Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Religion tests arguments about God, faith, reason and religious language. You must state premises and criticisms fairly, including Indian and Western debates.
Core topics
- Theism, atheism, agnosticism; deism; pantheism.
- Proofs: ontological (Anselm, Descartes), cosmological (Aquinas, kalam), teleological (Paley, fine-tuning), moral. Nyaya arguments infer a creator from order and causation; Purva Mimamsa resists a creator.
- Critiques: Kant-existence is not a predicate; Hume-induction and evil; problem of evil and free-will defence.
- Faith and reason: fideism, natural theology, evidentialism.
- Religious language: univocal, equivocal, analogical; verification and falsification challenges; Wittgensteinian language-games.
Worked example
Cosmological argument: everything that begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist; therefore the universe has a cause. Reasoning: the conclusion follows only if both premises are accepted. Criticisms target the causal principle, the sense of ‘began,’ and whether the cause must be personal. The argument establishes at most a cause, not a fully specified God.
Traps
Do not conflate ontological and cosmological proofs. Do not say the problem of evil disproves God without addressing defences. Do not treat ‘faith’ as blind belief in every tradition. Do not assume analogical language is univocal.