Dates: 02/01 - 05/21
M	T	W	Th	F	Sa	Su
	1:30 pm 3:10 pm JRC LL62		1:30 pm 3:10 pm JRC LL62

Subject: Philosophy (PHIL)

CRN: 25457

In Person | Lecture

St Paul: John Roach Center LL62

2020 Core Requirements Met:
      Phil/Theo
          OR
     Integ/Humanities

(2020 Core Planning Guide)

  Michael Rota

A careful examination of a number of philosophical arguments concerning the existence and attributes of God. We’ll start with a section on God’s nature, focusing on debates about the attributes of divine simplicity, immutability, and eternity and on God’s knowledge of the future. In the second section, we’ll consider reasons in favor of belief in God, beginning with a brief examination of Reformed Epistemology (the idea that belief in God can be rational even in the absence of good arguments for the existence of God), and then proceed to more detailed examinations of Pascal’s Wager, Cosmological arguments, Design arguments (especially the fine-tuning argument), and Moral arguments for the existence of God. Finally, in the third section, we’ll examine objections to the rationality of belief in God. We will briefly explore the problem of contingency for religious belief (if you were born elsewhere, elsewhen, your religious beliefs would probably have been very different) and the argument from divine hiddenness (if God existed, He would have made Himself obvious to all), and then turn to an in-depth examination of the problem of evil. Prerequisite: PHIL 220 and PHIL 365.

4 Credits