Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of Religion Unit Outline

• Some questions treated in the philosophy of religion

• An important question in the philosophy of religion: what is God like? (or what does the word ‘God’ mean?)

  • The nature of God: David Hart’s “God, gods, and fairies.”

  • The nature of God: some preliminaries

    • Monotheism

    • Pantheism

    • Panentheism

  • Two models of God along monotheistic lines

    • On ‘person’ and ‘personal’

    • Classical theism and neo-theism

    • List of classical theists and neo-theists

    • On classical theism

Topics in the Philosophy of Religion

• The existence of God: Philosophical arguments for God’s existence, criticisms, and defenses.

• Axiology of God's existence: Whether God’s existence (or non-existence) would be good, neutral, or bad, and why.

• Religious epistemology: The role of philosophical arguments in the reasonableness of theism; alternative justifications for believing in God, knowledge of God’s existence.

• The problem of evil: Philosophical arguments from evil against God's existence and responses to these arguments.

• The problem of many religions: The reasonableness of believing in one true religion; how believers make sense of religious diversity.

• The evolutionary argument against atheism: Whether it's reasonable to be both an atheist and a Darwinian evolutionist, considering the reliability of cognitive faculties developed for survival.

• Feminist, Marxist, non-ableist, and non-Western philosophy and the philosophy of religion: Comparison and critique of traditional Western philosophical approaches.

• The nature of God: Meaning of 'God'; implications of God being necessarily x (e.g., omnipotent).

The Nature of God: Preliminaries

• Monotheism: There is one and only one God, who is the primary cause of beings other than God. God is metaphysically distinct from these beings; they are not parts of God.

  • Classical Theism

  • Neo-Theism

• Pantheism: There is one and only one God, God is the only being that exists, and God does not have parts.

• Panentheism: There is one and only one God, and God has parts: a part that transcends the limited world (God’s “beyond”) and a part identical to the limited world (God’s “here”). Beings other than God are parts of God’s “beyond”.

The Nature of God: Two Models

• Classical Theism: Emphasizes our difference from God. Even in ways we are like God (e.g., being personal with understanding, willing, and choice), we are radically unlike God.

• Neo-Theism: Emphasizes ways we are like God (e.g., understanding, willing, choice). We are unlike God insofar as God is maximally knowledgeable, powerful, and good.

Two Senses of 'Person' and 'Personal'

• Person (n.):

  • Human being.

  • A being that has (the root capacity for) the powers of understanding and choice (e.g., human being, angel, God, Person of the Holy Trinity).

• Personal (adj.):

  • Human.

  • Pertaining to something that has (the root capacity for) the powers of understanding and choice (e.g., a personal being).

Disclaimer on Theological Practice

• Focus is on philosophical or natural theology, not revealed theology.

• Questions from religious traditions may arise to test philosophical theology's results.

• Comparing philosophical theology with religious tradition can clarify the former's claims and commitments, as well as those of the religious tradition.

Propositions for Understanding Classical Theism and Neo-Theism

• There is one and only one God, whose existence is uncaused, metaphysically simple, immaterial, absolutely perfect, immutable, timelessly eternal, the transcendent Creator and sustainer ex nihilo of all things other than God. God is immanent to all things other than God at each and every moment of the existence of any such things as the creating and conserving cause of the existence of such created things, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and is necessarily existent. Finally, God loves all created beings.

• God is not subject to physical laws (being immaterial and their Creator), nor to morality or logic as external constraints; rather, these laws are partial expressions of God’s own perfect being.

• Classical theists accept these propositions, with some exceptions of open theists who reject timeless eternity, immutability, and simplicity. Neo-theists accept a number of these propositions but reject metaphysical simplicity, immutability, and timeless eternity. Most neo-theists accept the remaining propositions, but some also reject different members of the list of traditional divine attributes (e.g., absolute perfection, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.).

