2010 Reviews

Review of Michael F. Palmer. Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Readings.

Trostyanskiy, Sergey

This anthology of the philosophy of religion represents a successful attempt to introduce the reader to key Western religious thinkers and their heritage. The author’s intention to create a “user-friendly and digestible” book finds its fulfillment in the well-structured and historically contextualized volume which elucidates all essential aspects of philosophy of religion. To the reader’s surprise, this volume, arranged by topic, extends its content beyond the narrow scope of traditional anthologies heavily geared toward a few key themes of philosophy of religion to the exclusion of many other relevant topics. Thus, beyond common themes associated with the attributes of God, the arguments for God’s existence, and the nature of evil, the author introduces philosophical works on miracles, religious language, and the diversity of world religions, among others. The most distinctive features of this book are its carefully crafted introductions to each chapter’s problems; biographical and philosophical summaries of each thinker; and the list of primary and secondary sources that will allow the reader to pursue the further studies on the subject.