That was the topic of a debate between philosophers William Lane Craig and Shelly Kagan (via Andrew Moon). It’s an important question that goes to the heart of both religion and morality. But, as R. Aharon Lichtenstein remarked in a related context, “this particular query is a studded minefield, every key term an ill-defined booby [...]
Archive for the ‘Philosophy of Religion’ Category
Is God Necessary For Morality?
Posted in Philosophy of Religion on May 18, 2011 | 11 Comments »
Humanity as God’s Fictional Characters
Posted in Philosophy of Religion on March 14, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Last year, I wrote about the tension between divine providence and natural causation. How can we reconcile the idea that God exercises providence over our day-to-day lives with the idea that events in the world seem to be caused by other prior events? I suggested that God acts in the world from an entirely different [...]
Morality Disguised as Science
Posted in Philosophy of Religion on October 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Noted Atheist Sam Harris has a new book, The End of Faith. The New York Times review describes it as a “blistering take-no-prisoners attack on the irrationality of religions.” According to the review, the book “aims to meet head-on a claim he has often encountered when speaking out against religion: that the scientific worldview he [...]
Faith in the Shadow of Death
Posted in Philosophy of Religion, Religion on August 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Hitchens movingly describes his fight against metastatic esophageal cancer in his recent Vanity Fair column and in interviews with Anderson Cooper (transcript) and The Atlantic. Anderson Cooper subtly asks Hitchens, a renowned atheist, whether he may have moments of doubt as he contemplates death. Hitchens’s response: “If that comes, it will be when I’m [...]
God is Not a Scientific Hypothesis
Posted in Philosophy of Religion on June 15, 2010 | 8 Comments »
Professor David Novak, reviewing Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (subscription required for full access): We could say that statements about God are not scientific hypotheses at all, since we are not speaking of God as a cause operating within the natural order, which is the sole order about which natural science can speak with any [...]
Copleston vs. Russell
Posted in Philosophy of Religion on May 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Here is a transcript of the famous 1948 BBC radio debate on the existence of God between Father Frederick C. Copleston, a Jesuit priest, and philosopher Bertrand Russell. The debate has a level of sophistication rarely seen today, especially in popular discourse on religion. Read the whole thing; it’s excellent.
God as Storyteller
Posted in Philosophy of Religion on May 9, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Hashgacha pratit is the doctrine that God exercises providence over the day-to-day activities of a person’s life. There is, at first glance, a tension between hashgacha and “natural causation.” By “natural causation”, I mean the basic idea that events in the world are caused by other prior events. (This tension exists on both determinist and [...]
“The Ecstasy of Deeds”
Posted in Philosophy of Religion, Torah on April 23, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In “Heschel, Intuition, and the Halakhah”, Rabbi Marvin Fox takes issue with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s reliance on intuition as a basis for faith in God. The common objection to any intuition-based theory, R. Fox argues, “is that we have no reliable way to distinguish between those experiences which are genuine perceptions of a higher [...]
Erich Fromm on Freedom – Between Pesach and Shavu’ot
Posted in Philosophy of Religion, Torah on April 21, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I am currently reading a book by Erich Fromm called Escape from Freedom. Broadly speaking, it deals with freedom, the challenges it presents, and the various responses to it. For Fromm, one of man’s central fears is the fear of being alone and isolated from the world around him. (I use “him” and “man” as [...]
On Ta’amei Ha-Mitzvot
Posted in Philosophy of Religion, Torah on April 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The term “ta’amei ha-mitzvot” literally translates as “reasons for the commandments.” The question “why should we do mitzvot” is easy to misunderstand. Many simply reply “because God said so”, which, even if correct, merely prompts the question, “why did God say so.” To answer that second question with “just because” or “no reason” renders God’s [...]
