Postgraduate Course: Philosophy of Religion (Online) (PHIL11159)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will provide an advanced survey of key contemporary topics in the philosophy of religion, including faith and rationality, the idea of God, arguments for the existence of God, the relation of religion to morality, religious realism.
Please note auditing is not allowed on this course. Students must only take for credit. |
| Course description |
This course will explore care contemporary issues in philosophy of religion. Students will gain an up-to-date, in-depth and detailed instruction in topics such as: the concept of God (including eternity, omnipotence and omniscience); arguments for the existence of God (including arguments from the 'fine-tuning' of laws of nature, cosmological arguments, ontological arguments and moral arguments); the nature of and relationship between faith and reason; arguments against the existence of God (including the problem of evil, and arguments from the explanatory redundancy of God); religious realism and anti-realism; religious experience; and the nature of religious language. The aim is to cultivate a deep understanding of some of the most fundamental questions in philosophy.
Projected modules:
1. The Concept of God
2. Arguments for God: cosmological and teleological
3. Arguments for God: ontological and moral
4. Arguments against God: the problem of suffering
5. Arguments against God: divine hiddenness
6. Faith and reason
7. Religious experience
8. Religious realism and anti-realism
9. The nature of religious language
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- demonstrate a good understanding of the key areas in philosophy of religion and engage with them critically.
- demonstrate strong analytical skills and philosophical acumen in approaching debates in philosophy of religion.
- engage critically with key textual sources in the field.
- engage constructively in cross-disciplinary conversations
- demonstrate an openness to personal growth through a commitment to dialogue across intellectual and cultural boundaries.
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Reading List
Adams, Robert M. 'Must God Create the Best?' Philosophical Review 81.3 (1972): 317-332.
Adams, Robert M. 'Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil.' American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1977): 109-117.
Adams, Robert. 'Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief.' In The Virtue of Faith. By Robert Adams, 144-163. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Adams, Marilyn McCord, and Robert M. Adams, eds. The Problem of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Adams, Marilyn McCord. Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Adams, Robert. Finite and Infinite Goods. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Alston, William. Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
St. Anselm of Canterbury. 'Proslogion.' In St. Anselm: Basic Writings. Edited and translated by Sidney N. Deane, 1-81. Chicago: Open Court, 1962.
Audi, Robert, and William J. Wainwright, eds. Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Ayer, Alfred J. Language, Truth, and Logic. London: Victor Gollancz, 1936.
Clifford, William Kingdon. Lectures and Essays. Edited by F. Pollock. London: Macmillan, 1879.
Clark, Kelly. 'Religious Epistemology.' In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. 2009.
Craig, William Lane. The Kalam Cosmological Argument. London: Macmillan, 1979.
Craig, William Lane, and Quentin Smith. Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Creel, Richard. Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Davies, Brian, ed. Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Davies, Brian. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. 3d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. New York: Norton, 1987.
De Cruz, Helen. The Enduring Appeal of Natural Theological Arguments, Philosophy Compass 9/2 (2012): 145-153.
Adams, Robert M. 'Must God Create the Best?' Philosophical Review 81.3 (1972): 317-332.
Adams, Robert M. 'Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil.' American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1977): 109-117.
Adams, Robert. 'Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief.' In The Virtue of Faith. By Robert Adams, 144-163. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Adams, Marilyn McCord, and Robert M. Adams, eds. The Problem of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Adams, Marilyn McCord. Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Adams, Robert. Finite and Infinite Goods. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Alston, William. Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
St. Anselm of Canterbury. 'Proslogion.' In St. Anselm: Basic Writings. Edited and translated by Sidney N. Deane, 1-81. Chicago: Open Court, 1962.
Audi, Robert, and William J. Wainwright, eds. Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Ayer, Alfred J. Language, Truth, and Logic. London: Victor Gollancz, 1936.
Clifford, William Kingdon. Lectures and Essays. Edited by F. Pollock. London: Macmillan, 1879.
Clark, Kelly. 'Religious Epistemology.' In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. 2009.
Craig, William Lane. The Kalam Cosmological Argument. London: Macmillan, 1979.
Craig, William Lane, and Quentin Smith. Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Creel, Richard. Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Davies, Brian, ed. Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Davies, Brian. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. 3d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. New York: Norton, 1987.
De Cruz, Helen. The Enduring Appeal of Natural Theological Arguments, Philosophy Compass 9/2 (2012): 145-153.
Fischer, John Martin, ed. God, Freedom, and Foreknowledge. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.
Flew, Antony. 'The Presumption of Atheism.' Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2 (1972): 29-46.
Flew, Antony, and Alastair MacIntyre, eds. New Essays in Philosophical Theology. New York: Macmillan, 1973.
Flint, Thomas, and Alfred Freddoso. 'Maximal Power.' In The Existence and Nature of God. Edited by Alfred Freddoso, 81-113. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Flint, Thomas. Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Flint, Thomas, and Michael Rea, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Forrest, Peter. 'The Epistemology of Religion.' In The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2009.