Important Classical Theists

• Aristotle (384-322 BCE): Pagan Greek philosopher

• Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE-c. 50 CE): Jewish philosopher

• Plotinus (c. 204-270 CE): Pagan Roman philosopher

• Augustine of Hippo (354-430): North African Christian philosopher

• Boethius (480-524): Roman Christian philosopher

• Ibn Sina or Avicenna (980-1037): Persian Islamic philosopher

• Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4-1109): Christian theologian and philosopher

• Ibn Rushd or Averroes (1126-1198): Islamic philosopher

• Moses Maimonides (1138-1204): Jewish philosopher

• Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274): Christian theologian and philosopher

• John Calvin (1509-1564): French Protestant Christian theologian

• Francisco Suarez (1548-1617): Spanish Catholic Christian theologian and philosopher

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716): German Lutheran Christian philosopher

• Eleonore Stump (1946-): American Catholic Christian philosopher

• Edward Feser (1968-): American Catholic Christian philosopher

Important Neo-Theists

• Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947): British philosopher

• Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000): American philosopher

• Jurgen Moltmann (1926-2024): German theologian

• Alvin Plantinga (1932-): American philosopher

• Richard Swinburne (1934-): English philosopher

• Grace Jantzen (1948-2006): Canadian theologian

Why Think God's Existence is Uncreated or Uncaused?

• Assumption: No being can create or cause itself to exist, as it would need to be existentially prior to itself, which is impossible.

• Therefore, if a being B is created or has a cause, it is created or caused by another being.

• Being B's existence depends on another being if it is created or caused by another being.

• Therefore, if God is created or caused, God depends upon another being for existence.

• Assumption: God does not depend upon another being for God's existence.

• Therefore, God is not created or caused; God's existence is uncreated/uncaused; it's in God's nature to exist (God can't not exist).

Hart's Implied Cosmological Argument for God's Existence

• Assumption: The physical world is a contingent reality.

• Assumption: Any contingent reality has a cause of its existence at any time it exists.

• Therefore, the physical world has a cause of its existence at any time it exists.

• Assumption: If the physical world has a cause of its existence, then there is a non-contingent, or necessarily existent, reality that exists as one of the causes of the physical world, at any time the physical world exists

• There is a non-contingent, or necessary, reality that exists as one of the causes of the physical world, at any time the physical world exists.

• A non-contingent, or necessarily existent, reality is what people call ‘God.’

• Therefore, God exists.

Defense of Hart's Premise (1)

• There is nothing about the physical universe itself that suggests it is a necessarily existing reality.

• Current science, e.g., the Standard Model of the Big Bang, suggests that the existence of the physical universe itself is contingent, if only because it has not always existed.

• Many physicists also think that the physical universe as we know it need not have existed; unlike the laws of mathematics, the laws of physics are contingently true. There could have been a physical universe that operated according to very different physical laws. That suggests the existence of the physical universe is contingent.

Simple Thomistic Cosmological Argument for God's Existence

• Assumption: Some things depend upon other things for their existence right now (e.g., a plant needs soil and sun).

• Assumption: For any being B that depends upon other things (call them the xs) for B’s existence right now, (a) each of the xs depends upon another thing for its existence, or (b) there is, among the xs, a being that does not depend upon another thing for its existence.

• Assumption: There is a complete and sufficient explanation for any being’s existing (at any time it exists, if it exists in time).

• Assumption: If a being C depends upon other things (call them the ys) for C’s existing right now, and each of the ys depends upon some other being for its existence, then C’s existing right now is not completely and sufficiently explained (indeed, not only will C’s existence not be completely and sufficiently explained, we will now have a potentially infinite “chain” of beings, where the existence right now of each member of that chain of beings is itself not sufficiently and completely explained

• Therefore, if some things depend upon other things for their existence right now, then there is a being that does not depend upon another thing for its existence

• Therefore, there is a being that does not depend upon another thing for its existence.

• Assumption: A being that does not depend upon another thing for its existence is what we call ‘God.’

• Therefore, God exists.

Less Simple Thomistic Cosmological Argument for God's Existence

• Assumption: Some being has a cause of the beginning of its existence (e.g., an animal).

• Assumption: No being can cause itself to exist.

• A being x that has a cause of the beginning of its existence depends upon some other being for x’s beginning to exist.

• A being x that depends upon some other being for x’s beginning to exist does not exist by nature, or does not have existential inertia.

• Therefore, a being x that has a cause of the beginning of its existence does not exist by nature, or does not have existential inertia.

• Assumption: A being x that does not exist by nature, or does not have existential inertia, at any moment of its existence, depends for x’s existence on some other being(s).

• Therefore, a being x that has a cause of the beginning of x’s existence, at any moment of x’s existence, depends for x’s existence on some other being.

