Over a teaching career of thirty years at Boston University I have taught courses in the philosophy of religion at three different levels. In this paper I will briefly describe the content of these courses, the teaching methods used, and some of the problems I have encountered. I hope that my experience will be useful to other philosophy teachers.

THE INTRODUCTORY COURSE

On at least three different occasions in the last ten years I taught an introduction to the philosophy of religion course, entitled "Philosophy and Religion." Although this course was not intended to be an introductory course in philosophy, several students in the class had had no previous acquaintance with philosophy so that the course served as their introduction to the field. The texts used were William Rowe, Philosophy of Religion, (second edition),¹ and Louis Pojman (ed.), Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, (second edition).² Rowe’s introductory book and Pojman’s anthology complement each other nicely. On the one hand, the classical and contemporary articles in Pojman, although difficult and demanding, are illuminated by Rowe’s clear expositions. On the other hand, Rowe’s introductory exposition is given depth and historical perspective by the selections in Pojman. The topics covered in the course-the nature of God, the onto-logical, cosmological, teleological arguments, the argument from miracles, religious experience, the presumption of atheism, the argument from evil, faith, life after death, and religion and ethics-were derived from these books.

As a supplement to these readings, I distributed several hand-outs during the semester in which I formulated an argument that was being discussed informally in class. Here is sample hand-out:

The Argument from Knowledge by Acquaintance

1. If God is all knowing, He has all factual knowledge and all knowledge by acquaintance.

2. If God has all knowledge by acquaintance, then He knows (by acquaintance) torturing someone gratuitously.

3. But if God knows (by acquaintance) torturing someone gratuitously, then He would have had to have tortured someone gratuitously.

4. If God is all good, He would never torture someone gratuitously.

5. If God would never torture someone gratuitously, then He does not know (by acquaintance) torturing someone gratuitously.

6. Therefore, God cannot be both all knowing and all good.

7. But by definition God is both all knowing and all good.

8. Hence, God does not exist.

Ways of Escaping the Conclusion:

(a) Deny premise 1: God has only all factual knowledge. But then one must say that an all knowing being lacks knowledge, and this is paradoxical.

(b) Deny premise 3. God could know by acquaintance torturing someone gratuitously without actually having engaged in torture. But how? By definition one can know x by acquaintance (where x is some activity) only by engaging in it. Even God cannot do what is logically impossible.

(c) Deny premise 4. God might be justified in torturing someone because it is necessary to some larger good. But by definition gratuitous torture is not justified.

(d) Deny premise 4. God might be all good in some different sense of "good" than the human sense of "good." In this sense, gratuitous torture is morally permissible. But in this case why worship God? We worship God because we suppose he is good in our sense.

The goal of "Philosophy and Religion" was to introduce students to philosophical issues connected with the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, as well as to get students to think philosophically and critically about these issues. There is no doubt that the first goal was achieved: most students finished the course with at least a passing knowledge of the topic listed above. However, the second goal was harder both to achieve and to measure. Though I am certain that some students did come to think philosophically and critically outside of the classroom about religious issues, I doubt that most did. However, it is perhaps unrealistic to suppose that an introductory course in the philosophy of religion can alone turn most students into critical philosophical thinkers concerning religion.

The teaching methods used in the introductory course were determined to a large extent by the size of the class- which ranged from between thirty to seventy students. Lectures and discussion occupied most of class time. I tended to call on students who raised their hands in response to my questions, but I also made an effort to call on students who did not raise their hands-the majority-in order to engage them. On occasion, I divided the class into small groups (of five or six) to discuss, for about a half hour, such questions as whether there are objections to the view that there is life after death. Each group then reported the results of its deliberations back to the class as a whole.

Another technique that I sometimes used was to have students ‘act out’ philosophical positions. (For example, to illustrate the contrast between being free and not being free on the compatibilist view, I would have a student try to walk out the door of the classroom with other students blocking the way. I would point out that the student trying to leave lacked freedom in the compatibilist sense. Then I would have the student walk out the door without the way being blocked, and point out that the student had freedom in this sense to walk out the door. Another technique I have used is to turn off the lights and ask the students to close their eyes in order to stimulate their imaginations. ("See if you can imagine a possible world in which human beings never did anything immoral. If you can, how does this affect the free-will defense for the problem of evil? Can you imagine God creating this world?")

In order to encourage students to challenge what I said, I stated at the beginning of the course that I would offer extra credit to those who wrote out their objections to the views that I expressed in class. I responded to these objections in writing (and, more recently, by electronic mail).

