Introduction

Philosophy of Religion is the branch of philosophy that is

concerned with the philosophical study of religion, including
arguments over the nature and existence of God,
religious language, miracles, prayer, the problem of
evil, and the relationship between religion and other value-
systems such as science and ethics. It is often regarded as a
part of Metaphysics, especially insofar as it is interested in
understanding what it is for something to exist, although
arguably it also touches on issues commonly dealt with
in Epistemology, Ethics, Logic and the Philosophy of
Language.
It asks such questions as "Are there sound reasons to think
that God does (or does not) exist?", "If there is a God, then
what is he like?", "What, if anything, would give us good
reason to believe that a miracle has occurred?", "What is the
relationship between faith and reason?", "Does petitionary
prayer make sense?"
It does not ask "What is God?", as that would assume the
existence of God, and that God has a knowable nature, which
is more the territory of theology (which usually considers the
existence of God as axiomatic, or self-evident, and merely
seeks to justify or support religious claims).

Forms of Religious Belief

The main forms of religious belief are:
 Theism:
The belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities,
 which exist within the universe and yet transcend it. These gods
also in some way interact with the universe (unlike Deism), and
are often considered to
be omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. The word
"theism" was first coined in the 17th Century to contrast
with Atheism. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism,
Baha'i and Zoroastrianism are all theistic religions.
 Monotheism:
The view that only one God exists. The Abrahamic faiths
(Judaism, Christianity and Islam), as well as Plato's concept of
God, all affirm monotheism, and this is the usual conception
debated within Western Philosophy. Jews, Christians and Muslims
would probably all agree that God is an eternally existent
being that exists apart from space and time, who is the creator of
the universe, and is omnipotent (all-
powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), omnibenevolent (all-good
or all-loving) and possibly omnipresent (all-present). The
religions, however, differ in the details: Christians, for example,
would further affirm that there are three aspects to God
(the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit).
o Exclusive Monotheism: The belief that there is only one deity, and
that all other claimed deities are distinct from it and false.
The Abrahamic religions, and the Hindu denomination
of Vaishnavism (which regards the worship of anyone other than Vishnu
as incorrect) are examples of Exclusive Monotheism.
o Inclusive monotheism: The belief that there is only one deity, and that
all other claimed deities are just different names for it.
The Hindu denomination of Smartism is an example of Inclusive
Monotheism.
o Substance Monotheism: The belief (found in some indigenous African
religions) that the many gods are just different forms of a single
underlying substance.
 Pantheism:
The belief that God is equivalent to Nature or the physical
universe, or that everything is of an all-
encompassing immanent abstract God. The concept has been
discussed as far back as the time of the philosophers of Ancient
Greece, including Thales, Parmenides and Heraclitus. Baruch
Spinoza also believed in a kind of naturalistic pantheism in
which the universe, although unconscious and non-sentient as
a whole, is a meaningful focus for mystical fulfillment.
 Panentheism:
The belief (also known as Monistic Monotheism), similar
to Pantheism, that the physical universe is joined to God, but
stressing that God is greater than (rather than equivalent to) the
universe. Thus, the one God interpenetrates every part of nature,
and timelessly extends beyond as well. The universe is part of
God, but not all of God. The word (which can be translated as "all
in God") was coined by the German philosopher Karl Christian
Friedrich Krause (1781–1832) in 1828 in an attempt to
reconcile Monotheism and Pantheism.
 Deism:
A form of monotheism in which it is believed that one God exists,
but that this God does not intervene in the world, or interfere
with human life and the laws of the universe. It posits a non-
interventionist creator who permits the universe to run itself
according to natural laws. Deism derives the existence and nature
of God from reason and personal experience, rather than
relying on revelation in sacred scriptures or the testimony of
others, and can maybe best be described as a basic belief rather
than as a religion in itself. The roots of Deism lie
with Heraclitus and Plato, but it was also popular with the natural
theologists of 17th Century France and, particularly, Britain, who
rejected any special or supposedly supernatural revelation of
God.
o Pandeism: The belief that God preceded the universe and created it,
but is now equivalent to it - a composite of Deism and Pantheism.
o Panendeism is a composite of Deism and Panentheism. It holds that,
while the universe is part of God, it operates according to natural
mechanisms without the need for the intervention of a traditional God,
somewhat similar to the Native American concept of the all-
pervading Great Spirit.
o Polydeism: The belief that multiple gods exist, but do not
intervene with the universe - a composite of Deism and Polytheism.
