Religion is a dangerous drug unless it is wisely administered.

Borden Parker Bowne ( 1847 – 1910 ) was an American Christian philosopher and theologian in the Methodist tradition. In 1876 he became a professor of philosophy at Boston University, where he taught for more than thirty years. He later served as dean of the graduate school. Bowne was an acute critic of positivism and naturalism. He categorized his views as Kantianized Berkeleyanism, transcendental empiricism and, finally, personalism, a philosophical branch of liberal theology: of this branch Bowne is the dominant figure; this personalism is sometimes called Boston Personalism, in contrast with the California Personalism of George Holmes Howison. Bowne's masterpiece, Metaphysics*, appeared in 1882. Bowne was chiefly influenced by Hermann Lotze.

* Borden Parker Bowne ~ Metaphysics - A Study in First Principles (1882)

Bowne identified the essence of a human being with the "person" which is the spiritual reality, irreducible to any other natural components, within a Christian theistic context. Bowne and his students at Boston University, such as Albert Knudson, Ralph Flewelling, and Edgar Sheffield, developed a philosophical movement called personalism. They contributed to the development of theistic philosophy amidst materialistic or naturalistic tendencies of thoughts and cultures found in the twentieth century.

Borden Parker Bowne ~ The Atonement (1900)

Borden Parker Bowne ~ Personalism (1908)

Borden Parker Bowne ~ Studies in Theism (1879)

Borden Parker Bowne ~ The Essence of Religion (1910)

Borden Parker Bowne ~ Introduction to Psychological Theory (1887)