Religion in the Making

By Alfred North Whitehead

Book Overview

This classic text in American Philosophy by one of the foremost figures in American philosophy offers a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature which go toward forming a religion, to exhibit the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge and to direct attention to the foundation of religion on our apprehension of those permanent elements by reason of which there is a stable order in the world, permanent elements apart from which there could be no changing world. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0529020769
• ISBN13: 9780529020765
• Release Date: January 1954
• Publisher: New American Library
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Elegant, profound and accessible

This volume consists of four lectures delivered in King's Chapel, Boston in 1926. Here Whitehead applies to religion the same train of thought that he applies to science in Science and the Modern World. The purpose of the lectures is to provide a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature that lead to religion, to display the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge, and to focus...

Principia Theologica & Logica

"Religions commit suicide when they find their inspirations in their dogmas. The inspiration of religion lies in the history of religion:'Primary expression of religious life'" Religion, A Liberal Essay: People often complain that philosophers present too complex a picture of God, but Whitehead cautions that it may be the very simplicity of modernist notions of God that thwarts the religious response. "As a rebound from...

Bare, beautiful spirituality

In his other books, and especially in Process and Reality, Whitehead's prose can be so dense as to discourage all but the most determined readers. But Religion in the Making, while occasionally technical, is Whitehead at his simplest and most elegant. Reading this book, written just three years before P & R, will show people who have been exposed to "process theology" that Whitehead's own beliefs about God were really much...

Whitehead redux

It's good to have this work of Whitehead back in print. This is an excellent contribution to our understanding of religion. Judith Jones gives a fine introductory essay showing the metaphysical roots of Whitehead's concept of religion.