SUMMARY OF PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

1.      Explain the following words and expressions

a.      Philosophy of religion: philosophy of Religion is the philosophical study of the meaning and nature of religion. It includes the analyses of religious concepts, beliefs, terms, arguments, and practices of religious adherents. In order to explain what philosophy of religion is, we ought to first answer the questions of what is philosophy and what is religion.

b.      Religion: Religion comes from the Latin word: re-ligare which means to tie, or re-legere which means to read or re-elegere which means to choose, or elect. According to the Webster new collegiate dictionary, religion is a virtue by which one recognizes a supremely influential being to whom one owns worship and obedience in every sphere of life. Alfred Whitehead posits in his book Religion in the making, that “religion has a system of general truths which have effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended”. This is why Ephrem Badou has described religion as the foot for the journey.

c.       Relation between philosophy, religion and culture: Philosophy­­­­­­­­­ – eyes to scrutinize; religion-foot for the journey; culture- land to stay. Culture is the link between philosophy and religion. For culture determines a lot about religion. These three dimensions or aspects of life give sense and direction to existence. Since, life gets meaning with religion; religion cannot exist without being situated to a particular culture; this is why philosophy needed to checkmate the excesses of religion (to checkmate dogmatism). This is why philosophy of religion according to Brain Davies is often defined as philosophizing with religion. Philosophy of religion is a philosophical reflection or rational enquiry into the nature, and claims of religion.

d.      What philosophy is doing in religion?

                                                        i.            Philosophy enters into religion to question beliefs and practices.

                                                      ii.            It sorts out the apparent contradictions and inconsistencies in the claims of religion.

                                                    iii.            It goes into religion to check religion of dogmatism

e.      Mysterium Tremendium et Facinosum: Religion is the mystery which at the same time over whelms and fascinates us. Religion overwhelms us, for in it we come to encounter a Being which does not exist in our spacio-temporal reality. So, to communicate with this Being, we use that which acts as a bridge between time and eternity. This is prayer; for prayer is a dialogue of eternity in time- if the dialogue does not favour me…. I am in hope… but if it does favour me… I am in the state of happiness.

f.        What fascinates us shapes us: because of this hope as seen in Mysterium Tremendium et Facinosum. In our encounter with the being, what fascinates us shapes us, since the passion in our minds never dies. This is clear in the Hegelian notion of dialectics: Thesis-antithesis-synthesis. People reject violently what they desire ardently.

g.      The relationship between philosophy of religion and metaphysics: Metaphysics studies the origin and existence of being; metaphysics studies being qua being. This means being studying being (itself, what is related to man and what is above man). The task of metaphysics became important because man have come to realize that there exist some invisible beings but how to treat them was a major problem.  For Kant, all knowledge exists within space and time, anything above space and time is not possible. This raises a question: is there no being over and above man? Religion belongs to metaphysics because it wants to discover that being above man. By nature, there is a necessity of transcendence. Religion is the acknowledgment that our existence is tied or bind to a reality beyond us; the acknowledgement of the reason behind our existence.

2.      RELIGION AS THE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE OF AFRICA

Opium is the singular of opiates. Opiates are considered to be downer, a drug that puts one in a state of passive inaction. It is used to control pain or help people to sleep, and can even make someone desire to take it more.

Opium can cause dullness, inaction, soothes the mind or emotions: something regarded as inducing a false and unrealistic sense of contentment among people. Karl Mark in reference to religion uses it to describe as something that prevent from having their own opinion and makes them quiet and easily controlled.

In its broad sense, religion is simply a relationship, or a communion between the human and the super-human-Supreme Being or God. So religion is primarily a commitment of faith and its way of life based upon this way. Its sole purpose is to respond by worship and obedience to the Supreme, thus it is practical. Religion was seen in early times as man’s reliance on some supernatural or divine powers to drive out fear, attain peace and happiness, and to have their wishes fulfilled.

