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Philosophy of Religion

(1) • Scope of the sub-discipline
– What is God like?

I. The existence of God
II. The axiology of the existence or non-existence of God
III. Religious epistemology
IV. The problem of evil for the non-existence of, or the unreasonableness in believing in, God
V. The problem of many religions for reasonable belief in God
VI. The evolutionary argument against atheism
VII. Feminist, Marxist, non-ableist, and non-Western philosophy and the philosophy of religion
VIII. The nature of God

(2) • Natural / Philosophical Theology vs. Revealed Theology
– Natural / Philosophical Theology: Uses unaided human reason to investigate whether, and what, God is.
– Revealed Theology: Begins from purported divine revelation (Scripture, prophecy, tradition) and draws doctrinal or theological conclusions.

(3) • David B. Hart on the lexical use of “God”
– “God” (capital ‘G’) = the one absolutely transcendent, infinite, simple, necessary, eternal source of all reality; ipsum esse subsistens (the sheer act of to-be itself).
– “gods” (lower-case) = contingent, finite, causally limited beings within the cosmos (analogous to powerful extraterrestrials).

(4) Modes of Investigation
– God: Via metaphysical reasoning, analysis of being, cosmological/ontological arguments, contemplation of consciousness, moral experience, etc.
– Fairies / gods: Empirical or historical investigation, archaeology, folklore studies—treat them as possible but finite natural kinds.

(5–7) • Major “–isms”
– Monotheism: \exists!\;G\;[G \text{ is absolutely perfect}] (exactly one perfect, personal creator).
– Pantheism: G \equiv \text{the totality of the universe}; God = everything; no Creator/creature distinction.
– Panentheism: Universe is in God as a part or mode, yet God is more than the universe.

(8) • Two Grand Models of God (monotheistic context)
– Classical Theism: Focus on transcendence, aseity, simplicity, eternity, immutability.
• We are unlike God in significant ways; even where similar (personal—capable of knowing, willing, loving) we are radically inferior.
– Neo-theism / Process-open Theism: Starts with likeness—God is personal, relational, empathetic. God differs in being maximally knowledgeable, powerful, and loving.

(9) • Senses of “Person(al)”
– Boethian / Substance sense: An individual substance of a rational nature.
– Modern psychological sense: Center of consciousness, intentions, memories.
– Philosophical theology normally uses the substance sense and the predicate “personal” analogically.

(10) • Propositions A & B grid (lecture fill-in)
– (a) Almost all classical theists affirm divine simplicity, immutability, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, perfect goodness.
– (b) Except certain Thomistic, Islamic, or Jewish negative theologians who use via negativa to deny positive predicates.
– (c) Neo-theists accept omniscience, omnibenevolence but deny absolute immutability / simplicity.
– (d) Most neo-theists accept omnipotence, some reject individual items (e.g. timeless eternity).

(11) • Representative Classical Theists
– Pagan: Plotinus, Aristotle
– Jewish: Philo of Alexandria, Moses Maimonides.
– Christian: Augustine, Aquinas
– Islamic: Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), Averroes (Ibn Rushd).

(12) • God’s Aseity
– Existence is uncaused; it is in the very essence or nature of God to exist (just as three-sidedness is essential to triangles).
– Argument: Ontological Argument (Anselm’s formulation).

(13) • Divine Simplicity
– God = no metaphysical parts (no form/matter, act/potency, essence/existence composition).
– Argument: Anything composite depends on causes that unite the parts; the first cause cannot be composite.
– Therefore God is immaterial & non-spatial.

(14) • Mixed vs. Unmixed Perfections
– Mixed: Qualities good in one respect but imply limitation (e.g. nutritive life, sensory perception, locomotion).
– Unmixed: Pure perfections implying no defect (e.g. existence, knowledge, power, goodness).

(15) • Absolutely Perfect Being
– A being possessing all unmixed perfections to the maximal, unlimited degree.

(16) • Divine Operations
– Argument from agency in creation: Whatever is first cause must know (to specify), will (to actualize), and love (to value).
– God knows, wills, loves non-discursively, eternally, immutably.

(17) • Unicity of God
– Two perfect beings would differ only by perfection or lack thereof; impossible ⇒ exactly one God.

(18) • Immutability
– Perfection + simplicity + eternity ⇒ no acquisition or loss of actuality.
– Weinandy: Unlike a rock (static through deficiency), God’s immutability is fullness of actuality.

(19) • Hebrew Scripture objection & 5-stage reply
– Texts speak of God “changing mind”.
– Responses: metaphorical language, eternal willing of temporal effects, anthropopathism, etc.

