Philosophy of Religion Philosophy 142/Religion 142 Fall 2004-05 Tues./Thur. 1:00-2:25 Sills 117 Office Hours: Tues. 2:30-3:30, Wed. 2:30-3:30, Thur. 9:00-10:00, Fri. 10:30-11:30 Course Overview Philosophy of Religion is traditionally characterized by one overarching and deceptively simple question: Does God exist? There are also a number of intimately related questions: Can the existence of God be proven? Is it rational to believe in God? Is the existence of God compatible with all of the evil we see in the world? What does it mean to say that God exists (or does not exist)? In this course, as our framework for approaching these questions, we will ask the following: what is the relationship between religion and science? There are three possibilities here: religion and science are incompatible; science implies religion; or, science are religion are simply independent of one another. We can lay out these three options a bit more explicitly as follows: Option 1. Broadly scientific methods applied to the evidence we have yield doctrines that are inconsistent with basic religious beliefs. Option 2. Broadly scientific methods applied to the evidence we have yield results that imply the truth of basic religious beliefs. Option 3. Basic religious beliefs are simply independent of anything yielded by broadly scientific methods. We will be attempting to determine which of these options is correct. That determination would not, by itself, answer all of the questions with which we began, but it would be an enormous help. If option one is correct, then either science or religion must be rejected as false, and bets placed against science have a sorry history. If option two is correct, then broadly scientific methods vindicate religion. If option three is correct, then broadly scientific evidence is simply irrelevant to the truth of religious claims, although this wouldn’t tell us whether or not to accept those religious claims. Most atheists are proponents of option one; however, we will also see one author (Stephen J. Gould) who is an atheist but who explicitly affirms option three. Many theists are proponents of option two. Such theists typically see God as a personal being who is omnipotent and completely good, and they claim that they hypothesis that God exists provides the best broadly scientific explanation for various features of the world. Other theists take option three. As we will see, it is by no means easy to determine which of the options is correct. We will be guided in this task by working through the arguments of a wide variety of authors: St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm, philosopher David Hume, contemporary philosophers Richard Swinburne, John Hick, Eleonore Stump and Bernard Williams, brain researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili, biologist Richard Dawkins, physicist Steven Weinberg, physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne, Anglican Bishop John Robinson, theologian Paul Tillich and Pope John Paul II. Principal Texts: Abbot, Edwin, Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions Gould, Stephen J., Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Swinburne, Richard Is there a God? Tillich, Paul Dynamics of Faith Other readings on e-reserve or to be distributed in class. Professor Sehon ssehon@bowdoin.edu
Course Requirements: Attendance and active class participation (5%). Assignments and quizzes (10%) Two papers (1500-2000 words each) (60%) Final Exam (25%). Papers: In the papers, you will be asked to explain and evaluate arguments of one or more of our authors. You will not be mere passive reporters of the debates; rather you will be doing philosophy and participating in the ongoing dialogue. This is a Writing Project course—for details, see the accompanying handout on the Bowdoin Writing Project. In brief, for each paper, you will submit a draft, and a writing assistant will go over it with you. You will then revise as you see fit, and then turn in to me both your draft and the final version. Here is the schedule for the two papers in the course: First paper: draft due in class on September 2728; final version due October 8. Second paper: draft due in class November 1211; final version due November 23. Any extensions must be requested prior to the date on which the paper is due (this is not to say that all extension requests will be granted). Penalty of 3 points (out of 100) per day on late papers, up to a maximum penalty of 20 points (i.e., two full letter grades). Assignments and quizzes There will be a number of assignments and quizzes during the semester. Some of the assignments will be completed in class, and some outside of class. You cannot make up a missed in-class assignment unless your absence was excused. Class participation: Learning is not a passive endeavor. Accordingly, I expect you to read the assignments carefully and to come to each class prepared to raise questions and discuss the material. Always bring your copy of the assigned reading to class. Course Outline: I. Introduction 9/2 Papal Statement on evolution (distributed in class). II. Historical overview A. Hume 9/7 Hume, Dialogues, Pamphilus to Hermippus and Parts I-V (pp. 1-38). 9/9 Hume, Dialogues, Parts VI-VIII (pp. 39-53). 9/14 Hume, Dialogues, Part IX-XI (pp. 54-76). 9/16 Hume, Dialogues, Part XII (pp. 77-89). B. Anselm and Aquinas 9/21 Anselm, selection from St. Anselm’s Proslogion, translated by M.J. Charlesworth, Univ. of Notre Dame Press: 1979, pp. 116-117 (e-reserve). 9/23 Aquinas, selection from Summa Theologiae, Passage 20, “There Exists a God”in Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings. Oxford University Press: 1993. pp. 199-202 (e-reserve). 9/28 No new reading.
