Philosophy of Religion

1. What is religion? “Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.” Philosophy of Religion

2. Evidentialism: Belief in God must be supported by objective evidence Philosophy of Religion

3. Atheism: Claim that God does not exist Evidentialism

4. Agnosticism: Not enough evidence to know whether God exists Evidentialism

5. Basic beliefs can be held without objective, rational evidence Nonevidentialism

6. Nonevidentialism • Fideism: religious belief must be based on faith alone

7. Evidentialism • Natural Theology: The project of attempting to provide proofs for God based on reason and experience alone • The Cosmological Argument for God

8. The Cosmological Argument • St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

9. Everything in this world is dependant upon some cause There cannot be an infinite regress of causes There must be an uncaused first cause An uncaused first cause is what we mean by God Aquinas’ First Cause Argument

10. Principle of Sufficient Reason -Everything that exists must have a reason that explains why it exists and why it has the properties that it does The Cosmological Argument

11. The Cosmological Argument • Argument from Contingency – • Contingent Beings – a beings whose existence is dependant upon something outside itself • Necessary Beings – a being who contains the reason for its existence in its own nature

12. The Design Argument • Teleological Argument: The argument for God’s existence based on evidence of design in the world

13. William Paley: Natural Theology Analogy: discovery of a watch on the ground The Design Argument

14. Argument based solely on an a priori analysis of the concept of the being of God. God's existence is derived from the very concept of God's being The Ontological Argument

15. St. Anselm (1033-1109) Definition of God: a being than which nothing greater can be conceived The Ontological Argument

16. God is the greatest conceivable being Existence is greater than non-existence Therefore God necessarily exists The Ontological Argument

17. Adversarial Model: Science and Religion attempt to answer the same questions about reality but give conflicting answers Science and Religion

18. Territorial Model: Science and Religion cannot conflict because they deal with different realms (or territories) of reality Science and Religion

19. Perspective Model: Science and Religion cannot conflict because they describe reality in different ways Science and Religion

20. Harmony Model: Findings of Science and Religion are consistent. Truths of Science make plausible claims of Religion Science and Religion

21. The Problem of Evil • The difficulty of reconciling the existence of suffering and other evils in the world with the existence of God

22. The Problem of Evil • 1. God is all powerful /knowing • 2. God is good • 3. Evil exists

23. Moral Evil: Bad actions and their unfortunate results for which humans are morally responsible Natural Evil: The suffering resulting from natural causes such as genetic defects, diseases and natural disasters The Problem of Evil

24. The Problem of Evil • Religious Responses to the Problem of Evil • Theodicy: the attempt to justify God's permitting evil to occur in the world

25. The Greater Goods Defense • God allows evil to exists because it is necessary to achieve a greater good

26. The Greater Goods Defense • Hick: Evil and suffering needed for “soul-making”

27. God could not create creatures who have freedom of will but are incapable of doing evil The Free Will Defense

28. In order for there to be free choices, there has to be a stable, reliable order of natural cause and effect The Natural Order Defense

29. The Natural Order Defense • In order for there to be free choices, there has to be a stable, reliable order of natural cause and effect