Philosophy of Religion

What are the 3 etymological derivations of religion?

• Latin religio, (n)

• Latin religare, (v)

• Latin relegere, (v)

Latin religio

• reverence for gods; piety

• relationship with impersonal realities

• vertical dimension

Latin religare

• to bind together

• religion helps in consolidating social identity

• horizontal dimension

Latin relegere

• to read again, to consider again, to consider closely, to rethink things

• connecting ourselves to others

• substantial dimension

Religion can be defined as

• a set of beliefs and practices that structures individual and communal life

• an account of one’s own life

• a theoretical and practical attitude towards a transcendent entity

What definition of religion relates to religare?

a set of beliefs and practices that structures individual and communal life

What definition of religion relates to relegere?

an account of one’s own life

What definition of religion relates to religio?

a theoretical and practical attitude towards a transcendental entity on which one’s existence and the world that we inhabit is taken to depend

Spirituality is religion …

personalized

Religion is spirituality …

institutionalized

Religious definition can either

• emerge from within a particular religious tradition

• center upon an awareness of an and response to a reality that transcends ourselves and our world

What are the two definitions of religion?

• Religious

• Naturalistic

Naturalistic definition of religion

• describes religion as purely a human activity/state of mind

• tends to be reductionist

  • heightened morality

  • socio-cultural reality

  • personal piety

What definition of religion negates the supernatural dimension of religion?

Naturalistic

Philosophers who reduced religion to morality

• Kant

• Iris Murdoch

Kant on religion

• morality leads to religion

• Critique of Pure Reason

• Critique of Practical Reason

Critique of Pure Reason

there are things that pure reason can never affirm and those are things within religion

Critique of Practical Reason

though there are things that pure reason can never affirm, they have to be affirmed as postulates of religion due to our moral experience

Iris Murdoch

morality has always been connected to religion and religion with mysticism

Mysticism

a non-dogmatic essentially unformulated faith in the reality of the Good, occasionally connected with the experience

Philosophers that reduced religion to socio-cultural reality

• Clifford Geertz

• Émile Durkheim

Clifford Geertz

religion as a cultural system ‘of symbols which act to establish powerful, pervasive and long-standing moods and motivations in men’

Émile Durkheim

• God is society writ large

• ‘a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things i.e. things set apart and forbidden’

Philosophers that reduced religion to personal piety

Friedrich Schleiermacher and Julian Huxley

Who argued that “The essence of religion consists in the feeling of absolute dependence”

Friedrich Schleiermacher

Absolute dependence

everything becomes nonsence/meaningless in the absence of that to which we are dependent

Who argued that the essence of religion springs forth from man’s capacity for awe and reverence (the feeling of sacredness)

Julian Huxley

Aristotle

all definitions consist of the genus and species

how do you know if a denomination is a Christian denomination?

• belief that Jesus Christ is truly God AND truly man

• God would be one but trinitarian (father, son, holy spirit)

Essentialist tendency of religion

necessary inclusion of transcendent being effectively excludes religious traditions with no intentional transcendent object

Who developed a comparative study of religion?

Niniam Smart

Comparative study of religion

you look at all the religions and put them side by side, then look at a common denominator

Important characteristics of all religions

• Creed

• Cult

• Code

Working definition of philosophy

Philosophy is the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge and conduct

What is an alternative way of ‘defining’ something that eschews the essentialist tendency of most definitions

Family-resemblance concept

Ludwig Wittgenstein contributed the…

family-resemblance concept

John Hick

• applied the concept of Wittgenstein to religion

• definition: cluster of concepts

Creed

Credal statements - core beliefs that a particular person has that identifies them to belong to a religion (beliefs, not knowledge)

What are the sub-branches of philosophy

metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics

Philosophy involves:

Senses/sensory experiences, reason, intuition, imagination, and principles

Philosophy of religion definition

the branch of philosophy that takes the claims of established religions and of religious behaviors and subjects them to critical scrutiny

Earliest appearance of philosophy of religion

Ralph Cudworth’s book

Towards the end of the 18th century, philosophy of religion replaced:

natural theology

Main areas of inquiry in philosophy of religion

Theodicy, philosophical theology, religious epistemology, religious language and religious experience

Theodicy

philosophical or speculative proofs for the existence of God

Philosophical Theology

study about the coherence in the description of God’s nature

Religious epistemology

inquires into the rational justification of religious beliefs and the strength of evidences that warrant such beliefs

Religious language

analysis of the logical character of theological terms

Religious experience

philosophical study of how ordinary experience becomes revelatory of the transcendent dimension of reality

Who believed that morality’s search for the good is a search for God?

Iris Murdoch