Philosophy of Religion

By: James Hall, The Great Courses

Narrated by: James Hall

Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

These 36 intellectually challenging yet remarkably clear lectures take you on an intellectual journey to explore the questions of divine existence, not from the standpoint of theology, but as an issue of epistemology, the classic branch of philosophy that concerns itself with knowledge theory: how we can know things and how we can know we know them.

If you enjoy wrapping your mind around questions for which every potential answer triggers a new set of questions and issues, you will find this course particularly enjoyable, regardless of whether you define yourself as a believer, an atheist, or an agnostic. Professor Hall lays out many of the fundamental questions and issues related to the philosophy of religion: What do we mean by "God"? Consider the many characteristics of a monotheistic deity - including omnipotence, omniscience, omniperfection, and asceity.

Can we know if there is a God? Examine the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for the existence of God and the problem of evil. Weigh the arguments and counterarguments for whether the existence of evil - sometimes natural and sometimes human - is compatible with the existence of a god.

You won't be surprised to discover that the issue of divine existence remains undecided after the arguments for and against have been put on the table and analyzed. This provocative course will hold the attention of believers, skeptics, and agnostics alike. While your mind may not be changed, it will definitely be put to work.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2003 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2003 The Great Courses

An inquiry about the inquiry of religion

I always get particularly irritated by people who belittle philosophy. It’s as if they really don’t want to get at the truth or the understanding. I’ve seen scientist such as Lawrence Krauss ask what good are philosophers? And politicians such as Marco Rubio finding it is incredible that a philosopher can make more money than a welder, as if salary is the standard for worth. But, if you really want to understand a subject let a philosopher explain it to you. (And it seems to me, that both Krauss with his sexual accusations against him and Rubio with his inability to think his way out of NRA funding, both of those thinkers need the help of a philosopher!).

I’ll tell you why I think philosophers add value. They know that real understanding comes about through the second order (or ‘meta’) understanding. That is the understanding about the understanding, or as Professor Hall will say ‘the inquiry about the inquiry’ and the analysis of the ‘ideas and concepts that go into the making’ of the subject under consideration.

The Professor wants to consider a religion with a God (not all religions have a ‘God’) and he defines it as something ‘deserving of being worshiped’ with some transcendental characteristics. He’ll illustrate the ‘equivocation trap’ that we so often fall into when we use words like ‘transcendental’. First, he’ll illustrate the danger of equivocation by giving a hilarious comic vignette about ‘Lola’ and ‘Brute’ going on a date after Lola has been warned to be ‘good’ and when asked after the date she’ll say ‘yes I was good, and Brute will say I was very good’. Second, he’ll show how ‘transcendent’ takes on multiple meanings such as we can ‘transcend’ ourselves to be like Charles Atlas, or we can subscribe to the National Geographic and transcend our local world, or the final sense of the word to be ‘something that is outside of space and time or beyond normal human experience’ a characteristic we often attribute to a God.

The Professor looks at traditional proofs of proving the existence of God: the Ontological, the Cosmological and the Teleological. The first is ‘a priori’ (without experience and with reason alone), the last two are ‘a posterior’ (from experience). The God the Professor is most interested in is an ‘ethical monotheistic’ God. He’ll show what each proof entails, but also show the counter-arguments to each approach. He’ll conclude for each proof that even if one were to grant the assertion the proof doesn’t necessarily lead to an ‘ethical monotheist’ God. The argument of Theodicy (‘why is there evil’) can actually just as easily apply equally to a non-benevolent being of some kind. Leibniz (who is frequently mentioned in this lecture) is unmercifully mocked by Voltaire in ‘Candide’ for his ‘best of all possible world’ explanation for evil.

You ever wonder why some cretins claim that some city was punished by God such as New Orleans with Katrina because they allowed Gays to exist and enjoy life? I have. If one buys into their world view of the teleological and accept a principal of sufficient reason and project their hate on to the world of others as those cretins do, and ignore the Euthyphro paradox on morality, one can conclude such nonsense. This lecture will show how those hateful connections can be made by hateful cretins but yet make sense when their premises are accepted.

Descartes showed (according to this lecture) that the formal structure used in going from defining a triangle by three points in a plane means that triangles must have three angles totaling 180 degrees is equivalent to St. Anslem’s Ontological proof because the ‘form’ can be shown to be the same therefore the conclusion must be valid for both if either is shown to be true. Obviously, today we realize that space is not always Euclidian and non-Euclidian space exists within Einstein’s General Theory and also near a black hole, and that a conclusion is always dependent on its premises for its validity.

