In the philosophy of religion, Reformed epistemology is a school of philosophical thought concerning the nature of knowledge (epistemology) as it applies to religious beliefs. The central proposition of Reformed epistemology is that beliefs can be justified by more than evidence alone, contrary to the positions of evidentialism, which argues that while non-evidential belief may be beneficial, it violates some epistemic duty. Central to Reformed epistemology is the proposition that belief in God may be "properly basic" and not need to be inferred from other truths to be rationally warranted. William Lane Craig describes Reformed epistemology as "One of the most significant developments in contemporary religious epistemology ... which directly assaults the evidentialist construal of rationality."
Sixteenth-century portrait of John Calvin by an unknown artist
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, logic and ethics.
Pythagoreans Celebrate the Sunrise (1869) by Fyodor Bronnikov. Pythagoreanism is one example of a Greek philosophy that also included religious elements.
Aquinas considered five arguments for the existence of God, widely known as the quinque viae (Five Ways).
The Buddhist Vasubandhu argued against Hindu creator god views and for an impersonal conception of absolute reality that has been described as a form of Idealism.
The Blind men and an elephant is a parable widely used in Buddhism and Jainism to illustrate the dangers of dogmatic religious belief