Ethics

(20) • Examples & Definition of Cheating (see slide 4)
– Unauthorized collaboration, plagiarism, fabrication, using prohibited aids, etc.
– Cheating = intentional violation of explicit or implicit academic rules to gain unfair advantage.

(21) • Four Accounts of Moral Disagreement (Creel pp. 162-175)

1. Ethical Nihilism

2. Individual Relativism

3. Social (Cultural) Relativism

4. Ethical Absolutism

(22) • Ethical Nihilism
– Denies real moral properties/obligations.
– Two supporting arguments: Argument from Moral Disagreement; Argument from Scientific Naturalism.
– Counter-argument: Argument from Ordinary Moral Language / Phenomenology of Obligation.

(23) • Individual Relativism
– "Right" = approved by the individual.
– Defense: Argument from Moral Autonomy.
– Problems: Tolerance paradox; self-referential incoherence (one person’s disapproval of relativism).

(24) • Social Relativism
– "Right" = socially approved in one’s culture.
– Defense: Anthropological evidence of cultural variety.
– Objection: Reformers paradox; inability to criticize own culture.

(25) • Ethical Absolutism
– Objective moral truths, universal and unchanging.
– Naïve version ignores contextual nuances.
– Non-naïve version allows prima facie duties, specification.
– Inference to Best Explanation: Explains moral progress, praise/blame, deep moral experience better than alternatives.

(26) • Classical Act Utilitarianism
– Primary principle: Greatest Happiness Principle—act so as to maximize overall net pleasure (Bentham).
– Consequentialism: Moral value = function solely of outcomes.
– Happiness = pleasure, measurable by intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, extent.
– "Radical altruism" because counts each person equally; agent’s own happiness has no privileged status.

(27) • Motivation for Bentham
– Desire for a quantitative, scientific ethics akin to physics—remove arbitrariness.

(28) • Critique of Act Utilitarianism
– Justice / rights counter-examples (sheriff & scapegoat, organ transplant).

(29) • Kantian Deontologism
– Primary principle restated: Always act only on that maxim you can will as universal law.
– Non-consequentialism: Rightness derives from conformity to rational duty, irrespective of outcomes.
– Only proper motive: Respect for the moral law (duty for duty’s sake).
– CI-1 (Universal Law): \forall\;Maxim\, (\text{M is morally permissible} \leftrightarrow \text{M can be willed as universal law})
– CI-2 (End-in-Itself): Treat humanity, whether in yourself or another, always as an end and never merely as a means.
– Direct moral obligations extend to rational beings (persons).

(30)• Two Problems

1. Rigidity / conflict of duties (Nazi-at-the-door).

2. Motivation exclusivism (disallows supererogation, emotions).
   – Alternative account of lying: violates fidelity/trust, not merely universalizability.

• Aristotelian Virtue Ethics
– Ethics of character; flourishing (eudaimonia) via rational activity in accord with virtue.
– Virtue = settled disposition to choose the mean relative to us, as a person of practical wisdom would.
– Cardinal virtues: Prudence (practical wisdom), Justice, Fortitude (courage), Temperance.
– Moral Particularism: Moral judgement sensitive to context & particulars, no single algorithm.
– Yet not relativism: virtues rooted in human nature; objective flourishing.
– Best-explanation argument: Captures role of habituation, emotions, moral development better th- - - - - Philosophy of Mind

• Creel Ch. 16 problem: Relation of mind and body; explanation of consciousness, mental causation.

• Dualistic Interactionism (DI)
– Two theses: Substance Dualism + Interactionism.

• Substance Dualism
– Reality comprises at least two fundamentally different substances:
• Mind / soul: immaterial, non-spatial, thinking.
• Body: material, spatial, extended.
– Substance = independently existing entity that possesses properties.

• Simple vs. Compound Substance Dualism
– Simple SD: Person is an immaterial soul using body as instrument (Plato, Descartes).
– Compound SD: Person = composite of soul + body (Aquinas interpreted dualistically).

• Interactionism
– Mental events can cause physical events and vice-versa: M \leftrightarrow P.

• Simple DI
– Combines simple SD + interactionism.
– Example: René Descartes.
– Sailor/ship analogy: Soul (sailor) inhabits & steers body (ship).

• Compound DI
– Compound SD + interaction.
– Example: St Thomas Aquinas.
– Human organism = single substance formed by union of soul (form) & body (matter).

• Descartes’ Argument for DI
– Doubt method ⇒ can doubt body, cannot doubt thinking self ⇒ distinct.
– Privileged access to thought demands immaterial explanation.

