BPYG-172 Solved Question Paper June 2026 brings you complete, exam-length answers to every question IGNOU set in the latest Philosophy of Religion term-end exam. Read two answers in full below, check which topics keep coming back, and order the whole file on WhatsApp 9899436384.
BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion key facts, June 2026 paper
- Course code: BPYG-172
- Subject: Philosophy of Religion
- Programme: Generic Elective under CBCS, shared across IGNOU BAG, BCOMG and BSCG; also a Generic Elective in BA (Honours) Psychology, BAPCH
- Credits: 6
- Blocks and units: 3 blocks, 14 units
- