddha maintained were counterproductive areas of speculation...

  • Buddhist philosophy
    Buddhist philosophy
    Buddhist philosophy deals extensively with problems in metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics, and epistemology.Some scholars assert that early Buddhist philosophy did not engage in ontological or metaphysical speculation, but was based instead on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs...

  • C. S. Lewis
    C. S. Lewis
    Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

  • C. S. Lewis bibliography
  • C. Stephen Evans
    C. Stephen Evans
    C. Stephen Evans is an American historian and philosopher, he is one of the United States' leading experts on Søren Kierkegaard having published six books on Kierkegaard over 25 years. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University. He holds a B.A. with...

  • Cappadocian Fathers
    Cappadocian Fathers
    The Cappadocian Fathers are Basil the Great , who was bishop of Caesarea; Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa , who was bishop of Nyssa; and a close friend, Gregory of Nazianzus , who became Patriarch of Constantinople...

  • Catholic guilt
    Catholic guilt
    Catholic guilt is a term used to identify the supposed excess guilt felt by Catholics and lapsed Catholics. It is a concept that many non-Catholics have, partly based on a strict definition of sacraments by Martin Luther that diminished the role of Confession in many Protestant Churches and on the...

  • Celsus
    Celsus
    Celsus was a 2nd century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity. He is known for his literary work, The True Word , written about by Origen. This work, c. 177 is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity.According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an...

  • Charles Blount (deist)
    Charles Blount (deist)
    Charles Blount was a British deist and controversialist who published several anonymous essays critical of the existing English order.-Life:...

  • Chöd
    Chöd
    Chöd , is a spiritual practice found primarily in Tibetan Buddhism. Also known as "Cutting Through the Ego," the practice is based on the Prajñāpāramitā sutra...

  • Chovot ha-Levavot
    Chovot ha-Levavot
    Chovot HaLevavot or Ḥovot HaLebabot, , is the primary work of the Jewish philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda, full name Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda...

  • Christian de Quincey
    Christian de Quincey
    Christian de Quincey, Ph.D., is a philosopher and author who teaches consciousness, spirituality and cosmology at universities and colleges in the United States and Europe. He is also an international speaker on consciousness....

  • Christian existentialism
    Christian existentialism
    Christian existentialism describes a group of writings that take a philosophically existentialist approach to Christian theology. The school of thought is often traced back to the work of the Danish philosopher and theologian considered the father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard...

  • Christian humanism
    Christian humanism
    Christian humanism is the position that universal human dignity and individual freedom are essential and principal components of, or are at least compatible with, Christian doctrine and practice. It is a philosophical union of Christian and humanist principles.- Origins :Christian humanism may have...

  • Christian materialism
    Christian materialism
    Christian materialism is the combination of Christian theology with the ideas of materialism, which places a high value on material things.-Historical background:...

  • Christian philosophy
    Christian philosophy
    Christian philosophy may refer to any development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from a Christian tradition.- Origins of Christian philosophy :...

  • Christian Realism
    Christian Realism
    Christian Realism is a branch of philosophy developed by Reinhold Niebuhr in the late 1940s and early 1950s.Niebuhr argued that the kingdom of heaven can not be realized on Earth because of the innately corrupt tendencies of society...

  • Christianity and environmentalism
  • Christological argument
    Christological argument
    The Christological argument for the existence of God is based on certain claims about Jesus. The argument, which exists in several forms, holds that if these claims are valid, one should accept God exists...

  • City of God (book)
  • Classical theism
    Classical theism
    Classical theism refers to the a form of Theism in distinction to modern ideas about God such as Theistic Personalism, Open Theism and Process Theism. Classical Theism began with the works of the Greek philosophers, especially Platonists and Neoplatonists and was developed into Christian Theology...

  • Clemens Timpler
    Clemens Timpler
    Clemens Timpler was a German philosopher, physicist and theologian.Along with Jakob Degen , he is considered the most important Protestant metaphysician, establishing the Protestant Reformed Neuscholastik....

  • Clement of Alexandria
    Clement of Alexandria
    Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...

  • Clerical philosophers
    Clerical philosophers
    Clerical philosophers is the name given to a group of Catholic intellectuals, namely the Savoyard Joseph de Maistre, and the French Louis de Bonald and François-René de Chateaubriand, who sought to undermine the intellectual foundations of the French Revolution in reaction to what they perceived as...

  • Clericalism
    Clericalism
    Clericalism is the application of the formal, church-based, leadership or opinion of ordained clergy in matters of either the church or broader political and sociocultural import...

  • Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion
    Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion
    The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, or CSER, is based at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York. According to its mission statement, CSER is a research consultation devoted "to the study of religion and ethics from the standpoint of philosophical naturalism and to the...

  • Confucius
    Confucius
    Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

  • Consciousness-only
  • Contemporary Islamic philosophy
  • Continuum of Humanist Education
    Continuum of Humanist Education
    The Continuum of Humanist Education is a project run by the Institute for Humanist Studies. It has a faculty, staff, and bookstore. It offers courses in education about the history and practise of Humanism. The introductory course is ....

  • Contra Celsum
  • Cosmological argument
    Cosmological argument
    The cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of a First Cause to the universe, and by extension is often used as an argument for the existence of an "unconditioned" or "supreme" being, usually then identified as God...

  • Cosmology (metaphysics)
    Cosmology (metaphysics)
    Cosmology in metaphysics is the reflection on the totality of all phenomena. It contrasts with physical cosmology, the study of the origin of the universe in scientific terms after the Copernican Revolution....

  • Counter-Enlightenment
    Counter-Enlightenment
    "Counter-Enlightenment" is a term used to refer to a movement that arose in the late-18th and early-19th centuries in opposition to the 18th century Enlightenment...

  • Creationism
    Creationism
    Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

  • Credo ut intelligam
    Credo ut intelligam
    Credo ut intelligam is Latin for "I believe so that I may understand" and is a maxim of Anselm of Canterbury, which is based on a saying of Augustine of Hippo to relate faith and reason...

  • Criticism of Christianity
    Criticism of Christianity
    Throughout the history of Christianity, many have criticized Christianity, the church, and Christians themselves. Some criticism specifically addresses Christian beliefs, teachings and interpretation of scripture...

  • Criticism of Hinduism
    Criticism of Hinduism
    Some aspects of practices committed by Hindus have been criticised, from both within the Hindu community and externally. Christian critics argue that Hindu philosophy and mythology is very complex and does not conform to normal Christian logic. Overt depiction of sexuality in Hindu idols, imagery...

  • Criticism of Islam
    Criticism of Islam
    Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early written criticism came from Christians, prior to the ninth century, many of whom viewed Islam as a radical Christian heresy...

  • Criticism of Jesus
    Criticism of Jesus
    Jesus is the central figure of Christianity and Christians who believe that he was divine. Since the time in which he lived, a number of noted individuals have criticised Jesus, some of whom were themselves Christians.-Pharisees and scribes:...

  • Criticism of Judaism
    Criticism of Judaism
    Criticism of Judaism has existed since Judaism's formative stages, as with many other religions.-Heretical views within Judaism:In many religions ex-members and excommunicates became known for doctrinal disputes with their former faith. In Judaism a process similar to excommunication is called cherem...

  • Criticism of monotheism
    Criticism of monotheism
    Philosophical criticisms of monotheism have emerged mainly since the Enlightenment.-Contradictions:Through the means of defining, it is traditionally agreed among the major monotheistic religions that the one God is, inter alia, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent...

  • Criticism of religion
    Criticism of religion
    Criticism of religion is criticism of the concepts, validity, and/or practices of religion, including associated political and social implications....

  • Criticism of the Bible
    Criticism of the Bible
    This article is about criticism of the Bible as a source of information or ethical guidance. It will vary slightly depending on whether the focus is on the Old Testament, the letters of New Testament or the Canonical gospels...

  • Criticism of the Catholic Church
    Criticism of the Catholic Church
    Criticism of the Catholic Church includes critical observations made about the current or historical Catholic Church, in its actions, teachings, omissions, structure, or nature; theological disagreements would be covered on a denominational basis. Criticisms may regard the concepts of papal primacy...

  • Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement
  • Criticism of the Qur'an
    Criticism of the Qur'an
    While the Qur'an is the scriptural foundation of most forms of Islam criticism of the Qur'an has frequently occurred. Critics have made allegations of scientific, theological, and historical errors, claims of contradictions in the Qur'an and criticisms of the Qur'an's moral values.-Historical...

  • Cultural materialism (anthropology)
    Cultural materialism (anthropology)
    Cultural materialism is an anthropological research orientation first introduced by Marvin Harris in his 1968 book The Rise of Anthropological Theory, as a theoretical paradigm and research strategy. Indeed it is said to be the most enduring achievement of that work. Harris subsequently developed a...

  • Cultural materialism (cultural studies)
    Cultural materialism (cultural studies)
    Cultural materialism in literary theory and cultural studies traces its origin to the work of the left-wing literary critic Raymond Williams. Cultural materialism makes analysis based in critical theory, in the tradition of the Frankfurt School....

  • Curt John Ducasse
    Curt John Ducasse
    Curt John Ducasse was a philosopher who taught at the University of Washington and Brown University.Ducasse was born in Angoulême, France. He is most notable for his work in philosophy of mind and aesthetics, and his influence can be seen in the work of Roderick Chisholm and Wilfrid Sellars...

  • Daniel Rynhold
    Daniel Rynhold
    Dr. Daniel Rynhold is the Associate Professor of Modern Jewish Philosophy at Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University in New York a post which he has held since August 2007. He was previously Lecturer in Judaism in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at...

  • Dariush Shayegan
    Dariush Shayegan
    Dariush Shayegan is one of Iran's prominent thinkers, cultural theorists and comparative philosophers.Shayegan studied at Sorbonne University in Paris...

  • Darwiniana
    Darwiniana
    Darwiniana is a collection of essays by botanist Asa Gray. The articles both defended the theory of evolution from the standpoint of botany, and sought reconciliation with theology by arguing theistic evolution, that natural selection is not inconsistent with Natural Theology.-References:* Gray,...

  • David ben Merwan al-Mukkamas
    David ben Merwan al-Mukkamas
    David ibn Merwan al-Mukkamas al-Rakki was a philosopher and controversialist, the author of the earliest known Jewish philosophical work of the Middle Ages. He was a native of Rakka, Mesopotamia, whence his surname...

  • David Braine (philosopher)
  • David Ray Griffin
    David Ray Griffin
    David Ray Griffin is a retired American professor of philosophy of religion and theology. Along with John B. Cobb, Jr., he founded the Center for Process Studies in 1973, a research center of Claremont School of Theology which seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach...

  • David Strauss
    David Strauss
    David Friedrich Strauss was a German theologian and writer. He scandalized Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus," whose divine nature he denied...

  • De Coelesti Hierarchia
    De Coelesti Hierarchia
    De Coelesti Hierarchia is a Pseudo-Dionysian work on angelology which exerted great influence on scholasticism...

  • De divisione naturae
    De divisione naturae
    De divisione naturae was the magnum opus of ninth century theologian Johannes Scotus Eriugena....

  • De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum
    De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum
    The Theurgia, or De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum , was attributed to Iamblichus Chalcidensis, a Neoplatonic philosopher who studied under Porphyry....

  • Dean Zimmerman
    Dean Zimmerman
    Dean Zimmerman is an American professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. He specializes in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. He earned his PhD in philosophy from Brown University, and has taught at the University of Notre Dame and Syracuse University...

  • Death
    Death
    Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

  • Decline of Greco-Roman polytheism
  • Deconstruction-and-religion
    Deconstruction-and-religion
    Those that take a deconstructive approach to religion identify closely with the work of Jacques Derrida, especially his work later in life. According to Slavoj Žižek, in the mid-to-late 1980s Derrida's work shifted from constituting a radical negative theology to being a form of Kantian idealism....

  • Deism
    Deism
    Deism in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the...

  • Demiurge
    Demiurge
    The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...

  • Derech Hashem
  • Desire realm
    Desire realm
    The desire realm is one of three realms or three worlds in traditional Buddhist cosmology into which a being wandering in may be reborn. The other two are the form realm, and the formless realm The desire realm (Sanskrit kāma-dhātu) is one of three realms (Sanskrit: dhātu, Tibetan: khams) or...

  • Deus
    Deus
    Deus is Latin for "god" or "deity".Latin deus and dīvus "divine", are descended from Proto-Indo-European *deiwos, from the same root as *Dyēus, the reconstructed chief god of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon...

  • Dharani
    Dharani
    A ' is a type of ritual speech similar to a mantra. The terms dharani and satheesh may be seen as synonyms, although they are normally used in distinct contexts....

  • Dharma
    Dharma
    Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...

  • Dharma transmission
    Dharma transmission
    Dharma transmission refers to "the manner in which the teaching, or Dharma, is passed from a Zen master to their disciple and heir...

  • Dharmakāya
    Dharmakaya
    The Dharmakāya is a central idea in Mahayana Buddhism forming part of the Trikaya doctrine that was possibly first expounded in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñā-pāramitā , composed in the 1st century BCE...

  • Dharmarāja Adhvarin
    Dharmarāja Adhvarin
    Dharmarāja Adhvarin was a Hindu philosopher. He developed the Advaita theory of knowledge. Up to this point metaphysics and epistemology were treated as one in Indian philosophy.- References :...

  • Diamond Realm
    Diamond Realm
    In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Diamond Realm is a metaphysical space inhabited by the Five Wisdom Buddhas...

  • Dietrich von Hildebrand
    Dietrich von Hildebrand
    Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German Catholic philosopher and theologian who was called by Pope Pius XII "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church."...

  • Dimitrije Mitrinović
    Dimitrije Mitrinovic
    Dimitrije Mitrinović was a Serbian philosopher, poet, revolutionary, mystic, theoretician of modern painting, traveller and cosmopolite.-Biography:Dimitrije Mitrinović was born in a village near the town of Stolac in Herzegovina...

  • Dipolar theism
    Dipolar theism
    In Process theology Dipolar theism is the position that in order to conceive a perfect God, one must conceive Him as embodying the "good" in sometimes-opposing characteristics, and therefore cannot be understood to embody only one set of characteristics....

  • Direct revelation
    Direct revelation
    Direct revelation is a term used by some Christian churches to express their belief in a communication from God to a person, by words, impression, visions, dreams or actual appearance. Direct revelation is believed to be an open communication between God and man, or the Holy Spirit and man, without...

  • Distributism
    Distributism
    Distributism is a third-way economic philosophy formulated by such Catholic thinkers as G. K...

  • Divine apathy
    Divine apathy
    Divine apathy is the doctrine that the divine nature is incapable of suffering, passivity or modification. This doctrine is a common feature of Platonist, Aristotelian, and Stoic philosophical theology and was held by most Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers prior to the twentieth century....

  • Divine command theory
    Divine command theory
    Divine command theory is the meta-ethical view about the semantics or meaning of ethical sentences, which claims that ethical sentences express propositions, some of which are true, about the attitudes of God...

  • Divine simplicity
    Divine simplicity
    In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea of divine simplicity can be stated in this way: the being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. In other words, such characteristics as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc...

  • Divinity
    Divinity
    Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...

  • Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology
    Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology
    Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology is a refereed journal published twice a year by the Graduate Schools of Divine Word Seminary and Christ the King Mission Seminary in the Philippines. First published in 1976, Diwa is released every May and November...

  • Dōgen
    Dogen
    Dōgen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there...

  • Dogma
    Dogma
    Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...

  • Doomsday argument
    Doomsday argument
    The Doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the number of future members of the human species given only an estimate of the total number of humans born so far...

