Part VIII: Philosophy of Religion

Chapter 24

Study questions for Is Belief that God Exists Reasonable?

  1. Can any version of the Ontological Argument be defended?
  2. Why is there anything at all?
  3. Is the fine-tuning of the universe evidence of God?
  4. What facts, could they be established, would count as evidence, either for or against the existence of God?
  5. Is there any solution to the Problem of Evil?

Multiple Choice Questions

Weblinks for Is belief that God exists reasonable?

Debate between William Lace Craig and Peter Millican, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/craig-vs-millican-university-of-birmingham. [A good debate on the question ‘Does God Exist?’]

Mawson, T. Eight Lectures on Philosophy of Religion, http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/philosophy-religion. [My current view, arguing that the fine-tuning version of the Design Argument makes it as reasonable to believe in God as it is to believe that emeralds won’t turn blue tomorrow.]

Introductory further reading for Is belief that God exists reasonable?

Mackie, J. L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism. Oxford University Press. [This is the classic, and still one of the best, response to the sort of case that Swinburne and I would present for the reasonableness of theism.]

Mawson, T. J. (2005). Belief in God, part II. Oxford University Press. [This goes into a few more of the ideas and arguments.]

Swinburne, R. (2004). The Existence of God. Oxford University Press. [This is another engagement with the arguments, which makes some similar (as well as some dissimilar) points to my own.]

Taliaferro, C. (1998). Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Blackwell. [This is a very good overview of the wider territory.]

Advanced further reading for Is belief that God exists reasonable?

Hick, J. H. (ed.) (1964). The Existence of God. Macmillan. [Extracts from Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, a collection of the historical sources on the Ontological Argument.]

Manson, N. (ed.) (2003). God and Design. Routledge. [A good collection of essays on the design argument.]

Philipse, H. (2012). God in the Age of Science? Oxford University Press. [This is a more philosophically advanced (sceptical) engagement with the case for theism. He really pushes hard against Swinburne in particular.]

Plantinga, A. (1975). God, Freedom and Evil. George Allen and Unwin, 85–112. [A more modern source.]

Rowe, W. (1975). The Cosmological Argument. Princeton University Press. [A (generally sceptical) analysis of the prospects for the Cosmological Argument.]

Rowe, W. L. (1979). ‘The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism’. American Philosophical Quarterly 16: 335–41. [This is a ‘classic’ paper and has generated much interest.]

Swinburne, R. (1998). Providence and the Problem of Evil. Clarendon. [Swinburne’s most comprehensive treatment of the best argument against God.]