Philosophy of Religion Short summary, perfect for the end-of-year exam x when you don't feel like learning 30+ pages -- this includes important concepts only xx
1. Natural theology = demonstration of existence of God through exercise of reason
2. POR can be regarded as a philosophical reflection on the fact/phenomenon of religion
3. POR attempts to answer questions about religion
4. POR is a second order activity = thinks through meaning and significance of religious
practices and beliefs on meta-level
5. Rowe short def = “POR is the critical examination of basic religious beliefs and concepts
6. Hicks indicates that most significant objection to most definitions for religion is that they
are prescriptive
7. Hicks argues its more realistic to accept the term religion
8. Hicks does admit that there is one characteristic of religion in common with most
religions = Idea of salvation (demonstration of mercy, healing & liberation)
9. Provision definition of religion:
a. Way of life is entered around an encounter
b. Total and all-determining life commitment
c. Man is confronted with the fundamental mystery of his own existence
10. Mysterium tremendum = something we fear and are threatened by a sense of
alienation, something which fills man up with fear in the sense of reverent awe
11. Mysterium fascinans = enthralls and draws on to it, moving one to commitment and
some form of homage/worship
12. Religious interaction with the mystery of existence has to do with redemptive salvation
& ultimate concern
13. mystery of existence is characterised by life attitudes, patterns of behaviour, system of
convictions
14. religion is the recognition that all things are manifestations of a power which transcends
our knowledge
15. POR is the activity in which a conceptual/logical analysis is made of concepts and
statements
16. Hudson’s formulation of what POR does à analytical description & Critical assessment
The cosmological proof for the existence of God
1. Cosmological argument = the attempt to justify belief in the existences of God by using
deductive argument based on our experience of things in the world (a posteriori)
2. A posteriori argument depends on a principle/premise that can be known only by means
of our experience of the world (after experience)
3. A priori argument rests on principles all of which can be known independently of our
experience of the world by just reflecting on and understanding them (before
experience)
4. St Thomas Aquinas argument for the existence of God:
a. The argument from a first mover
b. The argument from a first cause
c. The argument form a necessarily existent being
d. The argument from design
5. Anselm different beings:
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