  • Doomsday cult
    Doomsday cult
    Doomsday cult is an expression used to describe groups who believe in Apocalypticism and Millenarianism, and can refer both to groups that prophesy catastrophe and destruction, and to those that attempt to bring it about...

  • Doomsday event
    Doomsday event
    A doomsday event is a specific, plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race...

  • Double-mindedness
    Double-mindedness
    Double-mindedness is a concept used in the philosophy and theology of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.Elaborating the concept in several of his edifying discourses, Kierkegaard asserts that double-mindedness is a moral category that comes about by a failure of willing authentically...

  • Dukkha
    Dukkha
    Dukkha is a Pali term roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, discontent, unsatisfactoriness, unhappiness, sorrow, affliction, social alienation, anxiety,...

  • Dwight H. Terry Lectureship
    Dwight H. Terry Lectureship
    The Dwight H. Terry Lectureship, also known as the Terry Lectures, was established at Yale University in 1905 by a gift from Dwight H. Terry of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Its purpose is to engage both scholars and the public in a consideration of religion from a humanitarian point of view, in the...

  • Dzogchen
    Dzogchen
    According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...

  • E. David Cook
    E. David Cook
    Dr. E. David Cook is a Fellow of Green College, Oxford and the first Holmes Professor of Faith and Learning at Wheaton College. He is also a visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and is a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum...

  • Early Islamic philosophy
    Early Islamic philosophy
    Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH...

  • Eliminative materialism
    Eliminative materialism
    Eliminative materialism is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. Its primary claim is that people's common-sense understanding of the mind is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist...

  • Elizabeth Burns
    Elizabeth Burns
    Elizabeth Burns was Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Heythrop College, University of London from 2003–2008 and lectures in Philosophy of Religion.-Career:...

  • Emergent materialism
    Emergent materialism
    In the philosophy of mind, emergent materialism is a theory which asserts that the mind is an irreducible existent in some sense, albeit not in the sense of being an ontological simple, and that the study of mental phenomena is independent of other sciences.The view can be divided into emergence...

  • Epistemic theory of miracles
    Epistemic theory of miracles
    The epistemic theory of miracles is the name given by the philosopher William Vallicella to the theory of miraculous events given by St. Augustine and Baruch Spinoza. According to the theory, there are no events contrary to nature — that is no "transgressions", in Hume's sense, of the laws of nature...

  • Epistle to Yemen
  • Eranos
    Eranos
    Eranos is an intellectual discussion group dedicated to the study of psychology, religion, philosophy and spirituality which has met annually in Switzerland since 1933....

  • Ernesto Buonaiuti
    Ernesto Buonaiuti
    Ernesto Buonaiuti was an Italian historian, philosopher of religion, Christian priest and anti-fascist. He lost his chair at the University of Rome owing to his opposition to the Fascists and their Concordat with the Catholic Church....

  • Ernst Ehrlich
    Ernst Ehrlich
    Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich was a German-born Swiss Jewish religious philosopher. He was born in Berlin.Ehrlich fled Nazi Germany for Switzerland in June 1943, using a false passport...

  • Ernst Troeltsch
    Ernst Troeltsch
    Ernst Troeltsch was a German Protestant theologian and writer on philosophy of religion and philosophy of history, and an influential figure in German thought before 1914...

  • Eschatology
    Eschatology
    Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...

  • Essentially contested concept
    Essentially contested concept
    In a paper delivered to the Aristotelian Society on 12 March 1956, Walter Bryce Gallie introduced the term essentially contested concept to facilitate an understanding of the different applications or interpretations of the sorts of abstract, qualitative, and evaluative notions — such as...

  • Eternal Buddha
    Eternal Buddha
    The idea of an eternal Buddha is a notion popularly associated with the Mahayana scripture, the Lotus Sutra, and is also found in other Mahayana sutras.- The Eternal Buddha in the Lotus Sutra and Other Mahayana Sutras :...

  • Eternal return
    Eternal return
    Eternal return is a concept which posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. The concept initially inherent in Indian philosophy was later found in ancient Egypt, and was subsequently...

  • Eternal return (Eliade)
    Eternal return (Eliade)
    The "Eternal return" is, according to the theories of religious historian Mircea Eliade, a belief, expressed in religious behavior, in the ability to return to the mythical age, to become contemporary with the events described in one's myths...

  • Ethica thomistica
  • Ethical will
    Ethical will
    An Ethical will is a document designed to pass ethical values from one generation to the next. Rabbis and Jewish laypeople have continued to write ethical wills during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In recent years, the practice has been more widely used by the general public...

  • Ethics in religion
    Ethics in religion
    Most religions have an ethical component, often derived from purported supernatural revelation or guidance. "For many people, ethics is not only tied up with religion, but is completely settled by it...

  • Étienne Tempier
    Étienne Tempier
    Étienne Tempier was a French bishop of Paris during the 13th century...

  • Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
    Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
    Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy was a historian and social philosopher, whose work spanned the disciplines of history, theology, sociology, linguistics and beyond...

  • Euthyphro dilemma
    Euthyphro dilemma
    The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"...

  • Evil Spirits Intellectualism and Logic
  • Evolutionary argument against naturalism
    Evolutionary argument against naturalism
    The evolutionary argument against naturalism is a philosophical argument regarding a perceived tension between biological evolutionary theory and philosophical naturalism — the belief that there are no supernatural entities or processes...

  • Evolutionary Humanism
    Evolutionary Humanism
    The book "New Bottles for New Wine" by Julian Huxley, 1957, contains a collection of his essays beginning with and ending with "Evolutionary Humanism". In the latter essay, Huxley called for a new religion compatible with science....

  • Exegesis
    Exegesis
    Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...

  • Existence of God
    Existence of God
    Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...

  • Extrinsic finality
    Extrinsic finality
    Extrinsic finality is a principle of the philosophy of teleology that holds that a being has a final cause or purpose external to that being itself, in contrast to an intrinsic finality, or self-contained purpose....

  • Faith
    Faith
    Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...

  • Faith and rationality
    Faith and rationality
    Faith and rationality are two modes of belief that exist in varying degrees of conflict or compatibility. Rationality is belief based on reason or evidence. Faith is belief in inspiration, revelation, or authority...

  • Faith, Science and Understanding
    Faith, Science and Understanding
    Faith, Science, and Understanding is a book by John Polkinghorne which explores aspects of the integration between science and theology. It is based on lectures he gave at Nottingham University and Yale and on some other papers.-Publication Information:...

  • Faraday Institute for Science and Religion
  • Fate of the unlearned
    Fate of the unlearned
    The fate of the unlearned is an eschatological question about the ultimate destiny of people who have not been exposed to a particular theology or doctrine and thus have no opportunity to embrace it...

  • Fazang
    Fazang
    Fazang was the third of the five patriarchs of the Huayan school. He is said to have authored over a hundred volumes of essays and commentaries. He is famed for his empirical demonstrations in the court of Empress Wu Zetian. His essays "On a Golden Lion" and "On a Mote of Dust" are among the most...

  • Fazlur Rahman Malik
  • Ferdinand Ebner
    Ferdinand Ebner
    Ferdinand Ebner , was an Austrian elementary school teacher and philosopher. Together with Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, he is considered one of the most outstanding representatives of dialogical thinking...

  • Fetter (Buddhism)
    Fetter (Buddhism)
    In Buddhism, a mental fetter, chain or bond shackles a sentient being to sasāra, the cycle of lives with dukkha. By cutting through all fetters, one attains nibbāna ....

  • Fi Zilal al-Qur'an
    Fi zilal al-Qur'an
    In the Shade of the Qur'an or Fi Zilal al-Qur'an[p][n] is a highly influential commentary of the Qur'an, written during 1951-1965 by Sayyid Qutb[a] , a leader within the Muslim Brotherhood. Most of the original 30 volumes were written while in prison following an attempted assassination of...

  • Fideism
    Fideism
    Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths...

  • Fiqh
    Fiqh
    Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

  • Five hindrances
    Five hindrances
    In Buddhism, the five hindrances are negative mental states that impede success with meditation and lead away from enlightenment...

  • Four stages of enlightenment
    Four stages of enlightenment
    The four stages of enlightenment in Buddhism are the four progressive stages culminating in full enlightenment as an Arahat, which an average, instructed person can attain in this life...

  • Fourteen unanswerable questions
    Fourteen unanswerable questions
    The phrase fourteen unanswerable questions , in Buddhism, refers to fourteen common philosophical questions that Buddha refused to answer, according to Buddhist Sanskrit texts...

  • Francis Schaeffer
    Francis Schaeffer
    Francis August Schaeffer was an American Evangelical Christian theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor. He is most famous for his writings and his establishment of the L'Abri community in Switzerland...

  • Franciszek Krupiński
    Franciszek Krupiński
    -Life:Krupiński was an early representative of Polish Positivism. He preached "organic work" and fought against Catholic and Romantic philosophy.-Works:*Filozofia w Polsce...

  • Françoise Meltzer
  • Franz Rosenzweig
    Franz Rosenzweig
    Franz Rosenzweig was an influential Jewish theologian and philosopher.-Early life:Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany to a middle-class, minimally observant Jewish family...

  • Frederick Ferré
    Frederick Ferré
    Frederick Ferré is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at The University of Georgia. He is past president of the Metaphysical Society of America.- Education :* Oberlin College, 1950-51.* Boston University, A.B. summa cum laude, 1954...

  • Freethought
    Freethought
    Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...

  • French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools
    French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools
    The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public primary and secondary schools...

  • Friedrich von Hügel
    Friedrich von Hügel
    Friedrich von Hügel was an influential Austrian Roman Catholic layman, religious writer, Modernist theologian and Christian apologist....

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
    Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
    Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Fichte, his mentor prior to 1800, and Hegel, his former university roommate and erstwhile friend...

  • Fujiwara Seika
    Fujiwara Seika
    was a Japanese philosopher, a leading neo-Confucian of the early Tokugawa Period and a teacher of Tokugawa Ieyasu.Like his student, Hayashi Razan , he had studied in Zen monasteries. But in 1598, at Fushimi Castle, he met Gang Hang , a Korean neo-Confucian scholar who was taken prisoner to Japan...

  • Fundamentalism
    Fundamentalism
    Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...

  • Gary Habermas
    Gary Habermas
    Gary Robert Habermas is an American evangelical Christian apologist, historian, and philosopher of religion. He is a prolific author, lecturer, and debater on the topic of the Resurrection of Jesus...

  • Gaudapada
    Gaudapada
    Gaudapada was a very early guru in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy...

  • George H. Smith
    George H. Smith
    George Hamilton Smith is an American author, editor, educator and speaker.-Biography:Smith grew up mostly in Tucson, Arizona, and attended the University of Arizona for several years before leaving without a degree; he relocated to Los Angeles during 1971. With the help of libertarian editor Roy A...

  • Gifford Lectures
    Gifford Lectures
    The Gifford Lectures were established by the will of Adam Lord Gifford . They were established to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term — in other words, the knowledge of God." The term natural theology as used by Gifford means theology supported...

  • Giles Fraser
    Giles Fraser
    Giles Anthony Fraser is a priest of the Church of England. He was Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral from 2009 until his resignation in October 2011. As Canon Chancellor, Fraser fulfilled the role of a canon residentiary with special responsibility for contemporary ethics and engagement with...

  • God
    God
    God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

  • God-Building
    God-Building
    God-Building was an idea proposed by some prominent Marxists of the Soviet Union, but which was never adopted, and was suppressed by the official ideology. It was inspired by Ludwig Feuerbach's 'religion of humanity' and had some precedent in the French revolution with the 'cult of reason'...

  • God in Buddhism
    God in Buddhism
    The refutation of the notion of a supreme God or a prime mover is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions. In Buddhism the sole aim of spiritual practice is the complete alleviation of stress in samsara, called nirvana...

  • God Is Not Great
    God Is Not Great
    God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is a book by author and journalist Christopher Hitchens criticising religion. It was published in the United Kingdom as God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion....

  • God of the gaps
    God of the gaps
    God of the gaps is a type of theological fallacy in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. The term was invented by Christian theologians not to discredit theism but rather to discourage reliance on teleological arguments for God's existence.-...

  • God, A Guide for the Perplexed
    God, A Guide for the Perplexed
    God, A Guide for the Perplexed is a non-fiction book by Keith Ward arguing the compatibility between science and religion.In seven chapters Keith Ward takes the reader through the history of mankind's religious thought...

  • Gödel's ontological proof
    Gödel's ontological proof
    Gödel's ontological proof is a formal argument for God's existence by the mathematician Kurt Gödel. It is in a line of development that goes back to Anselm of Canterbury. St. Anselm's ontological argument, in its most succinct form, is as follows: "God, by definition, is that for which no...

  • Good and necessary consequence
    Good and necessary consequence
    The phrase good and necessary consequence was used more commonly several centuries ago to express the idea which we would place today under the general heading of logic; that is, to reason validly by logical deduction or better, deductive reasoning....

  • Graham Oppy
    Graham Oppy
    Graham Robert Oppy is an Australian philosopher whose main area of research is the philosophy of religion. He currently holds the posts of Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Research at Monash University and serves as Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and...

  • Great chain of being
    Great chain of being
    The great chain of being , is a Christian concept detailing a strict, religious hierarchical structure of all matter and life, believed to have been decreed by the Christian God.-Divisions:...

  • Greek hero cult
    Greek hero cult
    Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" refers to a man who was fighting on either side during the Trojan War...

  • Gregory of Nyssa
    Gregory of Nyssa
    St. Gregory of Nyssa was a Christian bishop and saint. He was a younger brother of Basil the Great and a good friend of Gregory of Nazianzus. His significance has long been recognized in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Roman Catholic branches of Christianity...

  • Guru Nanak Dev
    Guru Nanak Dev
    Guru Nanak was the founder of the religion of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. The Sikhs believe that all subsequent Gurus possessed Guru Nanak’s divinity and religious authority, and were named "Nanak" in the line of succession.-Early life:Guru Nanak was born on 15 April 1469, now...

  • Gustav Glogau
    Gustav Glogau
    Gustav Glogau is a German philosopher of religion. He taught as a professor at the Halle University , Kiel University ....

  • Hajime Tanabe
    Hajime Tanabe
    was a Japanese philosopher of the Kyoto School. In 1947 he became a member of The Japan Academy, in 1950 he received the Order of Cultural Merit, and in 1957 an honorary doctorate from University of Freiburg....

  • Han Yong-un
  • Hans Rookmaaker
    Hans Rookmaaker
    Henderik Roelof "Hans" Rookmaaker was a Dutch Christian scholar, professor, and author who wrote and lectured on art theory, art history, music, philosophy, and religion....

  • Haribhadra
    Haribhadra
    Haribhadra Suri was a Svetambara mendicant Jain leader and author.-History:There are multiple contradictory dates assigned to his birth. These include 459, 478, and 529. However, given his familiarity with Dharmakirti, a more likely choice would be sometime after 650...

  • Hasidic philosophy
    Hasidic philosophy
    Hasidic philosophy or Hasidus , alternatively transliterated as Hassidism, Chassidism, Chassidut etc. is the teachings, interpretations of Judaism, and mysticism articulated by the modern Hasidic movement...

  • Hayashi Razan
    Hayashi Razan
    , also known as Hayashi Dōshun, was a Japanese Neo-Confucian philosopher, serving as a tutor and an advisor to the first four shoguns of the Tokugawa bakufu. He is also attributed with first listing the Three Views of Japan. Razan was the founder of the Hayashi clan of Confucian scholars.Razan was...

  • Hayom Yom
    Hayom Yom
    Hayom Yom is a calendar for the Hebrew year of 5703 , compiled by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson at the behest of his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, in the winter of 1942....