Grading

The grading policy in the class was structured so that students had both to achieve certain grades on the mid-terms and take-home final and also do additional work, in order to receive a grade in the A or B range. For example, to receive a grade of A or A-, students had to write a term paper and successfully answer two sets of questions taken from the Questions for Further Discussion at the end of Rowe’s chapters. Two typical questions for discussion were: (1) "Which of the several objections to the Ontological Argument strikes you as most plausible? Which strikes you as the least plausible? For what reasons?" and (2) "Of the various arguments for and against personal survival, select what you think is the strongest for and the strongest against. Carefully discuss each of these arguments, and indicate which of the two, in your judgment, is the most plausible."

My policy of requiring additional work in order to qualify for an A or B grade quickly separated the highly motivated students from those who were simply good exam takers. It also allowed students to adjust their grade expectations to their capacity for work.

GRADUATE LEVEL SEMINAR ON CHRISTIANITY

A number of years ago, I taught a graduate-level course on philosophical issues connected with Christianity. At the time I was completing the manuscript of The Case Against Christianity³ and so I structured the course around topics covered in that book. The seminar considered questions such as: Did Jesus exist? Was Jesus a miracle worker or a magician? Was Jesus resurrected from the dead? Could Jesus, a finite human being, be God Incarnate? Was Jesus an ideal moral teacher?

The texts for the course were Michael Arnheim’s Is Christianity True?;⁴ Rudolf Bultmann’s Jesus Christ and Myth-ology;⁵ Thomas Morris’ The Logic of God Incarnate; ⁶ Paul Ramsey’s Basic Christian Ethics;⁷ Morton Smith’s Jesus The Magician;⁸ and G.A. Wells’ Did Jesus Exist? ⁹ In addition, students were required to buy a packet of photocopied articles and book chapters that included: William Frankena’s "The Ethics of Love" from his Ethics;¹⁰ Paul Kurtz’s "The Jesus Myth" from his The Transcendental Temptation;¹¹ Richard Robinson’s "The Ethics of the Synoptic Gospels" and "Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels" from his An Atheist’s Values;¹² a selection from Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not A Christian;¹³ G. A. Wells’ "Myth and Authenticity in the New Testament" from his The Historical Evidence for Jesus;¹⁴ G.A.Wells’ "The Historicity of Jesus" from The Encyclopedia of Unbelief;¹⁵ and lan Wilson’s "Did Jesus Even Exist?" from his Jesus: The Evidence.¹⁶

The course was run as a seminar with student reports, several short papers, and lots of class discussion and student participation. The topics for student presentations were chosen by me. Typically they consisted in a report on the readings and students’ critical reaction to the readings. For example, I asked one student to expound Wells’ argument against the historicity of Jesus and to raise some critical questions against Wells’ argument. Another assignment was to evaluate several criticisms that Robinson raises against Christian ethics. I graded the reports on the basis of the clarity of their thought and the critical acumen displayed.

My goal for the course were twofold: first, that students become acquainted with some of the problems connected with Christian belief and, second, that they learn to think critically about these issues. The first goal was certainly achieved and, judging from the student papers, the second goal was, to a limited extent, realized.

Were I to teach this seminar again, I would probably cover the same questions and topics, but I would certainly update the readings. An update is warranted because work has appeared recently that raises arguments and points that I did not consider in the seminar. This update would include my own book, The Case Against Christianity,¹⁷ as well as those papers from the journal Faith and Philosophy that include material on the Resurrection, for example, Robert Greg Cavin’s "Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?"¹⁸ Both of these works try to make the case that because the initial probability of the Resurrection is low, extremely strong evidence is needed to justify belief in it.

In the Fall semester of 1996 I taught a middle level seminar on religious epistemology that was open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates. The required texts were: L. Pojman’s What Can We Know?;¹⁹ D. G. Geivett and B. Sweetman’s Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology;²⁰ W. Alston’s Perceiving God;²¹ A. Plantinga’s Warrant and Proper Function.²² The following books were on reserve: D. Z. Phillips’ Faith After Foundationalism²³ Michael Martin’s Atheism;²⁴ Alvin Plantinga’s Warrant: The Current Debate.²⁵

In addition, a number of articles that are critical of Plantinga’s and Alston’s positions were placed on reserve, including a symposium on Plantinga’s Warrant and Proper Function that appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,²⁶ and a symposium on Perceiving God that also appeared in that journal.²⁷

The goals of the course were the same as those for the graduate-level seminar described above. Like that seminar, this class too was conducted as a seminar. Four basic topics were covered: (a) reformed epistemology; (b) Wittgensteinian fideism; (c) religious experience; and (d) proper function and supernaturalism. For the latter two topics, the readings were restricted to Alston’s Perceiving God and its critics and Plantinga’s Warrant and Proper Function and its critics.

