Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of religion is the area of philosophy concerned with belief in God and philosophical problems presented by theism and religion. It is distinct from theology in not presuming theism or a particular religious tradition, but trying to argue for these positions from first principles.

The arguments used in philosophy of religion are also called natural theology, as distinct from revealed theology. Not all theologians accept natural theology - their rejections are concerned with the privileged status given to reason. Many theologians and religious believers have little time for philosophy of religion, as it is often more concerned with the "God of the philosophers" rather than the God that they believe to be revealed in their scriptures and faith traditions.

Reasons for faith

For a long time, philosophy of religion has been concerned with providing reasons for believing in God.

There are a variety of different arguments that are given for belief in God, although whether they still have a role to play in convincing people to believe in God (as opposed to providing justification or defence from accusations of irrationality for someone who already accepts the premise) is something that philosophers dispute.

The first cause argument and cosmological arguments argue that the Universe had a beginning and therefore need a cause - that cause being God. The Kalam cosmological argument is one that was developed by Islamic scholars that has been revived by the American Christian philosopher William Lane Craig.

Gottfried Leibniz put forward a different type of cosmological argument called the 'dependency' argument, which argues from the existence of change in the universe to the need for a chain of causes, and from this to a First Cause, which can be equated with God.

Another a posteriori approach is the teleological argument which argues from the appearance of design in the world to the need for a designer. The most famous proponent of this argument is William Paley. This argument has been abandoned by many since the discovery of evolution and natural selection by Charles Darwin, as this provides a powerful mechanism for nature to almost design itself. That said, in recent years, there has been something of a resurgence of popularity for this argument in the form of intelligent design.

The ontological argument is an a priori argument, originally given by St Anselm of Canterbury. It starts by defining God as "that which no greater can be conceived", then argues that if one accepts this definition and thinks that God does not exist, then one can conceive of something greater - since existing is better than not existing, God does exist. Other versions have been produced by philosophers since, including René Descartes. Other philosophers have rejected this: David Hume and Immanuel Kant both reject the claim that things can 'necessarily exist' - with Kant arguing "existence is not a predicate". Bertrand Russell claims that the ontological argument had a lasting effect on philosophy, being taken up by Hegel and his followers.

Other approaches to arguing for God's existence include arguments from an absolute moral order, and from miracles, near-death experiences and religious experiences. The argument from an absolute moral order finds it's origin in St Thomas Aquinas' argument from degree - in that human beings vary in goodness, and God provides a measuring point for this variation.

The question of miracles is one that exercised David Hume, who argued that it is extremely difficult to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses to miracles, as one should ask whether or not it is more likely that an eyewitness to a miracle is wrong or deceived or the natural laws of the universe have been suspended. This argument was responded to forcefully by C. S. Lewis, but claims of miracles are still regarded with extreme skepticism by non-believers - often because there have been so many purported miracles which have been explained (the claims of faith healers and miracle workers like Peter Popoff, for instance, have been exposed by skeptics like James Randi).

Different philosophers over the centuries have put their own take on these arguments - look, for instance, at how Gottfried Leibniz took the ontological argument and changed it so it fit with his logical principles (namely the Principle of Sufficient Reason).

Blaise Pascal provided arguments which have come to be known as Pascal's wager which do not argue so much for the existence of God as for belief in God. He argues that if you believe in God and are right, you end up with eternal life after death, while if you are an atheist and are wrong, you end up with eternal torment in hell. A rational actor, then, should attempt to believe in God, since if he is wrong, he is in no worse a situation than the atheist, but if he is right, he is infinitely better off.

Divine attributes

Another area of study in the philosophy of religion is the compatibility of the various attributes that theists claim of God. This is usually described using the terminology of omnimax: omniscience, omnibenevolence and omnipotence, as well as immutablity, impassability and perfection.

The difficulty of combining these attributes is something which goes back to ancient Greece. David Hume translates Epicurus on the divine attributes:

If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.

If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.

If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?

If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?

The three main problems that are suggested regarding the combination of divine attributes are the problem of free will, the problem of evil and the question of whether or not God can do something impossible (if he can't, then surely that means he is not omnipotent). The quotation above demonstrates gives a good summary of the problem of evil. Attempts to respond to the problem of evil are known as theodicies, and there are a variety of different theodicies in use. The free will theodicy originating with St Augustine says that God permits suffering to happen, as it is a way of allowing humans to have free will - preventing suffering would significantly affect the free will of human beings. The soul-making or Irenaean theodicy of John Hick and others says that evil is permitted in the world because it allows people an opportunity to excel themselves in response to it.

The problem of free will is simply this: if God knows absolutely everything that goes on in the Universe, that includes knowledge of things which are going to happen in the future. Does this not interfere with the free will of human beings?

Realism and anti-realism

Following Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and in reaction to the logical postivism of A. J. Ayer and the Vienna Circle, some philosophers and theologians took on board Wittgenstein's new view of language and reinterpreted religious belief as "non-realist" or "anti-realist". That is to say that language about God is not about a metaphysical reality but rather a 'language game' within a specifically religious framework or form of life.

Non-realist approaches to religious belief would interpret a statement like "Jesus died on the cross for our sins" not to mean that a human being called Jesus was crucified, but rather that it has a communal-ethical meaning derived from the practice of the Christian way of life. God becomes a component within this way of life - existing for that community. "Jesus died on the cross for our sins" becomes true for those in the Christian community.

This approach frees the theist from a great number of metaphysical problems. It's open to a number of criticisms though. Most religious people would not see this as being representative of their beliefs - and that simply being in a community of believers using religious language is unsatisfying compared to actually holding the beliefs.

Anti-realist theologians and philosophers include Don Cupitt, Norman Malcolm, D. Z. Phillips and Gareth Moore.

Another approach taken to religious language is that of R. B. Braithwaite and Paul van Buren, who provide a revisionist account of religious language that is on the borderline between realism and anti-realism. Braithwaite wrote an essay entitled "An Empiricist's View of the Nature of Religious Belief", which argued that religious beliefs are not subject to verification in the ordinary sense but can be verified as assertions of morality and value: "the meaning of a religious assertion is given by its use in expressing the asserter's intention to follow a particular policy of behaviour". Religious stories are then expressions of a deeper moral truth, and as a reminder of those truths.

In recent years, the poststructuralist and deconstructionist approach to language exemplified by Jacques Derrida has also been applied to religious language and belief by writers like Don Cupitt and others.

Feminist philosophy of religion

A number of feminist scholars - Mary Daly, Sharon Welch, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Sarah Coakley, Pamela Sue Anderson, Sallie McFague, Jane Caputi and others - have suggested, following Ludwig Feuerbach, that the God of the philosophers is a masculine construction which embodies patriarchal values. Omnipotence and invincibility, they say, are masculine power fantasies, often based on images of the father. Instead, they argue, we need to reconstruct the philosophy of religion around a God of nurturing love.

Some feminist philosophers of religion also suggest that the use of reason in philosophy is similarly masculine and patriarchal. Pamela Sue Anderson writes:

To do philosophy, at least in the west, women had to deny their femaleness in order to achieve recognition as rational subjects

Needless to say, this - and other components of feminist philosophy of religion - has not been an uncontroversial thesis.

This aligns with a similar approaches to religion and theology: feminist theology and Goddess theology, and other feminist approaches to philosophy: feminist ethics, feminist epistemology and so on.