I’ve always had a certain wide-eyed fascination with the big metaphysical conundrums and other people’s attempts to resolve them. I’m finally at a point in my life where I have enough free time to be able to investigate all these fantastically complex questions, sift through the various arguments substantiating their myriad competing solutions, and come to a decision myself. Trouble is, I really don’t know where to begin.
The question that interests me most, ‘Is there a God’, is probably the most discussed question ever posed. With your help, I would like to build the ultimate ‘Philosophy of Religion’ reading list, cataloguing the most important books on the subject in the order in which they should be read so that I and other Dopers have an investigative blueprint to follow when trying to work out our own stances.
For the purposes of simplifying my investigations, I would like to restrict all recommendations to books concerning the God of Judeo-Christian monotheism. Treatises on the existence (or lack thereof) of pan-theistic deities aren’t really of any use to me. Maybe in a couple of years.
So, what books and articles do you think I need to read to get a good handle on this situation, and why? The why is important, because I’m probably going to get a lot of requests and I need some criteria by which to decide which reccomendations go on the final list and which one’s don’t.
For the foundation, you should read Descartes’ Meditations. Pretty much all subsequent philosophy has to address Descartes in some way, and much of it is a development of his ideas.
My personal favorite is Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard. It’s sublime, and is mostly concerned with exploring the relationship between rationality and faith.
Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil is an extremely powerful criticism of Christianity, and stylistically brilliant.
The Novel/History of Philosophy called Sophie’s World (I don’t have the author right here, but if you check Amazon.com, I’m sure a listing will come up). It’s an amazing book, very fascinating as it unfolds. It’s both a novel and a history of philosophy, with some applied philosophy at the end wherein you try to unravel the riddle of the ending.
Sophie’s World was written by Jostein Gaarder. Amazon.
My personal recommendation is to start with the Bible. Have a few different versions for comparing perspectives maybe (your local library should have a plethora). Start with Genesis, and just read on through.
Saint Anselm, “The Ontological Argument” Proslogium, Chapters II-V.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, “The Five Ways” Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 2, Article 3.
William Paley, “The Teleological Argument” Natural Theology, Chapter 1.
J. L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence” Mind 64 (1955): 200-212.
Blaise Pascal, “The Wager” Pensees.
William Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief” Lectures and Essays, Volume II.
William James, “The Will to Believe” The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy.
Something much like this collection can be found in most every introductory philosophy textbook - Reason and Responsibility, eds. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau is a good example, though there are many others with similar formats. Such textbooks also include an essay introducing the section, explaining the basics of the arguments being made, and point to further relevant readings. As to those, Hume and Kant both wrote highly influential pieces on the existence of God. Hume’s is Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The most relevant part of Kant would be sections of Critique of Pure Reason. Kant makes my eyes bleed.
Depending how little you already know, you might consider something like Socrates to Sartre by Samuel Stumpf. (Go for a cheaper used copy.)
He does a decent job of explaining the basic thoughts of the successive philosophers and how each built on the work of their predecessors (either by expanding on or disagreeing with their positions).
It is strictly an introductory work and if you are familiar with the general terms, you can skip it. However, if you dive into Anselm and keep finding yourself muttering “WTF?” you might want to back out long enough to take the overview.
I’m not certain that books about philosophy can be categorized as part of “creativity, entertainment, or leisure”. Nevertheless, I’m going to bung this in where the readers hang out.
But, by those criteria, you are essentially taking the question out of the realm of philosophy and placing it in the realm of theology. (A word not much used outside Christian intellectual discourse.)
If you are interested in philosophy as it relates to God, the best book you can read is Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, by Martin Gardner – who describes himself as a “philosophical theist.” I.e., he believes in one God, a personal God to whom one can pray, and who can provide a personal afterlife (one of the chapters is titled, “Why I Am Not a Pantheist”); but that God is not the Bible’s God, as Gardner is a skeptic* who rejects all “revelations” as such. But Gardner does know a whole lot about Christian scripture.
Confucious, Zen and Buddhist texts, etc. are also good. (The question of whether there is a/are god(s) and what that belief should entail, isn’t just a Western one after all.)
I would start with a philosophy textbook and a philosophy encyclopedia, for an overview.
At some point you may want to consider more contemporary work. At that point, you could dip into Breaking the Spell by militant atheist Daniel Dennett. A review is at http://www.slate.com/id/2137743/ .
December’s Atlantic Magazine had a perspective from evolutionary psychology: Is God An Accident?
The recommendations in here are very good. Metaphysics is pretty much covered. For aesthetics, read Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation and then the book of John (from the New Testament).
No, but it is a question irrelevant to both Confucianism and Buddhism. Confucius might well have been an atheist, although he insisted on celebration of traditional religious rites because they were traditional. Buddha simply assumed the Hindu gods to be real – but they are beside the point in his religion; one does not achieve enlightenment by prayer, devotion, or paying any attention of any kind to the gods. They’re in the same maya-bound fix we are.
If you have no background in philosophy, jumping in feet-first to read Descartes et al might be overwhelming and unproductive. A better idea might be to get oriented first by way of very introductory secondary literature. Go to the bookstore and get a couple basic introductories to philosophy. There are introductories to philosophy generally and introductories to philosophy of religion more specifically. They’re not hard to find. Harper Collins has an anthology of summaries of great philosophical works that might be helpful: Masterpieces of World Philosophy. It’s edited by Frank N. Magill. The summaries are relatively clear, concise, and useful, and lack the technical niceties that can put off an otherwise eager beginner. It’s also huge, and covers all the highlights in Western philosophy. Once you have some idea of what, say, Descartes’ Meditations is all about you can then read the work itself much more productively.
I’d also recommend actually sitting in on philosophy classes if you can. Studying philosophy by oneself can be extremely unproductive: the material is difficult and requires that one be exposed to different perspectives that only the dialectical give-and-take of dialogue with another person can really provide.