Philosophy of Religion Lecture Notes

These flashcards cover vocabulary and key concepts from the philosophy of religion lecture notes, including faith-reason dynamics, the problem of evil, and traditional arguments for the existence of God.

Subject (the knower)

The entity whose coming to know an object is partly dependent upon the faculties and capacities of that entity.

Epistemic Distance

A concept suggesting that God may hide Himself from creation, resulting in evidence for God being ambiguous rather than overwhelming.

Magisterial Role of Reason

A perspective where reason acts as a judge or master over faith, often contrasted with a ministerial role.

Ministerial Role of Reason

The role assigned to reason by those who believe that the objects of faith are revealable or supported by reason.

Extreme Fideism

A position, held by thinkers like Kierkegaard, that priorities faith over reason, often viewing them as incompatible or the objects of faith as contrary to reason.

Moderate Fideist

One who believes that matters of faith will oftentimes go "beyond" reason, but maintains that faith and reason are compatible.

Act of Faith

An action involving the whole person—mind, will, and emotions—which is distinct from the object of faith.

Subjective Thinking

According to Kierkegaard, a perspective that is not detached or impartial, unlike objective thinking.

Aesthetic Stage

The first of Kierkegaard's three stages of life, exemplified by Don Juan, which leads to unhappiness and despair.

Ethical Stage

The stage in Kierkegaard's philosophy characterized by the feature of obligation.

Religious Stage

The only one of Kierkegaard's levels that he argues does not lead to unhappiness and despair.

Omniscient

A term meaning "all knowing."

Omnipotent

A term meaning "all powerful."

Natural Evil

Evils resulting from natural processes, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, rather than human actions.

Moral Evil

Also known as an "act of human will," it includes evils like lying that are caused by human choice.

Mary Baker Eddy

An individual who believed that evil did not exist and is actually an illusion.

Privation

St. Augustine's view of evil as a lack or an absence of being or goodness.

Theodicy

A term literally meaning to "justify God" in the presence of evil.

Free Will Defense

The assertion that evil is a natural consequence of God allowing persons the freedom to choose between good and evil.

Stable-World Defense

The theory that evils result from the world being stable and obeying consistent natural laws.

Character-Building Defense

Also known as a soul-making theodicy, it addresses both natural and moral evils as means to bring humans to spiritual maturity.

Inscrutable

A term describing God's ways when His reasons for allowing evil are mysterious or beyond human understanding.

Natural Theology

Knowledge of God reached through reason and the observation of nature.

Revealed Theology

Knowledge of God delivered through special revelation, such as sacred writings or angels.

A Posteriori Argument

An argument based on sensory experience, such as the Cosmological and Teleological arguments.

A Priori Argument

An argument not based on sensory experience, such as the Ontological argument.

Contingent

Things that depend upon something else for their existence.

Kalam Cosmological Argument

A version of the cosmological argument specifically concerned with the age and the beginning of the universe.

Teleological Argument

Also referred to as the design argument, supported by thinkers like Aquinas, Paley, and Swinburne.

Ontological Argument

An a priori argument proposed by Anselm stating that God is the greatest conceivable being and must exist because existence is a perfection.

Theoretical Moral Argument

The claim that an objective morality exists and requires God as its only possible foundation/basis.

Philo

A character in Hume's Dialogues who suggests that the Source of all is indifferent to good and ill and that pain is an unnecessary motivation.

Irenaeus

A thinker who argued that humans were created as "infants" and must strive to value goodness, noting there is no coercion with God.

Self-Evident Proposition

In Aquinas's view, a proposition where the predicate is included in the essence of the subject; it can be self-evident in itself but not to a specific person.

Rashdall

A thinker who argued that moral judgments claim objective validity and that the moral law cannot be fully defended without presupposing theism.

Proslogium

The work by Anselm where he presents the ontological argument and addresses the "fool" who says there is no God.