by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright August 2016
Philosophy of Religion Handout 1 — Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. Models and Characteristics of God and philosophical problems
(Use the Internet to research some answers to these questions and the reader and readings—remember, the reader is the ‘small, thin’ book and the ‘readings’ are in the ‘bigger’ book)
What is philosophy? What is religion? What is the philosophy of religion and what is talked about in this type of philosophy? (reader pp. 7-10)
"Philosophy is the discipline that closely examines beliefs." (pg. 8)
"Religion is, for our purposes, constituted by a set of beliefs, actions, and experiences, both personal and collective, organized around a concept of an Ultimate Reality that inspires or requires devotion, worship, or a focused life orientation." (pg. 7)
"In other words, a key role of philosophy [of religion] was to arrive at truth about matters of ultimate importance and seek to incorporate this truth in a total worldview. ...Robust discussion and debate characterize philosophy of religion today." (pg. 9)
or
"Therefore, let us now propose a working definition of this important field: philosophy of religion is the attempt to analyze and critically evaluate religious beliefs in terms of consistency, coherence, and reasonableness." (pg. 10)
What is a theist, atheist and an agnostic?
"Theism can be defined according to its concept of deity: God is a transcendent spiritual being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good." (pg. 10)
An atheist is a person who does not believe in the existence of a God in the theist sense.
An agnostic is a person who doesn't know if God exists or not. They haven't seen enough clear evidence to make a firm choice on the matter. Once they see enough evidence they will decide between theist and atheist.
Aristotle (classic Greek model http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/aris.htm, specifically read the section on the right, The Four Causes and the Higher Truths section under Metaphysics)
o What are The Four Causes and what do they help explain, according to Aristotle?
The Four Causes are the Material, Formal, Efficient and Final causes. The Material is what physical materials are involved, the Formal is the design of the structure, the Efficient is what brought all this together into something, and the Final is the "why" or purpose that this completed structure fulfills.
o What does it mean for a thing to have potential in contrast to it being actual —- give an example?
Potential is the ability to have something happen. Actual means that something has actually happened. An example is having a baby. A woman has the potential to have a baby once she matures. She actually has the baby only after some "birds and bees" activity has happened with either a mate, or some modern technology substituting for a mate.
o What does Aristotle mean when he states that God is actual, a prime mover, rather than potential?
He means that since the universe exists, God has actually done something. He has moved beyond potential and created an actual. We know this because we are experiencing it.
Hinduism (eastern model http://www.world-religions-professor.com/atman-brahman.html) What is Brahman and what is atman?
Atman is an individual soul. Each living thing has an atman. Brahman is the soulish essence of the whole universe.
Classical theism (perfect being theology—reader pp. 10-12)
"Theism can be defined according to its concept of deity: God is a transcendent spiritual being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. Associated with this is the claim that God created and sustains the universe in existence." (pg. 10)
Open theism (reader glossary p. 378 and http://www.iep.utm.edu/o-theism/ the first four paragraphs). What are some of the characteristics of the Classic God versus the Open God?
The Classic God knows a lot more and has a lot more control than the Open God. The Classic God knows all -- all in the past, present and future. This puts a big crimp in the free will concept for humans living in the present. One way around this free will dilemma is the Open God concept. God knows what's going on now, but he does not know what choices people will make so he doesn't know the future.
Process theism (reader glossary p. 378 and website http://oldsite.processandfaith.org/writings/article/8-points-process-theology ). What are the 8 points made in process theology and thus how does the process God differ from the open and classical God?
This Process Theism as defined on the web site looks like a wish list and it is filled with contradictions. Example: "#6 All beings seek harmony as their guiding ideal." This would seem to limit the wide diversity in thinking that the real world seems to be made up of. #7 is worse. It is gobbledygook.
That said, this seems to be an attempt to fit in-between Classical Theism and Open Theism. Based on the reader definition: God is not as compelling as in the Classical version, but knows a bit more about the future than in the Open version.
With the characteristics below, define them in terms of classic theism and give a possible ‘problem’ with that characteristic and a possible ‘solution’ to that problem. Some of them may be quite similar. You may use the glossary in the reader and of course do the readings associated with the characteristics. Be willing to contrast some of these with the open and/or process view of God.
Omnipotence (readings pp. 244-249):
o Aquinas answers many objections to God’s omnipotence, such as, can God sin, can God move, or can God do absolutely anything. What are his replies to these questions?
