Relatively few philosophers specialize in the philosophy of religion, but many teach an introductory problems course in which one usual topic is the existence of God. The routine approach is to present and assess the three traditional arguments for the existence of God. Then the focus shifts to the problem of evil, after which the unit on God’s existence ends.
This approach often takes place within a set of misleading assumptions that may be shared by students and faculty. One of these assumptions is that if God’s existence were disproved, then religious commitment would have been shown to be unreasonable. Various religions, however, reject the notion of a supernatural God. These include Jainism, Theravada Buddhism, Mimamsa and Samkhya Hinduism, Reconstructionist and Humanistic Judaism, as well as “death of God” versions of Christianity. Students should be made aware, therefore, that a reasonable person might be religious without believing in a supernatural God.
They should also be made aware that theism does not imply religious commitment. After all, even if someone believes that one or more of the proofs for God’s existence are sound, the question remains whether to join a religion and, if so, which one. The proofs contain not a clue as to which religion, if any, is favored by God. Indeed, God may oppose all religious activity. Perhaps God does not wish to be prayed to, worshipped, or adored, and might even reward those who shun such activities.
Yet another misleading assumption is implicit in the definitions students are offered: a theist believes in God, an atheist disbelieves in God, and an agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in God. Notice that the only hypothesis being considered is the existence of God as traditionally conceived; no other supernatural alternatives are taken seriously. But why not?
Suppose, for example, the world is the scene of a struggle between God and the Demon. Both are powerful, but neither is omnipotent. When events go well, God’s benevolence is ascendant; when events go badly, the Demon’s malevolence is ascendant. This doctrine, historically associated with Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, has a significant advantage over theism. After all, theism faces the problem of evil, while dualistic hypotheses have no difficulty accounting for both good and evil.
In sum, I would suggest that students should be reminded of the following four essential points: (1) belief in the existence of God is not a necessary condition for religious commitment; (2) belief in the existence of God is not a sufficient condition for religious commitment; (3) the existence of God is not the only supernatural hypothesis worth serious discussion; and (4) a successful defense of traditional theism requires not only that it be more plausible than atheism or agnosticism but that it be more plausible than all other supernatural alternatives. I am not suggesting, of course, that the proofs for the existence of God or the problem of evil not be taught. I am urging, however, that students be alerted to the limited implications of that discussion.
Let me add a note about readings for a semester-long course in philosophy of religion. One option is a historically oriented approach including Plato’s Euthyphro, Anselm’s Proslogion, Aquinas’s Five Proofs, Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and James’s The Will to Believe. All these works can be found complete along with contemporary commentary on them in my Ten Essential Texts in the Philosophy of Religion: Classics and Contemporary Issues (Oxford University Press).
A second option is to balance historical work with contemporary approaches, including recent explorations of intriguing topics such as forgiveness, love, ritual, prayer, worship, and gender. These are all found in my Exploring Philosophy of Religion, An Introductory Anthology, Second Edition (Oxford University Press).
A third approach includes materials from the world’s different religious traditions, including not only Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but also Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Zen Buddhism. An anthology containing all these perspectives is my Reason and Religions: Philosophy Looks at the World’s Religious Beliefs (Wadsworth/Cengage Learning).
Finally, for a lower-division philosophy of religion course, you can follow a suggestion offered by the late William J. Wainwright and pair two, short accessible recent works, one defending traditional theism and another opposing it. I would suggest Richard Swinburne’s Is There a God? (Oxford University Press) and my new book Religion Within Reason, Second Edition (Wipf and Stock Publishers).
Whatever your choice, here is one academic subject in which motivating students is no problem. The topics matter much to many.
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