Man’s desire for the Supreme born out of fear, hence religious instinct was born at the very early period of man’s history. Man was not only weak, but also ignorant. Man therefore sought salvation out of fear and awe, thus from the very beginning, the phenomena of religion and awe are intricately associated. In fact, William Temples concluded that the primary assurances of religion are the ultimate questions of philosophy; since religion requires confident affirmation of faith in Divine while philosophy requires a critical attitude towards every belief that is proposed to it in order to determine its truth from mere opinion. 

Vladimir Lenin once observed: “Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practice charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

“Religion is the opium of the people” is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. It is often rendered as “religion... is the opiate of the masses.” The political philosopher, Karl Marx, vehemently oppose any kind of private accumulation of wealth and property as articulated in his Communist Manifesto. This came as a result of seeing the plight of the people and how the ruling class of modern were oppressing the poor masses who feed on the wage of their labour. Marx was so much overwhelmed with equity in distribution of goods and equality in property acquisition that he sees owing private property as a sort of social sin. He laments and affirms that “every form of society has been based ... on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.”

Marx also sees religion as a form of illusory consolation and happiness of the people and he opines and deems it worthwhile for people to face their problems themselves instead of converging and finding shelter under an illusory umbrella.

According to him, religion is made by man and so religion does not make man. He sees religion as a self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through himself, or has already lost himself again. He argues that man does not in fact squat outside the world. “Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world.”

In a very unsympathetic manner he critiqued religion as the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world and the soul of the soulless conditions. “It is the opium of the people.” Thus Charles Kinsley retorts: “We have used the Bible as if it were a mere special constable’s hand book, an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded, a mere book to keep the poor in order. Marx claims that his criticism of religion disillusions man so that he will think, act and fashion his reality like a man who has given up his illusions. So that man can move around himself as his own true Sun and not to the illusory Sun of religion. Thus he affirms that religion is the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself. It is the opium of the people”.

In Africa, a careful look will reveal that African have taken religion to be the opium of the people. This is evident in their association of everything to a Supreme Being. Religious as well as political leaders use religion to oppress people and get away with their properties and rights. Continuous stealing from the pockets of the masses by these leaders in the name of religion is not new news. This is because the people have seen and take religion to be the very heart of man’s existence, thus making people like John Mbiti to intimate that Africans are notoriously religious, because religion is at the center of all they do, And the same religion has enslaved them, the same religion has led to many, even their fellows, to exploit them. Religion is indeed the opium of the people of Africa.

3.      PROBLEM OF EVIL

Introduction

Perhaps, one of the oldest questions that the humans have had to contend with is the question of whether or not there is a “God”. The quest to answer the question: “Whether God exist?” has been one of the oldest questions that philosophy has had to grapple with. Thinkers like Boethius, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes to mention but a few, have each attempt to offer arguments in a bid to show that God exists, while the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus have taken on the title of ‘atheists’, claiming that God does not exist. This position is expressed most radically by Nietzsche when he declared that “God is dead” in his work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”.

The debate becomes more interesting when we try to reconcile the attributes of this supposed existing ‘God’ with basic human existential issues. Those who hold that God exists, also hold firmly that He is omniscient and all powerful. They are convinced that this God is the cause of every created thing. What is more, Theist thinkers believe that this God is very much active in the human endeavour. They believe that God intervenes in the human condition, making things better and giving them all that they need. When this claim is placed side-by-side the existential reality of the human experience, it is difficult to reconcile its truth value. Extreme poverty, strife, hunger, wars and killings seem to negate the caring character of this God. Thus, the existence of Evil represents a strong argument against the theist claim that a good God exist. 

Man is thus left in a dilemma, if there is God, and He possess the attributes of goodness, omnipotence, omniscience and the likes, where cometh evil?

