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Philosophy Through the Year offers and lively and welcoming space in which to learn about philosophy – and start to ask and explore philosophical questions with others. In each instalment, we will look at one set of big philosophical issues – the problem s and questions that have been puzzling people for well over two thousand years. Tutors will give short introductions to some of the most important ideas and arguments in each topic, and provide short philosophical texts for participants to read, think about, and discuss together.
God
What does God have to do with philosophy? Philosophy has been entwined with religious thought in lots of interesting ways of centuries. Philosophers have asked whether we can establish the existence of God through rational argument, and disagreed endlessly on the answer. But philosophers have also wondered whether philosophical thinking might itself be a form of religious contemplation – the business of turning one’s attention away from the ‘things that pass’ onto what is genuinely lasting and meaningful.
What does God have to do with philosophy? Philosophy has been entwined with religious thought in lots of interesting ways over the centuries. Philosophers have asked whether we can establish the existence of God through rational argument, and disagreed endlessly on the answer. But philosophers have also wondered whether philosophical thinking might itself be a form of religious contemplation – the business of turning one’s attention away from the ‘things that pass’ onto what is genuinely lasting and meaningful.
In this course we will start with the question ‘what do we mean when we say “God”?’ What, or who, determines what we mean, and what should we mean, when we use this word? Which ideas, or attribute, should be central to the meaning of the word God, and why? For example, many philosophers have taken ‘simplicity’ to be essential to understanding what ‘God’ means. But why is this – and what connection does it have to the God that most religious believers take themselves to believe in? Or, many people have thought that we must say that God is ‘omnipotent’. But what does it really mean to say that God is all-powerful; what does this entail? This leads us to another question: what role is there, and should there be, for philosophers in deciding what is meant by the word ‘God’? From there we will explore some of the arguments for believing that God exists; but we will also ask what the two questions have to do with each other. Some philosophers feel that they can give pretty good reasons to show that it is rational to believe in God; but then, some outside philosophy might feel that the ‘God’ the philosophers have established doesn’t have all that much to do with the God that people pray to. Or, to use Heidegger’s phrase, what does the God of the philosophers have to do with the God before whom one could pray and dance?
In this session we ask: what does philosophy have to say about God; what can we expect from philosophy, on the question of God?
A powerful and influential tradition of philosophical reflection – known as classical theism – arrived a set of ideas about what must be meant by the word ‘God’, and how the divine attributes are related. It has seemed to many philosophers that if God exists, this God must be such as to be said to possess certain attributes, attributes which are somehow inseparable from God’s existence. Equally, however, religious thinkers have often wondered what this God – who is eternally simple, perfect, necessary, etc. – has to do with the God to whom believers pray. Or, to paraphrase Heidegger, whether one can dance before the God of the philosophers? Might it be that the job of the philosopher is more, to quote Wittgenstein, ‘leave everything as it is’ when it comes to God?
Readings
Simone Weil, ‘Some thoughts on the love of God’ and ‘Some reflections on the love of God’ in Gateway to God
Brian Davies, Aquinas, ch. 6 (‘Ways to God’)
We begin examining the God of classical theism with the notion of creation. This is perhaps the area of doctrine where the philosophical and biblical traditions are most interestingly related – and distinct from each other. The mythic narratives in Genesis 1-2 do a great deal more than claim that all things depend on God for their existence: they are rich with suggestions about human existence, and about the natural order. They also suggest that God’s act of creation is based on some prior ‘something’ – a formless or chaotic ‘deep’. But in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christian thinkers developed the idea of creation ex nihilo, as the best account of Christian convictions about the nature of salvation, and the account of transcendence inherited from the Hebrew Bible. We will explore the implications and difficulties with this idea.
Reading
Herbert McCabe, ‘Creation’, in God Matters
Many of the most important philosophers of classical theism have held that God is perfectly simple. This involves the idea that there is no real distinction between God and God’s attributes, or between one divine attribute and another. So, God is God’s goodness, and God’s goodness is not ultimately distinct from God’s power. We will examine this idea, explore the reasons that it has been held so consistently, as well as the problems that attend it.
Reading
Stump and Kretzmann, ‘Absolute Simplicity’
Philosophical discourse about God often works with a tension between two currents: on the one hand, the emphasis on the distinction between creator and creatures; on the other, the attribution to God all perfections – which involves describing God using terms that can also be applied to creators. In this weeks’ seminar, we explore this issue in relation to power. There are some well-known paradoxes associated with the idea of omnipotence, especially the question of logical possibility: we might agree that ‘God is all-powerful’ is not undermined by the claim that God cannot do that which is logically impossible; but it is less easy to say how we are to judge what it is possible, in the case of God. And the question of the nature and scope of God’s power is central to the task of understanding the relationship between God and human freedom, and to the problem of evil.
Readings
Herbert McCabe, ‘God II: Freedom’, in New Blackfriars
Peter Geach, ‘Omnipotence’ in Philosophy
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
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Stuart is the Theology Lead at LJC. He graduated with a degree in Literature and Theology from the University of Hull in 2000. From 2003-9 he studied Philosophical Theology part-time at the University of Nottingham, whilst continuing to work in the third sector with vulnerably-housed or homeless people, and young asylum seekers (as well as pulling pints in a pub). He was Lecturer at York St John University for almost a decade, before moving to London Jesuit Centre in 2021. He now lives in South East London, and spends as much time as he can in the woods.
