Extract

Janusz Salamon

Introduction

In this essay I sketch out the contours of my response to two of the most hotly debated issues in contemporary philosophy of religion: the problem of evil and the problem of religious diversity. Although with regard to both of these debates I take a clear stance and make substantive claims, I discuss them here primarily by way of examples that allow me to make some more general suggestions concerning the course that the philosophy of religion might take in the years to come. In this sense the present essay – which as the original sense of this word implies is a first attempt to map a research project that calls for detailed elaboration – is both in its content and its form defined by the context of the volume for which it has been written and which has among its main aims to provide some clues as to where and what kind of fresh ideas one might expect to see emerging on the horizon of the 21st century philosophy of religion. I believe this consideration sufficiently justifies what otherwise might be seen as a controversial decision to focus – despite the length constraints – on a broad picture, and I hope that the resulting less than rigid approach to the subject matter will be compensated by the breath of the claims being made.