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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.
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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
Evidentialism: Belief in God must be supported by objective evidence Philosophy of Religion
Atheism: Claim that God does not exist Evidentialism
Agnosticism: Not enough evidence to know whether God exists Evidentialism
Basic beliefs can be held without objective, rational evidence Nonevidentialism
Nonevidentialism • Fideism: religious belief must be based on faith alone
Evidentialism • Natural Theology: The project of attempting to provide proofs for God based on reason and experience alone • The Cosmological Argument for God
The Cosmological Argument • St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
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
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
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
The Design Argument • Teleological Argument: The argument for God’s existence based on evidence of design in the world
William Paley: Natural Theology Analogy: discovery of a watch on the ground The Design Argument
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
St. Anselm (1033-1109) Definition of God: a being than which nothing greater can be conceived The Ontological Argument
God is the greatest conceivable being Existence is greater than non-existence Therefore God necessarily exists The Ontological Argument
Adversarial Model: Science and Religion attempt to answer the same questions about reality but give conflicting answers Science and Religion
Territorial Model: Science and Religion cannot conflict because they deal with different realms (or territories) of reality Science and Religion
Perspective Model: Science and Religion cannot conflict because they describe reality in different ways Science and Religion
Harmony Model: Findings of Science and Religion are consistent. Truths of Science make plausible claims of Religion Science and Religion
The Problem of Evil • The difficulty of reconciling the existence of suffering and other evils in the world with the existence of God
The Problem of Evil • 1. God is all powerful /knowing • 2. God is good • 3. Evil exists
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
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
The Greater Goods Defense • God allows evil to exists because it is necessary to achieve a greater good
The Greater Goods Defense • Hick: Evil and suffering needed for “soul-making”
God could not create creatures who have freedom of will but are incapable of doing evil The Free Will Defense
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
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