 Misotheism:
The belief that a God or gods exist, but that they are actually evil.
The English word was coined by Thomas de Quincey in 1846.
Strictly speaking, the term connotes an attitude of
hatred towards the god or gods, rather than making a statement
about their nature.
 Dystheism:
The belief that a God or gods exist, but that they are not wholly
good, or possibly even evil (as opposed to eutheism, the belief
that God exists and is wholly good). Trickster gods found in
polytheistic belief systems often have a dystheistic nature, and there
are various examples of arguable dystheism in the Bible.
 Ditheism (or Duotheism):
The belief in two equally powerful gods, often, but not always,
with complementary properties and in constant opposition,
such as God and Goddess in Wicca, or Good and Evil
in Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. The early mystical
religion Gnosticism is another example of a ditheistic belief of
sorts, due to their claim that the thing worshipped as God in this
world is actually an evil impostor, but that a
true benevolent deity worthy of being called "God"
exists beyond this world.
 Polytheism:
The belief in, or worship of, multiple gods (usually assembled in
a pantheon). These gods are often seen as similar to humans
(anthropomorphic) in their personality traits, but
with additional individual powers, abilities, knowledge or
perceptions. Hard Polytheism views the gods as
being distinct and separate beings, such as in Ancient Greek
Mythology. Soft Polytheism views the gods as being subsumed
into a greater whole, as in most forms of Hinduism.
o Henotheism: The devotion to a single god while accepting
the existence of other gods, and without denying that others can with
equal truth worship different gods. It has been called "monotheism in
principle and polytheism in fact".
o Monolatrism (or Monolatry): The belief in the existence of many
gods, but with the consistent worship of only one deity. Unlike
Henotheism, Monolatrism asserts that there is only one god who
is worthy of worship, though other gods are known to exist.
o Kathenotheism: The belief that there is more than one deity, but
only one deity at a time should be worshipped, each being supreme in
turn.
 Animism:
The belief that souls inhabit all or most objects (whether they be
animals, vegetables or minerals). Animistic religions generally do
not accept a sharp distinction between spirit and matter, and
assume that this unification of matter and spirit plays a role
 in daily life. Early Shintoism was animistic in nature, as are
many indigenous African religions. Shamanism (communication
with the spirit world) and Ancestor Worship (worship of
deceased family members, who are believed to have a continued
existence and influence) are similar categories.
 Atheism (or Nontheism):
The belief that gods do not exist, or a complete rejection
of Theism in any form. Some atheists argue a lack of empirical
evidence for the existence of deities, while others argue
for Atheism on philosophical, social or historical grounds. Many
atheists tend toward secular philosophies such
as Humanism and Naturalism. Atheism may be implicit (someone
who has never thought about belief in gods) or explicit (someone
who has made an assertion, either weak or strong, regarding their
lack of belief in gods). Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism and
some varieties of Buddhism, either do not include belief in
a personal god as a tenet of the religion, or actively teach
nontheism.
 Agnosticism:
The belief that the nature and existence of gods is unknown and
cannot ever be known or proven. Technically, this position
is strong agnosticism: in popular usage, an agnostic may just be
someone who takes no position, pro or con, on the existence of
gods, or who has not yet been able to decide, or who suspends
judgment due to lack of evidence one way or the other (weak
agnosticism). The earliest professed agnostic was Protagoras,
although the term itself, which literally means "without knowledge",
was not coined until the 1880s by T. H. Huxley (1825 - 1895).
 Humanism:
Humanism is more an ethical process, not a dogma about the
existence or otherwise of gods. But in general terms, it rejects the
validity of transcendental justifications, such as a dependence
on belief without reason, the supernatural, or texts of
allegedly divine origin. It is therefore
generally compatible with Atheism and Agnosticism, but does
not require these, and can be compatible with some religions.
To some extent, it supplements or supplants the role of
religions, and can be considered in some ways as "equivalent" to a
religion.
