On Selfhood and Godhood is primarily concerned with laying the foundation for the practice of natural theology within a rationalist framework. Campbell's first approach to his subject is an attempt to define the self as a moral agent in order to demonstrate implicitly reasonable grounds for theological language regarding the soul. In the second half of the work, Campbell investigates the possibility of an objectively verifiable Theism, building parallels between the moral systems discussed in the first half and the religious systems under consideration in the second. Campbell is eventually forced to abandon the idea of a purely rational Theism and investigate the supra-rational idea of the numinous as posited by Otto; the conclusion of the work is based on a reconciliation between this and a more traditional philosophical vocabulary.
On Selfhood and Godhood
Books
On Selfhood and Godhood
Lecture I: Prolegomena Religion and the Arbitrament of Reason
Lecture II: Prolegomena the Rôle of Reason vis à vis Revelation
Lecture III: The Essence of Cognition
Lecture IV: Implications of the Judgment-Theory of Cognition
Lecture V: Self-Consciousness Self-Identity and Personal Identity
Lecture VI: The Self's Relation to Its Body
Lecture VII: Empirical Self-Knowledge: Introspection and the Inference to Dispositions
Lecture VIII: Self-Activity and Its Modes
Lecture IX: Has the Self ‘Free Will’?
Lecture X: Moral Experience and Its Implications for Human Selfhood
Appendix A: Idealism and the so-called ‘Subject-Predicate Logic’
Appendix B: A Reply to Mr. Nowell-Smith
Lecture XI: The Concept of Religion
Lecture XII: Religion and Theism
Lecture XIII: Theism and the Problem Of Evil: (1) Sin
Lecture XIV: Theism and the Problem of Evil: (2) Suffering
Lecture XV: Is Rational Theism Self-Contradictory?
Lecture XVI: Otto and the Numinous: The Transition to Supra-Rational Theism
Lecture XVII: Supra-Rational Theism and ‘Symbolic’ Knowledge
Lecture XVIII: The Objective Validity of Religion (I)
Lecture XIX: The Objective Validity of Religion (II)
Lecture XX: The Objective Validity of Religion (III)
The first series of lectures, ‘On Selfhood’, is concerned with an attempt to bring coherence to the work of natural theology by first justifying rational belief in the existence of the soul, this being, according to Campbell, the assumption sine qua non of the discipline. The first two chapters contain introductory material regarding the relationship between religion and reason. Campbell accepts reason’s role as an adjudicator of the validity of ‘religious truth’ and focuses on defining rational criteria by which revelation may be evaluated.
- Alana Howard, University of Glasgow