Ganssle, Gregory E., and David M. Woodruff, eds. God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Geach, Peter. 'Omnipotence.' Philosophy 48 (1973): 7-20.
Harrison, Victoria. (1998) Putnam's internal realism and von Balthasar's religious epistemology. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 44(2), pp. 67-92.
Harrison, Victoria. (2005) Arguments from design: a self-defeating strategy? Philosophia, 33(1-4), pp. 297-317.
Harrison, Victoria. (2006) Internal realism and the problem of religious diversity. Philosophia, 34(3), pp. 287-301.
Harrison, Victoria. (2007) Metaphor, religious language and religious experience. Sophia: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 46(2), pp. 127-145.
Harrison, Victoria. (2007) Feminist philosophy of religion and the problem of epistemic privilege. Heythrop Journal, 48(5), pp. 685-696
Harrison, Victoria. (2008) Internal realism, religious pluralism and ontology. Philosophia, 36(1), pp. 97-110.
Harrison, Victoria. (2010) Philosophy of religion, fictionalism, and religious diversity. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 68(1-3), pp. 43-58.
Harrison, Victoria. (2010) Hermeneutics, religious language and the Qur'an. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 21(3), pp. 207-220
Hartshorne, Charles. The Divine Relativity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1948.
Hartshorne, Charles. The Logic of Perfection. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1962.
Hartshorne, Charles. Anselm's Discovery: A Re-examination of the Ontological Proof for God's Existence. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1965.
Hasker, William. God, Time, and Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Helm, Paul. Eternal God. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Harper and Row, 1966.
Hoffman, Joshua, and Gary S. Rosenkrantz. The Divine Attributes. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed. The Evidential Argument from Evil. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and Paul Moser, eds. Divine Hiddenness: New Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Hughes, Christopher. On a Complex Theory of a Simple God. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. New York: Penguin Classics, 1990.
Hunt, David. 'Simple Foreknowledge and Divine Providence.' Faith and Philosophy 10.3 (1993): 394-414.
Jaeger,Lydia. 'Against Physicalism-plus-God', Faith and Philosophy , 29 (2012): 295-312.
James, William. 'The Will to Believe.' In The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. By William James, 1-31. New York: Dover, 1956.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Edited by Mary Gregor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Kenny, Anthony. The God of the Philosophers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.
Kvanvig, Jonathan. The Possibility of an All-Knowing God. London: Macmillan, 1986.
Kvanvig, Jonathan, ed. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
La Croix, Richard. 'The Impossibility of Defining 'Omnipotence'' Philosophical Studies 32 (1977): 181-190.
Layman, Stephen. 'God and the Moral Order.' Faith and Philosophy 19 (2002): 304-316.
Leftow, Brian. Time and Eternity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Leslie, John. Universes. London and New York: Routledge, 1989.
Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. London: Fontana, 1957.
Mackie, John L. The Miracle of Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
MacDonald, Scott, ed. Being and Goodness. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Mackie, John L. 'Evil and Omnipotence.' Mind 64 (1955): 200-212.
Mackie, John L. The Miracle of Theism. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.
Malcolm, Norman. 'Anselm's Ontological Arguments.' Philosophical Review 69 (1960): 41-62.
Malcolm, Norman. 'The Groundlessness of Religious Beliefs.' In Reason and Religion. Edited by Stuart C. Brown, 143-157. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977.
Mann, William E., ed. The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Manson, Neil, ed. God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Mavrodes, George. 'Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence.' Philosophical Review 72 (1963): 221-223.
Mavrodes, George. 'Defining Omnipotence.' Philosophical Studies 32 (1977): 191-202.
Mitchell, Basil. The Justification of Religious Belief. London: Macmillan, 1973.
Morris, Thomas V. Anselmian Explorations. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987a.
Morris, Thomas V. 'Duty and Divine Goodness.' American Philosophical Quarterly 21.3 (1984): 261-268.
Morris, Thomas V., ed. The Concept of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987b.
Nagasawa, Yujin, and Erik Wielenberg, eds. New Waves in Philosophy of Religion. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Nagasawa, Yujin. A New Defence of Anselmian Theism, The Philosophical Quarterly 58/233 (2008): 577-596.
Nagasawa, Yujin. The Ontological Argument and the Devil, The Philosophical Quarterly 60/238 (2010): 72-91.
O'Connor, Timothy. Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Oppy, Graham. Ontological Arguments and Belief in God. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Oppy, Graham. Arguing about Gods. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Oppy, Graham. 'Ontological Arguments.' In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2007.
Pennock, Robert T., ed. Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Peterson, Michael, and Raymond Vanarragon, eds. Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.
Peterson, Michael, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger, eds. Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Phillips, D. Z. Religion without Explanation. Oxford: Blackwell, 1976.
