Philosophy of religion

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Philosophical interest in religion may be said to have originated in the West with the ancient Greeks. Many of the enduring questions in the philosophy of religion were first addressed by them, and the claims and controversies they developed served as a framework for subsequent philosophizing for more than 1,500 years. Plato (427–347 bce), who developed the metaphysical theory of Forms (abstract entities corresponding to the properties of particular objects), was also one of the first thinkers to consider the idea of creation and to attempt to prove the existence of God. Plato’s student Aristotle (384–322 bce) developed his own metaphysical theory of the first, or unmoved, mover of the universe, which many of his interpreters have identified with God. Aristotle’s speculations began a tradition that later came to be known as natural theology—the attempt to provide a rational demonstration of the existence of God based on features of the natural world. The Stoicism of the Hellenistic Age (300 bce–300 ce) was characterized by philosophical naturalism, including the idea of natural law (a system of right or justice thought to be inherent in nature); meanwhile, thinkers such as Titus Lucretius Carus in the 1st century bce and Sextus Empiricus in the 3rd century ce taught a variety of skeptical doctrines. Although not an original work of philosophy, De natura deorum (44 bce; “The Nature of the Gods”), by the Roman statesman and scholar Marcus Tullius Cicero, is an invaluable source of information on ancient ideas about religion and the philosophical controversies they engendered.

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