Philosophy of Religion Videos

If, as Classical Theists hold, we and all created things exist because God is good, what can evil be? This video presents the privation theory of evil--that evil is the absence of something that ought to exist--and shows how such evil is compatible with a good God.

What does it mean to say God *knows* things? This video examines two answers to that question. Theistic personalists hold that God knows things in the same sense in which we know things: by observing them. Classical Theists deny this account and hold rather that God knows things by causing their existence.

In this video, Elmar Kremer (University of Toronto) introduces two theories of the nature of God: classical theism and theistic personalism. In part 2, he considers several arguments for and against classical theism.

It is common to think that Faith and Reason must be in conflict. Often this view emerges because how we use the term "believe" is ambiguous. In this video we clarify how this term is used and how Faith and Reason can be properly related.

Richard discusses the classic philosophical problem of free will --- that is, the question of whether we decide things for ourselves, or are forced to go one way or another. He distinguishes between two different worries. One worry is that the laws of physics, plus facts about the past over which we have no control, determine what we will do, and that means we’re not free. Another worry is that because the laws and the past determine what we’ll do, someone smart enough could know what we would do ahead of time, so we can’t be free. He says the second worry is much worse than the first, but argues that the second doesn’t follow from the first.

Part 1 of a pair. Tim lays out a classic argument for the existence of God, called 'The Cosmological Argument' -- roughly, the idea that something has to explain why the world is the way it is, and that something is God. He distinguishes two versions: the Beginnings Argument, and the Modal Argument. He covers the Beginnings Argument.

Part 3 of a trilogy. Greg considers the evidential version of the Problem of Evil, and gives a response on behalf of someone who believes that God exists. This involves considering whether God might have a good reason to allow bad things to happen.

Part 2 of a trilogy. Here, Greg gives a response to the deductive version of the Problem of Evil on behalf of someone who believes that God exists. In thinking about this response, we need to think about whether God can make contradictions true, and whether God can have good reasons for allowing bad things to happen.