One problem that arose in this course-it is a potential problem in any course in which there are both graduate and undergraduate students-was the tendency of graduate students to dominate the discussion at the expense of the undergraduate students, the former tending, as a result, to feel intimidated. (In my particular course this was perhaps exacerbated by the fact that there was only one under-graduate student in the course.) I know no easy way to handle this. (I tried to take special care to include the undergraduate student in the discussion and hold graduate-student domination in check, but I am not sure how success-ful I was. I also gave the undergraduate tutorials during my office hours to help with difficult material.)

Several short papers were assigned during the semester and a long 15-page paper was due at the end of the course.

Because the seminar met three times a week, I thought it necessary to organize the discussions carefully. Hence, I handed out a day-by-day schedule of the readings and the questions to be covered. There follows a sample schedule of four class meetings that I distributed on the very first day of the seminar.

Assignment for first meeting:

Read Louis Pojman’s What Can We Know?, Chapter 6 [which concerns classical foundationalism]. Be sure you consider Questions for Discussion 1-5 and be prepared to answer these questions orally in class. [The Questions for Discussion help the students to focus on the main critical points of the chapter. For example, Question #4 is: "Go over the critique of foundationalism. What is the ascent problem?" (This chapter was not discussed in class before the students were asked to answer the questions concerning it.)]

Assignment for second meeting:

Read Louis Pojman’s What Can We Know?,Chapter 7 [which concerns coherentism and modest foundationalism]. Be sure you consider Questions for Discussion 1-9 and be prepared to answer Questions 6-9 orally in class. [Questions for Discussion help the students to focus on the main critical points. For example, Question #3 is: "Go over the three main criticisms of coherentism in this chapter. How might the coherentist respond to these objections?" (This chapter was not discussed in class before the students were asked to answer these questions.)]

Assignment for third meeting:

Read Plantinga’s paper "Is Belief in God Properly Basic?" in D. G. Geivett and B. Sweetman, Contemporary Per-spectives on Religious Epistemology. Be prepared to answer the following orally in class.

1. What is classical foundationalism according to Plantinga? What are his objections to it?

2. Could foundationalism be modified in such a way that it would meet Plantinga’s objections and yet block theological beliefs from being properly basic?

3. What does Plantinga mean when he says that properly basic beliefs are not groundless? What is the difference between groundless beliefs and basic beliefs? Is this distinction tenable?

4. What does Plantinga mean by saying that the criteria of properly basic beliefs should be arrived at inductively? Has Plantinga followed his own advice? What are the problems with this inductive method?

Assignment for fourth meeting:

Although I am an atheist, my atheism was not an issue in teaching philosophy of religion. Indeed, most students in the introductory course did not even realize that I am a nonbeliever. In general, I did not tell students in my introductory class my position unless they asked. (Most students in the more advanced courses seemed to know my position, and some perceptive students in my introductory course inferred my views from the titles of my books and articles.) Although I offered critiques of the arguments for the existence of God, I also presented objections to the atheistic arguments (for example, objections to the argument from evil). However, I also tried to show how many of these objections can be answered. I try to present atheism fairly, and pick textbooks that gave atheism its due. For example, of the books that I assign, Rowe’s is sympathetic to atheism, and Pojman’s anthology has selections that are critical of theistic positions.

1. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co, 1993.

2. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co, 1994.

3. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1991.

4. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1984.

5. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958.

6. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.

7. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950.

8. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978.

9. London: Pemberton, 1975.

10. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973.

11. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986.

12. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964.

13. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957.

14. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1982.

15. Vol. 1, Gordon Stein, ed., (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books), 1985.

16. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1984.

17. Op. cit.

18. Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 3 (1995): 361 -379.

19. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co, 1995.

20. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

21. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.

22. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

23. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.

24. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990.

25. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

26. LV, no. 2 (1995): 393-464.

• Letter from the Editors
• Articles
  • Compromising Standards, Jonathan E. Adler
  • Three Courses in Philosophy of Religion, Michael Martin
  • Values Analysis: An Experiment in Interdisciplinary Ethics, Charles Ess
  • Pre-college Philosophy Teaching as a Career Option, David Martens and Hugh Taft-Morales
  • A Syllabus for a Course on Virtue, Beth Singer
  • Ze, Zer, Mer, Richard E. Creel
• Book Reviews
  • A Hobbes Dictionary, Reviewed by Joseph Filonowicz
  • Political Justice,  Reviewed by William L. McBrid
  • Classics of Modern Political Theory: Machiavelli to Mill, Reviewed by Ramon M. Lemos
  • Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion, Eastern and Western Thought, Reviewed by Jerome Gellman
  • The Nationalism Reader, Reviewed by August Viglione
  • Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature, Reviewed by Ursula Niklas
• List of Books Received
• News and Notes
• Addresses of Contributors