The Philosophy A2 course begins on 22nd June with a module on Religious Language. Full course outline is attached below:
Religious Language
• Use and purpose of religious language
• The via negative
• Verification and Falsification principles
• How meaningful is religious language
• The use of symbol, analogy and myth to express our understanding of God
• The Vienna Circle
Religious Experience
• Arguments from religious experience
• Main conclusions drawn by William James
• Forms of religious experience: visions, voices, “numinous” experience, conversion experience, corporate religious experience
• Revelation through sacred writing
• MIRACLE including:
o Different definitions including Hume
o Biblical concept of miracle
o Criticisms made by Hume and Wiles
The Nature of God
• God as eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent and the philosophical problems these cause
• Boethius – Book 5 The Consolations of Philosophy
• Would a good God reward or punish
Life and Death: The Soul
• Distinctions between body and soul (Plato, Aristotle, Hick and Dawkins)
• Questions surrounding the nature of a disembodied existence
• Relationship between the afterlife and the problem of evil
