Theology, Foundations and Frameworks Series

Theology explained from the ground up, with no religious background required. This introduction covers what people claim about God, why they claim it, and where the strongest objections land. Nine chapters build in order, opening with what the discipline actually does, how it splits into biblical, systematic, historical, philosophical, and practical work, and what it leans on for authority: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Every term is defined as it arrives, so the vocabulary accumulates as you read instead of landing all at once. The ground the chapters cover: - Concepts of God from strict monotheism through henotheism, pantheism, and panentheism, set against the classic attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, aseity, simplicity, immutability, and impassibility, plus the rival models of classical, open, and process theism - Cosmological, teleological, ontological, and moral arguments for God’s existence, running from Aquinas and Leibniz through the Kalam to Anselm and Plantinga, with the fine-tuning debate and the standard replies to each - Revelation through nature and prophecy, how certain books became scripture, disputes over inspiration and inerrancy, and the literal, allegorical, historical-critical, and reader-response ways of reading them - Fideism, evidentialism, Reformed epistemology, doubt, and deconversion - Creation out of nothing, providence, miracles, the image of God, and the old fight over free will, predestination, and divine foreknowledge - The problem of evil in both its logical and evidential forms, with the free will defense, the soul-making response, divine hiddenness, and protest theology set out plainly, none of them handed over as a fix - Nicaea to Chalcedon: the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, heresy and schism, sin and grace, theories of atonement, and eschatology - Religious pluralism, comparative work across Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu traditions, liberation, feminist, and Black theology, and the ongoing conversation with modern science Three sections at the back extend the work. A historical timeline runs from Plato’s first recorded use of the word through the councils and reformations to the present. Worked example answers follow every end-of-chapter discussion question, which helps whether you are studying alone or sitting in a class. A glossary of defined terms sits alongside a works cited list and further reading. Written for: - Students taking a philosophy of religion course - Readers raised in a faith who never learned the reasoning behind its core beliefs - Anyone who left religion and wants to understand what they walked away from - Curious people who want the arguments without the jargon. You will finish able to follow an argument about God, name it correctly, and tell a strong claim from a weak one. When a news story reports a church splitting over doctrine, you will know what is actually at stake. That result holds up longer than being handed a conclusion.