The phrase ‘essence of Christianity’ is ambiguous. The basic reason for this is that the word ‘essence’ has a more natural, though by no means uncomplicated, reference to substances, whether in philosophical or pharmacological discussion. Outside such contexts the use of phrases like ‘the heart of the matter’, or ‘the essence of happiness’ sound like earnest, but rhetorical devices to commend the depth or fundamental character of a specific investigation.

‘The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future.’

Kneeling down or grovelling on the ground, even to express your reverence for heavenly things, is contrary to human dignity.

The historian of Indian religion is confronted with a baffling array of textual materials spanning three or more millennia and written in a perplexing number of languages. It is scarcely surprising that when the attentions of European scholars first focused on this material they should have singled out three main languages and their literatures for study. The three were Vedic, the language of the Vedas, Sanskrit with its vast and wellnigh universal coverage of every aspect of ancient and medieval India, and Pāli, the language of the early Buddhist canon. The lead these three gained has since been maintained, while other languages and literatures have remained comparatively less known to the outside world. One may cite the comparative neglect of the Apabhramśa language and massive Jaina literature. In particular the Dravidian languages have been neglected and their literatures have remained almost unknown even in north India, accessible only to a tiny handful of students.

Of all the arguments for the existence of God, the argument from design is in many respects the most impressive, as everyone remarks that Kant remarked. Certainly it is an argument which seems to have appealed to the popular imagination and even today does not lack philosophical proponents. The purpose of the present paper is to examine a recent formulation of the argument. In particular I shall be concerned to bring into the open its dualist assumptions and to show how these militate against its general plausibility.