God and Philosophy

Fall 2009

R. E. Innis

TuTh 10:00-11:15

 

The maker and father of this universe it is a hard task to find, and having found him it would be impossible to declare him to all mankind….If then, Socrates, in many respects concerning many things—the gods and the generation of the universe—we prove unable to render an account at all points entirely consistent with itself and exact, you must not be surprised. If we can furnish accounts no less likely than any other, we must be content, remembering that I who speak and you my judges are only human, and consequently it is fitting that we should in these matters accept the likely story and look for nothing further.

 

Plato, Timaeus

Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott.

‘A God comprehended  is no God.’ (Tersteegen)

 

Required texts:

 

Keith Ward, Concepts of God. One World

Gordon D. Kaufman, In the Beginning … Creativity. Fortress Press

Sharman Apt Russell, Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist. Basic Books

Donald Crosby, A Religion of Nature. SUNY Press

 

This course will examine the status of the concept of God from an historically informed philosophical point of view. It will focus on the many contexts and dimensions of the ‘God problem’ as it has appeared in history. All the language we use to speak about ‘God,’ including the God concept itself, has a history and has been used in many different ways. Taking account of the multiplicity of religious visions, it will ask what philosophical issues are raised by, and are needed to deal with, questions such as the following.

 

 

What do we mean, if anything, when we talk about God?

What are the different principal conceptions of God? What ‘conceptual’ and ‘linguistic’ problems does the problem of God raise?

Why would one ever think—or need to think--that there is such a thing as a god, gods, or God?

How can God be known, if at all?

Can the existence of God be ‘proved’? Does it need to be?

Can God be experienced?

What role or function does God play in human life?

What existential issues is the reality of God meant to resolve?

Is the reality of God in any traditional sense of the term central to a religious way of being in the world?

If such a God does not exist, why should one be religious?

 

The attempts to answer these questions will lead to an examination of alternative traditions of formulating the nature of ultimate reality. We will first study, relying on Keith Ward’s Concepts of God, images and models of the divine in five religious traditions: the Jewish, the Vedantic, the Buddhist, the Islamic, and the Christian, focusing on core philosophical concepts and the language in which they are embodied. Then, we will study the attempted reformulation or reconstruction of the concept of God by identifying God (a) with ‘creativity’ (Gordon Kaufman, In the Beginning … Creativity) or (b) with ‘nature’ itself (Sharman Russell, Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist), or (c) eschewing the notion of God altogether, taking nature itself not as divine but as religiously and metaphysically ultimate, to be understood as a web of process and pattern and source of values (Donald Crosby, A Religion of Nature).

 

We will accordingly in the course of the semester constantly engage the issue of the personal or non-personal nature of ultimate reality and the requisite religious attitudes and whether creativity or nature in its different conceptions can ‘ground’ or be the ‘ultimate’ object of religious concern instead of God.

 

 

 

Course requirements:  a minimum of three blocks of written assignments principally in the form of take-home examination papers and self-directed critical and analytical essays, totalling between 15 and 20 pages in all. Actual dates to be determined. The course format assumes that students are keeping up with the readings in a timely fashion, as indicated. Students are expected to attend the classes and to be prepared to participate in the discussions. Class participation will be taken into consideration when the final grades are calculated. Excessive absences will entail forfeiture of comments on papers and the right to consultation during office hours. The class periods are the primary work space of the course and you should avail yourself of this time. All students must hand me an index card when they have been absent and all students MUST activate and use the university student email server, which will be @student.uml.edu.

 

Office: Olney 102c

Office hours: Tu and Th 2:30–4:30, and by appointment

Tel: 2532

email: Robert_Innis@uml.edu

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT BECAUSE I HAVE TO BE OUT OF THE COUNTRY THERE WILL BE NO CLASS ON THE 22ND AND 24TH OF SEPTEMBER AND THE 24TH OF NOVEMBER. I WILL ANNOUNCE EXTRA OFFICE HOURS AND CONSULTATION PERIODS TO COMPENSATE FOR THESE NECESSARY ABSENCES.