PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy of God and Religion 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which argument for God's existence proceeds from the claim that if God's existence is possible, then God exists necessarily?
- The cosmological argument
- The teleological argument
- The modal ontological argument (Correct answer)
- The moral argument
Correct answer: The modal ontological argument
The modal version of the ontological argument, associated with Plantinga, uses S5 modal logic to argue that if it is possible that a maximally great being exists, it exists in the actual world.
Question 2: Paul Tillich's concept of God as 'Being-Itself' rather than 'a being' is intended to:
- Deny the existence of a personal deity
- Avoid treating God as one object among others subject to ordinary predication (Correct answer)
- Affirm pantheism as the correct theological view
- Reduce theology to philosophical ontology
Correct answer: Avoid treating God as one object among others subject to ordinary predication
Tillich argued that calling God 'a being' subjects God to the structure of being-and-non-being; as Being-Itself, God is the ground of being that transcends theistic and atheistic categories.
Question 3: In the debate over divine foreknowledge and human freedom, 'Molinism' resolves the tension by appealing to:
- God's timelessness making foreknowledge compatible with freedom
- Middle knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (Correct answer)
- The distinction between God's absolute and ordained power
- Open theism's denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge
Correct answer: Middle knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom
Molinism, developed by Luis de Molina, holds that God knows 'middle knowledge'—what every free creature would do in any circumstance—enabling providence without predetermining free choices.
Question 4: The 'hiddenness of God' argument, developed by J.L. Schellenberg, concludes that non-resistant non-belief in God is evidence against theism because:
- God would not create beings incapable of belief
- A perfectly loving God would ensure that all non-resistant seekers can relate to God personally (Correct answer)
- The existence of divine hiddenness proves God is testing humanity
- Non-belief is always a result of moral failure or willful rejection
Correct answer: A perfectly loving God would ensure that all non-resistant seekers can relate to God personally
Schellenberg argues that a perfectly loving God would never allow inculpable non-belief, since personal relationship with God requires belief, making wide-spread non-resistant non-belief evidence against theism.
Question 5: Feminist philosophers of religion such as Grace Jantzen have critiqued mainstream philosophy of religion for prioritizing:
- Mystical experience over rational argument
- Embodiment and relationality over abstract metaphysical properties
- Disembodied rationality and metaphysical omnipotence over life, flourishing, and natality (Correct answer)
- Continental philosophy over analytic approaches
Correct answer: Disembodied rationality and metaphysical omnipotence over life, flourishing, and natality
Jantzen argued that the androcentric focus on omnipotence, necessity, and disembodied rationality reflects patriarchal values and obscures alternatives centered on flourishing and embodied life.
Question 6: Which response to the problem of evil argues that God and creation together form a developing whole in which God genuinely suffers with creatures?
- Process theodicy (Correct answer)
- Skeptical theism
- Soul-making theodicy
- Felix culpa theodicy
Correct answer: Process theodicy
Process theodicy, drawing on Whitehead and Hartshorne, holds that God is not omnipotent in the classical sense but persuades rather than coerces, genuinely affected by creaturely suffering.
Question 7: The 'cumulative case' approach to natural theology, associated with Basil Mitchell and Richard Swinburne, argues that:
- No single argument for theism is decisive but converging lines of evidence raise theism's probability (Correct answer)
- The existence of God is self-evident to properly functioning rational faculties
- Religious experience alone provides sufficient warrant for theistic belief
- Natural theology must be abandoned in favor of revelation
Correct answer: No single argument for theism is decisive but converging lines of evidence raise theism's probability
Swinburne's cumulative case applies Bayesian reasoning to show that multiple independent arguments—cosmological, teleological, experiential—together make theism more probable than not.
PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy of God and Religion 3
Which argument for God's existence proceeds from the claim that if God's existence is possible, then God exists necessarily?