P H I L O S O P H Y

CHAPTER FOUR: PHILOSOPHY AND GODCHAPTER FOUR: PHILOSOPHY AND GOD

P H I L O S O P H YP H I L O S O P H Y

A Text with ReadingsA Text with ReadingsELEVENTH EDITIONELEVENTH EDITION

M A N U E L V E L A S Q U E ZM A N U E L V E L A S Q U E Z



• Traditionally, religion refers to a belief in God that is institutionalized and incorporated in the teachings of some religious body, such as a church or synagogue. Today, emphasis is on deep personal experience with the object of one's chief loyalty.



• Theism is the belief in a personal God who has created the world and is immanent in its processes, and with whom we may come into intimate contact.



• Three traditional arguments for a theistic God are the ontological argument (such as Saint Anselm's), the cosmological argument (such as Saint Thomas Aquinas's), and the argument from design (such as William Paley's). Each of these arguments has its critics.



• Besides the traditional objections made to these arguments, critics have raised objections to the traditional concept of God: How can God be all-knowing yet not suffer along with us? How can God be unchanging yet have perfect knowledge of our changing world?



• In response, pantheism argues that everything is God and God is everything, whereas panentheism argues that everything is in God, who is both fixed and changing, unity and diversity, inclusive of all possibilities.



• Atheism and agnosticism are responses to the difficulties in the traditional arguments for a theistic God. Atheism claims that we know that God does not exist, arguing particularly that the existence of evil implies there is no all-good and all-powerful God. Agnostics claim that we know neither that God exists nor that God does not exist.



• William James called the acquisition of religious belief a live, forced, and momentous option.



• Many people, unable to find religious belief or experience in a theistic God, find both in a deep personal encounter with a divine dimension.



• Mysticism claims direct and immediate awareness that is not dependent on direct sense experience or on reason. The mystical experience is inexpressible and noetic. It has the characteristics of the numinous.



• Radical theology, as presented by Søren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich, has mystical overtones. It appeals to deep personal experience as justification for belief. Tillich's God is being itself, the "God above God," the "ground of all being".



• Feminist theology has argued that much in the Western concept of God and religion is sexist and that these sexist notions have been used to oppress women. Feminist theologian Mary Daly claims that these notions cannot be reformed and should be abandoned in favor of female symbolism and female religious communities. Other feminist theologians disagree and argue for reform from within.



• Eastern religious views, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism, are highly sympathetic to claims of personal religious experience.

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