• Identity Types
– Absolute: all properties identical.
– Specific: same kind.
– Numerical: one and the same individual.
– Personal: sameness of a person through time/change.
– Argument from Personal Identity: persistence despite total material turnover indicates an immaterial principle.

• Causal Interaction Problem
– How can non-spatial mind causally influence spatial matter without violating physics?

• Essence Argument
– Introspection reveals thinking essence distinct from extended essence.
– Critique: Category mistake; introspection limited.

• Anti-DI Empiricist Argument (mathematical/verificationist) – two rebuttals:

1. Verificationism self-refuting.

2. Not all meaningful discourse reducible to equations (mathematics itself transcends).

• Common Speech Argument
– Ordinary language presupposes free agent selves distinct from bodies.

• Brain-Trauma Argument
– Damage to brain impairs mentality ⇒ mind depends on brain.
– Analogy mind:software / brain:hardware.
– Critique: correlation ≠ identity; alternative analogy soul:programmer.

• Unity of Cognizer
– Conscious field integrated; physicalist accounts fragmentary.

• Physicalism
– Strong: Only physical substances/events exist.
– Weak: Mental depends on physical; may be emergent.
– Identity Thesis: Each type of mental event is a type of brain event.

• Property-Difference Argument against Identity
– Mental events have properties (e.g., aboutness, privacy) that brain events lack ⇒ Leibniz’s Law ⇒ non-identical.

• Epiphenomenalism
– Mental events are by-products (epi-phenomena) of brain processes, causally inert.
– Defence: Avoids interaction problem, fits causal closure of physics.
– Limitation: Cannot account for mental causation in behaviour; undercuts reason/truth link.

• Critique of Epiphenomenalism
– If mental states never cause assertions, our stating epiphenomenalism cannot be caused by belief in it ⇒ self-defeating.

• Comparative Table
– DI: denies weak materialism; denies identity thesis; affirms mental causation.
– Epiphenomenalism: can accept weak materialism; denies identity thesis; denies mental causation.
– Physical Monism: affirms weak materialism; affirms identity thesis; affirms (physical) causal efficacy.

• Correlation Thesis
– For every mental event M, there is a correlated brain event B.
– Bad Argument: Correlation ⇒ identity.
– Fallacy: Post hoc ergo propter hoc / illicit conversion.

• Last-Person Standing Argument
– Physical monism wins by process of elimination after others fail.
– Interaction intuition: We experience our thoughts causing actions (counts vs. epiphenomenalism).
– Problem: Eliminative strategy requires definitive refutation of rivals; not achieved.

• Identity-Based Critique of Physical Monism
– If identity thesis false, physical monism collapses; identity thesis still debated.

• Personal Identity Problem for Physicalism
– Rapid material turnover vs. persistence; purely physical criteria inadequate.

• Agency & Libertarian Free Will Argument
– Genuine free choice incompatible with determinist brain processes.

• Hylomorphism
– Etymology: hyl\text{e} = \text{matter},\; morph\text{e} = \text{form}.
– Aristotle first articulates.
– Substance = composite of prime matter + substantial form.
– Paradigm substances: living organisms.

• Matter & Form
– Matter = proximate potentiality, substrate for form.
– Form = actualizing principle, essence, organizational pattern.

• Two Metaphysical Parts
– Act / Potency discerned via intellectual analysis.

• Substantial Form explains

1. What the substance is (essence).

2. Why it has its capacities and behaviors.

• Prime Matter explains potential for substantial change.

• Technical Names
– Plant soul: psyche vegetative (nutritive). Powers: nutrition, growth, reproduction.
– Animal soul: psyche sensitive. Powers: the three above + sensation & locomotion.
– Human soul: psyche rational / intellective. Extra powers: abstract intellect & free rational will.

• Whole-organism Agency Analogy
– As hands write but person authors, intellect is formal principle by which person reasons/wills.

• Aquinas on Survival Post-Mortem
– Intellectual operations are intrinsically immaterial (grasping universals) ⇒ subsisting intellectual soul can exist without matter.

• Quarks & Cells under Hylomorphism
– Does not deny their existence; they exist virtually within higher compound substance, losing independent substantial form.

• Cartesian Assumptions Rejected
– Matter = solely quantity & motion (hylomorphist: includes immanent causal powers, forms).
– Mental events = non-extended, simple; hylomorphist: higher-level formal operations of a living body.

• Argument for Preferring Hylomorphism
– Seven data/puzzles: mental causation, unity of consciousness, qualia, intentionality, free will, personal identity, causal closure of physics.
– Hylomorphism better integrates them without positing separate substance or denying mentality.

(Use these bullet-point notes, together with slides and readings, to prepare precise answers to every enumerated review-sheet question.)