The Sacred: The Philosophy of the Holy & Set Apart

What Is Prayer?

Prayer is the act of addressing God, from petition to contemplation. Explore its varieties in the philosophical and theological tradition, and the philosophical questions it raises about grace, freedom, and divine action.

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What Is Religious Experience?

Religious experience is the felt encounter with the sacred, from conversion to mysticism. Explore William James's classic study and the philosophical debate over its evidential force.

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What Is the Sacred?

The sacred is the dimension of reality that commands reverence, distinct from the ordinary and the profane. Explore Rudolf Otto's account of the numinous and the philosophical debate over its reality.

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God: The Wisdom of the Divine

God wisdom is the philosophical contemplation of the divine as the ground of being and the mystery of existence itself — the human search for ultimate meaning that runs through every tradition, from Aquinas's five ways to the silence of the mystics.

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Reverence: The Wisdom of Awe

Reverence is the philosophical virtue of awe — the capacity to stand humbly before what surpasses understanding. From the Stoics to the mystics, this is the wisdom that opens the mind to the sacred and the ordinary alike.

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The Sacred: The Wisdom of Reverence

Sacred wisdom is the recognition of the holy — the mysterium tremendum, that which is set apart. From Rudolf Otto's numinous to William James's religious experience, this is the wisdom of attending to the dimension of existence that surpasses the ordinary.

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Rudolf Otto: The Numinous, the Holy & the Philosophy of Religion

An evidence-led introduction to Rudolf Otto, the German theologian and philosopher of religion whose concept of the numinous — the mysterium tremendum et fascinans — transformed the phenomenology of the sacred.

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Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) was a North African bishop and philosopher whose synthesis of Christian theology with Greek philosophy shaped Western thought for over a millennium.

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William James

A comprehensive introduction to William James, the American philosopher and psychologist who founded pragmatism, exploring his radical empiricism, theory of truth, will to believe, and philosophy of religion.

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Søren Kierkegaard

Danish writer, theologian, and philosopher whose accounts of inwardness, choice, anxiety, and faith helped shape later existential thought.

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The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto

An evidence-led guide to Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy: the concept of the numinous, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, and the phenomenology of the sacred as a sui generis category of human experience.

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The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

An evidence-led guide to William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience: the pragmatist study of mysticism, conversion, and the personal religious life, delivered as the 1901-1902 Gifford Lectures.

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Philosophy of Faith

An introduction to the philosophy of faith: the relationship between faith and reason, the nature of faith, reformed epistemology, evidentialism, and the ethics of belief, from Aquinas to Plantinga.

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Philosophy of God

An introduction to the philosophy of God: the existence of God, divine attributes, the nature of divine action, and the coherence of theism, from Aquinas and Anselm to Swinburne and Plantinga.

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Philosophy of Religious Experience

An introduction to the philosophy of religious experience: the nature of religious experience, the argument from religious experience, mysticism, the neurology of experience, and the epistemic value of religious perception, from William James to contemporary epistemology.

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Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of religion is the philosophical examination of religious claims, concepts, and practices, including arguments for God's existence, the problem of evil, and the nature of faith.

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Religion, God & the Sacred: The Philosophy of Religion Learning Path

A structured learning path through the philosophy of religion: from the philosophy of God and the problem of evil to atheism, faith, religious experience, miracles, prayer, sin, and the sacred.

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Death & Mortality: The Philosophy of Dying and Meaning

A learning path through the philosophy of death: Epicurus and the Stoics on why death should not frighten us, Heidegger on being-toward-death, and the ethics of dying and grief.

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Ethics & Moral Wisdom

A structured learning path through moral philosophy, from the great ethical theories of duty, utility, and virtue to the practical art of making ethical decisions in everyday life.

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