Philosophy of Religion

(2.5-8 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course develops the introductory material on philosophy of religion from the freshman years. Its focus is the philosophy of religion of Aquinas. He is treated as an exemplar of classical theism whose approach is amenable to analytical philosophical analysis. Topics include whether he is classifiable as a philosopher of religion, his account of faith and reason, his positive arguments for God's existence, the problem of evil, the problem of naturalism, perfect-being theology, God's nature, including simplicity, existence, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. In the process Aquinas' work is brought into engagement with Kant, Hume, Darwin, Wittgenstein, Quine, Russell and a range of contemporary philosophers of religion. RC: The study of religious attitude, in its two levels, the phenomenological and the ontological, is the proper object of this course. We will deal with it along two lines: 1.- In the first place, we will study the religious fact, so complex in itself and in its historical manifestations, that we have to try to determine the method to be followed in its analysis. That is, we will try to understand what we mean by the sciences of religion, then we will see whether, with the methodology of the positive human sciences alone, we succeed in understanding the religious dimension, or whether, on the contrary, we need other procedures more closely linked to speculation and philosophy. To try to solve this problem, we will use a comparative and critical procedure, looking closely at contemporary history, where different perspectives on religious knowledge intersect, both at the scientific and philosophical levels. Our target will be to appreciate and to evaluate the conclusions reached in one and the other perspectives. In so doing we will determine the function and content of both the positive sciences and the philosophy of religion. Secondly, we will determine the specific meaning of the religious fact by analyzing the signs and expressions that manifest it. In this way we will approach the thought of Mircea Eliade, one of the authors who best understood the religious attitude, and we will complete it with the conclusions of R. Otto, G. van der Leeuw, and J. Martin Velasco, and with the texts of the Bible that illustrate the virtue of religion, so as to accurately present the religious phenomenon.