BelievingbyfaithThis page intentionally left blank Believing by faithAn Essay in the Epistemology andEthics of Religious BeliefJohn BishopCLARENDON PRESS·OXFORD1Great Clarendon Street, Oxfordox2 6dpOxford University Press is a department of the University of furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith of?ces inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Pressin the UK and in certain other countriesPublished in the United Statesby Oxford University Press Inc., New York?John Bishop2007The moral rights of the authors have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published2007All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriatereprographics anization. Enquiries concerning reproductionoutside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or coverand you must impose the same condition on any acquirerBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication DataData availableLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataData availableTypeset by Laserwords PrivateLimited, Chennai, IndiaPrinted in Great Britainon acid-free paper byBiddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, NorfolkISBN978–0–19–920554–7**********ContentsPrefaceixAcknowledgementsxi1Introduction: towards an acceptable ?deism1The metaquestion: what is the issue about t
