A reflection on our sitdown with Prof. Charles Taliaferro

If you’ve ever stumbled across the phrase “philosophy of religion” and thought, that sounds either very academic or very niche — you’re not alone. It’s one of those labels that can make a field seem more intimidating than it actually is. So I sat down with Professor Charles Taliaferro, one of the leading voices in the field, to get a clearer picture.

His answer was simple: philosophy of religion is philosophical reflection on matters of religious significance. But the simplicity is deceptive, because religion touches almost everything — ethics, politics, cosmology, the nature of the soul, what counts as knowledge. So in practice, the field ends up being enormous.

The name itself goes back to the 1600s with a group of thinkers known as the Cambridge Platonists who were wrestling with questions like: Does God exist? What’s the relationship between faith and reason? What is the soul? Those questions are still very much at the centre of the field today.

But here’s what I find interesting, although philosophy of religion was termed in the 1600s, it is undeniable that religious philosophy dates back to Plato and the Ancient Greeks. Likewise, we saw philosophy of religion in Augustine, Justin Martyr and more. The name came later; the conversation didn’t.

This led me to ask Charles about this dynamic. What about these historic models, and what separates philosophy of religion from philosophical theology. Are they the same thing?

Not quite. Taliaferro draws a useful distinction: theology tends to operate under the authority of scripture or tradition, while philosophy of religion approaches these questions with open inquiry — following the argument wherever it leads. Sometimes they work together, sometimes they’ve been at war. The old question, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” has never really been settled. In philosophy of religion, we have an external engagement, whereas philosophical theology is internal.

What surprised me most in our conversation was how alive the field is right now. There are more journals dedicated to philosophy of religion than ever before. Major publications like Mind and the Journal of Philosophy regularly feature it. There are dedicated research centres at Notre Dame, Rutgers, and Nottingham.

So if you’ve been curious about the big questions — God, the soul, meaning, evil, religious experience — philosophy of religion is one of these inter-disciplinary fields that takes them seriously, rigorously, and, most importantly, without assuming the answers in advance.

Check out the interview here: