In the introduction to his brief compendium of sources and perspectives in the philosophy of religion, John Edwin Smith notes four “basic concerns” in that field: “the problem of God, involving both the meaning of the divine idea and the critical discussions dealing with God's existence; the relation between God and the world, including the question of the connection between religion and scientific knowledge; the fact of many different religions and the prospects for genuine encounter between them; the proper relations between religious faith and philosophical criticism, including the role of reason in determining religious commitment.”1 The philosophical issues to be addressed here are centrally located in the first concern and the implications for how different responses to that concern construe the problematic of the second concern, with a few implications drawn for both the third and the fourth.
When, in 1961, Smith published his collection of essays entitled...
