Religious Language, Meaning, and Use: The God Who is Not There

Can the meaning of religious language be separated from its use? In Religious Language, Meaning, and Use, Robert Bolger and Robert Coburn address what has become a contentious though often overlooked account of the relationship between religious belief and religious practice. Through philosophical argumentation and by means of a variety of sermon-like essays on religious topics, this book seeks to return religion to the place in which the meaning and practical impact of its beliefs become inseparable from the life of the believer. Part I begins by considering, through the loose lens of Wittgenstein's philosophical method, how religious language has been misunderstood leading straightway to a variety of challenges and conceptual confusions. Part II presents previously unpublished essays written by Robert C. Coburn who has, for over 50 years, been at the forefront of the study of metaphysics and philosophy of religion. Making a compelling case for a religious practice that avoids trivializing religious belief, this book promises to be a corrective to those who see faith as nothing more than ethics in disguise and to those metaphysicians who see faith as a set of beliefs.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgements Part 1 Introduction: Idolatry, Faith, and Agape by Robert K. Bolger 1 Dawkins, Idolatry, and the God Who is not There 2 Transcendence, Faith, and Fideism 3 Picturing a Religious Form of Life 4 Truth Pluralism: Criteria and Religious Belief 5 It’s All About the Neighbor: Agape, The Good Life, and Religious Belief Part 2 Introduction: Religious Practice Without Belief by Robert C. Coburn 6 The Church from Without and from Within 7 The Turning World 8 Markel’s Paradox 9 Laughter, Love and Christian Living 10 Blind as a Bat 11 Models and Mentors Index

About the Author :
Robert Bolger has a M.A. in Theology from Union Theological Seminary and a PhD in Philosophy of Religion and Theology from Claremont Graduate University where he Studied with D.Z. Phillips. He is the author of Kneeling at the Altar of Science: The Mistaken Path of Contemporary Religious Scientism (2012) and editor (with Scott Korb) of Gesturing Toward Reality: David Foster Wallace and Philosophy (Bloomsbury Press, 2014). His website can be found at robertbolger.com. Robert C. Coburn was professor of philosophy at the University of Washington in Seattle for over 30 years. He is the author of many articles in various areas of philosophy including philosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of science and Wittgenstein. He is also the author of The Strangeness of the Ordinary: Problems and Issues in Contemporary Metaphysics (1990).

Review :
Almost two books for the price of one! The lively essays by Robert Coburn are philosophical and personal: a delight to read. Robert Bolger argues against ‘idolatry’, belief in God ‘up there’. In contrast stands religion anchored in a moral and personal practice. A challenging view, worthy of consideration. Robert K. Bolger’s Religious Language, Meaning, and Use is both a challenge and an invitation. The challenge is to resist religion’s tendency to engage in a semantic and cognitive domestication of God that Bolger argues is a kind of idolatry. The invitation is, along with Robert Coburn, to see religion instead as a form and practice of life that is best—and perhaps only—understood when viewed from the inside.