The Pure Theory of Religion

Abstract “What if academic theology were to move beyond the methods of the natural and historical sciences and beyond the question of what does or does not exist?” This book develops a “pure theory” of religion comparable to the pure theory of mathematics. It does so by focusing on the miracle of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead on the Third Day; either outright and explicitly, or implicitly, in reflections and thought experiments made with historical thinkers, like Saint Augustine of Hippo and Ludwig Wittgenstein, for whom this miracle was central and true. Miles Hollingworth first sketched out the possibility of such a Pure Theory of Religion in a special lecture delivered to the European Academy on Religion and Society, in Lund, Sweden. That was some years ago, and the lecture was controversial. This book presents that Pure Theory of Religion in full, as well as the full text of the original lecture for the first time in print.