III. Option one vs. option two A. Explanation and Theism: overview 9/30 Swinburne, Is There a God? Introduction; Chapter 1, “God”; Chapter 2, “How We Explain Things”; Chapter 3, “The Simplicity of God.”(pp. 147). 10/5 Dawkins, Richard, “God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, November 1995, pp. 80-85 (e-reserve). B. Explaining the World and its Order 10/7 Swinburne, Is There a God? Chapter 4, “How the Existence of God Explains the World and its Order”. (pp. 48-68). Gould, Rocks of Ages, pp. 218-219. Weinberg, Steven "A Universe with No Designer", in Cosmic Questions, James B. Miller, Editor. (e-reserve) Polkinghorne, John, “Understanding the Universe”, in Cosmic Questions, James B. Miller, Editor. (e-reserve) 10/14 No new reading C. Explaining Miracles 10/19 Swinburne, Is There a God, from Chapter 7, “How the Existence of God Explains Miracles and Religious Experience”. (pp. 114-129); 10/21 Cha, K., Wirth, D., and Lobo, R., “Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer?: Report of a Masked, Randomized Trial,” Journal of Reproductive Medicine, Volume 46, September 2001, pp. 781-787. (e-reserve) Astin, J.A., Harkness, E. and Ernst, E., “The Efficacy of ‘Distance Healing’: A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials,” Annals of Internal Medicine, 2000: Vol 132: 903-910. (e-reserve) D. Explaining Evil 10/26 Swinburne, Is There a God, Chapter 6, “Why God Allows Evil”. (pp. 95113). 10/28 Hick, John, “An Irenaean Theodicy” from Stephen Davis, ed., Encountering Evil. (e-reserve). 11/2 Stump, Eleonore, “The Problem of Evil,” Faith and Philosophy, October 1985 (e-reserve). 11/4 No new reading. E. Explaining Religious Experience 11/9 Swinburne, Is There a God, from Chapter 7, “How the Existence of God Explains Miracles and Religious Experience”. (pp. 129-139). 11/11 Newberg, A. et al., Why God Won’t Go Away, Chapter 1, “A Photograph of God?: Introduction to the Biology of Belief”; Chapter 2, “Brain Machinery: The Science of Perception”; Chapter 3, “Brain Architecture: How the Brain Makes the Mind”; Chapter 4, “Myth-making: The Compulsion to Create Stories and Beliefs”; Chapter 5, “Ritual: The Physical Manifestation of Meaning”. (pp. 1-97).
11/16 Newberg, A. et al., Why God Won’t Go Away, Chapter 6, “Mysticism: The Biology of Transcendence”; Chapter 7, “The Origins of Religion: The Persistence of a Good Idea”; Chapter 8, “Realer than Real: The Mind in Search of Absolutes”; Chapter 9, “Why God Won’t Go Away: The Metaphor of God and the Mythology of Science”. (pp. 98-172). IV. Option three 11/18 Gould, Stephen, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, Preamble; Chapter 1, “The Problem Stated”; Chapter 2, “The Problem Resolved in Principle”. (pp. 1-96). Recommended: Gould, Rocks of Ages, Chapter 3, “Historical Reasons for Conflict”; Chapter 4, “Psychological Reasons for Conflict” (pp. 97-222). 11/23 Abbott, Edwin A., Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. 11/25 No class—Thanksgiving vacation. 11/30 Williams, Bernard, “Has ‘God’ a Meaning?’; Robinson, John, “Has ‘God’ a Meaning?” Question, Vol. 1, 1968 (e-reserve). 12/2 Tillich, Paul, Dynamics of Faith, Chapter 1, “What Faith Is”; Chapter 2, “What Faith is Not”. (pp.1-40). 12/7 Tillich, Paul, Dynamics of Faith, Chapter 3, “Symbols of Faith”; Chapter 4, “Types of Faith”; Chapter 5, “The Truth of Faith”. (pp. 41-98). 12/9 Tillich, Paul, Dynamics of Faith, Chapter 6, “The Life of Faith”; Conclusion, “The Possibility and Necessity (pp. 99-129).