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Articles

Philosophy of Religion

This branch of philosophy has historically concerned the relationship between faith and reason. The main questions debated have included the following:

Is it possible to prove the existence of God, and if so, how?
Is the God whose existence is proven by a philosopher similar to the God in which religions be lieve?
How does one reconcile the existence of evil with that of an all-powerful, all-knowing God (=Theodicy)?
How are miracles possible – and what are they?
How is prophecy possible – and what is it?
Can one say anything meaningful about God (his ability to know the future; whether ‘He’ is really a ‘He’; does a ‘trinity’ mean anything; how can the Bible say “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6.1, also Koran 7,54)?

While the early Greek philosophers analysed their mythology from a philosophical standpoint, and examined the relationship between God and goodness and also between God and the world, the first known religious writer on the subject was a Jew – Philo of Alexandria. Other influential philosophers in this area include Plato and Aristotle, who considered the relationship of God to the world and to ethics, and another Greek, Epicurus, who argued that no gods exist. Mediaeval thinkers such as the Persian Avicenna, the Jew Maimonides and the Saints Anselm and Aquinas wrote about proofs for the existence of God, while Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Maimonides and the Muslims Al-Ghazali and Averroes argued about how one can meaningfully talk about God.

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