Thomas Aquinas defines evil as a privation of good. This definition presents evil as being opposed to good. Good is the integrity or perfection of being in all orders. Evil is a negation of perfection due to a nature or to a being. A being is therefore said to be evil if it lacks a good it requires to enjoy the integrity of its nature. As such, evil is not a being, evil inheres in a being; this, however, does not negate its existence. So evil presupposes goodness either as a subject that is affected, or as the perfection that is negated. For if evil is a privation, it can only exist in a subject or in a being that is good. Types of Evil

There are three broad division of evil: Metaphysical evil, Physical evil, and Moral evil. Metaphysical evil is the absence of a perfection required for the natural integrity of creatures. Some people associate it to a mere finitude of created beings. But such usage is wrong, as finitude is not an evil but merely a negation of higher perfection in the sense that a dog is not a human being.

Physical evil refers to the evil that affects nature, whether corporeal or spiritual, whose integrity it alters. Examples of physical evil includes: pains, sorrows, earthquakes, epidemics and so on. Generally, physical evil is brought about by human wrongdoing or negligence. Moral evil on the other hand, is a disorder of the will and is also called fault or sin. This type of evil results from the misuse of freewill on the part of the moral agent, and by so doing, the agent becomes morally blameworthy for the resultant evil. Moral evil includes specific acts of intentional wrongdoing.

The existence of evil as a negation of God’s existence

The thrust of the problem of evil is: how can we reconcile the existence of evil in a world governed by an all-powerful, all-good and all-knowing God? Given the presence of evil, can we really say that there is God?

Philip Lemon, caught in this same bewilderment, shared the view of Epicurus and said: …Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot, or he can but does not want to, or he cannot and does not want to, or lastly he can and wants to. If he wants to remove evil, and cannot, he is not omnipotent; if he can, but does not want to, he is not benevolent, he is merciless hence cannot be said to be good; If he neither can nor wants to, he is neither omnipotent nor benevolent; but if God can abolish evil, and wants to, why does evil exist? So, either He lacks power, and therefore not omnipotent, or He lacks compassion or He is merciless therefore, not Omni-benevolent.

People seem to be divided on this debate. One hand, some people feel that the existence of evil is a proof of the non-existence of God, while others feel it is not. For scholars like Voltaire, the existence of God has even made things better, for if there was no God, then the world would have been worse than what we have. Thus, he posited that if God did not exist, it will be necessary to invent Him. But contrary to Voltaire, Mikhail Bakunin purports that if God really exist, it would be necessary to abolish him, for to believe that God existence is the negation of human liberty and requires an abdication of reason and justice that results in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and in practice. The thrust of the debate is that the existence of evil in the world is a sign that God is either not entirely good or not all-powerful, and the idea of an imperfect God is nonsensical. This made some scholars to believe that evil is a problem for the theist since it contradicts their belief in the omnipotence and perfection of God.

Arguments for the Existence of Evil

All the arguments for evil claim that: there are some facts, concerning the existence of evil in the world, which contradicts or questions the existence of a God. So all the arguments wants to show that such a God, who is said to be omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect, is either logically precluded, or rendered unlikely, by those facts. But versions of the argument often differ quite significantly with respect to what the relevant fact is. This problem is often expressed either as an experiential problem or as a theoretical problem. The experiential problem of evil is the difficulty of adopting or maintaining an attitude of love and trust toward God when confronted by evil that is deeply perplexing and disturbing.  The theoretical problem of evil is purely an "intellectual" exercise, aim at determining the impact of the existence of evil on the truth-value or the epistemic status of theistic belief; however, they are both interconnected. The theoretical dimension shall be our major concern. This aspect of the problem of evil comes in two broad varieties: the logical problem and the evidential problem.

The logical version of the problem of evil 

This is also known as the a priori or the deductive version. It is the problem of removing an alleged logical inconsistency between certain claims about God and certain claims about evil.

