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Course 14 · Lesson 1.4

Philosophy of religion today: a map of the field

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 14 outline

Module 1: Arguments, Existence and Necessity

  1. What natural theology attempts and what it does not
  2. Necessary and contingent existence
  3. How to read and test an argument for God
  4. Philosophy of religion today: a map of the field

Module 2: The Ontological Argument

  1. Anselm and the argument of the Proslogion
  2. Gaunilo and the perfect island objection
  3. Kant: existence is not a real predicate
  4. What the ontological argument would show if it worked

Module 3: Cosmological Arguments

  1. Aquinas: the first three ways
  2. Infinite regress: what is the problem?
  3. Leibniz, the principle of sufficient reason and the argument from contingency
  4. Objections: the brute fact reply and the fallacy of composition

Module 4: The Kalam Cosmological Argument

  1. The kalam tradition: Philoponus, al-Ghazali and Bonaventure
  2. The modern argument: whatever begins to exist has a cause
  3. Did the universe begin? Philosophy and cosmology
  4. Objections and replies, and what follows about the cause

Module 5: Teleological and Fine-Tuning Arguments

  1. From Aquinas’s fifth way to Paley’s watch
  2. Hume and the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
  3. Darwin and the change in the design argument
  4. The fine-tuning argument: what is claimed and what is debated
  5. The multiverse and other replies

Module 6: The Moral Argument and Divine Hiddenness

  1. The moral argument: Kant, Lewis and contemporary forms
  2. The Euthyphro question and moral realism without God
  3. Evolution and moral knowledge
  4. The argument from divine hiddenness and Christian replies

Module 7: Contemporary Modal Arguments and Evaluation

  1. Possible worlds and modal logic in plain language
  2. Plantinga’s modal ontological argument
  3. Assessing the modal argument: what it needs and what it shows
  4. Weighing the arguments together, and what none of them prove

All courses

Program / Course 14: Arguments for the Existence of God / Lesson 1.4

What you will learn

  • Describe the main areas of contemporary philosophy of religion.
  • Name the leading positions on whether belief in God is rational.
  • Explain why interest in the arguments revived in the twentieth century.
  • Locate the arguments of this course within the wider field.

The big idea

Philosophy of religion is the branch of philosophy that examines religious claims by the methods of philosophy. In English-speaking universities it was nearly dormant in the mid-twentieth century and then revived, partly through the work of Christian philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, and partly through energetic criticism by atheist and agnostic philosophers. Today believers and non-believers publish side by side, and the arguments for God are treated as serious, still-disputed philosophy.

Key terms

Philosophy of religion
The branch of philosophy that studies questions raised by religion, such as God’s existence, evil, miracles and religious language.
Logical positivism
A movement of the early twentieth century which held that a statement is meaningful only if it can be verified by experience or is true by definition.
Analytic philosophy
A style of philosophy, dominant in English-speaking countries, that stresses clarity, argument and careful analysis of concepts.
Reformed epistemology
The view, defended by Plantinga and others, that belief in God can be rational without being based on arguments.
Naturalism
The view that nature, as studied by science, is all there is, and that there are no supernatural beings.
Agnosticism
The view that it is not known, or cannot be known, whether God exists.
Probabilistic argument
An argument that aims to show a conclusion is likely, using a calculation of how well the evidence fits different hypotheses.

Background

In the middle of the twentieth century, many English-speaking philosophers held that talk of God was meaningless. The logical positivists said that a statement counts as meaningful only if it can be tested by experience. By that rule, “God exists” seemed to be neither true nor false. The movement later collapsed, partly because its own rule could not meet its own test. After its decline, philosophers felt free to take up religious questions again.

From the 1960s, a group of Christian philosophers began to publish technical work on the existence of God, the problem of evil and the rationality of faith. Alvin Plantinga’s God and Other Minds appeared in 1967, and Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God in 1979. Their work brought modern logic and probability theory into the debate. At the same time, philosophers such as J. L. Mackie and, later, Graham Oppy and Paul Draper put the case against theism in equally rigorous form. The Society of Christian Philosophers was founded in 1978, and academic journals now publish across the whole range of views.

The field is now broad. Besides the existence of God it covers the problem of evil, divine attributes, miracles, life after death, religious experience, religious diversity and the relation of science and religion. This course focuses on one part, the arguments for God, and touches the problem of evil only through divine hiddenness.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Learn the main questions in the field

Five questions recur. Does God exist, and what arguments bear on it? What is God like, and are the traditional attributes such as knowing everything coherent? Why is there evil if God is good? Is it reasonable to believe in miracles or in religious experience? And how do the world’s religions relate when they disagree? Each has its own literature. The arguments studied here address the first.

Step 2: Learn the main positions on rational belief

Evidentialists hold that belief in God is reasonable only when it rests on good evidence, and they divide between those who think the evidence exists (Swinburne) and those who think it does not (many atheist philosophers). Reformed epistemologists hold that belief in God can be reasonable without an argument. Fideists hold that faith stands beyond reason, as some readings of Kierkegaard suggest. Skeptics and naturalists hold that belief in God lacks adequate support.

These are positions about how belief should be justified. They are not themselves answers to whether God exists, and a person’s position on one can differ from the other.

Step 3: See how the arguments came back

Several developments reopened the arguments. Plantinga’s work on possible worlds gave the ontological argument a new form. Cosmology discovered that the universe has a history, which gave the kalam argument fresh interest. Discoveries about the conditions needed for life led to the fine-tuning argument. And a revived interest in the foundations of ethics gave new force to the moral argument. Each was met with serious criticism.