Arguments for the Existence of God
 The Ontological Argument:
 The Ontological Argument, initially proposed by St.
Anselm and Avicenna in the 11th Century, attempts to prove the
existence of God through a priori abstract reasoning alone. It
argues that part of what we mean when we speak of “God” is
“perfect being”, or one of whom nothing greater can be
conceived, and that is essentially what the word “God” means. A
God that exists, of course, is better than a God that doesn’t, so to
speak of God as a perfect being is therefore necessary to imply
that he exists. So God’s existence is implied by the
very concept of God, and when we speak of “God” we
cannot but speak of a being that exists. By this argument, to say
that God does not exist is a contradiction in terms.
 The argument is certainly ingenious, but has the appearance of a
linguistic trick. The same ontological argument could be used to
prove the existence of any perfect thing at all (for
example, Anselm's contemporary, the monk Gaunilo, used it to
show that a perfect island must exist). Immanuel Kant argued
against the ontological argument on the grounds that existence is
not a property of objects but a property of concepts, and that,
whatever ideas may participate in a given concept, it is a further
question whether that concept is instantiated.
 The Cosmological Argument:
The Cosmological Argument is the argument that the existence of
the world or universe implies the existence of a being
that brought it into existence (and keeps it in existence). In
essence, the argument is that everything that moves is moved by
something else; an infinite regress (that is, going back through a
chain of movers forever) is impossible; and therefore there must
exist a first mover (i.e. God). It comes in two
forms, modal (having to do with possibility),
and temporal (having to do with time):
o The Modal Cosmological Argument:
o This argument, also known as the Argument from Contingency,
suggests that because the universe might not have existed (i.e. it
is contingent, as opposed to necessary), we then need some explanation
of why it does exist. Wherever there are two
 possibilities, something must determine which of those possibilities is
realized. Therefore, as the universe is contingent, there must be
some reason for its existence, i.e. it must have a cause. In fact, the only
kind of being whose existence requires no explanation is a necessary
being, a being that could not have failed to exist. The ultimate cause of
everything must therefore be a necessary being, such as God.
o Critics of the argument from contingency have sometimes questioned
whether the universe is in fact contingent, and why God should be
considered a necessary being (simply asking "Does God have a cause of
his existence?” raises as many problems as the cosmological argument
solves). Also, even if God is thought not to have, or not to need, a cause of
his existence, then his existence would be a counter-example to the
initial premise that everything that exists has a cause of its existence).
o The Temporal Cosmological Argument:
o This argument, also known as the Kalam Argument for the medieval
Muslim school of philosophy of al-Kindi (801 - 873) and al-
Ghazali (1058 - 1111) which first proposed it, argues that all indications
are that there is a point in time at which the universe began to exist, (a
universe stretching back in time into infinity being both philosophically
and scientifically problematic), and that this beginning must either have
been caused or uncaused. The idea of an uncaused event is absurd,
because nothing comes from nothing. The universe must therefore
have been brought into existence by something outside it, which can be
called "God".
o The argument rests on the somewhat controversial claim that the
universe has a beginning in time, but also does not explain why there
could not be more than one first cause/mover, or why the chain could
not lead back to several ultimate causes, each somehow outside the
universe (potentially leading to several different Gods).
 The Teleological Argument:
 The Teleological Argument (also known as the Argument from
Design or Intelligent Design) suggests that the order in the
world implies a being that created it with a specific purpose (the
creation of life) in mind. The universe is an astoundingly complex
but highly ordered system, and the world is fine-tuned to
provide exactly the right conditions for the development and
sustenance of life. To say that the universe is so ordered by
chance is therefore unsatisfactory as an explanation of
the appearance of design around us. St Thomas Aquinas was
the most famous subscriber to this argument, but the most
cited statement of the argument is that of William Paley (1743 -
1805), who likened the universe to a watch, with many ordered
parts working in harmony to further some purpose.
 Evolutionary theory, however, can explain the appearance
of biological design, even if not the laws of nature. David
Hume counter-argued that we know that man-made structures
were designed because we have seen them being built, but how can
we be sure that the analogy holds? He also pointed out
that certain events in the world (e.g. natural disasters) suggest
that God didn't do a very good job of designing the universe, which
belies the concept of a perfect being. Others, who reject the
argument in its entirety, dispute whether the order and
complexity in the universe does in fact constitute design. The
mere fact that it something is enormously improbable does
not by itself give us reason to conclude that it occurred by design.
