PAPER NO. 88

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

1. Definition of religion: the beliefs or set of beliefs we use to give meaning to our experience.

Religion cannot be defined as belief in a higher power, or as belief in a Scripture, or as a set of practices. Many religions do not have these features.

Implications of this definition of religion:

1. All persons are religious since all persons give meaning to their experience.

Both theism and atheism are formally paired beliefs which are used in the same way to interpret experience.

2. Religion is fundamentally cognitive.

It has to do with beliefs which are either true or false.

Religion is not fundamentally mystical/experiential or a set of social rules.

3. No experience is meaningful without interpretation.

One’s basic belief cannot arise from experience.

Experience has meaning when interpreted in light of one’s basic belief using reason.

4. As truth cannot be separated from meaning so faith cannot be separated from reason. 

It is by reason that meaning is grasped. Reason is the test for meaning. 

Faith grows as understanding grows. Faith is tested as understanding is tested. 

Faith is contrasted with sight; it is not contrasted with reason, proof, or understanding.

5. No one is fully conscious of or consistent in their basic beliefs.

All have a mixture of the two basic beliefs (all or only some is eternal), with one being more at one’s core. 

History is an outworking of the conflict of these two beliefs in each person, each culture, and in world history.

2. Levels of religion
   1. Popular (95+%):

Concerned mostly for practical and psychological needs.

Generally unaware of historical creeds.

2. Historical (4-5%):

What the best minds have agreed upon after much discussion.

This understanding is summed up in the great creeds of the faith.

3. Philosophical (1% or less):

Addresses questions that have not yet been discussed historically.

Addresses questions that remain from internal and external challenges.

3. Minimal definition of ‘God’
   1. God is a higher power.
   2. God is the highest power (none higher).
   3. God is eternal (not dependent on another for his being).
   4. Only God is eternal (God is higher than all others).
   5. Only some is eternal (there are other beings beside God than which he is higher).
   6. Some is eternal and some is not eternal (direct implication of the above).
   7. What is eternal brought into existence what is not eternal (being from non-being is impossible).
   8. The eternal (God) is creator (to bring into being is to create).
4. There must be something eternal.
   1. Contradictory statements cannot both be true and cannot both be false (at the same time and in the same respect).
   2. A self-contradictory statement cannot be true (there are no square-circles).
   3. The contradiction of ‘some is eternal’ is ‘none is eternal.’
   4. ‘None is eternal’ implies a contradiction since it implies:
      1. all is temporal, which implies,
      2. all had a beginning which implies,
      3. all came into being, which implies,
      4. all came into being from non-being.
   5. Being from non-being cannot be true.

So, (d), (c), (b), (a), and the original (iv) ‘none is eternal’ cannot be true, since they all mean the same thing.

6. So, the contradictory of (iv), ‘some is eternal’ must be true.

5. The material world is not eternal.

(What is eternal is independent, self-existing, self-maintaining, and self-explaining)

The argument to show the material world is not eternal is:

Major premise: If the material world were eternal, it would be self-maintaining.

Minor premise: The material world is not self-maintaining.

Conclusion: The material world is not eternal.

The reasons for the minor premise are:

1. In general (the universe is entropic—tends to randomness and sameness).

The physical universe is highly differentiated (some parts are hot and some cold).

These differences interact.

The interaction continues until sameness is reached.

When sameness is reached in everything, it remains in sameness.

2. In its parts (the suns and the stars will burn out).

The sun is finite (limited in size).

The sun is giving off heat.

The sun (and all stars) will burn out.

3. As a whole (the Big Bang cannot occur again).
   1. There is not enough mass (it needs 10 times as much mass for gravity to pull everything back again).
   2. The force in will equal the force out (at some point in the process of oscillation).
   3. The theory of a change from a true vacuum (no matter and no energy) to a false vacuum (no matter and energy) involves an appeal to being coming into existence from non-being, which is impossible.

6. The soul exists.

Proof for the existence of the soul is proof for what is obvious, not for what is hidden.

The soul is the same as the self or the mind, and the mind is not the brain.