  • Henosis
    Henosis
    Henosis is the word for "oneness," "union," or "unity" in classical Greek, and is spelled identically in modern Greek where "Enosis" is particulary connected with the modern political "Unity" movement to unify Greece and Cyprus....

  • Henry Corbin
    Henry Corbin
    Henry Corbin was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.Corbin was born in Paris in April 1903. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work...

  • Herbert McCabe
    Herbert McCabe
    Herbert McCabe was an English Dominican priest, theologian and philosopher, who was born in Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. After studying chemistry and philosophy at Manchester University, he joined the Dominicans in 1949, where under Victor White he began his life-long study of...

  • Hermetica
    Hermetica
    The Hermetica are Greek wisdom texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, mostly presented as dialogues in which a teacher, generally identified with Hermes Trismegistus or "thrice-greatest Hermes", enlightens a disciple...

  • Hermeticism
    Hermeticism
    Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...

  • Hierophany
    Hierophany
    The term "hierophany" signifies a manifestation of the sacred.-In Mircea Eliade's writings:...

  • Hinayana
    Hinayana
    Hīnayāna is a Sanskrit and Pāli term literally meaning: the "Inferior Vehicle", "Deficient Vehicle", the "Abandoned Vehicle", or the "Defective Vehicle". The term appeared around the 1st or 2nd century....

  • Hirata Atsutane
    Hirata Atsutane
    was a Japanese scholar, conventionally ranked as one of the four great men of kokugaku studies, and one of the most significant theologians of the Shintō religion. His literary name was Ibukinoya.-Life and thought:...

  • Hisbah
    Hisbah
    Hisbah is an Islamic doctrine of keeping everything in order within the laws of Allah. This doctrine is based on the Qur'anic expression Enjoin what is good and forbid what is wrong....

  • Historical materialism
    Historical materialism
    Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...

  • Holy History of Mankind
    Holy History of Mankind
    Holy History of Mankind is a book by the philosopher Moses Hess. Although the work was completely disregarded at the time it was published, the work is significant not only as Hess’s first large-scale expression of socialism, but also as the first expression of socialism written in Germany...

  • Homoiousian
    Homoiousian
    Homoiousianism was a 4th century AD movement which arose in the early period of the Christian religion out of a wing of Arianism...

  • Homoousian
    Homoousian
    Homoousian is a technical theological term used in discussion of the Christian understanding of God as Trinity. The Nicene Creed describes Jesus as being homooúsios with God the Father — that is, they are of the "same substance" and are equally God...

  • Hōnen
  • Hossein Nasr
  • Hossein Ziai
    Hossein Ziai
    Dr. Hossein Ziai , Tenured Full Professor of Islamic and Iranian Studies, and Director of Iranian Studies at UCLA, where he has taught since 1988. He received his B.S. in 1967 in Mathematics & Physics from Yale University, and his Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard University in 1976...

  • Huayan school
  • Huineng
    Huineng
    Dajian Huineng was a Chinese Chán monastic who is one of the most important figures in the entire tradition, according to standard Zen hagiographies...

  • Human beings in Buddhism
    Human beings in Buddhism
    Humans in Buddhism are the subjects of an extensive commentarial literature that examines the nature and qualities of a human life from the point of view of humans' ability to achieve enlightenment...

  • Human extinction
    Human extinction
    Human extinction is the end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The scope of this article is existential risks. Humans are very widespread on the Earth, and live in communities which are capable of some kind of basic survival in...

  • Humanism
    Humanism
    Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

  • Humanism and Its Aspirations
    Humanism and Its Aspirations
    Humanism and Its Aspirations subtitled Humanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 is the most recent of the Humanist Manifestos published in 2003 by the American Humanist Association...

  • Humanism in France
    Humanism in France
    Humanism in France found its way from Italy, but did not become a distinct movement until the 16th century was well on its way.On the completion of the Hundred Years' War between France and England, the intellectual currents of humanism began to start. In 1464, Peter Raoul composed for the Duke of...

  • Humanism in Germany
    Humanism in Germany
    Renaissance Humanism came much later to Germany and Northern Europe in general than to Italy, and when it did, it encountered some resistance from the scholastic theology which reigned at the universities.-Origins:...

  • Humanist Manifesto
    Humanist Manifesto
    Humanist Manifesto is the title of three manifestos laying out a Humanist worldview. They are the original Humanist Manifesto , the Humanist Manifesto II , and Humanism and Its Aspirations...

  • Humanist Manifesto I
    Humanist Manifesto I
    A Humanist Manifesto, also known as Humanist Manifesto I to distinguish it from later Humanist Manifestos in the series, was written in 1933 primarily by Raymond Bragg and published with 34 signers. Unlike the later manifestos, this first talks of a new religion and refers to humanism as a...

  • Humanist Manifesto II
    Humanist Manifesto II
    The second Humanist Manifesto was written in 1973 by Paul Kurtz and Edwin H. Wilson, and was intended to update the previous one. It begins with a statement that the excesses of Nazism and world war had made the first seem "far too optimistic", and indicated a more hardheaded and realistic...

  • Humanist Movement
    Humanist Movement
    The Humanist Movement is an international volunteer organisation that promotes nonviolence and non-discrimination. It is not an institution...

  • Humanist Society of Scotland
    Humanist Society of Scotland
    The Humanist Society of Scotland is a Scottish voluntary charitable organisation that promotes humanist views. It is a member of the European Humanist Federation and the International Humanist and Ethical Union.-History and aims:...

  • Humanistic naturalism
    Humanistic naturalism
    Humanistic naturalism is the branch of philosophical naturalism wherein human beings are best able to control and understand the world through use of the scientific method. Concepts of spirituality, intuition, and metaphysics are not pursued because they are unfalsifiable, and therefore can never...

  • Huston Smith
    Huston Smith
    Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...

  • Ian Ramsey
    Ian Ramsey
    Ian Thomas Ramsey was Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Oxford, and Bishop of Durham from 1966 until his death in 1972. He wrote extensively on the problem of religious language, Christian ethics, the relationship between science and religion, and Christian apologetics...

  • Ibn al-Nafis
  • Ibn Arabi
    Ibn Arabi
    Ibn ʿArabī was an Andalusian Moorish Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī .-Biography:...

  • Ietsism
    Ietsism
    Ietsism is an unspecified belief in some higher force. It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect - or indeed believe - that there is “More between Heaven and Earth” than we know about, but on the other hand do not necessarily accept or...

  • Ignosticism
    Ignosticism
    Ignosticism or igtheism is the theological position that every other theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts...

  • Illtyd Trethowan
    Illtyd Trethowan
    Dom Illtyd Trethowan , earlier known as Kenneth Trethowan, was an English priest, philosopher, and author, for more than thirty years sub-prior of Downside Abbey in Somerset and a visiting professor in theology at Brown University.-Early life:Born at Salisbury in 1907, he was the son of William...

  • Illuminationism
    Illuminationism
    Illuminationism is a doctrine in theology according to which the process of human thought needs to be aided by God. It is the oldest and most influential alternative to naturalism in the theory of mind and epistemology...

  • Illuminationist philosophy
  • Immanence
    Immanence
    Immanence refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence, in which the divine is seen to be manifested in or encompassing of the material world. It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world...

  • Immortality
    Immortality
    Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...

  • Impermanence
    Impermanence
    Impermanence is one of the essential doctrines or three marks of existence in Buddhism...

  • Incarnational humanism
    Incarnational Humanism
    The idea of an "incarnational humanism" was not coined recently. It makes explicit a type of Christian humanism which affirms the value and essential goodness of human reason and human culture and may be as old as humanism itself...

  • Incompatible-properties argument
    Incompatible-properties argument
    The incompatible-properties argument is the idea that no description of God is consistent with reality. For example, if one takes the definition of God to be described fully from the Bible, then the claims of what properties God has described therein might be argued to lead to a...

  • Indefinite monism
    Indefinite monism
    Indefinite Monism is a philosophical conception of reality that asserts that only Awareness is real and that the wholeness of Reality can be conceptually thought of in terms of immanent and transcendent aspects...

  • Indriya
    Indriya
    Indriya, literally "belonging to or agreeable to Indra" is the Sanskrit and Pali term for physical strength or ability in general, and for the five senses more specifically....

  • Ineffability
    Ineffability
    Ineffability is concerned with ideas that cannot or should not be expressed in spoken words , often being in the form of a taboo or incomprehensible term. This property is commonly associated with philosophy, aspects of existence, and similar concepts that are inherently "too great", complex, or...

  • Infinite qualitative distinction
    Infinite qualitative distinction
    The infinite qualitative distinction , sometimes translated as infinite qualitative difference, is an important concept coined by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. The distinction emphasizes the very different attributes of finite and temporal men and the infinite and eternal qualities of a...

  • Inka
    Inka
    , is a term used in Zen Buddhism to denote a high-level of certification, and literally means "the legitimate seal of clearly furnished proof." In ancient times inka usually came in the form of an actual document, but this practice is no longer commonplace...

  • Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society
    Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society
    The Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society is an organization of writers that promotes the ideas of secularism, democracy and human rights within Islamic society. It is part of the Center for Inquiry....

  • Integral humanism (India)
  • Intellectualism
    Intellectualism
    Intellectualism denotes the use and development of the intellect, the practice of being an intellectual, and of holding intellectual pursuits in great regard. Moreover, in philosophy, “intellectualism” occasionally is synonymous with “rationalism”, i.e. knowledge derived mostly from reason and...

  • International League of Humanists
    International League of Humanists
    International League of Humanists is a non-profit international association of eminent humanists. Its headquarters are in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and its primary objective is promotion of worldwide peace and human rights...

  • Intrinsic finality
    Intrinsic finality
    Intrinsic finality is the idea that there is a natural good for all beings, and that all beings have a natural tendency to pursue their own good. It is an underlying principle of both teleology and moral objectivism...

  • Intuition (knowledge)
    Intuition (knowledge)
    Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...

  • Invincible error
    Invincible error
    An invincible error is, in Christian philosophy, a normally sinful action which is not considered sinful because it was committed through blameless ignorance that one's actions were harmful or otherwise prohibited....

  • Invincible ignorance fallacy
    Invincible ignorance fallacy
    The invincible ignorance fallacy is a deductive fallacy of circularity where the person in question simply refuses to believe the argument, ignoring any evidence given...

  • Inviolability
    Inviolability
    In religion and ethics, inviolability or sanctity of life is a principle of implied protection regarding aspects of sentient life which are said to be holy, sacred, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated...

  • Invisible Pink Unicorn
    Invisible Pink Unicorn
    The Invisible Pink Unicorn is the goddess of a parody religion used to satirize theistic beliefs, taking the form of a unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink...

  • Ippen
    Ippen
    Ippen Shonin , also known as Zuien, was a Japanese Buddhist itinerant preacher who founded the Ji branch of Pure Land Buddhism....

  • Irenaean theodicy
    Irenaean theodicy
    The Irenaean theodicy is a theodicy designed to respond to the problem of evil. The purpose of the theodicy is to justify the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God in the face of evil and suffering in the world...

  • Irreligion
    Irreligion
    Irreligion is defined as an absence of religion or an indifference towards religion. Sometimes it may also be defined more narrowly as hostility towards religion. When characterized as hostility to religion, it includes antitheism, anticlericalism and antireligion. When characterized as...

  • Is God Dead?
    Is God Dead?
    "Is God Dead?" was an April 8, 1966, cover story for the news magazine Time. A previous article, from October 1965, had investigated a trend among 1960s theologians to write God out of the field of theology. The 1966 article looked in greater depth at the problems facing modern theologians, in...

  • Islam and democracy
  • Islamic fundamentalism in Iran
  • Islamic philosophy
    Islamic philosophy
    Islamic philosophy is a branch of Islamic studies. It is the continuous search for Hekma in the light of Islamic view of life, universe, ethics, society, and so on...

  • Ivan Aguéli
    Ivan Aguéli
    Ivan Aguéli also named Sheikh 'Abd al-Hādī 'Aqīlī upon his acceptance of Islam, was a Swedish wandering Sufi, painter and author. As a devotee of Ibn Arabi, his metaphysics applied to the study of Islamic esoterism and its similarities with other esoteric traditions of the world...

  • Ivan Vyshenskyi
    Ivan Vyshenskyi
    Ivan Vyshenskyi - Ukrainian orthodox monk and religious philosopher. He is considered to be an important polemicist of the time.-Biography:...

  • J. J. C. Smart
    J. J. C. Smart
    John Jamieson Carswell "Jack" Smart AC is an Australian philosopher and academic who is currently Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Monash University, Australia...

  • J. P. Moreland
    J. P. Moreland
    James Porter Moreland , better known as J. P. Moreland, is an American philosopher, theologian, and Christian apologist...

  • Jainism
    Jainism
    Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...

  • Jakob Guttmann (rabbi)
    Jakob Guttmann (rabbi)
    ----Rabbi Jakob Guttmann was a German Jewish theologian, philosopher of religion .He was the father of Julius Guttmann.- Works :...

  • Jakub of Gostynin
    Jakub of Gostynin
    Jakub of Gostynin was a Polish philosopher and theologian of the late 15th century, and Rector of the University of Krakow in 1503–4.-Life:Jakub of Gostynin was one of the chief adherents of the Cologne-style Thomism, a philosophical school that upheld the legacy of work and thought of Thomas...

  • James Gustafson
    James Gustafson
    James M. Gustafson is a prominent American theological ethicist of the 20th century. He has held teaching posts at Yale University in the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies , the University of Chicago as professor of theological ethics in the Divinity School , and Emory...

  • Jay Newman
    Jay Newman
    Jay Newman was a philosopher and Professor at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.-Biography:Newman was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Lou Newman and his wife, Kitty. He received his B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1968 before acquiring his master's degree from Brown University in...

  • Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa
  • Jayatirtha
    Jayatirtha
    Seer Jayateertharu was the sixth pontiff of Sri Madhvacharya Peetha. He is one of the most important seers in the Dvaita philosophy on account of his elucidations of Sri Ananda Teertha's masterpieces...

  • Jean Meslier
    Jean Meslier
    Jean Meslier was a French Catholic priest who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay promoting atheism. Described by the author as his "testament" to his parishioners, the text denounces all religion.-Life:Jean Meslier was born in Mazerny in the Ardennes...

  • Jewish ethics
    Jewish ethics
    Jewish ethics stands at the intersection of Judaism and the Western philosophical tradition of ethics. Like other types of religious ethics, the diverse literature of Jewish ethics primarily aims to answer a broad range of moral questions and, hence, may be classified as a normative ethics...

  • Jinul
    Jinul
    Chinul or Jinul was a Korean monk of the Goryeo period, who is considered to be the most influential figure in the formation of Korean Seon Buddhism....

  • Jiva Goswami
    Jiva Goswami
    Jiva Goswami is one of the most prolific and important philosopher and saint from the Gaudiya Vaishnava school of Vedanta tradition, producing a great number of philosophical works on the theology and practice of Bhakti yoga, Vaishnava Vedanta and associated disciplines...

  • Jizang
    Jizang
    Jizang was a Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar who is often regarded as the founder of the Three Treatise School. He is also known as Jiaxiang or Master Jiaxiang , because he acquired fame at the Jiaxiang Temple.-Biography:...

  • Johann Friedrich Flatt
    Johann Friedrich Flatt
    Johann Friedrich Flatt was a German theologian and philosopher born in Tübingen. His brother Karl Christian Flatt was also a theologian....

  • Johann Joachim Lange
    Johann Joachim Lange
    Johann Joachim Lange was a German theologian and philosopher.Lange was educated in Leipzig, Erfurt and Halle. He was influenced by Christian Thomasius and the pietist August Hermann Francke. He became a professor of theology at Halle in 1709, and opposed the philosophy of Christian...