Also, the idea that our universe is but one material universe in
a "multiverse" in which all possible material universes are
ultimately realized, suggests that there is nothing
particularly suspicious about the fact that at least one of
them is a fine-tuned universe.
 The Moral Argument:
The Moral Argument argues that the existence or nature
of morality implies the existence of God. Three forms of moral
argument are distinguished, formal, perfectionist and Kantian:
o The Formal Moral Argument:
o This argument suggests that the form of morality implies that it has
a divine origin. If morality consists of an ultimately authoritative set
of commands, where can these commands have come from but
a commander that has ultimate authority (namely God)?
o It begs the question, however, as to whether morality is in fact ultimately
authoritative, and whether morals actually exist or have
meaning independently of us or whether there are alternative
explanations for the existence of morals.
o The Perfectionist Moral Argument:
o This argument suggests that morality requires perfection of us, but we
are not in fact perfect. However, although we cannot achieve moral
perfection by our own strength, we can do so with God’s help, which
implies the existence of God. The gap between our moral duties and what
we are capable of doing therefore implies the existence of a God, as the
only way to resolve this paradox.
o Immanuel Kant, however, argues that “ought” implies “can”, so that if
we have an obligation to do a thing then it logically follows that we
are able to do it, and morality cannot require of us more than we are able
to give. Or it can also be argued that morality is just a guide and does not
actually require perfection of us, and that it is in fact acceptable to fall
short of the moral standard.
 o The Kantian Moral Argument:
o This argument, proposed by Immanuel Kant, presupposes that moral
behavior is rational and that we should have good reason to behave
morally. Looking around the world, though, we see that in many
cases immoral behavior does profit more than moral behavior, and
that life is not fair. Kant therefore argued that moral behavior
will only be rational is there is more than just this life, if justice is
administered in the next life.
o However, this does not fully answer why should it have to be God in
particular that brings about the higher good, nor why something should
necessarily have to be, just because we decide it both ought and can.
 The Religious Experience Argument:
 The Religious Experience Argument posits that one can
only perceive that which exists, and so God must exist because
there are those that have experienced him. The fact that there are
many people who testify to having had such experiences
constitutes at least indirect evidence of God’s existence, even to
those who have not had such experiences themselves.
 Some, though, argue that religious experiences
involve imagination rather than perception, and there is always
the possibility of fabricating artificial experiences of God, or that
the experiences are not religious but merely interpreted that
way by religious people. Also, adherents of all
religions (mutually inconsistent and conflicting) claim to have
had experiences that validate those religions, and if not all of these
appeals are valid then none can be. In addition, why do we
not all have religious experiences? Yet another counter-argument is
the skeptical idea that all experiences (including religious
experiences) are subjective, and no matter how one
person perceives the world to be, there are any number of ways
that it could be. Barely tangible religious experiences are by their
nature even more uncertain than our familiar and lucid
experiences of the external world, which are themselves unreliable.
 The Miracles Argument:
 The Argument from Miracles argues that the occurrence of
miracles (which involve the suspension of the natural operation of
the universe as some supernatural event occurs), presupposes the
existence of some supernatural being. If the Bible is to be
believed, then, such miracles demonstrate both the existence of God
and the truth of Christianity.
  However, the essential implicit assumption in this argument is
"if the Bible is to be believed", which is by no means a given. In
addition, according to David Hume, no matter how strong the
evidence for a specific miracle may be, it will always be more
rational to reject the miracle than to believe in it (given that there
are two factors to assess in deciding whether to believe any given
piece of testimony: the reliability of the witness, and
the probability of that to which they testify).
 Pascal’s Wager:
 Blaise Pascal argued for belief in God based not on an appeal
to evidence that God exists, but rather that it is in our
interests to believe in God and it is therefore rational for us to do
so: If we believe in God, then if he exists we will receive an infinite
reward in heaven, while if he does not then we have lost little or
nothing. Conversely, if we do not believe in God, then if he
exists we will receive an infinite punishment in hell, while if he
does not then we will have gained little or nothing. "Either
receiving an infinite reward in heaven or losing little or nothing" is
clearly preferable to "either receiving an infinite punishment in
hell or gaining little or nothing", so it is rational to believe in God,
even if there is no evidence that he exists.
