Cambridge Scholars Publishing Atheism, Morality, and the Kingdom of God: A Philosophical and Literary Investigation

This treatise explores both the beguiling fancy that without God, moral virtue is not possible, and the dream that human fulfillment awaits the faithful in an afterlife Kingdom. It shows that Jesus’ Parables of the Kingdom of God, once stripped of their deceptive theological overlay, reveal an account of real-time flourishing that is secular, constituted by virtue, and incompatible with the life of faith (total dedication to a deity). Part I establishes that morality and human virtue are indeed fully independent of God’s very existence, while Parts II and III isolate the prized hermeneutical principle whereby the authentic words of Jesus are set in relief. What emerges is Jesus’ own urgent testimony of a this-world kingdom which is the good-life for humans―the summum bonum. This vision, anchored in the very tradition of which Jesus was both participant and critic, reveals human fulfillment as an achievement which is possible only here and now―should we muster the courage to live it. About the Author David K. Clark obtained his PhD in Philosophy from Purdue University, USA. He recently retired from 20 years of teaching duties in Philosophy and Liberal Studies at the University of Montana. He is the author of several books in philosophy, including Empirical Realism: Meaning and the Generative Foundation of Morality (2004), and his most recent article “Experience and the Argument against Human Freedom,” can be found in Metaphysica (2017). He specializes in ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and literature.