Chad Meister

Chad Meister is an American analytic philosopher of religion who taught for many years at Bethel College (Indiana) before moving to Affiliate roles, and is widely known as an editor and textbook author in the field. His scholarly work focuses on the rationality of theistic belief, the problem of evil, religious diversity, and Christian apologetics, situated broadly within evangelical analytic philosophy of religion.

Meister has been particularly influential as a series editor and anthologist. With Paul Copan he co-edited the Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion and the Routledge Handbook of Religious Diversity; with William Lane Craig he co-edited God Is Great, God Is Good and the Blackwell Companion volumes that pair Christian theistic defense against critics such as Daniel Dennett, Michael Tooley, and Paul Draper. His Four Views volumes on God and evil, and his Debating Christian Theism (with J. P. Moreland and Khaldoun Sweis), set out structured exchanges between theists and their critics.

Meister's own monographs, including Introducing Philosophy of Religion and Christian Thought: A Historical Introduction, function largely as pedagogical syntheses rather than original systematic contributions. Critics from secular analytic philosophy note that his edited volumes tend to give disproportionate space to evangelical apologetics, while sympathetic reviewers credit him with making contemporary philosophy of religion accessible to undergraduates and with sustaining dialogue with prominent atheist interlocutors.