Philosophy of religion

The philosophy of religion is the branch of philosophy concerned with religion and religions. It differs from philosophical theology in that the philosophy of religion applies philosophy to religion, while theology applies philosophical methods to questions and problems within a religion. There is considerable overlap, however, between the topics and methods of the two disciplines.

The philosophy of religion typically investigates metaphysical questions such as the nature of religion, the existence and nature of a god or gods, and the possibility of miracles, epistemological questions such as the status and nature of faith and of religious experience, questions of the possibility and nature or religious language, and ethical questions concerning the relationship between morality and a god or gods.

(In what follows, the term "god" will be used to stand for "a god or gods".)

The nature of religion

What exactly is to count as a religion and what not is an extremely difficult question, and no universally accepted answer has been given. Philosophers such as Brian Davies explicitly decline to offer a view on the matter, others merely offer a set of paradigmatic examples, and some try to offer a more conventional definition.

Definitions of religion

This list of quotations gives an indication of the great variety of views in the philosophical and theological literature.

• "Ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling." (Matthew Arnold)
• "Religion is rather the attempt to express the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being." (F.H. Bradley)
• "It is unnecessary to attempt a definition of religion; the content of the term is found in the history of the human race and is incapable of compression into a few words. Religious belief arises from a sense of the inadequacy of reason as a means of relating the individual to his fellow men and to his universe [... I]t may justly be regarded as a response of the individual to an inward mentor, call it conscience or God, that is for many persons at the present time the equivalent of what has always been thought a religious impulse." (Augustus Hand)
• "The feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." (William James)
• "Authentic religion has to do with passion, with having passion." (Søren Kierkegaard)
• "Religion is the belief in an ever living God, that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind." (James Marineau)
• "A set of beliefs, practices, and institutions which men have evolved in various societies." (Terence Parsons)
• "A body of scruples which impede the free exercise of our faculties." (Salomon Reinach)
• "Religion is the recognition that all things are manifestations of a power which transcends our knowledge." (Herbert Spencer)
• "I propose to understand by a religion a system which offers what I shall term salvation [...] I shall understand that a religion offers it if and only if it offers much of the following: a deep understanding of the nature of the world and man’s place in it; guidance on the most worthwhile way to live, and an opportunity so to live; forgiveness from God and reconciliation to him for having done what we believed morally wrong; and a continuation and deepening of this well-being in a happy afterlife." (Richard Swinburne)
• "Religion is, in truth, that pure and reverential disposition or frame of mind which we call piety." (C.P. Tiele)

The variety of religions

A useful schema is provided by Joseph Runzo, who distinguishes six approaches to the question of the plurality of religions:

Naturalism	All religions are wrong.
Exclusivism	Only a particular religion is right.
Inclusivism	Only one religion is right, but other religions contain some of the truth.
Relativism	The truth of all religions is relative to the world view of their believers (thus at least one, probably more, is right).
Subjectivism	All religions are right (or useful) for their believers.
Pluralism	All religions are equally right in so far as they are in some sense paths to the same goal (this can come to the same thing as saying that all religions are equally wrong).

Metaphysics

The existence of god

Arguments for the existence of god

The main types of argument for the existence of god are:

• The ontological argument: ontological arguments attempt to demonstrate god's necessary existence by showing that it follows from a concept of god. Its principal proponents include Anselm of Canterbury, René Descartes, and Alvin Plantinga; its principal critics include Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant.
• The design argument: design arguments attempt to show that the world exhibits design, and that this entails (or makes more probable) the existence of a designer, which is identified with god. Its principal proponents include Cicero, William Paley, and William Lane Craig; its principal critics include David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Quentin Smith.
• The cosmological argument
• The argument from experience
• The argument from miracles

Less common arguments include:

• The argument from morality
• The argument from consciousness

Many arguments for the existence of god have been put forward over the centuries. In most cases, the conclusion involves a specific sort of being, or a being with a specific rocirc;le, and this being is identified with the god of a particular religious tradition. Thus, for example, the conclusion of versions of the design argument typically involve the existence of one or more beings responsible either for the complexity and pattern of the world or for the ability of the world to support life such as (especially) human beings.

All but one of the arguments starts from a fact or set of facts about the world – that it is contingent, that it is non-chaotic, that it contains moral values, etc. – and argues that these are either only explicable, or are best explained, in terms of a god. The exception is the ontological argument, which attempts to show that the existence of god follows from its essence.

Arguments against the existence of god

The problem of evil

The main argument raised against the existence of a god takes the form of variations on the problem of evil. This is not strictly speaking an argument against the existence of god, as it merely makes the claim that there is an inconsistency between a set of divine attributes (usually including omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence) and the presence of imperfections (usually evil) in the world. As the concept of god is usually treated as being essentially complete and unified, hoever, for many believers to deny one of the divine attributes is to deny them all; in denying god's omnipotence, for example, one would be denying the existence of god (for nothing could be god and not omnipotent). In the same way, any argument that involved a challenge to one or more of the divine attributes could be seen as an argument against the existence of god; tradtionally, however, only the problem of evil is commonly treated in this way.

The Stratonician presumption

The "Stratonician presumption" (named by English philosopher Antony Flew after Strato of Lampsacus) is a special application of Ockham's Razor. It is the claim that in one's explanation of the world, one should only invoke entities whose existence is needed for that explanation. Thus, the Stratonician atheist argues that, as the existence of a god is not needed in order to explain the existence and nature of the world, we should not believe in god.

James Rachels, in his paper "God and Human Attitudes" (Religious Studies 7, 1971, pp 325–237), offers a moral disproof of god's existence. He argues that if there were a god it would necessarily – and uniquely – be a being worthy of worship. Nothing, though, could be a being worthy of worship, because worship demands the abandonment of the worshipper's rôle as an autonomous moral agent. Therefore, there cannot be a god.

The ontological argument

In "Can God's Existence Be Disproved?" (Mind April 1948) J.N. Findlay argues that an adequate concept of god would have to involve the necessary existence of such a being (for god could not exist accidentally). Nothing can exist by logical necessity, however, as necessity is a relationship between propositions. God cannot, therefore, exist.

The nature of god

Given the wide variety of concepts of what it is to be a god, the range of qualities attributed to gods is very wide. What follows, therefore, is a brief introduction to the qualities most often attributed by the major religions.

Divine attributes

• Personhood
• Omnipotence
• Omniscience
• Benevolence
• Creator of the world
• Arbiter of morality
• Creator of morality (see Euthyphro dilemma)

Space and time

• Eternity
• Sempiternity

Epistemology

Faith, knowledge, and belief

A central topic in philosophy of religion is the nature of the relationship between faith and reason: what is the extent of the role of reason in a religious framework?

Strong rationalism

Strong rationalists hold that a religious belief-system ought to be provable. The English mathematician William K. Clifford argued that religion ought to be based on good and valid reasons and that it is "wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence"

Critical rationalism

Critical rationalists hold that a religious belief-system, while not provable, ought to be rationally criticised and evaluated.

Fideism

Fideists argue that religious belief-systems ought not to be subjected to rational evaluation.

Morality and religion

The Euthyphro dilemma

The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" In more standard modern religious terms, this is usually transformed into: "Is what is moral commanded by god (or the gods) because it is moral, or is it moral because it is willed by god (or the gods)?" The dilemma has been discussed in philosophy and theology for about 2,500 years, and continues to be a central issue in discussions of the relationship between religion and morality.