PHIL 159: Philosophy of Religion

Summer 2008 (MW 1–4pm, HMNSS 1405)

Instructor: Garrett Pendergraft (gpend002@ucr.edu)
Office hours: MW 12–1pm, HMNSS 3210 (951-827-1490)

Course description

The course catalog says that this course is designed to be “a historical, critical examination of the concepts and arguments involved in the Judeo-Christian God-hypothesis, and the influence of this world view upon the ideals and values of the Western world.” What that means is that we will be looking at reasons for and against believing in the basic doctrines of the Judeo-Christian religious system. The primary focus of our discussions will be the related questions of whether or not just one religious system is true (to the exclusion of others), and whether or not the God of Christian theism exists. We will look closely at various arguments for and against God’s existence, as well as various challenges to the doctrines of Western theism. There will be some flexibility about which topics we cover toward the end of the course.

Objectives

Upon faithful completion of course requirements—assuming responsible training on the part of your instructor—you will be able to:

  1. Think more critically
  2. Listen and read more carefully
  3. Engage in spirited debate without resorting to fallacious reasoning or personal attacks
  4. Clearly articulate and defend your answer to the major questions discussed in class.

Materials

  1. Required texts
    1. Dialogue on Good, Evil, and the Existence of God, by John Perry (available at the University Book Exchange)
    2. Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues, edited by Paul Copan and Chad Meister (also available at the UCR bookstore)
  2. Other resources
    1. I might occasionally give PowerPoint (or Keynote) presentations, which I may or may not make available on iLearn. Either way, material from these presentations will be fair game for quizzes.
    2. I also might provide the occasional handout in lecture and/or on iLearn. This material will also be fair game for quizzes.

Requirements

  1. Attendance and participation: You are expected to attend each class, having read the required texts and prepared to participate in discussion. In fact, active participation will count for 5% of your final grade (the difference, for example, between an A– and a B+). The goal is to work through these issues together, so merely showing up doesn’t count—full credit will require a constructive and helpful contribution to nearly every class period. Examples of such contributions include (among other things) asking for clarification on a particular passage of the assigned reading, raising an objection to the argument under discussion, and presenting a recent news item that is relevant to something we’ve discussed. Vigorous debate is always encouraged, but be careful to avoid personal attacks—especially given the delicate nature of some of the topics we will be discussing.
  2. Reading: Staying on top of the assigned reading is essential to every aspect of this class. In particular, quizzes (see below) and writing assignments will draw heavily from the reading material. (You’ll have the chance to ask questions about the reading before I administer quizzes or other assignments.) These are difficult issues, so there may be some assigned readings that you have to work through twice (or more!) before you understand them and are able to discuss them. But again—pointing out something that you don’t understand is a great way of fulfilling your participation requirement.
  3. Communication: I will pass along important information (schedule updates, assignment clarifications, due date reminders, etc.) through email. So check your UCR email account at least once a day, and make sure that your inbox doesn’t fill up. (If your primary email account is something other than your UCR account, you need to let me know.) In short, you are responsible for the content of any email messages I send you.
  4. Quizzes: Short quizzes (10–15 questions), covering recent material, will be administered via iLearn. (The first quiz will be designed to familiarize you with taking the rest of them.) These quizzes will be difficult, but they will be open-note and open-book; in addition, working in groups is acceptable. (The only thing you can’t do is complete the quiz on your own, and then give the answers to someone else later.) I also reserve the right to administer pop quizzes as needed.
  5. Exams: Maybe if this were a logic course, we’d have exams; but it’s not, so we won’t. You will, however, have to write a …
  6. Paper: The main assignment will be a 5–8 page paper, due on the scheduled date (and at the scheduled time) of the final exam. This project will be broken into sub-projects (for example, an outline), which will be due every week or so as the course progresses. The idea is to combat the tendency to procrastinate by forcing you to do the necessary pre-writing work that is often abandoned when one sits down to start the paper eight hours before it’s due. I want this paper to be something you can be proud of (at least to the extent that you’re proud of your coursework). We’ll discuss this extensively in class.

Grading

Your final grade will be determined according to the following scale:

Assignment % of final grade
Total: 100
Quizzes 35
Paper assignment 1 (thesis, outline, etc.) 15
Paper assignment 2 (first draft) 20
Paper assignment 3 (final draft) 25
Participation  5

Availability

By far the best way to reach me is through email. Though I can’t guarantee it, I’m generally able to respond to email inquiries within 24 hours. If my office hours conflict with your schedule, email me and we’ll set up an appointment.

Tentative schedule (subject to change)

Day Date Key topic(s) Readings
1 July 28th M Introductory remarks; the philosopher's toolkit  
2 July 30th W Religious pluralism; religious exclusivism Copan, chs. 4 & 5
3 August 4th M Religious epistemology: religious experience and Reformed epistemology Copan, chs. 1 & 3
4 August 6th W Reformed epistemology; the cosmological argument [Paper 1 due Friday, August 8th] Copan, chs. 3 & 6
5 August 11th M Arguments for God’s existence: teleological and ontological Copan, chs. 7 & 8
6 August 13th W The moral argument and the problem of evil Copan, chs. 9 & 10
7 August 18th M The problem of evil [Paper 2 due Tuesday, August 19th] Copan, ch. 10; Perry
8 August 20th W Naturalism; the coherence of theism Copan, chs. 11 & 12
9 August 25th M Religion and science; divine providence Copan, chs. 2 & 14
10 August 27th W TBD [Paper 3 due Friday, August 29th] TBD