  • Johann Nepomuk Oischinger
    Johann Nepomuk Oischinger
    Johann Nepomuk Paul Oischinger was a German Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher who was a native of Wittmannsberg, Bavaria....

  • Johannes Scotus Eriugena
    Johannes Scotus Eriugena
    Johannes Scotus Eriugena was an Irish theologian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He is known for having translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius.-Name:...

  • John Calvin
    John Calvin
    John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

  • John E. Hare
    John E. Hare
    John Edmund Hare is a British classicist, philosopher, ethicist, and currently Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale Divinity School....

  • John Hick
    John Hick
    Professor John Harwood Hick is a philosopher of religion and theologian. In philosophical theology, he has made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he has contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious...

  • John of Głogów
    John of Głogów
    John of Głogów was a notable polyhistor at the turn of the Middle Ages and Renaissance—a philosopher, geographer and astronomer at the University of Krakow.-Life:...

  • Joseph de Torre
    Joseph de Torre
    Joseph de Torre is a social and political philosopher and a Roman Catholic priest. He is the author of books on social ethics, Catholic social teaching, modern philosophy and spirituality. He is a member of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and the Acton Institute for the...

  • Joseph Priestley and Dissent
    Joseph Priestley and Dissent
    Joseph Priestley was a British natural philosopher, political theorist, clergyman, theologian, and educator...

  • Joseph Runzo
    Joseph Runzo
    Joseph Runzo is an American professor publishing mainly in the area of a global philosophy of religion. He is currently Professor of Philosophy, Religious studies, and Honors at Chapman University and a Life Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University.- Bibliography :Bibliography*Global Philosophy...

  • Journal of Hellenic Religion
    Journal of Hellenic Religion
    The Journal of Hellenic Religion is a peer-reviewed Journal published annually by Markoulakis Publications for the study and analysis of ancient Greek religion, theology and mythology....

  • Kalam cosmological argument
    Kalam cosmological argument
    The Kalām cosmological argument is a variation of the cosmological argument that argues for the existence of a First Cause for the universe. Its origins can be traced to medieval Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers, but most directly to Islamic theologians of the Kalām tradition. Its historic...

  • Kalpa (aeon)
  • Kammaṭṭhāna
    Kammatthana
    In Buddhism, is a Pali word which literally means the place of work. Figuratively it means the place within the mind where one goes in order to work on spiritual development...

  • Kancha Ilaiah
    Kancha Ilaiah
    Kancha Ilaiah is an Indian activist and writer. His books include Why I am not a Hindu, God As Political Philosopher: Budha's challenge to Brahminism, A Hollow Shell, The State and Repressive Culture, Manatatwam , and Buffalo Nationalism: A Critique of Spiritual Fascism.- Bibliography :*Why I Am...

  • Kang Youwei
    Kang Youwei
    Kang Youwei , was a Chinese scholar, noted calligrapher and prominent political thinker and reformer of the late Qing Dynasty. He led movements to establish a constitutional monarchy and was an ardent Chinese nationalist. His ideas inspired a reformation movement that was supported by the Guangxu...

  • Karl Heinrich Heydenreich
    Karl Heinrich Heydenreich
    Karl Heinrich Heydenreich was a German philosopher and poet.Heydenreich was educated at the Thomasschule zu Leipzig and the University of Leipzig. In 1787 he became professor of philosophy at Leipzig...

  • Karl Jaspers
    Karl Jaspers
    Karl Theodor Jaspers was a German psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspers turned to philosophical inquiry and attempted to discover an innovative philosophical system...

  • Karma
    Karma
    Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....

  • Karma in Buddhism
    Karma in Buddhism
    Karma means "action" or "doing"; whatever one does, says, or thinks is a karma. In Buddhism, the term karma is used specifically for those actions which spring from the intention of an unenlightened being.These bring about a fruit or result Karma (Sanskrit, also karman, Pāli: Kamma) means...

  • Karuṇā
    Karuna
    Karuā is generally translated as "compassion" or "pity". It is part of the spiritual path of both Buddhism and Jainism.-Buddhism:...

  • Keith Ward
    Keith Ward
    Keith Ward is a British cleric, philosopher, theologian and scholar. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and an ordained priest of the Church of England. He was a canon of Christ Church, Oxford until 2003...

  • Kensho
    Kensho
    Kenshō is a Japanese term for enlightenment experiences. It is most commonly referred to in Zen Buddhism.Literally it means "seeing one's nature" or "true self." It generally "refers to the realization of nonduality of subject and object." Frequently used in juxtaposition with satori , there is...

  • Kersey Graves
    Kersey Graves
    Kersey Graves was a skeptic, atheist, spiritualist, Nontheist Friend, reformist and writer.-Life:Kersey Graves was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania on 21 November 1813.. His parents were Quakers, and as a young man he followed them in their observance, and then later moved to the Hicksite wing...

  • Kitaro Nishida
  • Klaus Klostermaier
  • Knight of faith
    Knight of faith
    The knight of faith is an individual who has placed complete faith in himself and in God and can act freely and independently from the world. The 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard vicariously discusses the knight of faith in several of his pseudonymic works, with the most in-depth...

  • Kol HaTor
    Kol HaTor
    Kol HaTor - קול התור or "The Voice of the Turtledove" was written by Rabbi Hillel Rivlin of Shklov a disciple of the Vilna Gaon . The text deals with the Geulah and describes its signs vis-a-vis an evaluation of a proposed 999 footsteps of the Moshiach’s arrival...

  • Kūkai
    Kukai
    Kūkai , also known posthumously as , 774–835, was a Japanese monk, civil servant, scholar, poet, and artist, founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. Shingon followers usually refer to him by the honorific titles of and ....

  • Kumārila Bhaṭṭa
    Kumarila Bhatta
    ' was a Hindu philosopher and Mimamsa scholar from Assam. He is famous for many of his seminal theses on Mimamsa, such as Mimamsaslokavarttika. Bhatta was an staunch believer in the supreme validity of Vedic injunction, a great champion of Purva-Mimamsa and a confirmed ritualist...

  • Kurt Almqvist
    Kurt Almqvist
    Kurt Almqvist , PhD in Romance Languages, Swedish poet, intellectual and spiritual figure, representative of the Traditionalist School and the Perennial philosophy. Almqvist was a life-long disciple of the Swiss metaphysician and spiritual guide Frithjof Schuon. He came into close contact with the...

  • Kuzari
    Kuzari
    The Kitab al Khazari, commonly called the Kuzari, is one of most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, completed around 1140. Its title is an Arabic phrase meaning Book of the Khazars...

  • Lazarus Geiger
    Lazarus Geiger
    Lazarus Geiger , philosopher and philologist, born at Frankfort-on-Main, was destined to commerce, but soon gave himself up to scholarship and studied at Marburg, Bonn and Heidelberg. From 1861 till his sudden death in 1870 he was professor in the Jewish high school at Frankfort...

  • Lectures on Philosophy of Religion
    Lectures on Philosophy of Religion
    Hegel's Lectures on Philosophy of Religion outlines his ideas on Christianity as a form of self-consciousness. He expanded on Luther's idea of Christian liberty. Hegel also touches on pantheism. It is the only work where he examines Islam....

  • Letter to a Christian Nation
    Letter to a Christian Nation
    Letter to a Christian Nation is a non-fiction book by Sam Harris, written in response to feedback he received following the publication of his first book The End of Faith. The book is written in the form of an open letter to a Christian in the United States...

  • Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever
    Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever
    Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever is a multi-volume series of books on metaphysics by eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley....

  • Lewis's trilemma
    Lewis's trilemma
    Lewis' Trilemma is an argument intended to prove the divinity of Jesus. It was popularised by C. S. Lewis in a BBC radio talk and in his writings. It is sometimes summarized either as "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord", or as "Mad, Bad, or God".-History:...

  • Life of Jesus (Hegel)
    Life of Jesus (Hegel)
    Life of Jesus is one of the earliest works by G. W. F. Hegel. In this essay on morality he presents a version of Jesus very similar to Kant's categorical imperative...

  • Likkutei Sichos
    Likkutei Sichos
    Likkutei Sichos, lit. "Collected Talks," is an anthology of essays by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, relating to the weekly portion of the Torah and special occasions in the Jewish and Hasidic calendar....

  • Lineage (Buddhism)
    Lineage (Buddhism)
    An authentic lineage in Buddhism is the uninterrupted transmission of the Buddha's Dharma from teacher to disciple.The transmission itself can be for example oral, scriptural, through signs, or directly from one mind to another....

  • Linji
    Linji
    Línjì Yìxuán was the founder of the Linji school of Chán Buddhism during Tang Dynasty China. Linji was born into a family named Xing in Caozhou , which he left at a young age to study Buddhism in many places....

  • List of female mystics
  • List of new religious movements
  • Logic in Islamic philosophy
    Logic in Islamic philosophy
    Logic played an important role in Islamic philosophy .Islamic Logic or mantiq is similar science to what is called Traditional Logic in Western Sciences.- External links :*Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: , Routledge, 1998...

  • Lutheran scholasticism
    Lutheran scholasticism
    Lutheran scholasticism was a theological method that gradually developed during the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Theologians used the neo-Aristotelian form of presentation, already popular in academia, in their writings and lectures...

  • Macrocosm and microcosm
    Macrocosm and microcosm
    Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale all the way down to the smallest scale...

  • Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
    Madhusudana Sarasvati
    Madhusūdana Sarasvatī was an Indian philosopher in the Advaita Vedānta tradition. He is disciple of viSveSvara sarasvatI and mAdhava sarasvatI, is the most celebrated name in the annals of the great dvaita-advaita debate. He also flourished in the 16th century...

  • Madhvacharya
    Madhvacharya
    Madhvācārya was the chief proponent of Tattvavāda "Philosophy of Reality", popularly known as the Dvaita school of Hindu philosophy. It is one of the three most influential Vedānta philosophies. Madhvācārya was one of the important philosophers during the Bhakti movement. He was a pioneer in...

  • Mahābhūta
    Mahabhuta
    Mahābhūta is Sanskrit and Pāli for "great element." In Buddhism, the "four great elements" are earth, water, fire and air...

  • Mahamudra
    Mahamudra
    Mahāmudrā literally means "great seal" or "great symbol." It "is a multivalent term of great importance in later Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism" which "also occurs occasionally in Hindu and East Asian Buddhist esotericism."The name refers to the way one who...

  • Mahavira
    Mahavira
    Mahāvīra is the name most commonly used to refer to the Indian sage Vardhamāna who established what are today considered to be the central tenets of Jainism. According to Jain tradition, he was the 24th and the last Tirthankara. In Tamil, he is referred to as Arukaṉ or Arukadevan...

  • Mahayana
    Mahayana
    Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...

  • Manas-vijnana
    Manas-vijnana
    Manas-vijnana is the seventh of the eight consciousnesses taught in Yogacara Buddhism, the higher consciousness that localizes experience through thinking....

  • Mandala
    Mandala
    Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...

  • Mappō
    Mappo
    The Latter Day of the Law, is one of the Three Ages of Buddhism. Mappō or Mofa , which is also translated as the Age of Dharma Decline, is the "degenerate" Third Age of Buddhism.- Tradition :...

  • Martin Luther
    Martin Luther
    Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

  • Materialism
    Materialism
    In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...

  • Maximus the Confessor
    Maximus the Confessor
    Maximus the Confessor was a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar. In his early life, he was a civil servant, and an aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius...

  • Maya (illusion)
    Maya (illusion)
    Maya , in Indian religions, has multiple meanings, usually quoted as "illusion", centered on the fact that we do not experience the environment itself but rather a projection of it, created by us. Maya is the principal deity that manifests, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality...

  • Meera Nanda
    Meera Nanda
    Meera Nanda is an Indian writer, historian and philosopher of science and was a visiting fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi during 2009. She is a John Templeton Foundation Fellow in Religion and Science , with a Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an initial training in...

  • Meister Eckhart
    Meister Eckhart
    Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...

  • Melville Y. Stewart
    Melville Y. Stewart
    Melville Y. Stewart is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Bethel University, .Stewart has a B.A. from Gordon College, , an M. Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary, , an S.T.M. from Andover Newton Theological School, , an M.A...

  • Merit (Buddhism)
    Merit (Buddhism)
    Merit is a concept in Buddhism. It is that which accumulates as a result of good deeds, acts or thoughts and that carries over to later in life or to a person's next life. Such merit contributes to a person's growth towards liberation. Merit can be gained in a number of ways...

  • Mesillat Yesharim
    Mesillat Yesharim
    The Mesillat Yesharim is an ethical text composed by the influential Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto . It is quite different from Luzzato's other writings, which are more philosophical....

  • Metaphysical naturalism
    Metaphysical naturalism
    Metaphysical naturalism, also called ontological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism, is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those...

  • Metempsychosis
    Metempsychosis
    Metempsychosis is a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. It is a doctrine popular among a number of Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Druzism wherein an individual incarnates from one...

  • Methodios Anthrakites
    Methodios Anthrakites
    Methodios Anthrakites was a Greek scholar, priest and director of the Gioumeios and Epiphaneios Schools in Ioannina. He made a significant contribution in the growth of Greek Enlightenment during the Ottoman occupation of Greece....

  • Michael Gottlieb Birckner
    Michael Gottlieb Birckner
    Michael Gottlieb Birckner was a Danish priest and philosopher.Birckner especially explored the subject of Freedom of Speech. The American historian H. Arnold Barton has characterised Birckner, alongside with Niels Ditlev Riegels, as being one of "the most original thinkers" of the radical group of...

  • Michael Martin (philosopher)
    Michael Martin (philosopher)
    Michael L. Martin is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at Boston University. He obtained his PhD from Harvard University in 1962....

  • Michael Oakeshott
    Michael Oakeshott
    Michael Joseph Oakeshott was an English philosopher and political theorist who wrote about philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and philosophy of law...

  • Michael Ruse
    Michael Ruse
    Michael Ruse is a philosopher of biology at Florida State University, and is well known for his work on the creationism/evolution controversy and the demarcation problem in science...

  • Middle way
    Middle way
    The Middle Way or Middle Path is the descriptive term that Siddhartha Gautama used to describe the character of the path he discovered that led to liberation. It was coined in the very first teaching that he delivered after his enlightenment...

  • Mind's eye
    Mind's eye
    The phrase "mind's eye" refers to the human ability for visualization, i.e., for the experiencing of visual mental imagery; in other words, one's ability to "see" things with the mind.- Physical basis :...

  • Mindstream
    Mindstream
    Mindstream in Buddhist philosophy is the moment-to-moment "continuum" of awareness. There are a number of terms in the Buddhist literature that may well be rendered "mindstream"...

  • Miracle of the roses
    Miracle of the roses
    The miracle of the roses is a Catholic miracle in which roses announce the presence or activity of God . Such a miracle is presented in various hagiographies and legends in different forms, and it occurs in connection with diverse characters such as St. Elisabeth of Hungary , St...

  • Mircea Eliade
    Mircea Eliade
    Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...

  • Mircea Eliade bibliography
  • Misotheism
    Misotheism
    Misotheism is the "hatred of God" or "hatred of the gods" . In some varieties of polytheism, it was considered possible to inflict punishment on gods by ceasing to worship them...

  • Monad (Greek philosophy)
    Monad (Greek philosophy)
    Monad , according to the Pythagoreans, was a term for Divinity or the first being, or the totality of all beings, Monad being the source or the One meaning without division....

  • Monism
    Monism
    Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...