There’s this really healthy amount of philosophy of science within these lectures. Wittgenstein and Kuhn and why they matter for understanding the world, and both are often quoted, and the logical positivist are shown to be not relevant. The constructs we create limit our world view. There was a marvelous example of St. Teresa having thought she had seen Holiness and knew it was blue. Her only concern was if it could have been from the devil instead. The only constructs she was capable of making where from her own Christian World View, never even considering it could have been Ahura Mazda or Ganesh or 10000 other possibilities, because after all she was not willing question her faith based beliefs or to deny her experience of what she thought she had seen. The mind can only construct from the tools that the mind has within it. It never ceases to amaze me, the number of people who I’ve met who have had beliefs derived from an emotional experience and will always put it into a construct based on their family of beliefs based on their faith never quite realizing that there could be equally as valid other explanations from the pantheon of Gods or even possibly based on their own mental desires or whims, or they could be better explained by extra-terrestrial aliens or identical twins playing tricks or a thousand other possible explanations which would most surely be more probable than attributing the phenomenon to a supernatural demon or saint of some kind.

I really enjoyed these lectures. The Professor says he is no longer a believer who can sign on to the dotted line, but still participates in religion and loves providing a fair inquiry about the inquiry of the ideas and concepts that make up religion.

Philosophy done as it should be done

In fairness and full disclosure, I'm not actually done listening to this course yet. That being said, I am blown away by how well the professor handles the material. Having earned my undergraduate degree in philosophy, I have come across a fair amount of ivory tower grandiosity and self importance. This has always bugged me because philosophy is the very stuff of human life, but so many are turned off by unnecessary obfuscation and overinflated egos. This professor is clear, down to earth, good humored, and very approachable. He talks like he's sitting with you in a coffee shop rather than lecturing from the podium. This is how philosophy should be taught.

A Feast, but...

I really enjoyed listening to Professor Hall, and found his open-mindedness to be refreshing. If he hadn't disclosed the fact that he's an episcopalian at the start, I would almost have described his as agnostic about the existence of God, but he did. He's a self-described Christian agnostic.

I found his dissection of the standard arguments for theism objective enough, and he admits that none of them are conclusive regarding the existence of one deserving of worship. The latter half though was more interesting as it delved into the usage of storytelling and the characteristics of cultural and scientific paradigms.

Long and convoluted.

Professor Hall has a nack for taking relatively straightforward Concepts deconstructing them and making them incomprehensible.

A Study on the Philosophy of Religion

This is a unique piece of work: A work that analyses religion on its own terms, using philosophy to explain the strengths and weaknesses of each general argument without trying to spoon feed you what to accept and what to reject. Listen, think and make your own conclusion.

Excellent and fair intro

James was perfect for this lecture. His position as an agnostic gives him the ability to be truly fair to both theists and atheists in this book. Very well done.

Best Course I've taken.

Great lecture... Professor James Hall was a treat to listen to. Very thought provoking. I highly recommend this.

Excellent

The professor was engaging in all his discussions and his explanations for certain philosophical principals regarding the e is hence of God.

Exceptional

Professor Hall' has created a series that gently and steadily equips the student to critically assess not only arguments in favour or against the existence of God, but also to challenge their own personal faith with the tools of philosophical analysis. He shows how faith is a choice one can make rationally.

Fell somewhat short of expectations (ups and downs

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Pluses:
• Lecture 4 & 5’s descriptions of how different religious contexts define “God” (Dynamism, Animism, Polytheism, Pantheism, Henotheism, Deism, Dualism/Bitheism, Monotheism, and Ethical monotheism) and how some individuals (some Buddhists, many agnostics, and all atheists) reject worship at all
• Discussions on the various theodicies on the problem of evil were very thought-provoking and the highlight of the course


Minuses:
• The introductory lectures could have been shrunk: Nine lectures on introducing terms seemed to be overkill (especially those on defining knowledge and evidence)
• The definition of the Ontological Argument was not explained clearly
• While explaining concepts (the arguments against the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments are examples) the Professor seemed to spend too much time on odd examples/stories and wandering somewhat off topic instead of hammering home the succinct main points of the argument and the relevance of the arguments
Too much time seemed to be spent on paradigms and language games; Perhaps I missed the point as to how important or relevant they are to this course discussion but seemed like they should have been discussed in passing or in much less time (the most interesting topic they spurn: religion involving hidden interests---think Freud and Marx---wasn’t explored in depth enough)