Religious Mystery and Rational Reflection: Excursions in the Phenomenology and Philosophy of Religion

How should philosophy approach what by definition surpasses its competence? Can it do more than describe the religious experience without discussing its object? Can religion make genuine truth claims — especially when so much suffering and evil in the world seem to go against them?

These are some of the basic questions raised in the first part of this collection of essays by Louis Dupré. A philosophical analysis of faith must take account of the unique system of symbols in which it expresse...