Divine Teaching and the Way of the World A Defense of Revealed Religion [Hardcover]

Samuel Fleischacker defends what the Enlightenment called revealed religion : religions that regard a certain text or oral teaching as sacred, as wholly authoritative over one's life. At the same time, he maintains that revealed religions stand in danger of corruption or fanaticism unless they are combined with secular scientific practices and a secular morality. The first two parts ofDivine Teaching and the Way of the Worldargue that the cognitive and moral practices of a society should prescind from religious commitments -- they constitute a secular way of the world, to adapt a phrase from the Jewish tradition, allowing human beings to work together regardless of their religious differences. But the way of the world breaks down when it comes to the question of what we live for, and it is this that revealed religions can illumine. Fleischacker first suggests that secular conceptions of why life is worth living are often poorly grounded, before going on to explore what revelation is, how it can answer the question of worth better than secular worldviews do, and how the revealed and way-of-the-world elements of a religious tradition can be brought together.

Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
1. The Way of the World (I): Truth
2. The Way of the World (II): Ethics
3. Beyond the Way of the World: Worth
4. Divine Teaching
5. Divine Teaching and the Way of the World
Epilogue
Appendix I: Proofs of God
Appendix II: Maimonides on the Evidence for Revelation
Appendix III: Kant on Art and Natural Beauty

In this ambitious volume, Fleischacker provides an intricate and sophisticated argument for rationally justifying one's taking a religious text as divine revelation. The argument is rich in creative thinking and in its breadth ... Fleischacker presents an extended argument with an expansive sweep, reminding one of how philosophy used to be done in the grand style. The book's architecture is imposing and its argumentatilã2