 However, this only works if the only possible criterion for
entrance into heaven is belief in the Christian God and the only
possible criterion for entrance into hell is disbelief in the
Christian God. Also, if one argues that the probability that God
exists (and therefore of either receiving an infinite reward in heaven
or of receiving an infinite punishment in hell) is so small that
these possible outcomes of belief or disbelief can be discounted,
then Atheism is the rational course of action as it is better to gain
little or nothing than it is to lose little or nothing. Thirdly, Pascal’s
Wager asks us to believe without reason, whereas in practice
one requires evidence for the truth of a belief.

The Problem of Evil

The Problem of Evil has been stated in different ways:
  The Logical Problem of Evil, considered by many to be one of
the most formidable objections to the existence of God, was first
identified in antiquity by Epicurus when he noted that there
were four possibilities:
1) If God wishes to take away evils and is not able to, then he is
feeble.
2) If God is able to take away evils but does not wish to, then he is
malevolent.
3) If God neither wishes to nor is able to take away evils, then
he is both malevolent and feeble and therefore not God at all.
4) If God wishes to take away evils and is able to, then why are
there evils in the world, and why does he not remove them?
In response, St. Thomas Aquinas argued that it is not necessarily
clear that the world would be more perfect in the absence of
evil, and that worthy concepts such as justice, kindness, fairness
and self-sacrifice would be meaningless if there were no evil to set
against them. The so-called Unknown Purpose Defence argues
that human limitations might not permit us to guess
the motivations of God, especially if, as some argue, He cannot be
known directly.
 The Empirical Problem of Evil, initially formulated by David
Hume, argues that if people did not have a prior commitment to
believe the contrary (i. e. religious convictions),
their experience of the world and its evils would lead them
to Atheism and the conclusion that a God who is good and all-
powerful cannot exist. A counter-argument to this might be that
the apparent senselessness of some evil might in itself force a
person to seek an explanation for it, which might be God.
 The Probabilistic Argument from Evil argues that the very
existence of evil is evidence that no God exists, although Alvin
Plantinga notes that the meaning of this claim depends on
the probabilistic theory we hold to.

Theodicy is the specific branch of theology and philosophy

that attempts to reconcile the existence
of evil or suffering in the world with the belief in
an omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent God.
Therefore it accepts that evil exists and that God is both good
and able to remove evil, and then seeks to explain why he
does not do so. One of the most famous formulations is that
of Gottfried Leibniz in 1710, who made the optimistic claim
that our world is optimal among all possible worlds, and
that it must be the best possible and most balanced world,
simply because it was created by a perfect God.
An example of this is the free-will defense, according to
which it was not possible for God to create a world with good
but no evil because his purpose for the universe required
humans to have free will, and that good could not exist
without freedom to choose evil (similar to Aquinas's
argument above), although it can also be argued that there still
seems to be a disproportionate amount of evil in the world.
Another example is the question of why He allows
the suffering of animals (for whom free will is assumed not
to apply). Some defenses suggest that the purpose of such
suffering may be unknown, or that most of the suffering
occurs when we remove animals from their natural
surroundings, or just that we are given the free will to try
to do something about it.
Recurring defenses in theodicy include: that what people
consider evil or suffering is an illusion or unimportant;
that events thought to be evil are not really so; that what we
see as evil is really part of a divine design that is actually
good, but our limitations prevent us from seeing the big
picture; that God, if he exists, is so far superior to man that
he cannot be judged by man, and that to even try is mere
arrogance; that evil is the consequence of God giving
people free will; that evil and suffering are intended as a test
for humanity, to see if we are worthy of His grace; that evil is
the consequence of people not observing God's revealed will,
and not actually caused by God; that evil is propagated by
the Devil in opposition to God; that God is a righteous
judge and, if someone suffers, it is because they have
committed a sin that merits such punishment; that neither
good nor evil could exist without both existing
simultaneously.