His replies to these questions are based on carefully describing the context in which the questions are posed. An example is Reply One, "God is said to be omnipotent in respect to active power, not to passive power, as was shown above. Whence the fact that He is immovable or impassible is not repugnant to his omnipotence." (pg. 245)
o Mavrodes explores “the paradox of the stone” in regards to God’s omniscience. What is this paradox and a possible solution to it from here? http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Modern_S10/Handouts/Mavrodes.pdf
The heart of the solution is Mavrodes saying, "The dilemma fails because it consists of asking whether God can do a self-contradictory thing. And the reply that He cannot does no damage to the doctrine of omnipotence." (pg. 248)
Omni-benevolence (http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/evil.htm): What is the problem of evil? What may be a simple solution to why God allows evil?
The problem of evil is that bad things happen to people. Evil is a way of explaining why the bad things happen. This selection offers four answers:
o Evil is not a "thing" therefore God did not create it. (Hmm... I'm not sure how Lucifer fits into this explanation.)
o The origin of evil is creatures engaging in free will.
o "God's solution to the problem of evil is his Son Jesus Christ."
o Alas, the answer to the philosophical problem is nonsense.
But... after reading this section a new insight came to me: It would seem that the people who lived between Adam and Jesus were more evil than those who lived post-Jesus, and they couldn't atone for this, simply because Jesus wasn't there to offer himself as a solution to their evilness problem. This feels strange -- that pre-Jesus people were more evil than post-Jesus people -- but, then again, Jesus appeared on earth to make a difference, right?
Omniscience (readings pp. 269-273): We will discuss more about this in the next question after the attributes but I want you to have a basic understanding of the problem. In short, if God knows everything, are we truly still ‘free’ to do or choose whatever we want? Why or why not?
If God knows everything -- if he is fully omniscient and sees all time -- then he also knows what decisions free will is going to make. This definition solves the issue. The issue is not solved if uncertainty is considered to be part of the free will definition. In such a case the open and process theisms are considered for discussion.
Impassible and Immutable (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts-god/#Impn Read section 2 on Impassibility): Define impassibility and immutability and point out why God must not be able to ‘move’ nor ‘have emotions’ and some problems associated with these views. Also, what do these views have to do with God being ‘simple?’
Immutable -- "God is also believed to be immutable. Something is immutable if its real properties can't change. Immutability follows from God's simplicity." Adding a bit to this: God can't change because he is outside of time. Without time change is not possible.
Impassible -- "Finally, classical western theists have thought that God is impassible. God creates, sustains, and governs the world. It depends on him both for its being and for its qualities. But nothing acts on God or causally affects him. While the world is affected by God, God is not affected by it." Passibility requires affecting something. Once again, if God is outside time, and can't change, then he can't be passible.
Further on in the reading, "According to the doctrine of impassibility, God is not affected by his creatures. Everything other than God depends upon him for both its existence and qualities. God himself, though, depends upon nothing. Critics think this has two unacceptable consequences." This is where emotion fits in. Everything is him, so what is there to get emotional about?
Eternal (readings pp. 256-258 or http://depthome.sunysuffolk.edu/Selden_PL/SE/pl215/handouts/PL30%20Timeless.pdf): Also see the definition in the glossary of the reader under timeless pp. 380 then answer the question, what does it mean to say that for God, all is ‘one eternal now?’
God exists outside of time as we humans experience it. This means that God is fully aware of the past, present and future. In His eyes the future has already happened. And, with that concept in mind, free will has already happened, as well.
My envisionment for solving this issue is that God exists as a 4D/2T creature. He exists outside of spacetime as we humans experience it, and lives in his own version of space and time -- this way he can move and have his own free will. He looks upon our spacetime as if it were a salami with time being the long dimension. This way he can twiddle in supernatural ways but those of us in human spacetime are none the wiser when he does. We don't experience any sort of change.
Everlasting (readings pp. 259-265 also see the definition in the glossary of the reader pp. 375): Why, according to Wolterstorff, must God be everlasting rather than eternal?
The difference between eternal and everlasting is whether God is inside or outside the time dimension. If he is inside he is everlasting. Wolterstorff argues that God is inside time because the Biblical tales have him conversing with humans and intervening. This makes him everlasting rather than immortal. Wolterstorff attributes the eternal concept to Greek pollution of the God concept.
My feeling is that Wolterstorff is missing a point. The point is that God seems to change his mind within the human time frame. The example of that that comes to my mind is his saying after The Flood, "Oops, that didn't work out the way I intended and I'm creating the rainbow as a sign of my attonement." This story doesn't seem to fit well into his everlasting concept of God.
