Remarks on the Teaching of Philosophy of Religion

Those teaching evaluation reminder emails got to me. 'URGENT!' they cried, 'wait, and you'll never get to do us again!...' and I was finally drawn in on a day where there was so much else to do. I decided to splurge out a lot of thoughts I'd been having about my philosophy of religion class. Only some of them actually made it, but what came felt pretty substantial and made in good faith. In the Department question box: "What would you suggest to improve the course?" I gave them this short essay:

***

The challenge of teaching philosophy of religion seems to be that religion is not something that most students coming into the course have much of a grounding in. It can be reasonably expected that those students trying out philosophy of mind, of science, or political philosophy have strong interests and backgrounds already in psychology, one or many natural sciences, or poli. science and international affairs. But the average student entering philosophy of religion is someone who hasn't devoted much focus in their lives to any religion, much less engaged it longly, deeply, and with the same patience, or genuine and good-natured aplomb they might for any of the other subjects above.

Two consequences follow, I think. 1) Students are less able to picture faithfully and charitably the phenomenon they are ostensibly philosophizing about - how will they create any examples of real penetration and depth of reflection? 2) They are forced to begin from whatever scraps of attitudes and ideas towards various religions are lying about popular culture. Many are negative of course. For instance, in the case of Christianity, it is news to them that scholarship in such fields as biblical studies or theology is brimming with vitality in many, if not all places, and are not just so much slavish and grovelling slobberings praising God (to name the worst of what people can think, not that all think like so), but rather instead can be absorbing, fascinating, and careful work, even for positions taken that are pro that religion. For Sam to have to bump into this attitude while he teaches, and wonder what he should do about it, knowing otherwise, probably makes him have to speak the unpopular position often, and more generally, it can be imagined that attitudes like these would represent a substantial obstacle to any student trying to engage or understand religion deeply, which is what a philosophy of religion should aim fundamentally to inculcate.

But perhaps a more helpful point about the ideas from popular culture that students come in with for the readers of this, as course-setters, is that they can often end up obscuring what the religion is actually like. I can draw another example out of Christianity, as being an adherent, it is easier for me to notice. Talk long enough about Christianity, and you may wander into epistemological justifications for it, and faith will come into the conversation, and you may hear a student make a comment that faith is belief in the face of the evidence, or conviction, or some such thing. But it is not. Faith is trust first, an aspect of a relationship between individuals where one, through acquaintance, or even a long (and possibly witheringly difficult) knowledge of the other, feels of the other that he is worthy of generally being given the benefit of the doubt, and when far enough, even being taken at his word, and it is through being this that faith starts having epistemological import. The key question is not whether taking others at their word is bad in principle, for we do this all the time when we read the nearest history text or listen to a prof expose us to new things - testimony and authority are legitimate sources of knowledge, or at least of their transmission. The key question has always been whether that source you are trusting is credible. And because trust over the matters Christianity speaks over has rather momentous consequences for the life of the truster, momentous enough to get the truster to not always know what to think of who he trusts, faith has another dimension to its character -> it is faith against appearances. As one writer roughly put it, “Faith is the art of not letting your emotions pull a blitzkreig on you when things are uncertain or not going right.” When I am told by the Arts Advisor that the skills I gain in philosophy are transferable, and make me a hot item among employers, will I be able to take her at her word, and for the whole of the next four years of my education not sometimes wonder cynically if I'd be better off in a vocational program for my daily bread and meat, and not one day wonder so hard that I pick up, leave, and become a med assistant instead? Faith of the Christian variety is a very similar affair. Fortunately, God is quite okay with the runners, leavers, frequent quitters, and those who don't always know quite what to think of him. His whole pleasure is that we are always invited back, and then into more. My point though, is just that if from the obfuscating effect popular culture has, students cannot produce accounts of basic religious phenomena like the above (like they might be able to for mental, natural, or social and political phenomena) because of where they come from, so much the worse for their understanding when they come out later on.

Just about the only thing that can be done about this is to promote simple exposure to what is possible within the religions, and to have a steely resolve to flesh out the real McCoy whenever misconceptions and misrepresentations crop up. I recognize that's a tall order, but I am trying to recognize what the problem I've pointed out seems to need. Professor Sam does a few things already in this direction. He does indicate his respect and interest wherever he has it for the many diverse authors we read, which can influence the way students regard who and what they're reading positively, and there have been points where he has not hesitated to point out that straw men are straw men, or at least indicate his discomfort while trying to leave a student's dignity intact.

What would make for something truly interesting and unprecedented would be if there was a component to the course where for each of the religions he taught something about, he'd cover “what it is like to be an adherent of this religion at the height of what their faith stands for,” lifting up some life dynamics, spiritual dynamics, or some individual that he himself genuinely felt inspired by, interested, or saw a lot of good in, that he could feel pleased to share with the class about. Sam could ask any religious friends he had true respect for where to go to find out about inspiring patterns and movements in the dynamics or day-to-day of a religious life. Like I've been saying, the students of philosophy of religion need exposure in order to picture properly what they're talking about. This, to my mind, would be the perfect way to get that. We always value comparing the strongest of everything with each other in philosophy, don't we?

It might be objected that this would take way too long and take up too much of the course within a single term. The arguments for God's existence and other topics do need to be covered at some point. But, well, religion is a big topic, and you are out to inculcate deep understanding of it, are you not? Start with a smattering of the ground phenomena, then. Couldn't a full-year course be tried out?

***

I had a real nice chat with Professor Sam (name has been changed) in his office a week ago where I found out a lot about him, his interests and his past, and he told me that philosophy of religion used to actually be full-year before the department decided to shorten it. It was such a cool coincidence! I wonder if what I've written will get anyone who reads it to pause..