tok 12 - unit 4 - haydock web religion... · tok 12 - unit 4 religious knowledge ... illustration...

ToK 12 - Unit 4Religious Knowledge Systems

Thursday, December 11, 14

I. What is the relationship between reason and religion?

A. Arguments for and against the existence of God

1. The Ontological Argument

2. The Cosmological Argument

3. The Teleological Argument

4. The problem of Evil


I. The Ontological Argument for the existence of God

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Illustration from The Meditations of St. Anselm (12th century)(accessed on 11.4.14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury#mediaviewer/File:12th-century_painters_-_Meditations_of_St_Anselm_-

_WGA15732.jpg


I. The Ontological Argument for the existence of God

Illustration from The Meditations of St. Anselm (12th century)(accessed on 11.4.14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury#mediaviewer/File:12th-century_painters_-_Meditations_of_St_Anselm_-

_WGA15732.jpg

1.Persons have the idea of the greatest possible being

2.Suppose the greatest possible being exists only as an idea in the mind

3.Existence in reality is greater than existence only in the mind

4.Therefore, we can conceive of a being greater than the greatest possible being, that is, a being that exists only in reality

5.But there can be no being greater than the greatest possible beingTherefore: the greatest possible being exists in reality


Other versions of the Ontological Argument

1.God, by definition, has all perfections

2.Necessary existence is a perfection

3.Therefore: God necessarily exists

1.It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists

2.If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world

3.If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world

4.If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world

5.Therefore a maximally great being exists in the actual world

6.Therefore a maximally great being exists

Therefore God existsThursday, December 11, 14

2. The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God

Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274

Illustration from The Meditations of St. Anselm (12th century)(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas



1.The universe exists

2.Everything that exists has a cause

3.Causes Precede their effects

4.The chain of cause and effect cannot go back indefinitely

5.Therefore, there must be a first cause that is itself not en effect

6.Since everything has a cause, the first cause must be cause of itself

7.The self caused first cause is God

Therefore: God exists

Illustration from The Meditations of St. Anselm (12th century)(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas)





al-Ghazali, 1058-1111

(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://www.mesacc.edu/~thoqh49081/handouts/ghazali-interp.html)





1.Everything that begins to exist has a cause

2.The universe began to exist

3.Therefore: The universe has a cause

(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://www.mesacc.edu/~thoqh49081/handouts/ghazali-interp.html)




3. The teleological argument for the existence of God

William Paley, 1743-1805

(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paleyl)

(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://www.iep.utm.edu/paley/)




http://www.iep.utm.edu/paley/


3. The teleological argument for the existence of God

1.Things exist in the natural world that show evidence of design

2.Nature has a designer

3.Therefore: That designer is God

(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paleyl)

(accessed on 11.6.14 at http://www.iep.utm.edu/paley/)






4. The problem of evil

1.By definition,God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent

2.No omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent entity would allow innocents to suffer

3.Innocents suffer

Therefore: There is no God

(Accessed on 11.13.14 at http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_ponygallery&func=detail&id=451&Itemid=17


http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_ponygallery&func=detail&id=451&Itemid=17

http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_ponygallery&func=detail&id=451&Itemid=17

Theodicy - Arguments that seek to use reason to repair the problem of evil

•Ultimate harmony/Big view

•Limits of human knowledge v. God’s superior knowledge

•Punishment/Original sin

•Karma/Balance

•Soul Making

•Contrast

•Natural law

•Test

•Diabolical power!


II. What is Faith?


III. Religious Diversity

How can sense be made from the conflicting knowledge claims made by the world’s religions?


Two approaches to religious Diversity

Exclusivism and Pluralism


Exclusivism

The Argument

1.Religions make incompatible truth claims

2.Two incompatible truth claims cannot both be true

3.Therefore, at least one of the claims must be false


Karl Barth, 1886-1968

Accessed on 12.4.14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth#mediaviewer/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_194-1283-23A,_Wuppertal,_Evangelische_Gesellschaft,_Jahrestagung.jpg

Revelation v. Religion


Criticisms of Exclusivism

1.(Responding to Barth) If all religion is a barrier to knowing God, How can we ever know the truth about God?

2.How do we know which revelation reveals the truth?

3.(Responding to Brunner) If rationality is not a guide to choosing amongst competing revelations, how does the individual choose?


Pluralism

All great religious traditions can successfully facilitate salvation, liberation and self fulfillment - all religions manifest a response to divine reality each in its own unique way.


John Hick, 1922-2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hick#mediaviewer/File:JohnHick.jpg

How can two views of Ultimate reality (the real) that are essentially different both be true?

We must distinguish between:

1. The Real itself (the noumena) and,

2. The Real humanly and culturally perceived and experienced (the phenomena)

Given this distinction, there may be many different ways to perceive (2) what is actually real (1)


John Hick, 1922-1912

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hick#mediaviewer/File:JohnHick.jpg

How does Hick Respond to Barth and the argument for revelation?

Simply - Revelation is not strictly true but truth as a myth.

A myth is not literally true, but something that helps us (through metaphor and the shaping of our attitudes) to understand a greater truth.

For Hick, the key is personal transformation not doctrine.


Criticisms of Pluralism

1. Pluralism leads to relativism

2. Pluralism asserts that we have no clear objective concept of God. Thus it is little different than agnosticism. Without a clear concept of God it is virtually impossible to make claims about his nature or to evaluate the merit of the claims made by others.

3. Pluralism asks believers to deny the truth of (in a big T sense) of some of their most profound beliefs - the Incarnation, That God spoke to Moses, that the Koran is the literal word of God


IV. Religion and Science

To what extent are religion and science in conflict?


Ian Barbour, 1923-2013


Barbour’s four models of interaction1. Conflict - Either science or religion is true.

The other is false.

2. Independence - Both can be true so long as they keep to their separate domains.

3. Dialogue - Religion an science are “partners in conversation” in areas where both claim knowledge.

4. Interaction - The truths of science and religion can be integrated into a more complete whole


V. Religious language

How can we speak meaningfully about God?


Knowledge questions relating to religious language

1. How can finite Human language describe the infinite?

Exodus 20:5 (New International Version)5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me


•Words applied to both God and created thing are equivocal not univocal

•Example - God is wise and Socrates is wise

•Example - My wife is faithful and my dog is faithful

Aquinas and the theory of analogy


•Language must be tied to empirical observation to be meaningful

“A statement is a genuinely factual assertion if, and only if, there could be empirically observable states of affairs that could show it to be true or false.”

•Thus language that makes knowledge claims about God is meaningless (not false)

AJ Ayer and Positivism


• Language about God has cognitive meaning but cannot be literal

• God is “wholly other” - not a being but “the ground of being”

• Since God has no creaturely existence, creaturely language can only describe God in symbolic terms

• Symbolic language opens up levels of reality that can be opened in no other way - Only through symbolic language can ultimate reality be experienced

Paul Tillich and symbolic language



2. Is religious language sexist

Matthew 4:25

"Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." -- NIV 1984

"Those who have will be given more; as for those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them." - NIV 2005

"Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." - NIV 2011



2. Does religious language perpetuate cultural biases?

I Timothy 2:9-14 (KJV) In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.


tok 12 - unit 4 - haydock web religion... · tok 12 - unit 4 religious knowledge ... illustration...

Documents