  • Monistic idealism
    Monistic idealism
    Monistic Idealism is a metaphysical theory which states that consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all being. It is a monistic theory because it holds that there is only one type of thing in the universe, and a form of idealism because it holds that one thing to be consciousness.Monistic...

  • Morality without religion
  • Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei
  • Muhammad ibn Muhammad Tabrizi
    Muhammad ibn Muhammad Tabrizi
    Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Muhammad Tabrizi was a thirteenth century Persian Muslim, known for his Arabic commentary on the twenty five propositions at the beginning of Book II of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed, on which Maimonides then based his proof of...

  • Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi
  • Muhammad Iqbal
    Muhammad Iqbal
    Sir Muhammad Iqbal , commonly referred to as Allama Iqbal , was a poet and philosopher born in Sialkot, then in the Punjab Province of British India, now in Pakistan...

  • Mulla Sadra
    Mulla Sadra
    Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī also called Mulla Sadrā was a Persian Shia Islamic philosopher, theologian and ‘Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century...

  • Mumbo Jumbo (phrase)
    Mumbo Jumbo (phrase)
    Mumbo jumbo, or mumbo-jumbo, is an English phrase or expression that denotes a confusing or meaningless subject. It is often used as humorous expression of criticism of middle-management and civil service non-speak, and of belief in something considered non-existent by the speaker , or the rituals...

  • Mystical philosophy of antiquity
  • Mystical realism
    Mystical realism
    In philosophy, mystical realism is a view concerning the nature of the divine. The philosophical use of the term originated with the Russian philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev in his published article, titled "Decadentism and Mystical Realism"....

  • Mystical theology
    Mystical theology
    Mystical theology is a branch of theology which treats of acts and experiences or states of the soul which cannot be produced by human effort.-Catholic tradition:...

  • Mysticism
    Mysticism
    Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

  • Myth of Er
    Myth of Er
    The Myth of Er is an eschatological legend that concludes Plato's The Republic . The story includes an account of the cosmos and the afterlife that for many centuries greatly influenced religious, philosophical and scientific thought....

  • Nagarjuna
    Nagarjuna
    Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...

  • Namarupa
    Namarupa
    Nāmarūpa is a dvandva compound in Sanskrit and Pali meaning "name and form ".-Nāmarūpa in Hinduism:The term nāmarūpa is used in Hindu thought, nāma describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and rūpa the physical presence that it manifests...

  • National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies
    National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies
    The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies, or the AHS as it is more commonly known, is a national umbrella organisation for free thinking student societies in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. It is composed of student societies many of which are...

  • National Secular Society
    National Secular Society
    The National Secular Society is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no-one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of religion. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866...

  • Natural theology
    Natural theology
    Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...

  • Naturalism (philosophy)
    Naturalism (philosophy)
    Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...

  • Naturalistic pantheism
    Naturalistic pantheism
    Naturalistic pantheism is a naturalistic form of pantheism that encompasses feelings of reverence and belonging towards nature and the wider universe, but is realist and embraces rationalism and the scientific method...

  • Nemesius
    Nemesius
    Nemesius , was a Christian philosopher, and the author of a treatise De Natura Hominis . According to the title of his book, he was the Bishop of Emesa . His book is an attempt to compile a system of anthropology from the standpoint of Christian philosophy.Nemesius was also a physiological theorist...

  • Neo-Scholasticism
    Neo-Scholasticism
    Neo-Scholasticism is the revival and development of medieval scholastic philosophy starting from the second half of the 19th century. It has some times been called neo-Thomism partly because Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century gave to scholasticism a final form, partly because the idea gained ground...

  • Neo-theocracy
    Neo-theocracy
    "Neo-theocracy" is a neologism political commentators began using in the first decade of the 21st century to refer to an alleged world-wide growth in the popularity of the acceptance of the legitimacy of the combination of religion and politics, considered to be a threat to the principle of the...

  • Neoplatonism and Christianity
    Neoplatonism and Christianity
    Neoplatonism was a major influence on Christian theology throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in the West notably due to St. Augustine of Hippo, who was influenced by the early Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, and the works of the Christian writer Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, who...

  • Neutral monism
    Neutral monism
    Neutral monism, in philosophy, is the metaphysical view that the mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing the same elements, which are themselves "neutral," that is, neither physical nor mental. This view denies that the mental and the physical are two fundamentally...

  • New Age
    New Age
    The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

  • New religious movement
    New religious movement
    A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...

  • New Thought
    New Thought
    New Thought promotes the ideas that "Infinite Intelligence" or "God" is ubiquitous, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking" has a healing effect.Although New Thought is neither...

  • Nichiren
    Nichiren
    Nichiren was a Buddhist monk who lived during the Kamakura period in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra, entitled Myōhō-Renge-Kyō in Japanese, as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment and the chanting of Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō as the essential practice of the teaching...

  • Nicholas of Kues
  • Nick Trakakis
    Nick Trakakis
    Nick Trakakis is a philosopher at Monash University in Australia, and during 2006-2007 was postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame...

  • Nikolai Lossky
    Nikolai Lossky
    Nikolay Onufriyevich Lossky was a Russian philosopher, representative of Russian idealism, intuitionism, personalism, libertarianism, ethics, Axiology , and his philosophy he called intuitive-personalism. Born in Latvia, he spent his working life in St. Petersburg, New York and Paris...

  • Nimbarka
    Nimbarka
    Nimbarka , is known for propagating the Vaishnava Theology of Dvaitadvaita, duality in unity. According to scholars headed by Prof. Roma Bose, he lived in the 13th Century, on the assumption that Śrī Nimbārkācārya was the author of the work Madhvamukhamardana...

  • Nirvana
    Nirvana
    Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...

  • Noble Eightfold Path
    Noble Eightfold Path
    The Noble Eightfold Path , is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...

  • Nondualism
    Nondualism
    Nondualism is a term used to denote affinity, or unity, rather than duality or separateness or multiplicity. In reference to the universe it may be used to denote the idea that things appear distinct while not being separate. The term "nondual" can refer to a belief, condition, theory, practice,...

  • Nontheism
    Nontheism
    Nontheism is a term that covers a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes characterized by the absence of — or the rejection of — theism or any belief in a personal god or gods...

  • Nontheist Friend
    Nontheist Friend
    A nontheist Friend or an atheist Quaker is someone who affiliates with, identifies with, engages in and/or affirms Quaker practices and processes, but who does not necessarily accept a belief in a theistic understanding of God, a Supreme Being, the divine, the soul or the supernatural...

  • Norman Geisler
    Norman Geisler
    Norman L. Geisler is a Christian apologist and the co-founder of Southern Evangelical Seminary outside Charlotte, North Carolina, where he formerly taught. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Jesuit Loyola University...

  • Numenius of Apamea
    Numenius of Apamea
    Numenius of Apamea was a Greek philosopher, who lived in Apamea in Syria and flourished during the latter half of the 2nd century AD. He was a Neopythagorean and forerunner of the Neoplatonists.- Philosophy :...

  • Nyaya
    Nyaya
    ' is the name given to one of the six orthodox or astika schools of Hindu philosophy—specifically the school of logic...

  • Obscurantism
    Obscurantism
    Obscurantism is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two, common, historical and intellectual, denotations: 1) restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the...

  • Occasion of sin
    Occasion of sin
    In Roman Catholic teaching, an occasion of sin is an external set of circumstances—whether of things or persons—which either because of their special nature or because of the frailty common to humanity or peculiar to some individual, incite or entice one to sin.There are both proximate...

  • Occasionalism
    Occasionalism
    Occasionalism is a philosophical theory about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God...

  • Odium theologicum
    Odium theologicum
    The Latin phrase Odium theologicum is the name originally given to the often intense anger and hatred generated by disputes over theology...

  • Of Miracles
    Of Miracles
    "Of Miracles" is the title of Section X of David Hume's An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding .-The text:In the 19th-century edition of Hume's Enquiry , sections X and XI were omitted, appearing in an Appendix with the misleading explanation that they were normally left out of popular editions...

  • Olavo de Carvalho
    Olavo de Carvalho
    Olavo Luiz Pimentel de Carvalho is a Brazilian journalist, and essayist on several issues like the history of astrology and mysticism; the history of revolutionary mentality; and Philosophical Anthropology...

  • Omega Point
    Omega point
    Omega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving....

  • Omnibenevolence
    Omnibenevolence
    Omnibenevolence is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "unlimited or infinite benevolence". It is often held to be impossible, or at least improbable, for a deity to exhibit such property along side omniscience and omnipotence as a result of the problem of evil...

  • Omnipotence
    Omnipotence
    Omnipotence is unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed...

  • Omnipotence paradox
    Omnipotence paradox
    The omnipotence paradox is a family of semantic paradoxes which address two issues: Is an omnipotent entity logically possible? and What do we mean by 'omnipotence'?. The paradox states that if a being can perform any action, then it should be able to create a task it is unable to perform, and...

  • Omnipresence
    Omnipresence
    Omnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present everywhere. According to eastern theism, God is present everywhere. Divine omnipresence is thus one of the divine attributes, although in western theism it has attracted less philosophical attention than such attributes as omnipotence,...

  • Omniscience
    Omniscience
    Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...

  • Omphalos hypothesis
  • On Being a Pagan
    On Being a Pagan
    On Being a Pagan, originally published in French under the title Comment peut-on être païen? "How can one be a pagan" in 1981) is a book by the French philosopher Alain de Benoist, published in English in 2004...

  • Ontological argument
    Ontological argument
    The ontological argument for the existence of God is an a priori argument for the existence of God. The ontological argument was first proposed by the eleventh-century monk Anselm of Canterbury, who defined God as the greatest possible being we can conceive...

  • Ontotheology
    Ontotheology
    Ontotheology means the ontology of God and/or the theology of being. It refers to a tradition of philosophical theology first prominent among medieval scholastics, notably Duns Scotus...

  • Opium of the people
    Opium of the People
    "Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion .....

  • Or Adonai
  • Orchot Tzaddikim
    Orchot Tzaddikim
    Orchot Tzaddikim is a book on Jewish ethics written in Germany in the 15th century, entitled Sefer ha-Middot by the author, but called Orḥot Ẓaddiḳim by a later copyist...

  • Orlando J. Smith
    Orlando J. Smith
    Orlando J. Smith was an early 20th-century American philosopher. Smith was an avowed agnostic who still sought to understand meaning as the ultimate intelligence would, if such existed....

  • Osvaldo Lira
    Osvaldo Lira
    José Luis Osvaldo Lira Pérez SS.CC. , priest, philosopher and theologian. Author of more than 10 books on topics related to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as Ortega y Gasset and Juan Vázquez de Mella...

  • Outline of humanism
  • Outline of theology
    Outline of theology
    The following outline is presented as an overview of and topical guide to theology:Theology – systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually...

  • Over-soul
    Over-soul
    “The Oversoul” is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, first published in 1841. The broad subject of the essay, considered one of Emerson's best, is the human soul...

  • Pandeism
    Pandeism
    Pandeism or Pan-Deism , is a term describing beliefs incorporating or mixing logically reconcilable elements of pantheism and deism Pandeism or Pan-Deism (from and meaning "God" in the sense of deism), is a term describing beliefs incorporating or mixing logically reconcilable elements of...

  • Pantheism
    Pantheism
    Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...

  • Pantheism controversy
    Pantheism controversy
    The pantheism controversy was an event in German cultural history which had an impact throughout Europe.A conversation between philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and dramatist Gotthold Lessing in 1780 led Jacobi to a protracted study of Spinoza's works. Lessing had avowed that he knew no...

  • Parallelism (philosophy)
    Parallelism (philosophy)
    In parallelism, mental events and physical events are perfectly coordinated by God; so that when a mental event such as Sally's decision to walk across the room occurs, simultaneously Sally's body heads across the room, in the absence of a direct cause-effect relation between mind and body...

  • Paramartha
    Paramartha
    Paramārtha was an Indian monk from Ujjain in central India, who is best known for his prolific Chinese translations which include Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa...

  • Pāramitā
    Pāramitā
    Pāramitā or pāramī is "perfection" or "completeness." In Buddhism, the pāramitās refer to the perfection or culmination of certain virtues...

  • Pascal's Wager
    Pascal's Wager
    Pascal's Wager, also known as Pascal's Gambit, is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal that even if the existence of God could not be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because one living life...

  • Patañjali
    Patañjali
    Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...

  • Paul Draper (philosopher)
    Paul Draper (philosopher)
    Paul Draper is an American philosopher, most known for his work in the philosophy of religion. He is currently a professor at Purdue University.He studied at the University of California, graduating B.A. in 1979, M.A. in 1982 and Ph.D. in 1985...

  • Paul Haeberlin
    Paul Haeberlin
    Paul Haeberlin was a philosopher who at different times in his career took the standpoint that either religion or theoretical knowledge was the answer to human problems. He always gave philosophy an important role, but religion was to him the only way man could understand his real position in...

  • Paul J. Griffiths
    Paul J. Griffiths
    Paul J. Griffiths is the Warren Professor of Catholic Thought at Duke University.Griffiths has previously held appointments at the University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago...

  • Pentad (Greek philosophy)
  • Perennial philosophy
    Perennial philosophy
    Perennial philosophy is the notion of the universal recurrence of philosophical insight independent of epoch or culture, including universal truths on the nature of reality, humanity or consciousness .-History:The idea of a perennial philosophy has great...

  • Personalism
    Personalism
    Personalism is a philosophical school of thought searching to describe the uniqueness of a human person in the world of nature, specifically in relation to animals...

  • Peter Abelard
    Peter Abelard
    Peter Abelard was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. The story of his affair with and love for Héloïse has become legendary...

  • Peter Geach
    Peter Geach
    Peter Thomas Geach is a British philosopher. His areas of interest are the history of philosophy, philosophical logic, and the theory of identity.He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford...

  • Peter Kreeft
    Peter Kreeft
    Peter John Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College, and author of numerous books as well as a popular writer on philosophy, Christian theology, and specifically Catholic apologetics. He also formulated together with Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ, "Twenty...

  • Peter Millican
    Peter Millican
    Peter Millican is Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford University in the United Kingdom. His primary interests include the philosophy of David Hume, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Millican is particularly well known for his work on David Hume, and...

  • Peter van Inwagen
    Peter van Inwagen
    Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He previously taught at Syracuse University and earned his PhD from the University of Rochester under the direction of Richard Taylor and Keith Lehrer...

  • Phenomenological definition of God
    Phenomenological definition of God
    The philosopher Michel Henry defines God in a phenomenological point of view. He says: "God is Life, he is the essence of Life, or, if we prefer, the essence of Life is God...

  • Phenomenology of religion
    Phenomenology of religion
    The phenomenology of religion concerns the experiential aspect of religion, describing religious phenomena in terms consistent with the orientation of the worshippers. It views religion as being made up of different components, and studies these components across religious traditions so that an...

  • Phillip H. Wiebe
    Phillip H. Wiebe
    Phillip H. Wiebe is the former Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy and former Dean of Arts and Religious Studies at Trinity Western University and its School of Graduate Studies. He is the author of God and Other Spirits and Visions of Jesus, both from Oxford University...

  • Philo's view of God
    Philo's view of God
    Philo was a leader of the Hellenistic Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt. Philo wrote expansively on the intersection of philosophy, politics, and religion during the late Second Temple Period. He specifically explores the connections between Platonic Greek philosophy and historical Judaism...

  • Philodemus
    Philodemus
    Philodemus of Gadara was an Epicurean philosopher and poet. He studied under Zeno of Sidon in Athens, before moving to Rome, and then to Herculaneum. He was once known chiefly for his poetry preserved in the Greek anthology, but since the 18th century, many writings of his have been discovered...

