Philosophy of Religion vs. Theology

In a recent survey, the results found that a lot of philosophy of religion is being done in seminaries. The takeaway? Seminaries inevitably ‘view’ philosophy of religion as apologetical in nature, which is not shocking. That’s not philosophy: that’s theology. Even philosophical theology is theology. Now, I’m not here to give my opinion on the discipline of theology.

What I am saying is that philosophy has different goals. For instance, philosophy follows the argument/explanation/evidence wherever it leads. It does not start with a conclusion and work backwards to defend it at every turn. But that’s exactly what we see with many of these seminaries. They make professors sign a statement of faith (see link above). So, persons like William Lane Craig aren’t doing philosophy of religion (or philosophy at all for that matter). They’re doing apologetics and theology. (1)(2).

Moving Forward

But what are some others marks of the way philosophy of religion should be done? Well, it needs to focus more on conceptual clarity and asking questions that lead to fruitful research programs, new academic fields, and testable claims. Experimental philosophy of religion is particularly useful because it challenges intuitions of many philosophers of religion; experimental philosophy of religion also forces philosophers of religion to deal with empirical facts that impact their theoretical models. Philosophy of religion should not just solely focus on trying to derive contradictions (if at all), and it should definitely NOT ever try to define things into existence–like the ontological argument for God.

My second suggestion is far more controversial to some. The suggestion is that philosophy of religion should start moving away from discussing supernaturalism. More specifically, it should start to move away from discussing personal gods, which includes Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It’s neither here nor there that many philosophers of religion refuse to give up their personalistic theistic beliefs (i.e. God as Personal or God as a person). Why do I say all of this about supernaturalism and theism? What are my reasons? For a start, see here, here, here, here, and here.

Thirdly, philosophers of religion need to stop defending things that are simply false or pseudoscience. For example, libertarian free will does not exist (nor do ‘souls’). (3) And even if it was a coherent notion, which is questionable, one can’t just assume that it is something that would obviously be a part of the actual world or a (particular) possible world. Also there’s a common but dubious assumption that if libertarian free will doesn’t exist, then we live in a toy world and are all robots. What I am saying is that there comes a point where we have to accept the facts and evidence, otherwise we are becoming truth-deniers or schizophrenic.

Fourthly, philosophers of religion should stop relying on dogmatic tradition and authority. This includes the Bible, creeds, and so on. Why? Because that’s theology.

Conclusion

Philosophy is science; philosophy is a science, whether that science be social, formal, etc. Therefore, philosophers of religion better start acting like philosophy is a science. Otherwise, they aren’t doing philosophy. Instead, they are rattling off sophistry and engaging in apologetics. (4)

Notes

(1)We also see things like motivated reasoning, for example, “skeptical theism”.

(2) Philosophy of religion has some serious problems in its narrow focus on certain topics, the large presence of apologetics, the presence of topics that have been ruled pseudoscience, (e.g. demons, hell, prayer, souls, etc) and the presence of cognitive biases.

(3) The same can be said about defenses of petitionary prayer, defenses of the probable existence of an afterlife, and defenses of the resurrection of Jesus.

(4) Should philosophy of religion continue to be practiced in the university? That’s a topic for another post.