In its simplest form the problem is this: if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, there ought not to be evil in the world; for that would be a contradiction. And if there is no contradiction here then Omnipotence should have made a world inhabited by perfectly virtuous people, without evil. For if there is evil in a world governed by such a God, then that will form a logically inconsistent set.

Mackie and McCloskey, maintains that the logical problem of evil provides conclusive evidence against theism. For them, theists are committed to an internally inconsistent set of beliefs and hence theism is necessarily false. If the theists’ believe that the world was created and governed by a God who is all-powerful, good, and knowledgeable is true, where comes evil? This is implicitly contradictory, since a perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence. An omnipotent being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil. It thus clearly follows that if there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists. Evil exist in the world, therefore, there is no God.

The evidential version of the problem of evil 

Evidential arguments purport to show that evil counts against theism in the sense that the existence of evil lowers the probability that God exists. Among the major proponents of this argument is William Rowe.

Rowe states his argument for atheism as follows: There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. Therefore there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

This argument, as Rowe points out, is clearly valid, and so if there are rational grounds for accepting its premises, to that extent there are rational grounds for accepting the conclusion, atheism. For some scholars, Rowe’s argument is the clearest, most easily understood, and most intuitively appealing of those available, while others see it as the strongest sort of evidential argument, and the sort that has the best chance of success.

Does the problem of evil counter the existence of God?

The problem of evil has been seen as a challenge to the existence of God. Observing how people have been condemned to irredeemable suffering, intense hardship and enduring evil in the world, many atheists have advocated, and even try to turn the existence of evil and suffering into an argument against the existence of God.

They claim that, since there is something morally problematic about a morally perfect God allowing all of the evil and suffering we see, there must not be a morally perfect God after all. The popularity of this kind of argument has led to call the problem of evil “the rock of atheism”. So for proponents of the logical problem of evil, God’s omnipotence, omniscience and supreme goodness would completely rule out the possibility of evil and the existence of evil would do the same for the existence of a supreme being. While others see the problem of evil as a kind of a “moral protest”; such that in asking “how could God let this happen?” people are often claiming that it is not fair that God has let this happen.

The philosophical consideration of the necessity of evil

The stoics propagate a pantheistic and deterministic worldview, that God and the universe is one and the same thing; that the universe is the body of God, while God is its soul. They are both constituents of one entity, and all things are parts of this entity. Consequently, God governs the universe with rigid laws of nature that allows for a well ordered and harmonious system in which everything plays a useful role. Hence, nothing in the world is useless, and nothing happens by chance. This shows that whatever happens does so in accordance with the laws of nature and is part of the overall plan of the universe. With this understanding, evil is considered an integral part of the eternal plan, and contributes towards the order and harmony of the universe.

Alvin Plantinga, defending Theism, argues and presented what he termed the morally sufficient reason why the presence of evil in the world cannot counter the existence of God. He argues that God created the human person with morally significant free will, and this, he said, is something of tremendous value. God could not eliminate much of the evil and suffering in this world without thereby eliminating the greater good of having created persons with free will with whom he could have relationships and who are able to love one another and do good deeds.

God allows some evils to occur that are smaller in value than a greater good to which they are intimately connected. If God eliminated the evil, he would have to eliminate the greater good as well. God is pictured as being in a situation much like that of Mrs. Jones who  allowed a small evil, the pain of a needle, to be inflicted upon her child because that pain was necessary for bringing about a greater good, immunization against polio. This argument presupposes the view of free will known as “Libertarianism”.

According to Plantinga, libertarian free will is a morally significant kind of free will. An action is morally significant just when it is appropriate to evaluate that action from a moral perspective. Persons have morally significant free will if they are able to perform actions that are morally significant. Imagine a possible world where God creates creatures with a very limited kind of freedom. According to Plantinga, people in the actual world are free in the most robust sense of that term. They are fully free and responsible for their actions and decisions. Because of this, when they do what is right, they can properly be praised, and when they do wrong, they can be rightly blamed or punished for their actions. So, the existence of evil and suffering in the world is as a result of people doing immoral things. People deserve the blame for the bad things that happens, not God. The essential point of the Free Will Defense is that the creation of a world containing moral good is a cooperative venture; it requires the un-coerced concurrence of significantly free creatures. But then the actualization of a world containing moral good is not up to God alone; it also depends upon what the significantly free creatures of would do.

