RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bibliography: W. S. Tyler, Theology of the Greek Poets, Andover, 1867; S. A. Brooke, Theology in the English Poets, Cowper, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Burns, New York,1875, new ed., 1910; idem, Development of Theology . . in English Poetry, 1780-18S0, ib. 1893; idem, Religion in Literature and Religion in Life, ib. 1901; G. McCrie, Religion of Our Literature, London, 1875; J. C. Shairp, Culture and Religion, Edinburgh, 1878; C. J. Abbey, Religious Thought in Old English Verse, London and New York, 1892; T. W. Hunt, Ethical Teachings in Old English Literature, New
Religion and Literature Religion, Philosophy of
York, 1892; L. Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, London and New York, 1898; S. L. Wilson, Theology of Modern Literature, New York, 1899; W. S. Lilly, Studies in Religion and Literature, St. Louis, 1905; C. G. Shaw, Precinct of Religion in the Culture of Humanity, New York! 1908; E. G. Sihler, Testimonium animce, New York, 1908; K. S. Guthrie, Spiritual Message of Literature, Chicago, 1909; E. M. Chapman, English Literature and Religion, 1800-1900, London, 1910.
RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY OF-
I. History.
1. Ancient.
Early Greeks (§ 1). Plato and Aristotle (§ 2). Neoplatonism (§3). Stoicism (§ 4). Eclecticism (§ 5). The Church Fathers (§ 6).
2. Medieval.
Anselm and Successors (§ 1).
3. Modern.
Descartes; Spinoza (§1).
Leibnitz (§2).
The Enlightenment; English and
French Deists (§3). Kant and Criticism (§4). Fichte; Schelling (§ 5). Schleiermacher (§ 6). Hegel (§ 7). Post-Hegelian (§ 8).
Herbart and Lotze (§ 9). Von Hartmann; Ritschl (§ 10). Contemporary Thought (§ 11). II. Analysis of Religion. Method (§1). Representation (§ 2). Feeling (§ 3). Will (§ 4). Generalization (§5). Relative Estimation (§ 6).
The philosophy of religion is that aspect of philosophy which employs itself with the fact of religion in view of its intellectual formulation. The conception of the philosophy of religion differs not only according as religion is defined, but also as the relation of philosophy to it is formulated. Religion may constitute the content of philosophy, so that the latter may absorb the former and become itself religious. Philosophy may easily become theosophy, or may even approximate mysticism, while satisfying all religious requirements. To such an extreme a religious philosophy would be superfluous. Again, as soon as a system of thought deals with the idea of God, and regards this as essential to its completion, or perhaps to the understanding of the entire world of experience, a religious philosophical side can not be denied to the same. Religion would always be touched upon, although such a thought-system would be unsatisfactory to a deeply susceptible religious disposition. If in these two related varieties a philosophical explanation is to be secured, this does not obtain for the later view of the philosophy of religion, the object of which is to recognize and explain religious phenomena or religion in general, both subjective and objective, by means of thought. This must take place on the basis of psychological investigation and the collection and use of historical materials. The first is to determine religion as such; the second is to present the evolution of religion and at least throw some light on its primal forms. This differs from the old view according to which religion was more or less philosophy, and the philosopher was assumed to be religious himself; or he at least professed the truth of the views about God and divine things set forth by him. Here the object of investigation is religion itself, and the investigator is not necessarily an adherent of such religion, or even religiously minded. An approximation to the first would occur where the investigator would preclude the impartiality of the result by bringing his own convictions into the test. The two forms are occasionally combined and first demand a historical review.
I. History. — 1. Ancient: Strictly considered every philosophical system of the universe involves
a religious tincture, even if no religious feelings are brought to light. Here only those are to be selected 1 Early in wmc^ a philosophy of religion comes Greeks into prominence, and of such only the principal ones. The statement of Xenophanes that the heaven or the world was God, appears as a religious affirmation, especially when compared with his vigorous attacks on anthropomorphism. Anaxagoras in his distinction between matter and spirit, in which he assigned the construction of order from chaos to the latter, did not call spirit by the name of the deity; yet he introduced the principle of dualism and furnished the basis for the development of the later deism. Socrates was a man of pious mind as shown in his teaching of the " daemon " and in his conviction that the distinction between the Tightness and wrongness of certain actions was to be referred directly to the deity, with which he believed himself to be in connection. For theology and the philosophy of religion he struck the keynote for the future in founding teleology as a world theory and relating all things in the interest of human welfare to the ordaining benevolence of the first cause from whose reason the human understanding is descended.
Plato's view of the world was not only ethical but religious. God is conceived as the absolute good; the phenomenal world is the sphere of evil and wickedness. The object of man is to flee to the world of ideas and so become like God, although this world is a copy of the higher one and can not be therefore contemned. The kinship of the soul to ideas, that is, the supramundane, constitutes its immortality. A considerably developed philosophy of religion appears in the metaphysics of Aristotle (q.v.) though the inner religious element as found in Plato is retired; yet Aristotle's system exerted a deep and manifold influence upon the philosophy of religion. He excludes from his ethics the inquiry of Plato into the metaphysical good or idea as the impulse of acquiring and practising good qualities. In his " First Philosophy," which he named also theologike, he presents his idea of God more definitely and clearly in strict deduction from his metaphysical principles. He distinguishes between the possi-
2. Plato
and Aristotle.
Religion, Philosophy of