Bradley Rettler
Philosophy of Religion (Spring 2019)
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Bradley Rettler
CONTACT: brettler@uwyo.edu
OFFICE: Ross Hall 128
OFFICE HOURS: Tuesday 1-3, Thursday 11-12, and by appointment
Course Website: http://pr.bradleyrettler.com
Resources
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Glossary of Philosophy Terms
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Good and Bad Arguments
Schedule and Readings (readings are to be done by the day they are listed)
Introduction
Jan 9: Introduction, Logic and Arguments I, Logic and Arguments II
Jan 11: Collins - 'The Fine-Tuning Design Argument'
The Fine-Tuning Argument
Jan 16: NO CLASS (MLK Jr Day)
Jan 18: Sober - 'The Design Argument', especially 133-140. Sample Reaction Paper.
Jan 23:Weisberg - 'Firing Squads and Fine-Tuning'
Jan 25: NO CLASS (Dr Rettler at conference)
Jan 30: Fine-Tuning, Concluded
The Argument from Evil
Feb 1: Dostoevsky - 'The Rebellion', from The Brothers Karamazov
Feb 6: Rowe - 'The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism'
Feb 8:
Feb 13: Bergmann - 'Skeptical Theism and Rowe's New Evidential Argument from Evil"
Feb 15:
The Moral Argument
Feb 20: Adams - 'Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief'
Feb 22: Antony - 'Good without God'
Feb 27: CLASS IN BAYLOR SCIENCE BUILDING Room D110, from 12:20-1:10 -- Luke Barnes Talk on Fine-Tuning
March 1: Zagzebski - 'Does Ethics Need God?'
March 6: NO CLASS (Spring Break)
March 8: NO CLASS (Spring Break)
The Argument from Hiddenness
March 13: Chiang - 'Hell is the Absence of God'
March 15: van Inwagen - 'What is the Problem of the Hiddenness of God?'
March 20: Rea - 'Divine Hiddenness, Divine Silence'
March 22: Philip Swenson visits -- 'Ability, Foreknowledge, and Explanatory Dependence'
Poll-Winning Papers*
March 27: van Inwagen - The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: A Theodicy
March 29: van Inwagen continued
****FINAL PAPER OUTLINE DUE****
Apri l 3: Plantinga - Is Christian Belief Irrational?
April 5: Feldman - Reasonable Religious Disagreements
April 10: Howard-Snyders - The Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer
April 12: Parker and Rettler - A Possible Worlds Solution to the Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer
April 17: NO CLASS (Easter)
April 19:
April 24: Lindsay Rettler visits -- The Control over Faith
April 26: Buckareff and Plug - Escaping Hell
May 1: Lewis - Divine Evil
****All final papers due. All late reaction papers due*****
May 8, 2-4pm: FINAL EXAM
*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 - The Free Will Defense
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")