Religious Philosophy

Religious philosophy is a sub-field under metaphysics and examines both religion and God. Though the study of theology is closely related to this, religious philosophy is generally more broad and most of the time assumes a third-party objective perspective, while theology was historically studied as part of the curriculum of already religious thinkers and Christians. In a sense, theology examines internal questions of religion - while religious philosophy discusses external questions as well. Such external questions are ‘from where did religion arise?’, ‘is religion compatible with science?’, or ‘what would it take to accept a religious point of view?’. Further, those within the philosophy of religion compare different religions, look at their respective contexts, and develop objective facts about each. Religious philosophy can also look at questions regarding the role of religion in people’s lives, as well as epistemic concerns regarding how the existence of a God, or multiple deities, can be known. Seeing as religion plays a large part in many individual’s lives, religious philosophy will continue to be a significant and developing field. As with many other large sub-fields in philosophy, there are countless more Key Figures that could have been included.