Theory of Knowledge - Does God Exist?

Most of you probably know that I teach literature at La Mirada High School, but I also teach this very interesting course called Theory of Knowledge. It is basically a philosophy seminar course where we spend time in discussion addressing a central question: how do we know? Here is our official course description:

Theory of Knowledge – Instructor: Mrs. Shackleton (Non-Honors Credit – UC approved elective credit) This philosophy seminar course encourages critical thinking about knowledge itself, to try to help students make sense out of what they encounter both within and outside the academic community. Students will investigate the origins, processes, and limitations of human knowledge and will discuss how logic, sense perception, emotion, and language are used to discover knowledge in the areas of mathematics, natural sciences, human sciences, history, the arts, and ethics. This discussion-based course is designed to raise questions rather than answer them. It encourages students to make connections between their core content classes and understand the ways in which personal views, beliefs, and judgments influence knowledge claims. Students will be taught how to write a basic philosophy paper and learn how to effectively communicate their ideas clearly both orally and in writing.

Right now we are in the middle of our chapter on religion. The chapter is basically divided into three sections: arguments for the existence of God (theistic point of view), arguments against the existence of God (atheistic point of view), and a third section called “should the existence of God matter?”. The awesome thing is there is going to be a debate between Dinesh D'Souza (a theist who is a fellow at Stanford University) and Peter Singer (an atheist who is at Yale University) on the existence of God and it’s meaning for human flourishing. I am so excited for my students to see this debate as it will challenge them to think more critically and have reasons to substantiate and support their beliefs. You can check out the rest of Biola’s Apologetics events here.