  • Philosophical Foundations of Marxist-Leninist Atheism
  • Philosophical theism
    Philosophical theism
    Philosophical theism is the belief that God exists independent of the teaching or revelation of any particular religion. It represents belief in a personal God entirely without doctrine...

  • Philosophical theology
    Philosophical Theology
    Philosophical theology is the disciplined employment of philosophical methods in developing or analyzing theological concepts. It therefore includes natural theology as well as philosophical treatments of orthodox and heterodox theology....

  • Philosophy of religion
    Philosophy of religion
    Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...

  • Philotheus Boehner
    Philotheus Boehner
    Philotheus Boehner was a member of the Franciscan order and a distinguished medieval scholar.-Biography:Boehner was born Heinrich Boehner in Lichtenau, Westphalia. He entered the Franciscan Order in 1920, and was given the name , the Latin form of the Greek ,...

  • Pierre Cally
    Pierre Cally
    Pierre Cally was a French Catholic Cartesian philosopher and theologian.-Life:He was born at Mesnil-Hubert near Argentan, now Orne, France. In 1660 he was appointed professor of philosophy and eloquence in the University of Caen, and in 1675, president of the Collège des Arts in the same city. In...

  • Plantinga's free will defense
    Plantinga's free will defense
    Alvin Plantinga's version of the free will defense is an attempt to refute the logical problem of evil, the argument that to posit the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good god in an evil world constitutes a logical contradiction...

  • Political theology
    Political theology
    Political theology or public theology is a branch of both political philosophy and practical theology that investigates the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking underlie political, social, economic and cultural discourses....

  • Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture
    Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture
    Politique tirée des propres paroles de l'Écriture sainte is a work of political theory prepared by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet as part of his duties as tutor for Louis XIV's heir apparent, Louis, le Grand Dauphin...

  • Postmodern Christianity
    Postmodern Christianity
    Postmodern Christianity is an outlook of Christianity that is closely associated with the body of writings known as postmodern philosophy. Although it is a relatively recent development in the Christian religion, some Christian postmodernists assert that their style of thought has an affinity with...

  • Praepositinus
    Praepositinus
    Praepositinus was an Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher and theologian. He was a liturgical commentator, and supporter a res-theory of belief. He discussed intentional contexts....

  • Pragmatism
    Pragmatism
    Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...

  • Pratītyasamutpāda
  • Pratyekabuddha
    Pratyekabuddha
    A Pratyekabuddha or Paccekabuddha , literally "a lone buddha" , "a buddha on their own" or "a private buddha", is one of three types of enlightened beings according to some schools of Buddhism. The other two types are the Śrāvakabuddhas and Samyaksambuddhas...

  • Precept
    Precept
    A precept is a commandment, instruction, or order intended as an authoritative rule of action.-Christianity:The term is encountered frequently in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; e.g.:...

  • Preformation theory
    Preformation theory
    The Preformation theory states that "knowledge is possible only because God has endowed humans with certain innate ideas along with dispositions or aptitudes in certain ways." This was recognized by Immanuel Kant as an alternative to his theory regarding the categories of understanding and their...

  • Preformationism
    Preformationism
    In the history of biology, preformationism is either the specific contention that all organisms were created at the same time, and that succeeding generations grow from homunculi, animalcules, or other fully formed but miniature versions of themselves that have existed since the beginning of...

  • Primum movens
    Primum movens
    Primum movens , usually referred to as the Prime mover or first cause in English, is a term used in the philosophy of Aristotle, in the theological cosmological argument for the existence of God, and in cosmogony, the source of the cosmos or "all-being".-Aristotle's ontology:In book 12 of his...

  • Prince Shōtoku
    Prince Shotoku
    , also known as or , was a semi-legendary regent and a politician of the Asuka period in Japan who served under Empress Suiko. He was a son of Emperor Yōmei and his younger half-sister Princess Anahobe no Hashihito. His parents were relatives of the ruling Soga clan, and was involved in the defeat...

  • Problem of evil
    Problem of evil
    In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is the question of how to explain evil if there exists a deity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient . Some philosophers have claimed that the existences of such a god and of evil are logically incompatible or unlikely...

  • Problem of evil in Hinduism
  • Problem of Hell
    Problem of Hell
    The "Problem of Hell" is a possible ethical problem related to religions in which portrayals of Hell are ostensibly cruel, and are thus inconsistent with the concepts of a just, moral and omnibenevolent God...

  • Process theology
    Process theology
    Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and further developed by Charles Hartshorne . While there are process theologies that are similar, but unrelated to the work of Whitehead the term is generally applied to the...

  • Proslogion
    Proslogion
    The Proslogion, , written in 1077-1078, was written as a prayer, or meditation, by the medieval cleric Anselm which serves to reflect on the attributes of God and endeavours to explain how God can have qualities which often seem contradictory...

  • Protestant work ethic
    Protestant work ethic
    The Protestant work ethic is a concept in sociology, economics and history, attributable to the work of Max Weber...

  • Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
    Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
    Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum . The author is identified as "Dionysos" in the corpus, which later incorrectly came to be attributed to Dionysius...

  • Pseudo-secularism
    Pseudo-secularism
    Pseudo-secularism is the state of implicit non-secular trends in the face of pledged secularism. The term is used by groups who perceive a double standard exhibited within the established secular governing policy towards culturally different groups....

  • Pseudo atheism
  • Pseudoreligion
    Pseudoreligion
    Pseudoreligion, or pseudotheology, is a generally pejorative term applied to a non-mainstream belief system or philosophy which is functionally similar to a religious movement, typically having a founder, principal text, liturgy and faith-based beliefs....

  • Psychoanalysis and Religion
    Psychoanalysis and Religion
    Psychoanalysis and Religion is a 1950 psychoanalytic treatise that attempts to explain the purpose and goals of psychoanalysis in relation to ethics and religion...

  • Quantum mysticism
    Quantum mysticism
    Quantum mysticism is a term that has been used to refer to a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence or mystical world-views to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations...

  • Quietism (Christian philosophy)
    Quietism (Christian philosophy)
    Quietism is a Christian philosophy that swept through France, Italy and Spain during the 17th century, but it had much earlier origins. The mystics known as Quietists insist, with more or less emphasis, on intellectual stillness and interior passivity as essential conditions of perfection...

  • Quinque viae
  • R. De Staningtona
    R. De Staningtona
    R. De Staningtona was a friar, likely of the Dominican Order, who was at Oxford University in the mid-1250s. He composed a noteworthy summary of libri naturales by Aristotle. His summary was entitled Compilacio quedam liborum naturalium...

  • Rabia al-Adawiyya
    Rabia al-Adawiyya
    Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya or simply Rābiʿah al-Baṣrī was a female Muslim saint and Sufi mystic.-Life:She was born between 95 and 99 Hijri in Basra, Iraq. Much of her early life is narrated by Farid al-Din Attar, a later Sufi Saint and poet, who used earlier sources...

  • Rabindranath Tagore
    Rabindranath Tagore
    Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...

  • Ralph Tyler Flewelling
    Ralph Tyler Flewelling
    Ralph Tyler Flewelling was an American philosophy professor, born ar De Witt, Mich., and educated at the University of Michigan, Alma College . the Garrett Biblical Institute , and Boston University...

  • Ramanuja
    Ramanuja
    Ramanuja ; traditionally 1017–1137, also known as Ramanujacharya, Ethirajar , Emperumannar, Lakshmana Muni, was a theologian, philosopher, and scriptural exegete...

  • Ramendra Nath
    Ramendra Nath
    Professor Ramendra Nath is an Indian philosopher. Reader and Head of the Department of Philosophy at Patna College, Patna University, where he has taught philosophy since January 13, 1983, and where he won his BA in philosophy in 1977, his MA in 1979, his PhD in 1985 and his...

  • Rational fideism
    Rational fideism
    Rational fideism is the philosophical view that considers faith to be precursor for any reliable knowledge. Whether one considers rationalism or empiricism, either of them ultimately tends to belief in reason or experience respectively as the absolute basis for their methods. Thus, faith is basic...

  • Rational mysticism
    Rational mysticism
    Rational mysticism, which encompasses both rationalism and mysticism, is a term used by scholars, researchers, and other intellectuals, some of whom engage in studies of how altered states of consciousness or transcendence such as trance, visions, and prayer occur...

  • Rational Response Squad
    Rational Response Squad
    The Rational Response Squad, or RRS, is an atheist activist group that confronts what it considers to be irrational claims, most notably those made by theists, particularly Christians. The most visible member of RRS is co-founder Brian Sapient...

  • Real atheism
  • Reality in Buddhism
    Reality in Buddhism
    Buddhism evolved a variety of doctrinal/philosophical traditions, each with its distinct ideas of reality. The following are still regularly studied in some branches of the Buddhist tradition: Theravada, Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Jojitsu, Madhyamika, Yogacara, tiantai, Huayan...

  • Rebirth (Buddhism)
    Rebirth (Buddhism)
    Rebirth in Buddhism is the doctrine that the evolving consciousness or stream of consciousness upon death , becomes one of the contributing causes for the arising of a new aggregation...

  • Reformational philosophy
    Reformational philosophy
    Reformational philosophy is a Neo-Calvinistic movement pioneered by Herman Dooyeweerd and D. H. Th. Vollenhoven that seeks to develop philosophical thought in a radically Protestant Christian direction.- Historical overview :...

  • Relationship between religion and science
    Relationship between religion and science
    The relationship between religion and science has been a focus of the demarcation problem. Somewhat related is the claim that science and religion may pursue knowledge using different methodologies. Whereas the scientific method basically relies on reason and empiricism, religion also seeks to...

  • Religion
    Religion
    Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

  • Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
    Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
    Religion & Ethics Newsweekly is an American weekly television news-magazine program which airs on PBS-History and content:Premièring in 1997, it is the only television program devoted entirely to the news of religion and spirituality, along with major ethical issues...

  • Religion and abortion
    Religion and abortion
    Many religious traditions have taken a stance on abortion, and these stances span a broad spectrum as highlighted below.-Buddhism:There is no single Buddhist view concerning abortion. Traditional sources, such as the Buddhist monastic code, hold that life begins at conception and that abortion,...

  • Religion and happiness
    Religion and happiness
    Religion and happiness have been studied by a number of researchers. The science of positive psychology has identified many components of happiness, and religion seems adapted to satisfy many of them...

  • Religious communism
    Religious communism
    Religious communism is a form of communism centered on religious principles. The term usually refers to a number of egalitarian and utopian religious societies practicing the voluntary dissolution of private property, so that society's benefits are distributed according to a person's needs, and...

  • Religious democracy
    Religious democracy
    Religious democracy is a form of government where the values of a particular religion have an effect on the laws and rules, often when most of the population is a member of the religion...

  • Religious humanism
    Religious humanism
    Religious humanism is an integration of humanist ethical philosophy with religious rituals and beliefs that center on human needs, interests, and abilities.-Origins:...

  • Religious intellectualism in Iran
    Religious intellectualism in Iran
    Religious intellectualism in Iran reached its apogee during the Persian Constitutional Revolution . The process involved philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and cultural theorists.-Summary:...

  • Religious interpretation
    Religious interpretation
    Religious interpretation and similarly religious self-interpretation define a section of religion-related studies where attention is given to aspects of perception—where religious symbolism and the self-image of all those who hold religious views have important bearing on how others perceive...

  • Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory
    Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory
    Since the creation of the Big Bang theory, many religious interpretations of the Big Bang hypothesis of physical cosmology have been offered. The Big Bang itself is a scientific hypothesis, and as such stands or falls by its agreement with observations...

  • Religious law
    Religious law
    In some religions, law can be thought of as the ordering principle of reality; knowledge as revealed by a God defining and governing all human affairs. Law, in the religious sense, also includes codes of ethics and morality which are upheld and required by the God...

  • Religious naturalism
    Religious naturalism
    Religious naturalism is an approach to spirituality that is devoid of supernaturalism. The focus is on the religious attributes of the universe/Nature, the understanding of it and our response to it . These provide for the development of an eco-morality...

  • Religious philosophy
    Religious philosophy
    Religious philosophy is philosophical thinking that is inspired and directed by religion. Depending on religion, there are different philosophies for each religion:*Buddhist philosophy*Christian philosophy*Hindu philosophy*Islamic philosophy...

  • Religious skepticism
    Religious skepticism
    Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to religion, but should not be confused with atheism. Religious skeptics question religious authority and are not necessarily anti-religious but are those skeptical of a specific or all religious beliefs or practices. Some are deists, believing...

  • Religious views on business ethics
    Religious views on business ethics
    Many faiths have extensive literature and legal code on the accumulation and use of wealth; and many businesses rely on these ethical guidelines, both as a result of the religious beliefs of owners and managers, and as a way of ensuring that their actions meet the otherwise unwritten ethical...

  • Religious views on suicide
  • Rémi Brague
    Rémi Brague
    Rémi Brague is a French professor of Arabic and religious philosophy at the Sorbonne and at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.- Biography :...

  • Renaissance humanism
    Renaissance humanism
    Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

  • René Guénon
    René Guénon
    René Guénon , also known as Shaykh `Abd al-Wahid Yahya was a French author and intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from metaphysics, sacred science and traditional studies to symbolism and initiation.In his writings, he...

  • Revelation
    Revelation
    In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...

  • Richard Carrier
    Richard Carrier
    Richard Cevantis Carrier is an American historian. He is best known for his writings on Internet Infidels, otherwise known as the Secular Web, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for several years....

  • Richard Dawkins
    Richard Dawkins
    Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...

  • Richard Swinburne
    Richard Swinburne
    Richard G. Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and...

  • Rigpa
    Rigpa
    Rigpa is the knowledge that ensues from recognizing one's nature i.e. one knows that there is a primordial freedom from grasping his or her mind . The opposite of rigpa is marigpa ....

  • Robert Cummings Neville
    Robert Cummings Neville
    Robert Cummings Neville is an American systematic philosopher and theologian, author of numerous books and papers, and for much of his career was Dean of the Boston University School of Theology. J...

  • Robert Merrihew Adams
  • Rudolf Otto
    Rudolf Otto
    Rudolf Otto was an eminent German Lutheran theologian and scholar of comparative religion.-Life:Born in Peine near Hanover, Otto attended the Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim and studied at the universities of Erlangen and Göttingen, where he wrote his dissertation on Martin Luther's...

  • Rudolf Seydel
    Rudolf Seydel
    Rudolf Seydel was a German philosopher and theologian born in Dresden.In 1860 he received his habilitation at the University of Leipzig, where in 1867 he became an associate professor of philosophy. He was a disciple of Christian Hermann Weisse , and is remembered for his studies involving...

  • Rule of Three (Wiccan)
    Rule of Three (Wiccan)
    The Rule of Three is a religious tenet held by some Wiccans. It states that whatever energy a person puts out into the world, be it positive or negative, will be returned to that person three times...

  • Sakadagami
    Sakadagami
    In Buddhism, the Sakadagami , "returning once" or "once-returner," is a partially-enlightened person, who has cut off the first three chains with which the ordinary mind is bound, and significantly weakened the fourth and fifth...

  • Sam Harris (author)
    Sam Harris (author)
    Sam Harris is an American author, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and current CEO of Project Reason. He received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Stanford University, before receiving a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA...

  • Sambhogakāya
    Sambhogakaya
    The Sambhogakāya is the second mode or aspect of the Trikaya. Sambhogakaya has also been translated as the "deity dimension", "body of bliss" or "astral body". Sambhogakaya refers to the luminous form of clear light the Buddhist practitioner attains upon the reaching the highest dimensions of...

