TrueSciPhi

Podcast Profile: Philosophy of Religion

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8 episodes
2012
Median: 41 minutes
Collection: Philosophy

Description (podcaster-provided):

Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):

This podcast presents an eight-lecture Oxford course by Dr. T. J. Mawson introducing central topics in the philosophy of religion as they relate to Western monotheism, with attention to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Across the series, the focus is on analyzing what it means to speak about God in philosophical terms and on assessing major arguments for and against God’s existence.

Early lectures examine divine attributes, distinguishing between essential properties of God and other, more contingent or “accidental” features, and considering how such properties are understood within classical philosophical theology. The series then turns to core theistic arguments, including cosmological and ontological approaches and the design argument, treating them as attempts to justify belief in God through reasoned inference and conceptual analysis. Further discussion addresses evidential considerations commonly cited in religious contexts, such as religious experience and reports of miracles, and how these might function as support for theism.

The later part of the course engages with prominent objections, especially the problem of evil as a challenge to the coherence or plausibility of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God. The series concludes by exploring the nature of faith and pragmatic reasoning about belief, including Pascal’s Wager. Overall, the lectures aim to map the main lines of debate in philosophy of religion and to clarify the structure and assumptions of influential arguments on both sides.