Philosophy of Religion (TP 2503)
Understand the core questions, issues, and perspectives within philosophy of religion.
Does God exist? If God exists, are there any good reasons to believe that God exists?
Aren’t all religions basically the same? Aren’t all religions simply humans’ attempt at understanding God?
How should we think about the status of other religions? What’s their relationship to Christianity?
If God exists, why is there so much evil in the world? What is God like anyway? What are God’s attributes?
Why is one religion—Christianity—marked out as unique in giving us access to God? Isn’t this chauvinistic? Isn’t this too exclusive?
What’s the relationship between believing in Jesus and our being in the world? Isn’t the point of Jesus to get us to Heaven?
Philosophy of Religion examines questions, such as above, that arise in the intersection of faith and reason.
These questions have arisen in the history of the church, and these questions continue to demand our attention in our contemporary setting. The particular questions shift from context to context depending on changing thought patterns and outlook. In our fast-changing world of competing worldviews, we can no longer assume a common Christianly-informed culture in contemporary America. We are back, so to speak, to Athens and the early church when the Gospel of Christ was something new and possibly strange.
SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY:
More than ever questions of a philosophical nature are being asked by people potentially interested in the Christian faith and by people who are already walking in the faith. Pastors and leaders need perspectives and resources to address these questions that people are wrestling with. To explain the reason for the hope that we have in Christ (I Peter 3:15) requires us to reflect deeply about our faith and about our biblical, theological, and philosophical understanding of God and Christ that will be helpful to others and even to ourselves.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Through the successful completion of this course a student will be able to:
Understand the core questions, issues, and perspectives within philosophy of religion.
Articulate for oneself and for one’s community Christian responses to philosophically driven questions.
Examine and write on a philosophical topic that engages one’s concern or interest.
COURSE FORMAT:
Class time will be a combination of lecture and discussion. We will also continue our conversation via email or online as needed.