  • Saṃsāra
    Samsara
    thumb|right|200px|Traditional Tibetan painting or [[Thanka]] showing the [[wheel of life]] and realms of saṃsāraSaṅsāra or Saṃsāra , , literally meaning "continuous flow", is the cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth or reincarnation within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism, Sikhism, and other...

  • Saṃsāra (Buddhism)
    Samsara (Buddhism)
    or sangsara is a Sanskrit and Pāli term, which translates as "continuous movement" or "continuous flowing" and, in Buddhism, refers to the concept of a cycle of birth , and consequent decay and death , in which all beings in the universe participate, and which can only be escaped through...

  • Samuel Maximilian Rieser
    Samuel Maximilian Rieser
    Samuel Maximilian Rieser was a Jewish lawyer and philosopher.Born in Kraków, where he went to school, he began the study of law in Vienna. His studies were interrupted by World War I, during which he lived in Switzerland. After the war he returned to Vienna, completed his law studies and obtained...

  • Samvriti
    Samvriti
    In Buddhist context, samvriti refers to the conventional, as opposed to absolute, truth or reality. Knowledge is considered as split into three levels: The first being the illusory , considered false compared to the empirical ,...

  • Sarah Coakley
    Sarah Coakley
    Sarah Coakley is an Anglican systematic theologian and philosopher of religion with wide interdisciplinary interests.-Life and work:...

  • Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
    Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
    Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , OM, FBA was an Indian philosopher and statesman. He was the first Vice President of India and subsequently the second President of India ....

  • Sathya Sai Baba
    Sathya Sai Baba
    Śri Sathya Sai Baba , born as Sathyanarayana Raju was an Indian guru, spiritual figure, mystic, philanthropist, and educator. He claimed to be the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi, a spiritual saint and miracle worker who died in 1918 and whose teachings were an eclectic blend of Hindu and...

  • Sayyid al-Qimni
  • Sayyid Qutb
    Sayyid Qutb
    Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s....

  • Scandal (theology)
    Scandal (theology)
    In an idiomatic usage in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, a stumbling block is a behavior or attitude that leads another to sin.-Etymology:...

  • School of Saint Victor
  • Science and Christian Belief
    Science and Christian Belief
    Science and Christian Belief is an academic journal published twice yearly by Christians in Science and the Victoria Institute. The journal focuses on the traffic of ideas between science and religion, with particular reference to Christianity...

  • Scotism
    Scotism
    Scotism is the name given to the philosophical and theological system or school named after Blessed John Duns Scotus. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose Opus Oxoniense was one of the most important documents in medieval philosophy and Roman Catholic theology, defining what would...

  • Secular ethics
    Secular ethics
    Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from purported supernatural revelation or guidance...

  • Secular humanism
    Secular humanism
    Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...

  • Secular left
    Secular left
    The secular left is a term used to describe members of the left-wing who are also secularists .The secular left is not necessarily opposed to the religious left...

  • Secular Right
    Secular right
    In American politics, the term Secular Right refers to but is not exclusive to the libertarian, socially liberal or non-religious wing of most conservative movements or parties...

  • Secular saint
    Secular saint
    The term, secular saint, which has no strict definition, generally refers to someone venerated and respected for contributions to a noble cause, but not recognized as a canonical saint by a religion...

  • Secular theology
    Secular theology
    The field of secular theology, a subfield of liberal theology advocated by Anglican bishop John A. T. Robinson somewhat paradoxically combines secularism and theology. Recognized in the 1960s, it was influenced both by neo-orthodoxy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Harvey Cox, and the existentialism of Søren...

  • Secularism
    Secularism
    Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

  • Secularism in the Middle East
  • Secularization
    Secularization
    Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...

  • Sefer ha-Ikkarim
    Sefer ha-Ikkarim
    Sefer ha-Ikkarim is a fifteenth century work by rabbi Joseph Albo, a student of Crescas. It is an eclectic, popular work, whose central task is the exposition of the principles of Judaism....

  • Sefer ha-Qabbalah
    Sefer ha-Qabbalah
    Sefer ha-Qabbalah was a book authored by Abraham ibn Daud around 1161. A chronicle of the Jewish people, it contains valuable historical and philosophical information...

  • Seiichi Hatano
    Seiichi Hatano
    was a Japanese philosopher, best known for his work in thephilosophy of religion dealing mostly with eastern religion but also western philosophical thoughts in theological aspects of Christianity....

  • Self-Indication Assumption Doomsday argument rebuttal
    Self-Indication Assumption Doomsday argument rebuttal
    The Self-Indication Assumption Doomsday argument rebuttal is an objection to the Doomsday argument by arguing that the chance of being born is not one, but is an increasing function of the number of people who will be born.- History :This objection to the Doomsday Argument ,...

  • Self-referencing doomsday argument rebuttal
    Self-referencing doomsday argument rebuttal
    Self-referencing doomsday argument rebuttals attempt to refute the Doomsday argument by applying the same reasoning to the lifetime of the Doomsday argument itself.The first researchers to write about this were P. T. Landsberg and J. N...

  • Sentences
    Sentences
    The Four Books of Sentences is a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century. It is a systematic compilation of theology, written around 1150; it derives its name from the sententiae or authoritative statements on biblical passages that it gathered together.-Origin and...

  • Seosan
    Seosan
    Little is known of the early life of Seosan Daesa other than that he was born in 1520 and that he became a monk. As was common for monks in this time, he travelled from place to place, living in a succession of monasteries...

  • Seth Material
  • Seven Factors of Enlightenment
    Seven factors of enlightenment
    In Buddhism, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment are:* Mindfulness i.e...

  • Shah Waliullah
    Shah Waliullah
    Shah Waliullah Muhaddith Dehlvi was an Islamic scholar and reformer. He was born during the reign of Aurangzeb. He worked for the revival of Muslim rule and intellectual learning in South Asia, during a time of waning Muslim power...

  • Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi
    Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi
    Other important Muslim mystics carry the name Suhrawardi, particularly Abu 'l-Najib al-Suhrawardi and his paternal nephew Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi."Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash as-Suhrawardī was a Persian...

  • Sharia
    Sharia
    Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

  • Shem Mishmuel
    Shem Mishmuel
    Shem Mishmuel is the name of a nine-volume collection of homiletical teachings on the Torah and Jewish holidays delivered by Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain, the second Sochatchover Rebbe, between the years 1910-1926...

  • Shinran
    Shinran
    was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino at the turbulent close of the Heian Period and lived during the Kamakura Period...

  • Shoshin
    Shoshin
    Shoshin is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning "beginner's mind". It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would...

  • Sin
    Sin
    In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...

  • Skandha
    Skandha
    In Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the skandhas or khandhas are any of five types of phenomena that serve as objects of clinging and bases for a sense of self...

  • Societas Perfecta
    Societas Perfecta
    Societas Perfecta is the name given to one of several political philosophies of the Roman Catholic Church in the fields of ecclesiology and canon law....

  • Søren Kierkegaard
    Søren Kierkegaard
    Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...

  • Sotāpanna
    Sotapanna
    In Buddhism, a Sotāpanna , Srotāpanna , or "stream-winner" is a person who has eradicated the first three fetters of the mind. Sotapanna literally means "one who entered the stream ", after a metaphor which calls the Noble Eightfold Path, 'a stream'...

  • Soul
    Soul
    A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

  • Soul dualism
    Soul dualism
    Soul dualism or a dualistic soul concept is a range of beliefs that a person has two kinds of souls. In many cases, one of the souls is associated with body functions and the other one can leave the body . Sometimes the plethora of soul types can be even more complex...

  • Spirit
    Spirit
    The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

  • Spiritual materialism
    Spiritual materialism
    Spiritual materialism or spiritual narcissism are terms used to describe mistakes spiritual seekers commit which turn the pursuit of spiritualism into an ego building and confusion creating endeavor. This is based on the idea that ego development is counter to spiritual progress...

  • Spiritual philosophy
    Spiritual philosophy
    Spiritual philosophy is a generic term for any philosophy or teaching that pertains to spirituality and spiritual realities. It may incorporate religious or esoteric themes, especially those from Theosophy or Neo-Theosophy, New Age thought, mysticism, and Eastern philosophy...

  • Sri Aurobindo
    Sri Aurobindo
    Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...

  • Stephen Mulhall
    Stephen Mulhall
    Stephen Mulhall is a philosopher and Fellow of New College, Oxford. His main research areas are Ludwig Wittgenstein and post-Kantian philosophy.-Life:...

  • Stephen R. L. Clark
    Stephen R. L. Clark
    Stephen Richard Lyster Clark is a British philosopher and former professor of philosophy at the University of Liverpool.Clark specializes in the philosophy of religion, political philosophy, science fiction, and animal rights...

  • Strong agnosticism
    Strong agnosticism
    Strong agnosticism or positive agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible for humans to know whether or not any deities exist. It is a narrower view than weak agnosticism, which states that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is unknown but not necessarily unknowable.Strong...

  • Submission (2004 film)
  • Sufi metaphysics
  • Sufi philosophy
    Sufi philosophy
    Sufi philosophy includes the schools of thought unique to Sufism, a mystical branch within Islam. Sufism and its philosophical traditions may be associated with Sunni Islam or Shia Islam. It has been suggested that Sufi thought emerged from the Middle East in the eighth century, but adherents are...

  • Summa
    Summa
    Summa and its diminutive summula are mainly used, in English and other modern languages, for texts that 'sum up' knowledge in a field, such as the compendiums of theology, philosophy and canon law which were used both as textbooks in the schools and as books of reference during the Middle...

  • Summa contra Gentiles
    Summa contra Gentiles
    The Summa contra Gentiles by St. Thomas Aquinas has traditionally been dated to 1264, though more recent scholarship places it towards the end of Thomas’ life, 1270-73 . The work has occasioned much debate as to its purpose, its intended audience and its relationship to his other works...

  • Summa Theologica
    Summa Theologica
    The Summa Theologiæ is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas , and although unfinished, "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature." It is intended as a manual for beginners in theology and a compendium of all of the main...

  • Śūnyatā
  • Supragnosticism
  • Supreme Being
    Supreme Being
    The term Supreme Being is often defined simply as "God", and it is used with this meaning by theologians of many religious faiths, including, but not limited to, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Deism. However, the term can also refer to more complex or philosophical interpretations of the...

  • Sureśvara
  • Suzuki Shōsan
    Suzuki Shōsan
    was a Japanese samurai who served under the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Shōsan was born in modern-day Aichi Prefecture of Japan. He participated in the Battle of Sekigahara and the Battle of Osaka before renouncing life as a warrior and becoming a Zen Buddhist monk in 1621.Shōsan traveled throughout...

  • Syed Ali Abbas Jallapuri
  • Symbolism
    Religious symbolism
    Religious symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena, by a religion. Religions view religious texts, rituals, and works of art as symbols of compelling ideas or ideals...

  • Tage Lindbom
    Tage Lindbom
    Tage Leonard Lindbom, who later in his life took the name Sidi Zayd, , PhD in Political science, who was early in his life the party theoretician and director of the archives of the Swedish Social Democratic Party 1938-1965, but later in his life he converted to Islam...

  • Taha Abdurrahman
    Taha Abdurrahman
    Taha Abdurrahman is a Morrocan philosopher who is considered as one of the leading philosophers and thinkers in Islamic world whose research centers on logic, philosophy of language and philosophy of morality...

  • Tanya
    Tanya
    The Tanya is an early work of Hasidic philosophy, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Hasidism, first published in 1797. Its formal title is Likkutei Amarim , but is more commonly known by its opening word, Tanya, which means "it was taught in a beraita"...

  • Tao
    Tao
    Dao or Tao is a Chinese word meaning 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle'...

  • Taoism
    Taoism
    Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...

  • Tathāgata
    Tathagata
    Tathāgata in Pali and Sanskrit) is the name the Buddha of the scriptures uses when referring to himself. The term means, paradoxically, both one who has thus gone and one who has thus come . Hence, the Tathagata is beyond all coming and going – beyond all transitory phenomena...

  • Tathagatagarbha doctrine
    Tathagatagarbha doctrine
    In Mahāyāna, The "Tathāgatagarbha Sutras" are a collection of Mahayana sutras which present a unique model of Buddha-nature, i.e. the original vision of the Buddha-nature as an ungenerated, unconditioned and immortal Buddhic element within all beings. Even though this collection was generally...

  • Tathātā/Dharmatā
  • Tawhid
    Tawhid
    Tawhid is the concept of monotheism in Islam. It is the religion's most fundamental concept and holds God is one and unique ....

  • Teleological argument
    Teleological argument
    A teleological or design argument is an a posteriori argument for the existence of God based on apparent design and purpose in the universe. The argument is based on an interpretation of teleology wherein purpose and intelligent design appear to exist in nature beyond the scope of any such human...

  • Teleology
    Teleology
    A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...

  • Ten Commandments
    Ten Commandments
    The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...

  • Ten spiritual realms
    Ten spiritual realms
    The ten spiritual realms are part of the belief of some forms of Buddhism that there are ten conditions of life which sentient beings are subject to, and which they experience from moment to moment....

  • Tetrad (Greek philosophy)
  • Thaumaturgy
    Thaumaturgy
    Thaumaturgy is the capability of a saint or magician to work miracles. It is sometimes translated into English as wonderworking...

  • The Age of Reason
    The Age of Reason
    The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a deistic pamphlet, written by eighteenth-century British radical and American revolutionary Thomas Paine, that criticizes institutionalized religion and challenges the legitimacy of the Bible, the central sacred text of...

  • The Case for God
    The Case for God
    The Case for God is a 2009 book by Karen Armstrong. It is an answer to the recent atheism of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and focuses on the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam from the paleolithic age to the present day...

  • The End of Faith
    The End of Faith
    The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is a book written by Sam Harris, concerning organized religion, the clash between religious faith and rational thought, and the problems of tolerance towards religious fundamentalism....

  • The Essence of Christianity
    The Essence of Christianity
    The Essence of Christianity is a book written by Ludwig Feuerbach and first published in 1841. It explains Feuerbach's philosophy and critique of religion. Feuerbach's theory of alienation would later be used by Karl Marx.- Influence :...

  • The Freethinker (journal)
    The Freethinker (journal)
    The Freethinker is a British secular humanist magazine, founded by G.W. Foote in 1881. It is the world's oldest surviving freethought publication.It has always taken an unapologetically atheist, anti-religious stance...

  • The God Delusion
    The God Delusion
    The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...

  • The God Makers
  • The God Makers II
    The God Makers II
    The God Makers II is a documentary styled film produced by Ed Decker and Jeremiah Films. The film claims to be an exposé of secrets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...

  • The Guide for the Perplexed
  • The Incoherence of the Philosophers
    The Incoherence of the Philosophers
    The Incoherence of the Philosophers is the title of a landmark 11th century polemic by the Sufi sympathetic Imam Al-Ghazali of the Asharite school of Islamic theology criticizing the Avicennian school of early Islamic philosophy...

  • The Necessity of Atheism
    The Necessity of Atheism
    The Necessity of Atheism is a treatise on atheism by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, printed in 1811 by C. and W. Phillips in Worthing while he was a student at University College, Oxford. A copy of the first version was sent as a short tract signed enigmatically to all heads of Oxford...

  • The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God
    The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God
    The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God is a book by Immanuel Kant, published in 1763. It questions both the ontological argument for God and the argument from design...

  • The Primordial Tradition
    The Primordial Tradition
    The Primordial Tradition is a school of religious philosophy that holds its origins in the philosophia perennis, or perennial philosophy, which is in turn a development of the prisca theologia of the Middle Ages....

