Bradley Rettler
Philosophy of Religion (Fall 2016)
INSTRUCTOR: Dr Bradley Rettler
CONTACT: rettlerb@gmail.com
OFFICE HOURS: Wednesday 1-2:30, and by appointment
OFFICE: Morrison Hall 220
MAILBOX: Morrison Hall 212
Course Website: http://pr.bradleyrettler.com
Resources
Schedule and Readings (readings are to be done by the day they are listed)
Introduction
Aug 22: Introduction, Logic and Arguments I, Logic and Arguments II
Aug 24: Collins - 'The Fine-Tuning Design Argument'
The Fine-Tuning Argument
Aug 29: Sober - 'The Design Argument', especially 133-140. Sample Reaction Paper.
Aug 31:
Sep 5: LABOR DAY -- NO CLASS
Sep 7: Weisberg - 'Firing Squads and Fine-Tuning'
Sep 12: Fine-Tuning, Concluded
The Argument from Evil
Sep 14: Dostoevsky - 'The Rebellion', from The Brothers Karamazov
Sep 19: Rowe - 'The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism'
Sep 21:
Sep 26: Bergmann - 'Skeptical Theism and Rowe's New Evidential Argument from Evil"
Sep 28:
The Moral Argument
Oct 3: Adams - 'Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief'
Oct 5: Antony - 'Good without God'
Oct 10: Zagzebski - 'Does Ethics Need God?'
Oct 12:
The Argument from Hiddenness
Oct 17: Chiang - 'Hell is the Absence of God'
Oct 19: van Inwagen - 'What is the Problem of the Hiddenness of God?'
Oct 24:
Oct 26: Prof Charity Anderson visits -- "Divine Hiddenness: Defeated Evidence"
Oct 31: Rea - 'Divine Hiddenness, Divine Silence'
Nov 2: Crisp - On Believing the Scriptures are Divinely Inspired
Poll-Winning Papers*
Nov 7: Buckareff & Plug - Escaping Hell: Divine Motivation and the Problem of Hell
Nov 9: Kleinschmidt - Atheistic Prayer
Nov 14: L Rettler -- Control Over Faith
Nov 16: Track 1 Paper Presentations
Nov 21: THANKSGIVING -- NO CLASS
Nov 23: THANKSGIVING -- NO CLASS
Nov 28: Howard-Snyders - Petitionary Prayer
Nov 30: Parker and B Rettler - Petitionary Prayer Reply
Dec 5: Final Exam and Final Papers Due
*Papers for the Poll
M Adams - The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians
T Bogardus - The Problem of Contingency for Religious Beliefs
A. Buckareff & A Plug - Escaping Hell: Divine Motivation and the Problem of Hell
T Crisp – On Believing the Bible is Divinely Inspired
T Crisp - Jesus and Affluence
L Ekstrom - Suffering as Religious Experience
R Feldman – Reasonable Religious Disagreements
F and D Howard-Snyder – The Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer (and Parker and Rettler "A Possible Worlds Solution to the Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer")
D Howard-Snyder -- Propositional Faith: What it is, and What it is not
S Kleinschmidt -- Atheistic Prayer
S Lebens - God and His Imaginary Friends
D Lewis - Divine Evil
T Mawson - Praying to Stop Being an Atheist
T Merricks - How to Live Forever without Saving your Soul
G Pettigrove - The Dilemna of Divine Forgiveness
A Plantinga – Is Christian Belief Irrational?
M Rea - Does God have a Gender?
L Rettler - Control over Faith
T Sider – Hell and Vagueness (and Dougherty & Poston "Hell, Vagueness, and Justice: A Reply to Sider" )
E Stump - Dante’s Hell, Aquinas’s Moral Theory, and the Love of God
J Thurow - Does Cognitive Science show belief in God to be irrational?
C Van Dyke - Eating as a Gendered Act: Christianity, Feminism, and Reclaiming the Body
P van Inwagen - I look for the Resurrection
D Whitcomb - Grounding and Omniscience (and Howard-Snyder, Rasmussen & Cullison "On Whitcomb's Grounding Argument for Atheism")
L Zagzebski - Omnisubjectivity (and Davison "Privacy and Control")