The next question to ask is: why then did God give freewill to man? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata of creatures that worked like machines would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other.... And for that they must be free. Therefore, the existence of evil in the world is not a negation of God’s existence, nor does it deny God’s omnipotence omniscience and the likes.

4.      ATHEISTIC HUMANISM

Introduction

The question of existence of God and its creationist role have remained perplexing and confusing within the ambience of philosophy and even theology. Time and again, theologians, philosophers, scientists and thinkers have forwarded logical arguments on this issue. With passage of time and intellectual development of human beings, the debate remained not just confined to the narrow scope of either accepting or defying God, but other related concepts and ideologies were developed by philosophers and thinkers and got strength with institutional support. Accordingly a number of schools of conceptual ideologies emerged from the issue, which can be categorized as theism, atheism, humanism and secular humanism (Humanism).

Humanism affirms that the universe is self-existent thus deny its creation. They affirm the eternity of matter and deny the existence of God. For them, man evolved by natural means, hence God has nothing to do with bringing man into being. All religion is the result of social evolution and religion retards Human progress. God is not the ultimate good, and by this, they also deny the possibility of men doing either that which is objectively wrong or that which is really objectively right. The ultimate end of man’s life is to be found in the here and now. Humanism rejects Heaven; it denies there is a Hell. Dependence on science is highly encouraged since man alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams.

Atheism, on the other hand, is the idea of complete absence of belief in God and deity. Thus atheism means absence of theistic belief. Atheism does not signify any conviction that God does not exist; rather the idea is the absence of belief that God is real. Atheism does not require conviction that God does not exist, though there are atheists who have such strong convictions. But it is not a necessary condition to be an atheist. To be an atheist, it is necessary and sufficient to disbelieve the theistic tenet. Thus atheist ideology talks of life more meaningful and more beautifying, free from any unreal thinking.

When we talk of Atheistic Humanism, we are referring to the belief that Man makes religion, religion does not make man. This forms the foundation of their criticism of religion and rejection of any form of theistic beliefs. Henri de Lubac, in his book:  The Drama of Atheistic Humanism argues that contemporary atheism is increasingly positive, organic, and constructive; combining a mystical immanentism with a clear perception of human trend. It has three principle aspects which can be symbolized by three names Auguste Comte, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Frederick Nietzsche. These gave birth to positive humanism, be it Comtean, Marxian humanism and Nietzschean humanism, their common foundation is rejection of God, but they have the same result which is the annihilation of the human person. The negation which underlines positivism is not necessarily atheistic, but anti-Christian, says Lubac. 

The major task of these people was the organization of social life; against the theist who claimed that man cannot organize the world without God. For the Atheistic Humanists, faith disturbs us and continually upsets the balance of our mental conceptions and our social structures, producing a world that perpetually tends to close in upon itself. The theistic Humanist asserts that exclusive humanism is inhuman humanism. While the atheistic humanists see themselves as the only genuine kind of humanism, Atheistic Humanists regards Christian humanism as absurd.

In his book: Atheistic Humanism, Antony Flew argues and addresses the many and diverse aspects of atheistic humanism. Antony Flew begins his comprehensive study with what he terms “Fundamentals of Unbelief”, in which he argues that there is no good or sufficient natural reason to believe that

                                i.            The universe was created by a conscious, personal, willing, and doing Being;

                              ii.            Such a conjectural Being has provided his or her or its creatures with a Revelation; and

                            iii.            We should either hope or fear some future for ourselves after our deaths.