  • The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam
    The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam
    The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam is a compilation of lectures delivered by Muhammad Iqbal on Islamic philosophy; it was published in 1930. These lectures were delivered by Iqbal in Madras, Hyderabad, and Aligarh...

  • The True Word
    The True Word
    The True Word is a treatise in which Celsus addressed many principal points of Early Christianity and refuted or argued against their validity...

  • Theism
    Theism
    Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....

  • Theistic realism
    Theistic realism
    Theistic science, also referred to as theistic realism, Augustinian science or Islamic science is the viewpoint that methodological naturalism should be replaced by a philosophy of science that is informed by supernatural revelation and/or allows occasional supernatural explanations. The viewpoint...

  • Theodicy
    Theodicy
    Theodicy is a theological and philosophical study which attempts to prove God's intrinsic or foundational nature of omnibenevolence , omniscience , and omnipotence . Theodicy is usually concerned with the God of the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, due to the relevant...

  • Theodore Drange
    Theodore Drange
    Theodore "Ted" Michael Drange is a philosopher of religion and Professor Emeritus at West Virginia University, where he taught philosophy from 1966 to 2001. He received a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1955 and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1963...

  • Theognostus of Alexandria
    Theognostus of Alexandria
    Theognostus was a late 3rd century Alexandrian theologian. He is known from quotes by Athanasius and Photios I of Constantinople. Philip of Side says that he presided over the school of Alexandria after Pierius . Although a disciple of Origen of Alexandria no reference of him can be found by...

  • Theological aesthetics
  • Theological determinism
    Theological determinism
    Theological determinism is a form of determinism which states that all events that happen are pre-ordained, or predestined to happen, by a monotheistic God. Theological determinism exists in a number of religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam....

  • Theological noncognitivism
    Theological noncognitivism
    Theological noncognitivism is the argument that religious language, and specifically words like "god", are not cognitively meaningful. It is sometimes considered to be synonymous with Ignosticism.-Overview:...

  • Theological veto
    Theological veto
    The theological veto is the concept in philosophy of religion that philosophy and logic are impious and that God, not reason, is sovereign. This concept is held as true by some theists. The idea is derived from a belief that mankind is depraved, and his intellect is a flawed product of this...

  • Theological virtues
    Theological virtues
    Theological virtues - in theology and Christian philosophy, are the character qualities associated with salvation, resulting from the grace of God, which enlightens human mind.- In the Bible :The three theological virtues are:...

  • Theologico-Political Treatise
    Theologico-Political Treatise
    Written by the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the Theologico-Political Treatise or Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published anonymously in 1670.It is an early criticism of religious intolerance and a defense of secular government...

  • Theology
    Theology
    Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

  • Theories of religion
    Theories of religion
    Theories of religion can be divided into substantive theories and functional or reductionist theories...

  • Theosophy (history of philosophy)
    Theosophy (history of philosophy)
    Theosophy , designates several bodies of ideas since Late Antiquity. The Greek term is attested on magical papyri .-Neoplatonism:...

  • Theurgy
    Theurgy
    Theurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.- Definitions :*Proclus...

  • Thirtha prabandha
    Thirtha prabandha
    Thirtha Prabandha is one of the main Sanskrit works by Sri Vadiraja Swamy, the 16th century Dvaita philosopher and saint. The document is written in the form of a travelogue and contains descriptions of pilgrim centers throughout India....

  • Thomas Aquinas
    Thomas Aquinas
    Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...

  • Thomas Aquinas and the Sacraments
  • Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

  • Thomism
    Thomism
    Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, his commentaries on Aristotle are his most lasting contribution...

  • Thought of Thomas Aquinas
    Thought of Thomas Aquinas
    This article contains selected thoughts of Thomas Aquinas on various topics.-Social justice:Aquinas defines distributive justice as follows:...

  • Thoughtform
    Thoughtform
    A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Its concept is related to the Western philosophy and practice of magic. links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms:...

  • Three marks of existence
    Three marks of existence
    The Three marks of existence, within Buddhism, are three characteristics shared by all sentient beings, namely: impermanence ; suffering or unsatisfactoriness ; non-self .According to Buddhist tradition, a full understanding of these three can bring an end to suffering...

  • Threefold Training
    Threefold Training
    The Buddha identified the threefold training as training in:* higher virtue * higher mind * higher wisdom - In the Pali Canon :...

  • Tomer Devorah
    Tomer Devorah
    Tomer Devorah was written in Hebrew in the middle of the 16th century by Moses Cordovero, a Jewish kabbalist in Safed, Israel. This short text deals mostly with the Imitation of God through the acquisition of divine traits, especially those of the sephirot. The first edition was published in...

  • Trademark argument
    Trademark argument
    The trademark argument is an a priori argument for the existence of God developed by French philosopher and mathematician, René Descartes. The argument, though similar to the ontological argument, differs in some respects, since it seeks to prove the existence of God through the causal adequacy...

  • Traditionalist School
    Traditionalist School
    The term Traditionalist School is used by Mark Sedgwick and other authors to denote a school of thought, also known as Integral Traditionalism or Perennialism to denote an esoteric movement developed by authors such as French metaphysician René Guénon, German-Swiss...

  • Trailokya
    Trailõkya
    Trailokya has been translated as "three worlds," "three spheres," "three planes of existence," "three realms" and "three regions."...

  • Transcendence (religion)
    Transcendence (religion)
    In religion transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature which is wholly independent of the physical universe. This is contrasted with immanence where God is fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways...

  • Transcendental argument for the existence of God
    Transcendental argument for the existence of God
    The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God is the argument that attempts to prove God's existence by arguing that logic, morals, and science ultimately presuppose a theistic worldview, and that God is the source of logic and morals...

  • Transtheistic
    Transtheistic
    Transtheistic is a term coined by philosopher Paul Tillich or Indologist Heinrich Zimmer, referring to a system of thought or religious philosophy which is neither theistic, nor atheistic....

  • Triad (Greek philosophy)
  • Trikaya
    Trikaya
    The Trikāya doctrine is an important Mahayana Buddhist teaching on both the nature of reality and the nature of a Buddha. By the 4th century CE the Trikāya Doctrine had assumed the form that we now know...

  • True-believer syndrome
    True-believer syndrome
    True-believer syndrome is an informal or rhetorical term coined by M. Lamar Keene in his 1976 book The Psychic Mafia. Keene used the term to refer to people who continued to believe in a paranormal event or phenomenon even after it had been proven to have been staged...

  • Turtles all the way down
    Turtles all the way down
    "Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the "unmoved mover" paradox. The phrase was popularized by Stephen Hawking in 1988. The "turtle" metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of a "primitive cosmological myth", viz...

  • Twelve Nidānas
    Twelve Nidanas
    The Twelve Nidānas are the best-known application of the Buddhist concept of pratītyasamutpāda , identifying the origins of dukkha to be in tanha and avijja...

  • Two truths doctrine
    Two truths doctrine
    The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths differentiates between two levels of truth in Buddhist discourse: a "relative" or commonsense truth , and an "ultimate" or absolute, spiritual truth...

  • Types of Buddha
  • Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit
    Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit
    The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to the modern form of the argument from design. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 "Why there almost certainly is no God" of his 2006 book The God Delusion.- Context and history :...

  • Ultimate fate of the universe
    Ultimate fate of the universe
    The ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration....

  • Universality (philosophy)
    Universality (philosophy)
    In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...

  • Unknown Root
  • Unmoved mover
    Unmoved mover
    The unmoved mover is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" is not moved by any prior action...

  • Upanishads
  • Upaya
    Upaya
    Upaya is a term in Mahayana Buddhism which is derived from the root upa√i and refers to a means that goes or brings one up to some goal, often the goal of Enlightenment. The term is often used with kaushalya ; upaya-kaushalya means roughly "skill in means"...

  • Upeksa
  • Vācaspati Miśra
    Vacaspati Misra
    Vācaspati Miśra was an Indian philosopher who founded one of the main Advaita Vedanta schools, the Bhāmatī school , and whose work was an important forerunner of the Navya-Nyāya system of thought.Vācaspati was a Maithili Brahmin who lived near the frontier between India and Nepal Vācaspati Miśra...

  • Varadaraja V. Raman
    Varadaraja V. Raman
    Varadaraja V. Raman is Emeritus Professor of Physics and Humanities at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has lectured and written profusely on many aspects of Indian heritage and culture and authored numerous books, more than 300 book reviews and scores of articles on science and religion...

  • Vasubandhu
    Vasubandhu
    Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist monk, and along with his half-brother Asanga, one of the main founders of the Indian Yogācāra school. However, some scholars consider Vasubandhu to be two distinct people. Vasubandhu is one of the most influential figures in the entire history of Buddhism...

  • Victoria Institute
    Victoria Institute
    The Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain, was founded in 1865, as a response to the publication of On the Origin of Species and Essays and Reviews. Its stated objective was to defend "the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture .....

  • Vijnanabhiksu
    Vijnanabhiksu
    Vijñānabhikṣu was an Indian philosopher who lived in north India. He wrote commentaries on three different schools of Indian philosophy, Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga, and brought them together into a single theistic synthesis known as avibhagādvaita...

  • Vincent Miceli
    Vincent Miceli
    Vincent P. Miceli S.J. was a Catholic priest, theologian, and philosopher.Miceli was born in New York City, USA, in 1915, the ninth of ten children of Italian immigrants.While attending cathederal High School and maintaining a 95.5 average he worked six days a week from 3-10pm delivering books...

  • Vipāka
    Vipaka
    Vipāka is a Buddhist technical term meaning the result of karma , or intentional actions.In Buddhist belief, the law of kamma-vipāka is of great importance. In a discourse the Buddha said “Intention, monks, is kamma I say...

  • Vipassanā
    Vipassana
    Vipassanā or vipaśyanā in the Buddhist tradition means insight into the true nature of reality. A regular practitioner of Vipassana is known as a Vipassi . Vipassana is one of the world's most ancient techniques of meditation, the inception of which is attributed to Gautama Buddha...

  • Vipassana movement
    Vipassana movement
    The Vipassana movement refers to a number of branches of modern Theravāda Buddhism, for example in the various traditions of Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos and Thailand including contemporary American Buddhist teachers such as Joseph Goldstein, Tara Brach, Gil Fronsdal, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield...

  • Voluntarism (theology)
    Voluntarism (theology)
    Voluntarism in theology is the theory that God is to be conceived as some form of will. It is contrasted with intellectualism, which gives primacy to God's reason...

  • Vyasa
    Vyasa
    Vyasa is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also sometimes called Veda Vyasa , or Krishna Dvaipayana...

  • Walter of St Victor
  • Wang Chong
    Wang Chong
    Wang Chong , courtesy name Zhongren , was a Chinese philosopher active during the Han Dynasty. He developed a rational, secular, naturalistic and mechanistic account of the world and of human beings and gave a materialistic explanation of the origin of the universe. His main work was the Lùnhéng...

  • War of Anti-Christ with the Church and Christian Civilization
    War of Anti-Christ with the Church and Christian Civilization
    The War of Anti-Christ with the Church and Christian Civilization is a book written in 1885 by an Irishman, Msgr George F. Dillon, DD. It was republished by Fr Denis Fahey in 1950 as Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked as the Secret Power Behind Communism...

  • Watchmaker analogy
    Watchmaker analogy
    The watchmaker analogy, or watchmaker argument, is a teleological argument for the existence of God. By way of an analogy, the argument states that design implies a designer...

  • Weak agnosticism
    Weak agnosticism
    Weak agnosticism is the assertion that, at present, there is not enough information to know whether any deities exist, but that such might become knowable. It is in contrast to strong agnosticism, which is the belief that the existence of any gods is completely unknowable to humanity...

  • What I Believe
    What I Believe
    "What I Believe" is the title of two essays espousing humanism, by Bertrand Russell and by E. M. Forster , respectively.Several other authors have also written works with the same title, alluding to either or both of these essays....

  • Why I Am Not a Christian
    Why I Am Not a Christian
    Why I Am Not a Christian is a 1927 essay by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell hailed by The Independent as "devastating in its use of cold logic", and listed in the New York Public Library's list of the most influential books of the 20th century....

  • Willem B. Drees
    Willem B. Drees
    In 2009 Willem B. Drees assumed the editorship of Zygon, Journal of Religion & Science the leading journal of religion and science in the world . It is available in 3,000 academic libraries all over the world and publishes 1000 pages of peer reviewed articles annually...

  • William Alston
    William Alston
    William Payne Alston was an American philosopher. He made influential contributions to the philosophy of language, epistemology and Christian philosophy. He earned his Ph.D...

  • William F. Vallicella
    William F. Vallicella
    -Biography:Vallicella has a Ph.D. , taught for a number of years at University of Dayton and Case Western Reserve University , and retired to Gold Canyon, Arizona from where he now contributes to philosophy mainly online...

  • William James
    William James
    William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...

  • William L. Rowe
    William L. Rowe
    William Leonard Rowe is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Purdue University who specialises in the philosophy of religion. His work has played a leading role in the "remarkable revival of analytic philosophy of religion since the 1970s"...

  • William Lane Craig
    William Lane Craig
    William Lane Craig is an American analytic philosopher, philosophical theologian, and Christian apologist. He is known for his work on the philosophy of time and the philosophy of religion, specifically the existence of God and the defense of Christian theism...

  • Witness argument
  • Wolfgang Smith
    Wolfgang Smith
    Wolfgang Smith is a mathematician, physicist, philosopher of science, metaphysician, Roman Catholic and member of the Traditionalist School...

  • Womb Realm
    Womb Realm
    In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Womb Realm is the metaphysical space inhabited by the Five Wisdom Kings. The Womb Realm is based on the Mahāvairocana Sutra...

  • Wonhyo
    Wonhyo
    Wonhyo was one of the leading thinkers, writers and commentators of the Korean Buddhist tradition. Essence-Function , a key concept in East Asian Buddhism and particularly that of Korean Buddhism, was refined in the syncretic philosophy and worldview of Wonhyo.As one of the most eminent...

  • Works by Thomas Aquinas
    Works by Thomas Aquinas
    The works of Thomas Aquinas are tremendous both in number and in philosophical and theological depth. Few philosophers or theologians have written so much of high quality in the amount of time used by St...

  • Works of Madhvacharya
    Works of Madhvacharya
    The extant works of the Dvaita founder-philosopher, Sri Madhvacharya, called the Sarvamūla Granthas, are many in number. The works span a wide spectrum of topics concerning Dvaita philosophy in specific and Vedic thought in general. They comprise of commentaries on the Vedas, Upanishads,...

  • Yamazaki Ansai
    Yamazaki Ansai
    was a Japanese philosopher and scholar. He began his career as a Buddhist monk, but eventually came to follow the teachings of Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi. He combined Neo-Confucian ideas with Shinto to create Suika Shinto.-Early Years/Buddhism:...

  • Yi Hwang
    Yi Hwang
    Yi Hwang is one of the two most prominent Korean Confucian scholars of the Joseon Dynasty, the other being his younger contemporary Yi I . A key figure of the Neo-Confucian literati, he established the Yeongnam School and set up the Dosan Seowon, a private Confucian academy. Yi Hwang is often...

  • Yunmen Wenyan
    Yunmen Wenyan
    Yúnmén Wényǎn , , was a major Chinese Zen master in Tang-era China...

  • Zhentong
  • Zhu Xi
    Zhu Xi
    Zhū​ Xī​ or Chu Hsi was a Song Dynasty Confucian scholar who became the leading figure of the School of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China...

  • Zofia Zdybicka
    Zofia Zdybicka
    Zofia Józefa Zdybicka is a nun and philosopher. She has been a professor at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin since 1978. Her order name is Maria Józefa in the Congregation of the Ursulines of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus in Poland...

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