These notes helped me to achieve an A* and summarises the following:
- what religious belief is
- the enlightenment
- Freud and Marx (psychology and sociology)
- Darwkin's (science)
- postmodernism
-criticisms and strengths
Works of Scholars
Essay Link for 30 marker: Christianity, Secularisation: an increase
in secular ideas has caused us to change our ideas surrounding
religion/ beliefs
What is religious belief?
Religious belief refers to attitudes towards mythological, supernatural, or spiritual
aspects of a religion. It is distinct from religious practice or behaviours.
What are the different positions on religious belief?
Theism claims that God exists
Atheism denies the existence of God
Agnosticism withholds judgment and argues that it is not possible to know if God
exists or not
What did Merold Westphal say?
In a 1997 article, titled ‘The emergence of modern philosophy of religion’, he
explains how critiques of religious beliefs have developed and changed over time,
with a focus on the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment refers to a historical period and an intellectual movement of
the late 17th and 18th centuries which emphasised reason, scientific method and
individualism, over religion and tradition.
Westphal argued that there was a shift from theology to philosophy of religion after
the Enlightenment (something the German philosopher “ Hegel laments)
He believed philosophers were no longer focusing on understanding God and
instead were focusing on understanding religion and religious belief.
Before the Enlightenment, philosophers believed that reason and faith could work
together to gain an understanding of God (scholasticism). Aquinas and Anselm both
argued this.
The Enlightenment gave rise to deism (the view that God can be understood
through reason and logic). Deists therefore reject revelation and see it as irrational
and redundant because God is transcendent, not immanent.
Works of Scholars 1
, Deists make a distinction between ‘kernel’ (God) and ‘husk’ (revelation). Kernel is
what actually matters and husk is removable and unnecessary.
Philosophers of the Enlightenment were also distrustful of religion due to religious
wars between Catholics and Protestants.
Deists believe overcoming revelation could lead to a rise of a universal religion
grounded in reason which would foster moral unity and tolerance.
What are the views of Hume and Kant?
Both focus on the role of reason in understanding God, but argue in different ways
why God can’t be known.
-For both, God can’t be known a priori. Hume says they can’t describe anything
about the physical world and Kant says existence is not a predicate and you can’t
define anything into existence. (Descartes would disagree: I think therefore I am)
-Hume also shows that arguing from appearance of design to an intelligent designer
is a false inference.
Their arguments show that God is unknowable through reason. Since
philosophers recognise this, they have shifted their focus from understanding God
to understanding religion and religious belief.
What are the views of Friedrich Schleiermacher?
Attempted to reconcile the criticisms of the enlightenment with religion
Rejects Kant and deists on their views
Says the focus or kernel is religious experience, feelings and emotions
Religion is a personal and subjective practice so God can’t be known through
reason
He puts religious experience at the heart of religious belief
Who was Schleiermacher inspired by?
Spinoza who argued that God and nature are of the same substance
Schleiermacher agrees because the fact God can be seen and found in all of the
universe, allows us to have a personal relationship with him
What is Hegel’s argument?
Works of Scholars 2
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