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Our goal is to explore the challenges to religious thinking in the eighteenth century that resulted from the Enlightenment’s demand that religion justify itself in terms of rationality. Scholars in the 18th century critically examined traditional Christian dogmas and, when they found them wanting, came up with numerous ways to reinterpret them in order to maintain the faith. However, the result of these interpretations was often a watering down of the original dogma to the point that what remained was in effect secular knowing and not religious belief. Through texts from authors such as Leibniz, Voltaire, Rousseau, Lessing, Jacobi, Hume, Fichte and Kant, we will explore questions such as the problem of evil, religious freedom and toleration, the historical veracity of the biblical narratives, the possibility of miracles, the divine nature of Christ, the nature of the Revelation, and the religious grounding of ethics. This course is interdisciplinary and will include readings and discussions relevant for philosophy, theology and religious studies.
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