• Therefore, if there is a being x that has a cause of the beginning of its existence, then x, at any moment of x’s existence, depends for x’s existence on some other being(s).

• For any being B that depends upon some other being(s) (call them the xs) for B’s existence at any moment of its existence, either (a) each of the xs depends upon another being for its existence, or (b) there is, among the xs, a being that does not depend upon some other being for its existence, i.e., a being whose existence is self-explanatory or exists by nature.

• There is a complete and sufficient explanation for any being C’s existing (at any time C exists, if it exists in time), either because C’s existence is self-explanatory (i.e., C exists by nature) or because C’s existence is explained by some some other being or beings.

• Assumption: If a being D depends upon other things (call them the ys) for D’s existing at any moment of its existence, and each of the ys depends upon some other being for its existence, then D’s existing at any moment of its existence is not completely and sufficiently explained (rather, we will now have, at best, an infinite chain of beings, where the existence right now of each member of that chain of beings is not sufficiently and completely explained

• Therefore, if a being x, at any moment of x’s existence, depends for x’s existence on some other being, then there is a being that does not depend upon some other being for its existence, i.e., a being whose existence is self-explanatory or exists by nature.

• Therefore, if there is a being x that has a cause of the beginning of its existence, then there is a being that does not depend upon some other being for its existence.

• Therefore, there is being that does not depend upon some other being for its existence, i.e., a being whose existence is self-explanatory or exists by nature.

• A being that does not depend upon another thing for its existence—whose existence is self-explanatory or exists by nature—is what we call ‘God.’

• Therefore, God exists

Additional Philosophical Methods

• Conceptual analysis

• Argument by counter-example

• Inference to the best explanation by comparing the relative power and weakness of various theories to explain some phenomenon P.

• Deductive argument

Metaphysical Simplicity and Immateriality

• God's existence is uncaused.

• Any being that is composite has a cause of its existence; questions arise about what put it together, why these parts, what holds them together. A whole with parts has its parts as a cause of its existence.

• Therefore, God is not composite.

• Material beings or beings that exist in space are composite.

• Therefore, God is not a material being or a being that exists in space; God is immaterial and non-spatial.

On God’s Absolute Perfection

• Some definitions and some first implications

• Monotheism as an implication of God’s absolute perfection

• Immutability as an implication of God’s absolute perfection

On God’s Absolute Perfection, Part One

• A mixed perfection is a good characteristic whose possession by a being entails the being has a cause of its existence (e.g., being composite).

• An unmixed perfection is a good characteristic whose possession does not entail a cause of existence (e.g., knowing, willing, loving).

• Absolutely perfect being:

  • Has all and only the unmixed perfections to the maximal, infinite degree.

  • Cannot be any better than it is.

  • Is not limited by metaphysical imperfections (e.g., dependence on other beings for existence).

• God is an absolutely perfect being.

• Therefore, if there is a God, then God knows, wills, and loves perfectly, without depending on things other than God for God's existence and perfection.

Why God is Absolutely Perfect

• God does not depend for God’s existence on anything [proved above].

• A being that does not depend for its existence on another does not receive its existence from another.

• A being that has un-received existence is not finite in being.

• A being that does not depend for its existence on another is not finite in being [from (2) and (3)].

• Therefore, God is infinite in being [from (1) and (4)].

• ‘Being’ and ‘perfection’ are different in meaning but the same in referent [assumption].

• Therefore, God is infinite in perfection, i.e., absolutely perfect [from (5) and (6)].

An Excursus on Knowing, Willing, and Loving

• Intellectual knowing: what the intellect does:

  • Understanding what a thing is

  • Judging that various general concepts do, or do not belong together

  • Inferring propositions from other propositions

• Willing

  • Desiring (willing to possess what we don’t possess) in light of what we understand, judge, and infer

  • Delighting in x (willing to rest in what we already possess) in light of what we understand, judge, and infer about x

  • Choosing x rather than not-x.

• Loving

  • Willing to possess what we don’t possess

  • Willing to rest in what we already possess

  • Choosing [to bring about] a good for another

  • Choosing to make a commitment or vow to will good to another

  • Feeling affection for: a child, or a parent, or a friend, or the beloved in a romantic sense.

• Questions: what sorts of knowing, willing, and loving are mixed perfections? Unmixed perfections? In what ways does absolutely perfect God know, will, and love?