That the mind is not the brain can be seen from an analysis of perception of any object.

The argument to show the mind is not the brain is:

Major premise: The most immediately known is the most certainly known.

Minor premise: The self is most immediately known.

Conclusion: Therefore, the self is most certainly known.

The reason for the minor premise “the self is most immediately known” is based on the analysis of perception in terms of light waves, neural impulses, mental image, and the self.

1. The light waves (coming from the table to the eyes) are more immediate (to the perceiver than the cause of the table that is seen); the light waves are not seen; they are not conceived to be shaped like a table.
2. The neural impulses (formed from the light wave interacting with the optic nerve) are more immediate (in the process of perception than the light waves); they are not seen; they are not shaped like a table; they are the last brain activity. One has to go beyond the brain to get to the table that is seen.
3. The mental image of the table is more immediate than the neural impulse; the mental image is seen; the mental image is shaped like a table; the mental image is therefore not a neural impulse; the mental image does not perceive itself.
4. The self is more immediately known than the mental image; it is known as the perceiver of the mental image; the self is known as having no size but as having consciousness. The self is known as the spirit, mind, soul, and consciousness.

The objections to the reasons for the minor premise attempt to reduce the self to a bundle of mental images (Hume), to do away with talk about mental state terms (analytical behaviorism), or to identify the physical with the non-physical, indirectly (the neutral identity thesis). There are responses refuting each of these objections.

1. Hume: When I look inside, I see nothing but mental images. If there is a self it must be the bundle of mental images.

Response: What is doing the looking when “I” look inside is the self.

2. Analytical behaviorism: Mental state terms can be explained fully by behavior terms. Pain means the same as pain behavior.

Response: It is easy to conceive of pain without pain behavior and vice versa.

3. The neutral identity thesis: The very same thing (fibain, having the properties of nerve fibers and pain) that is conducting nerve impulses is aching unbearably.

Response: The same thing (fibain) that has no size (pain) has size (nerve fiber).

7. The soul is not eternal.

The argument to show the soul is not eternal is:

Major premise: If the soul were eternal I would have infinite knowledge.

Minor premise: I do not have infinite knowledge.

Conclusion: Therefore, the soul is not eternal.

The reason for the major premise:

1. The soul has one thought after another and is therefore in time.
2. If it is eternal in time, it would have been in existence for an infinite amount of time.
3. Since the soul grows in knowledge in time, however slowly, in infinite time it would have infinite knowledge. 
4. It is self-evident that I do not have infinite knowledge.

The argument holds for any view of an eternal soul going through a unique event, such as liberation from reincarnation, or going to heaven.

8. The material world exists.

The argument to show the material world exists is:

Major premise: The cause of what I see is either my mind or another mind or outside all minds.

Minor premise: The cause is not my mind or another mind.

Conclusion: Therefore, the cause of what I see is outside all minds.

The reasons for the minor premise:

1. If my mind were the cause of what I see, then I would have total control of what I see.

I do not have total control of what I see.

Therefore, the cause is not my mind.

2. If another mind were the cause of what I see, then I would have no control of what I see.

I do have some control of what I see.

Therefore, another mind is not the cause of what I see.

9. The objections to Advaita Vedanta (one mind only and its ideas; the world is illusion).

1. Where does the illusion reside? (can’t be in my mind or in pure consciousness)
2. How can pure consciousness be concealed from itself?
3. How can the world be neither a thing nor a thought?
4. How can the world be neither real (eternal) nor unreal (non-existent)?

To say reason cannot grasp it and we must give up reason is not possible. We cannot give up reason. The assumption ‘the world is an illusion’ is what should be given up.

10. The objections to Dvaita Vedanta or qualified non-dualism (we are all part of God).

1. If all the parts are the same, finite, then the whole (God) would not be infinite. And parts cannot be finite and eternal, going through unique events.
2. If all the parts are the same, infinite, then they would be both complete and incomplete at the same time.
3. So, the parts are not all the same: some are finite-temporal and some infinite-eternal.

This paper was originally developed for a Philosophy of Religion course.

© 1992 Logos Papers Press