Course overview
Most people, historically and today, have religious beliefs of one kind or another. Those beliefs are often deeply important to their holders, providing the framework for their entire worldview. In this course, we will investigate a number of issues about religious worldviews about their content (Is religious language to be taken literally or metaphorically? What is the nature of God and its attributes?), as well as about their reasonableness (Are there good arguments for or against the existence of God? Do we have good evidence for belief in God and what is good evidence anyway?). The focus of the course will be on the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), which share similar conceptions of the role of God and its nature. The course welcomes students both with and without religious commitments, and is run in a spirit of respectful yet rigorous inquiry.
- Does God Exist?
- The Divine Attributes
- Belief in God
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate understanding of some central philosophical debates in contemporary philosophy of religion.
- Analyse contemporary and historical argumentative texts and extract the relevant views and arguments from them.
- Accurately present philosophical arguments in written form and oral contexts (individual and/or group).
- Evaluate philosophical arguments about religion, providing appropriate grounds.
- Identify and use relevant evidence to support hypotheses in philosophy of religion.
- Present a sustained argumentative case in written form, addressing potential counterarguments and objections.