Monotheism as an Implication of God's Absolute Perfection

• God is absolutely perfect.

• Absolutely perfect being =df a being that (a) has all, and only, the unmixed perfections in an infinite manner, e.g., God is an absolutely perfect knower, chooser, and lover, (b) can’t be any better than it is, and (c) does not depend upon other beings for God’s perfections.

• Therefore, if there is a God, then God (a) has all, and only, the unmixed perfections in an infinite manner, e.g., God is an absolutely perfect knower, willer, and lover, (b) can’t be any better than God is, and (c) does not depend upon other beings for God’s perfections.

• If there is more than one God, then such Gods would differ from one another in some way [self-evident].

• If there are two or more Gods, then each would lack an unmixed perfection the other had [from (3) and (4)].

• But a being that lacks an unmixed perfection is not God.

• Therefore, if there is a God, then there is one and only one God

God’s Perfection and Immutability

• God is an absolutely perfect being =df God (a) has all, and only, the unmixed perfections in an infinite manner, (b) can’t be any better than God is, and so (c) is not limited in any way by metaphysical imperfections, e.g., being dependent upon other beings for God’s existence and perfections.

• God knows, wills, and loves, and does so in a perfect and unlimited way, e.g., a way that does not imply God depends on things other than God for God’s perfections [proved above].

• If (a) God can change, then (b) God can (i) gain a good or bad quality God once possessed or (ii) lose a good or bad quality God did not previously possess [assumption].

• If (b) God can (i) gain a good or bad quality God once possessed or (ii) lose a good or bad quality God did not previously possess, then (c) God is not an absolutely perfect being [from (1)].

• Therefore, if (a) God can change, then (c) God is not an absolutely perfect being [from (3) and (4)].

• Therefore, God can’t change, i.e., God is immutable [from (1) and (5)].

• Therefore, God knows, wills, and loves perfectly, infinitely, and immutably [from (2) and (6)].

Understanding God's Immutability

• God's immutability is unlike that of a rock; both do not change, but for opposite reasons.

• God is unchangeable because he is so dynamic and active that no change can make him more active.

God's Eternality

• Time is a measure of change (e.g., a bee moving from flower 1 to flower 2).

• Therefore, if God is in time, then God is mutable.

• God is immutable.

• Therefore, God's being is eternal in the sense of timeless.

Time as the Moving Image of Eternity

• Temporal present duration is very short.

• What is past no longer exists, and what is future does not yet exist.

• Continually moving from one temporally present moment to another, where each of these temporal presents barely has any duration at all.

• God’s present is eternal.

• Time—the temporal present—is the moving image of eternity—God’s eternal now.

• Symbolize God’s eternal mode of being with a motionless circle.

Objection: God of the Bible Seems to Change

• Exodus 32:7-14 describes God changing his mind about destroying the Israelites after Moses's intercession.

• Is this compatible with God's absolute immutability?

Jewish or Christian Classical Theist Interpretation of Exodus 32

• Some text is literal

• Most important things the author is conveying in a passage is to be found “on the surface” of the words in that passage, e.g., “God created the heavens and the earth,” or “Jesus wept.”

• In that case, we are right to interpret such texts as containing no metaphorical elements.

Interpreting Passages Such as Exodus 32: Scripture Sometimes Uses Metaphors

• the literal truth the author of a holy text is conveying in a passage is NOT to be found “on the surface” of that passage, for example, when the literal truth is conveyed by a metaphor, e.g., “God is my rock” (Psalm 18:2).

  • Of course, if the metaphor is not empty (and we might safely assume a metaphor employed in some great holy text is not empty), then there is some literal truth being conveyed in the passage in question; we just have to “dig for it,” so to speak, e.g., by comparing that passage with other passages in the holy text, or thinking about that passage in light of other things we know.

Scripture Passage Includes Metaphorical Speech? What Literal Truth Is Conveyed Here?

• “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold (Psalm 18:2).”

  • God shields me, protects me, or saves me, from my enemies.

• “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear” (Isaiah 59:1).

  • God cares about my troubles and can do something about them.

• “And God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26).

  • Among the visible creatures, human beings are uniquely like God.

Interpreting Exodus 32: Scripture Sometimes Uses Anthropomorphisms

• The author of a holy text speaks anthropomorphically about God by comparing God to human persons (e.g.,