Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

252 Bibliography
Additional bibliographical items (2nd edition): Philip L. Quinn and Charles
Taliaferro (eds), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997),
Brian Davis OP (ed.), Philosophy of Religion: A Guide to the Subject (London: Cassell,
1998), Brian Davies OP (ed.), Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), Bruce Reichenbach and David Basinger (eds),
Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). These
four volumes all provide extensive coverage of the field: in the first two cases by
commissioned essays on specific topics; in the third and fourth through a selection of
historical and contemporary writings.
Robin Le Poidevin, Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
(London: Routledge, 1996) is a good introductory book. Jonatham Harrison’s God,
Freedom and Immortality (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999) is clearly and forthrightly written
and covers most of the main topics in the metaphysics of theology.
Historical Writings
Readers not already familiar with the names and writings of the main historical
authors might begin with an anthology of selections such as Patrick Sherry (ed.),
Philosophers of Religion: A Historical Reader (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987), or
John Hick (ed.), Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion,
2nd edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970). Other anthologies gather
writings by different authors on the same theme or argument. Two main examples of
this approach are John Hick (ed.), The Existence of God (New York: Macmillan, 1972)
and Alvin Plantinga (ed.), The Ontological Argument: From St Anselm to Contemporary
Philosophers (London: Macmillan, 1968).
As regards individual works, no one should neglect the writings of Aquinas
and Hume referred to in the text. Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae is published in a
sixty volume Latin/English edition (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1963–75).
The ‘five ways’ appear in the Prima Pars (Ia, q. 2, a. 2) and are extracted in various
places. The best single source for this and other relevant writings is Timothy
McDermott (ed.), Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993). A good general introduction to Aquinas is Brian Davies OP,
The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). See also Anthony
Kenny, The Five Ways (London: Routledge, 1969) which is critical of Aquinas’s proofs,
and Joseph Owens, St Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God: Collected Papers,
(ed. John R. Catan) (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980) which is
supportive of them.
For Hume’s pre-Darwinian critique of the teleological (‘design’) argument see
Norman Kemp Smith (ed.), Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Edinburgh:
Nelson, 1947), and for the famous essay ‘Of Miracles’ see L.A. Selby-Bigge and
P.H. Nidditch (eds), Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning
the Principles of Morals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), First Enquiry, section 10.
The standard work on Hume’s views on religion is J.C.A. Gaskin, Hume’s Philosophy
of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1978).