Fifty years ago the philosopher keen to study philosophy of religion was not that far off the chemist keen to study alchemy. In other words, it might provide a novel pastime, just so long as you didn’t grant the discourse any significance for the real world.
Things have certainly changed. Today philosophy of religion is a robust enterprise sustaining several academic journals, conferences and graduate programs.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that recent years have seen an additional intriguing development with the rise of analytic theology. Spearheaded by Michael Rea and Oliver Crisp, this is a movement that seeks to apply the tools of analytic philosophy to explicitly theological topics in a shameless blurring of disciplinary boundaries. In this episode of the Tentative Apologist Podcast we sit down with Michael Rea for a conversation on the current state of philosophy of religion and analytic theology.
Mike is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and Co-Director of Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion. He has authored many books including Evil and the Hiddenness of God and Metaphysics: The Basics. And in my opinion, he is among the first rank of Christian philosophers working in the field today.
