Part VIII: Philosophy of Religion

Chapter 25

Study questions for Is Faith in God Reasonable?

  1. How would you explain the ‘belief-in/belief-that’ distinction?
  2. Can you come up with some examples from your life of things you believe in/ disbelieve in?
  3. How is ‘faith’ best defined?
  4. Can any version of Pascal’s Wager be defended?
  5. Can one say anything general about which of theism, atheism or agnosticism should be the ‘default’, absent evidence either way? If not, why not?

Multiple Choice Questions

Weblinks for Is faith in God reasonable?

Plantinga, A. (1999). Warranted Christian Belief . Oxford University Press, parts 2 and 3. [This is Plantinga’s fully-developed view and is available at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195131932.001.0001/acprof-9780195131932.]

Introductory further reading for Is faith in God reasonable?

Mawson, T. J. (2005). Belief in God. Oxford University Press, conclusion. [Here I give an expanded account of the nature of faith as I see it and go into a bit more detail about the version of Pascal’s Wager that I’d endorse.]

Penelhum, T. (ed.) (1989). Faith. Macmillan. [A nice, short overview of the topic.]

Plantinga, A. and Wolterstorff, N. (1983). Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. University of Notre Dame Press. [Worth reading early on in one’s reading about philosophy of religion.]

Swinburne, R. (2005). Faith and Reason. Oxford University Press. [This is Swinburne’s treatment of the topic.

Advanced further reading for Is faith in God reasonable?

Adams, R. M. (1987). The Virtue of Faith. Oxford University Press, part I.

Alston, W. P. (1985). ‘Plantinga’s Epistemology of Religious Belief’. In J. Tomberlin and P. van Inwagen (eds), Alvin Plantinga. Reidel. [This is an analysis of Plantinga’s views of the time; they have changed slightly since.]

Kenny, A. (1983). Faith and Reason. Columbia University Press, chapters 1–3.

Kenny, A. (1992). What Is Faith? Oxford University Press.