philosophy of religion michael lacewing [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
Two central questions
• What does it mean to talk of, or believe in, God?– Is talk about God talk about something
that exists independently of us? Or a way of talking about life?
– Does ‘God exists’ state something that can be true or false? Or express an attitude?
• Does God exist?– Can we answer this question by argument?
THE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND LANGUAGE
Belief-that
• Standard analysis: content + attitude• Content: what the person believes, given
by a proposition– E.g. ‘He believes that elephants are grey.’
• Belief-that aims at truth:– To believe that p is to believe that p is true.
• ‘I believe him’ = – ‘I believe that what he says is true’– ‘I believe that he is trustworthy/sincere’
Belief in
• ‘I believe in God’ = ‘I believe that God exists’?
• ‘I believe in love’• Not belief-that (no truth claim), but
faith, trust, commitment
Religious belief
• Does belief in God presuppose belief that God exists?– Yes: you can’t believe in a person if you
think they don’t exist– No: you don’t have believe that love
exists (literally) to believe in love
• What is more basic in religious belief? Should belief-that be analysed as (really) belief-in or vice-versa?
Does ‘God exists’ state a fact?
• Not tested against empirical experience
• Not purely intellectual• Theism not acquired by argument
or evidence• Religious ‘belief’ is belief-in, an
attitude or commitment, towards life, others, history, morality… a way of living.
Objections
• Different religions can prescribe similar ways of life while arguing for different beliefs about God– Orthodoxy (right belief) has been thought very
important
• What supports or justifies the attitude if not beliefs about how things are?
• Perhaps religions distinguished by their stories– But stories don’t justify commitments
• This approach makes religion too subjective
Traditional belief
• ‘God exists’ is objectively true or false.
• ‘God’ refers to a being (in some sense) that exists independently of us, and has certain attributes.– Monotheism: perfect knowledge,
power, goodness, creator of the universe…
Faith
• So: can we know whether God exists?– Belief in God = faith
• What is faith based on?– Reason: at least reason can justify faith,
even if it doesn’t often cause it– Revelation: scripture– (Religious) Experience: mundane and
miraculous
Approaches
• Pope John Paul II: rational knowledge and philosophical discourse are important for ‘the very possibility of belief in God’.
• Richard Swinburne: The Coherence of Theism: God’s existence is probable, considering all the evidence.
• Extreme ‘fideism’: sin has damaged our ability to reason, so ignore reason.
• Moderate ‘fideism’: faith goes ‘beyond’ reason, but doesn’t oppose it.
Objection
• Many religious believers think that they do have some reason to believe in God.
• But they are willing to accept that the evidence for God’s existence is not very strong, so they say it is a matter of faith.
• This seems inconsistent: it accepts belief in God is a matter of evidence and argument, but that we don’t need to justify our conclusion by the balance of evidence.
DOES GOD EXIST?
Amazement
• Two natural phenomena often inspire amazement in us: the night sky and life
• The first is vast, awesome• The second is wonderful and intricate• Philosophers can also be amazed that
we can understand the world at all
Life
• Organs serve a purpose – heart – pump blood; eye – seeing– We understand parts of an
organ in relation to serving this purpose
• A living organism requires huge coordination of tiny parts each functioning well – complexity
Design
• Complexity of this kind, the way parts work together, can indicate planning and design – intentional purpose
• If life involves design, by definition, there must be a designer
• But are living organisms designed?
Evolution by natural selection
• Darwin explained how the appearance of design is possible without design
• Genetic alterations happen randomly; most disappear. But those that improve reproduction survive and spread in a population, altering the species
• Such alterations are not actually ‘selected’ – natural forces secure their survival
Starry sky
The ‘fine tuning’ argument
• Why do we live in a universe in which life (and evolution) is possible?
• The conditions for life are very, very improbable. Life needs planets, and planets need stars.
• For stars to exist, the conditions of the Big Bang (how big, how much bang) had to be exact to 1/1060
1 in 1060
• 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent– As precise as hitting a one-inch target on the
other side of the universe
• That’s for stars– life is even more improbable
• Of course, if God designed the universe to develop life, this is not a massive coincidence
Does the universe need explaining?
• The lottery argument– It’s incredibly unlikely, before the draw, that
whoever wins will win. – But someone will win.– With enough chances, the incredibly
unlikely can become inevitable.
• If there are lots of universes, one of them would have the right conditions for life.
More questions
• What explains why and how the universe – any universe – exists in the first place?
• What is the best explanation for religious experience and miracles?
• If God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing, why does evil and suffering occur?