Step 4: Notice the best critics

Fair study needs the strongest opponents. Among those you may meet are J. L. Mackie, whose book The Miracle of Theism argued that the arguments fail, and Graham Oppy, an Australian philosopher who has written detailed critiques of each family of argument. Others, such as Thomas Nagel, a self-described atheist, have admitted a discomfort with the secular view without becoming believers. Reading such critics, along with defenders, is the way to see where the real disagreements lie.

Step 5: Place your own questions on the map

Before moving on, write down which of the five questions in Step 1 matters most to you. Notice that a person might find the arguments unconvincing and still be moved by the problem of evil or by the question of how to live. The arguments are one thread in a larger fabric.

  1. Why might a movement that called religious language meaningless have collapsed?
  2. What does it say about a field that believers and non-believers publish together?
  3. Is it better for belief to rest on arguments or to need none? Why?
  4. Which of the five main questions in philosophy of religion interests you most?
  5. Why might fine-tuning have drawn attention in the late twentieth century in particular?
  6. What would it mean to read a critic fairly when you disagree with them?

Examples

The positivist challenge

A.J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic (1936) argued that statements about God are neither true nor false because they cannot be tested. Later philosophers noted that the principle behind this claim could not itself be tested, and the challenge lost force.

A journal issue

A typical issue of a journal such as Religious Studies or Faith and Philosophy may contain an article defending the kalam argument next to one criticizing it, written by authors with different beliefs. This kind of exchange is characteristic of the present field.

An atheist’s honest worry

Thomas Nagel, in a book called The Last Word, wrote that he hopes there is no God and does not want the universe to be like that. He is often cited as an example of a philosopher who is open about how wishes can shape what people accept.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic philosophers, including those in the Thomist revival, have contributed strongly to the field, and the Church encourages the use of reason in theology. Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio (1998) describes faith and reason as two wings by which the human spirit rises toward truth.

Orthodox

Orthodox theologians have taken part more recently, often stressing the difference between knowing about God and knowing God, and reminding the field that argument is not the main road to God. David Bentley Hart’s book The Experience of God is one example of a modern Orthodox writer in this field.

Protestant

Many of the leading figures in the revival were Protestants, including Plantinga (Reformed), Swinburne (who later joined the Orthodox Church) and the evangelical Craig. They disagree with one another on method, with Plantinga doubting that arguments are needed while Swinburne and Craig defend them.

Jewish and Muslim philosophers

The medieval arguments in this course drew heavily on Jewish and Muslim thinkers such as Maimonides, Avicenna and al-Ghazali, and the modern field includes scholars of these traditions who study and extend the arguments.

Atheist and agnostic philosophers

Atheist philosophers such as Mackie and Oppy argue that the arguments are unsuccessful and that the best explanation of the world does not include God. Agnostics hold the question open. Their criticism has sharpened the defenders’ arguments and forced them to be more precise.

Why it matters

Knowing the shape of the field prevents the mistake of thinking the arguments are a settled question or an outdated one. The arguments are being used and attacked by serious people now, and a student can join the conversation by reading both sides.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Philosophers have long since refuted all arguments for God.

Correction: Philosophical opinion remains divided. Surveys of professional philosophers show a majority who do not accept theism, but a significant minority who do, and the arguments are still published and debated.

Misunderstanding: Only religious believers work in philosophy of religion.

Correction: Atheist and agnostic philosophers are among its leading figures, and their work is a main reason the field has high standards.

Misunderstanding: Modern science has made the arguments obsolete.

Correction: Some arguments, such as the design argument from biology, were deeply affected by science. Others, such as the ontological argument, do not depend on science. Several arguments in this course draw on cosmology, and its meaning for them is debated.

Misunderstanding: Philosophers of religion are really doing theology in disguise.

Correction: The field uses philosophical methods and standards of argument and accepts no revealed premises. Theology proper begins from a revelation or a tradition.

Knowledge check

Why did philosophy of religion revive in the later twentieth century?

The logical positivist claim that religious language was meaningless lost credibility, since its own criterion could not be verified. This opened the way for Christian philosophers like Plantinga and Swinburne to apply modern logic to the old questions. Developments in cosmology and ethics also gave the arguments new interest, and critics responded with equally rigorous work.

What is Reformed epistemology?

It is the view, associated with Plantinga and others, that belief in God can be rational without being based on arguments, much as belief in other minds or in the reality of the past is rational without proof. It does not oppose the arguments but denies that belief depends on them.

Name two questions in philosophy of religion besides the existence of God.

The problem of evil asks why God permits suffering. Divine attributes ask whether notions such as knowing everything or being outside time are coherent. Others include miracles, religious experience, life after death and religious diversity. Each has its own literature and its own arguments for and against.

Why does it matter that atheist philosophers are part of the field?

Their criticisms test the arguments at full strength. Defenders must answer real objections, not weak ones. This raises the quality of the work on both sides and gives students a fair picture. A field in which only believers spoke would not show whether the arguments could survive serious scrutiny.

Think it through

  1. Does it matter to you whether professional philosophers mostly agree or disagree about God?
  2. What might a believer learn from reading Mackie or Oppy?
  3. What might a skeptic learn from reading Swinburne or Plantinga?
  4. Is there a question in this map that you have not asked before?

Independent assignment

Your own map

In your own notebook, write 300 to 400 words. Draw or describe a map of the main questions of philosophy of religion as you now understand them. Mark where each of the five argument families of this course belongs and where the problem of evil would go. Then write a paragraph on which position about rational belief (evidentialist, Reformed, fideist or skeptic) seems closest to your own. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study