The Maturity of Belief Critically Assessing Religious Faith [Hardcover]

Today there is growing concern with the problems posed by dogmatic religious belief.?Throughout history religion has too often been a source of contention between groups of people and has frequently stifled intellectual (especially scientific) and social progress.?

Rather than abandon religious belief altogether, as some suggest, Kevin Lowery contends that the real problem is the intellectual immaturity with which religious beliefs are held.?This book thus explores the nature and dynamics of religious belief, and it offers constructive criticism in order to promote the intellectual maturity of religious belief.?

Rather than artificially resolving points of tension by simply dismissing particular viewpoints out of hand, as with?the radical skeptics and the dogmatists, Lowery argues that intellectual maturity requires us to acknowledge the limitations of our beliefs.

Section 1: How and Why we Believe1. The Nature of Belief

2. Moving Beyond Simplistic Concepts

Section 2: Belief in Historical Perspective

3. Religious Belief before the Enlightenment

4. The Early Enlightenment

5. The Burgeoning of the Enlightenment

6. More Recent Developments

Section 3: Constructing Belief

7. The Basis of Belief

8. Systematized Belief

9. Sources of Religious Belief

10. Subjective and Objective Sources

11. The Four Sources

12. Religious Authority

Section 4: Mature Belief13. Religious Belief and Certainty

14. Faith and Belief

15. Cultivating Religious Intellectual Maturity