God & Persons: general introduction
 Jesuit higher education & the rationale for
this course
 Big questions
 Two perspectives on these big
questions: revelation & reason
• St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)
 Ignatius & indeed most Christian
theologians & philosophers assumed
that these two perspectives are
harmonious.
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Ignatius’s goal: To form mature,
reflective, critical Christians (but one
can extend this to persons of other
religious faiths).
 Subject matter of this course
 A review of the branches of philosophy
• You don’t remember?? OK
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Philosophy of religion - the critical &
systematic examination, from the
viewpoint of reason, of fundamental
questions & assumptions concerning
religion
 Topics List
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God & Persons: general introduction
 The notion of religion: theories concerning
its origin & nature
 Will examine three theories
 1. A sociological theory
• Emile Durkheim (French, 1858-1917)
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God & Persons: general introduction
• Durkheim on religion: “Religion is a
system of ideas with which the
individuals represent to themselves
the society of which they are
members, . . . “ “The god is only a
figurative expression of the
society.” - The Elementary Forms
of Religious Life, trans. Joseph
Ward Swain (NY: Macmillan, 1915)
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God & Persons: general introduction
• Religion is “nothing else than the
clan itself, personified and
represented to the imagination
under the visible form of the animal
or vegetable which serves as the
totem.” (The Elementary Forms . . .)
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God & Persons: general introduction
• Critical evaluation
 Reductionist
X = Y with nothing left over
 Some religions hold that God is
Creator & Father of all persons
vs Durkheim’s tribalism
 Cannot explain the moral
independence & creativity of
many great religious figures
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Cannot explain the historical
phenomenon that religion has
often shaped society & history vs
Durkheim’s view that it always
passively reflects society &
history.
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God & Persons: general introduction
 2. A psychological theory
• Sigmund Freud’s (Viennese, 18561939) theory of religion.
• Religious beliefs are “illusions,
fulfillments of the oldest, strongest
and most urgent wishes of mankind”
(The Future of Illusion, 1927). “At
bottom God is nothing other than an
exalted father” (Totem and Taboo,
1913).
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Psychological crutch
 God is substitute father figure
 God is psychological projection &
nothing more; God & religion are
illusions.
• Critical evaluation
 Reductionism
 Origins vs justification
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Religion is not only consoling; it is
also challenging
 A flawed notion of projection:
the idea that projection =
illusion.
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God & Persons: general introduction
 3. An economic theory
• Karl Marx’s theory of
religion as a form of
alienation
• Karl Marx (1818-1883)
brief biographical
notes
 Jewish ancestry;
father converted to
Christianity
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Marx studied at the
U. of Trier, then the
U. of Berlin
 Influence of Hegel
& Hegel’s disciple,
Ludwig Feuerbach
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 1843 - married
Jenny von
Westphalen
 Journalist
 1848 - co-authored
The Communist
Manifesto with
Engels
 Paris, Brussels,
Germany & England
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God & Persons: general introduction
 1849 to death: lived in London
 1864, beginning of
involvement in the
International Workingmen’s
Association
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God & Persons: general introduction
• His theory of religion
 Economics, specifically the
mode of production,
“conditions” the shape of
religion (base-superstructure).
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Religion is really projection
 “Religious distress is at the same time the
expression of real [economic] distress and the
protest against real distress. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a
spiritless situation. It is the opium of the
people. The abolition of religion as the
illusory happiness of the people is required for
their real happiness. The demand to give up
the illusion about its condition is the demand
to give up a condition which needs illusions.”
(Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right)
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Bad consequences of this: one
form of the alienation of
humans
" Humans attribute their
abilities to God & thereby
empty themselves of their
potential.
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God & Persons: general introduction
 The principal form of human
alienation: alienation of work.
" Note that religion is not the
principal form of alienation.
 Once this is overcome, religion
will fade away.
 How can these alienations be
overcome? By the overthrow
of capitalism.
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Comments & critique
• Marx’s system itself shares many
of the traits of religion
 A total vision of life
 A theory of history, including
an eschatology
 Missionaries who proselytize
 A strong moral dimension
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God & Persons: general introduction
• Historical problems
 Base-superstructure &
changes in religion
 Religion is not entirely passive
(the superstructure, the
epiphenomenon) in relation to
economic systems. Often
religions criticize economic
systems.
 Reductionism
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Toward a more adequate df. of religion
 Def. 1: Michael Peterson, William
Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, & David
Basinger (Reason and Religious Belief,
2nd ed., 1998).
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God & Persons: general introduction
 “Religion is constituted by a set
(network) of beliefs, actions, and
emotions, both personal and corporate,
organized around the notion of Ultimate
Reality” [and which is expressed as a way
of life] (4).
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God & Persons: general introduction
 Def. 2: Ninian Smart’s 6 dimensions of
religion. He treats religion as a “six
dimensional organism.” (The Religious
Experience, 4th ed., Macmillan, 1991, 611). Originally appeared in The Religious Experience of
Mankind (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969): 1525.
• 1. Ritual
• 2. Story
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•
•
•
•
3.
4.
5.
6.
Doctrine
Ethics
Social
Experiential
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God & Persons: general introduction
 The distinction between religion, theology, &
the philosophy of religion
 Religion & theology
• Religion is broader --includes cultural
practices; theology is about ideas
• First-order vs second-order
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God & Persons: general introduction
• Philosophy of religion -- the critical &
systematic examination, from the
viewpoint of reason, of the
fundamental questions & assumptions
of religion. A third-order enterprise?
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