Course Description

The fundamental question for the philosophy of religion is this: Can we think about religion from outside a particular religious community? If so, how should we think about religion?

Like all philosophical questions, this one carries with it a historical question: Given what's gone on in the past, and how people have thought about and practiced religion, and given what's going on now, as we see it, how should we think about religion? This historical form of the question both helps us think and provides us a warning: it helps because if a certain way of thinking about religion has been associated with bad politics or bad ethics or bad science (think Hitler, slavery, or the silencing of Galileo) we know to be cautious; it's a warning because just like people in the past, we are tangled up in our own historical situation with our own blindnesses and hidden agendas.

So we will try to think through a number of examples of thinking about the big issues raised by religion, like the existence and nature of God or the Problem of Evil, examples from different times and places. We want to know whether these were good ways to think at the time--where they came from and what they led to--and whether they still might be good ways to think.

At the same time, we must be sensitive to the subtleties of the religious traditions to make sure we're not, for instance, totally misconstruing what they mean when they use the word "God" or "evil." (This is the reason we'll be mostly sticking to the "Western religious tradition," i. e. Christianity and Judaism.) And we have to be equally sensitive to the varieties of our own religious beliefs and histories. That does not mean we cannot disagree with a religious tradition or with each other; it just means we have to do so with respect and with our ears as well as our mouths open.

We will start out reading selections of traditional "Philosophy of Religion", some old, some newer. I'll try to take some time with each selection so we can think it through. We will start with proofs for the existence of God. All assignments will be posted on the CURRENT ASSIGMENTS page . About halfway through the term we will switch to the consideration of two significant challenges to the religious way of thinking, first Nietzsche's, and then Richard Rorty's.

Course Materials

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