This course is an introduction to several major thinkers in the modern Christian and Jewish West through their views on faith and doubt. The modern period in European philosophy and theology is usually considered to begin with a set of challenges to traditional religious world views, especially the belief in God. While the nature and meaning of God's existence stimulated countless rich debates in earlier centuries, these debates take on a new dimension towards the middle of the seventeenth century. In the context of the close of the religious wars spurred by the Reformation and the emergence of a new experimental attitude towards nature and the cosmos, many thinkers felt a need to clarify the contents and parameters of religious belief and knowledge. While virtually all thinkers in this period continued to express theistic beliefs, many nevertheless struggled openly with what these beliefs entailed, setting the groundwork for arguments against God's existence altogether and eventually stimulating the creation of alternative ways of securing human meaning. Throughout the course we will be asking at least two kinds of questions. First, we will pursue such conceptual questions as how have various thinkers grappled with inherited notions of reason, revelation, nature, tradition, good and evil? What role have doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty played in modern world views and how have these experiences been related to faith? Second, we will subject the historical premises of the course to scrutiny, asking about the very assumption that atheism inaugurates modernity. What is the validity of this claim? Are there other events, ideas, or experiences we might identify as uniquely modern? How do terms such as "enlightenment," "science," "freedom," "authority," and the "self" determine how we characterize, and thus value, this period? Reading list: Pascal, Descartes, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Dostoevsky, Buber, Rosenzweig, Rilke, Sartre. Format: lecture/discussion. Requirements: attendance and active participation, five short papers (2 pages) and one final paper (10-15 pages). Open to all classes without prerequisite. Enrollment limit: 30 (expected: 20).