Well, it’s been a tad quiet over here at churchandpomo, for which we apologize.  We hope to reignite our readership with an exciting series of posts that will feature a dialogue between two important young voices in continental philosophy of religion, Nick Trakakis and Mark Manolopoulos.

Nick and Mark are long-time friends and
philosophical colleagues at Monash University (in Melbourne, Australia). Although
both Trakakis and Manolopoulos have been brought up within the Eastern Orthodox
tradition of Christianity and both now work out of a broadly defined
Continental tradition of philosophy, they differ quite sharply in their
respective perspectives and stances on a variety of issues in the philosophy of
religion. After many informal and passionate discussions around these issues,
they decided to transfer the conversation to a new medium: that of writing.
What follows are the first-fruits of this dialogue, one that revolves around
questions of faith and knowledge in philosophy and theology.

First, a note about the dialogue partners.

Nick Trakakis is a lecturer in
philosophy and religious studies at Monash University and Deakin
University, Australia. His work concentrates on the history and philosophy of religious
thought, and he has published widely on the problem of evil, including an
examination of William Rowe’s evidential arguments from evil, The God Beyond Belief (Springer,
2007). More recent work includes a metaphilosophical study of competing approaches
to, and the future prospects for, the philosophy of religion, The End of Philosophy of Religion (Continuum,
2009), and a multifaceted collaborative project on the history of philosophy in
Australasia.

Mark
Manolopoulos received
his PhD in philosophy from Monash University and is an Adjunct Research
Associate at the Monash Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology. He is the
author of If Creation is a Gift (State University of New York Press,
2009) and With Gifted Thinkers (Peter
Lang, 2009), as well as numerous essays in scholarly journals. His research
interests include European philosophy, ecological thought, and revolutionary
theology.

Beginning next Monday, their conversation will unfold in three parts: (1) “Faith and Doubt in a Revolutionary Divinity;” (2) “From Knowledge to Non-Belief, or Becoming More of an Atheist;” and (3) “Unknowing, or Perceiving the Invisible.”

Be sure to join us for the conversation.