Another way of handling the conversing issue is doing it the way Walt Disney did with his cartoon characters. He filmed a 2D version of himself and added that to the animation he made of the character. God can "film" a 3D version of himself and add it to our spacetime. (here is my essay on this concept)
The free will problem and God’s omniscience (reader pp. 161-163 and accompanying websites to answer the next few questions).
Define the terms determinism (theological determinism or Calvinism), compatibilism and libertarianism in regards to God’s omniscience and point out at least one problem and one solution to the free will problem in each of these views of ‘freedom.’
Yes, mixing free human will and God's will is certainly a knotty issue from the human perspective. That said, here are some definitions.
o theological determinism -- All that happens is God's will. Human free will is a subset of that. How these two mix is a mystery from the human perspective.
o compatibilism -- "According to the compatibilist conception a human action is 'free' if the following requirements are met: (1) The immediate cause of the action is a desire, wish, or intention internal to the agent; (2) there is no external event or circumstance that compels the action to be performed; and (3) the agent could have acted differently, if she had chosen to." (pg. 161)
o libertarianism -- libertarianism extends on compatibilism by adding a random element to the choosing. The agent described in the compatibilism choice above can randomly choose either A or B. This means the future has not been determined yet.
Theological determinism/Calvinism http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/determinism.html and specifically the view on pp. 162-163 in the reader:
"Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs."
Personally, I like the term adequate determinism -- "Adequate Determinism is the kind of determinism we have in the world. It is a statistical determinism, where the statistics are near to certainty for large macroscopic objects." This definition handles quantum mechanics well.
Compatibilism http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/compatibilism.html:
"As long as the agent is free from external coercion, they have freedom of action, which is the compatibilist freedom we have according to Thomas Hobbes and David Hume.
Compatibilists (or "soft determinists" as they have been known since William James) identify free will with freedom of action - the lack of external constraints. We are free, and we have free will, if we are not in physical chains. But freedom of the will is different from freedom of action."
Libertarianism (incompatibilism) (reading 294-301 and http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/libertarianism.html:
"Libertarianism is a school of thought that says humans are free from physical determinism and all the other diverse forms of determinism.
Libertarians believe that strict determinism and freedom are incompatible. Freedom seems to require some form of indeterminism."
How does Luis de Molina ‘solve’ the problem between omniscience and free will? What are the three types of knowledge he claims God has and how do they exemplify having ‘libertarian’ free will? http://www.iep.utm.edu/mi ddlekn/
Roger Editorial -- Ouch! Dealing with a statement like the following is tough: "It is best characterized as God’s prevolitional knowledge of all true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom." And then... more ouch! In its own way this introduction section is as hard as reading the King James version of the Bible. [grin] Even worse, the page header says this has been peer-reviewed. This leads me to wonder: Who are the peers?
This writer's (John Laing) science background is weak. Here is the first of many examples, "Or, for another example, God could have made things differently. The sky could be yellow instead of blue, or the grass pink. God could have chosen to not create at all. Although this assumption should be self-evident, it is also supported by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Things could have been different." No, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle doesn't support this. It is irrelevant to this. And changing these other things would bring about lots of inconsistency to the physical world as we know it. All-in-all, I no longer find him credible... and once again I'm sure wondering about his peers!
Back to the question: This quote seems to cover Laing's definition of middle knowledge, "The doctrine of middle knowledge proposes that God has knowledge of metaphysically necessary states of affairs via natural knowledge, of what He intends to do via free knowledge, and in addition, of what free creatures would do if they were instantiated (via middle knowledge)."
Laing's answering the question: "One of the basic assumptions of the doctrine of middle knowledge outlined above is that God cannot will a creature to freely choose anything."
Answering the omniscience issue: "The second approach to arguing that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom cannot be true has come in the form of an assertion that Molinism leads to determinism and therefore, the counterfactuals do not refer to free actions. Several forms of this argument have been offered." and "The most common response by Molinists to this form of the argument is simply that it begs the question of compatibilism. It is based on the questionable presuppositions that divine risk is necessary for creaturely freedom to exist, and that risk is eliminated by divine foreknowledge. But these presuppositions seem to assume incompatibilism (of creaturely freedom and divine foreknowledge), which is what the argument is supposed to prove. In addition, Molinists have also argued that it is dependent upon a particular view of risk that may be questioned as well."
All-in-all, I found this article unsatisfying. It has a lot of factual errors in the science being described and the "voice" is turgid. I recommend finding a source that offers a simpler and clearer explanation of this issue.
--The End--