Pike, Nelson. 'Omnipotence and God's Ability to Sin.' American Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1969): 208-216.
Plantinga, Alvin, ed. The Ontological Argument from St. Anselm to Contemporary Philosophers. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965.
Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Plantinga, Alvin. 'The Probabilistic Argument from Evil.' Philosophical Studies 35 (1979): 1-53.
Plantinga, Alvin. Does God Have a Nature? Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1980.
Plantinga, Alvin, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, eds. Faith and Rationality. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Plantinga, Alvin. 'Reason and Belief in God.' In Faith and Rationality. Edited by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 16-93. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Plantinga, Alvin, and Michael Tooley. Knowledge of God. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Priest, Graham (2009) 'The Structure of Emptiness'. Philosophy East and West, 2009 59 (4) 467-480.
Priest, Graham (2010) 'The Logic of the Catuskoti'. Comparative Philosophy, (1) 2, 24-54.
Priest, Graham (2014) 'Speaking of Nothing', ch. 7 of Nothingness in Asian Philosophy, eds. J. Lee and D. Berger, Routledge.
Pruss, Alexander. The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Quinn, Philip. Divine Commands and Moral Requirements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Quinn, Philip, and Charles Taliaferro, eds. A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997.
Ratzsch, Del. 'Teleological Arguments.' In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2005.
Rea, Michael, ed. Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology. Vol. 1, Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009a.
Rea, Michael, ed. Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology. Vol. 2, Providence, Scripture, and Resurrection. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009b.
Reichenbach, Bruce. 'The Cosmological Argument.' In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2008.
Rosenkrantz, Gary, and Joshua Hoffman. 'What an Omnipotent Agent Can Do.' International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1.1 (1980): 1-19.
Rowe, William. The Cosmological Argument. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.
Rowe, William L. 'The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.' American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 335-341.
Rowe, William. Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2006.
Schellenberg, John L. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
Sobel, Jordan Howard. Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Stump, Eleonore, and Norman Kretzmann. 'Eternity.' Journal of Philosophy 78 (1981): 429-458.
Stump, Eleonore. 'Religion, Philosophy of.' In the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward Craig. London: Routledge, 1998.
Stump, Eleonore, and Norman Kretzmann. 'Absolute Simplicity.' Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985): 353-391.
Stump, Eleonore, ed. Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
Stump, Eleonore, and Michael J. Murray, eds. Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999.
Stump, Eleonore. Wandering in Darkness: Narrative And The Problem Of Suffering, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2010)
Sobel, J. Howard. Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Swinburne, Richard. The Coherence of Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.
Taliaferro, Charles. 'Philosophy of Religion.' In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2007.
van Inwagen, Peter. The Problem of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Wainwright, William, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Wainwright, William J. Religion and Morality. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
Wierenga, Edward R. The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 'God Everlasting.' In God and the Good: Essays in Honor of Henry Stob. Edited by Clifton Olebeke and Lewis Smedes, 181-203. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Reason within the Bounds of Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 'Divine Simplicity.' In Philosophical Perspectives 5: Philosophy of Religion. Edited by James Tomberlin, 531-552. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1991.
Wood, Allen. Kant's Moral Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970.
Wykstra, Stephen J. 'The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of 'Appearance'' International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16 (1984): 73-93.
Zagzebski, Linda. 'Does Ethics Need God?' Faith and Philosophy 4 (1987): 294-303.
Zagzebski, Linda. The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Zagzebski, Linda, ed. Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1993 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will acquire and enhance the following main graduate attributes:
- Ability to read and understand philosophical texts relevant to issues in philosophy of religion and to engage critically with them.
- Ability to engage in constructive discussion with peers and across disciplinary boundaries.
- Ability to engage philosophically with key areas in the current science-religion interface - to show strong analytical skills and philosophical acumen in approaching these debates.
- Ability to engage in independent research.
Students will acquire and enhance the following transferable skills:
- General analytical skills (the ability to construct, reconstruct, recognise and critically assess arguments and evidence).
- Organisational skills (the ability to manage time, to complete a large-scale and complex project)
- Team and group work (the ability to coordinate work with others to constructive ends, and to engage in collegial discussion and debate with others).
- General research skills (the ability to find, recognise and organise information relevant to a project, and to assess the import of it).
- Critical thinking (the ability to select and evaluate relevant data in texts).
Students will acquire and enhance the following professional skills:
- The ability to reconstruct and assess philosophical and theological arguments using the tools of logic and relevant evidence.
- The ability to understand relevant scientific texts, data and research methods.
- The ability to formulate a research goal (of an essay, or dissertation) and to complete a project - including large-scale complex projects on time.
- The ability to identify and use the methods and resources necessary for a given project. |
| Keywords | philosophy,religion,philosophy of religion,faith and rationality,concept of God,arguments for |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Bethany Sollereder
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Sabina Ali
Tel: (0131 6) 50 4400
Email: |
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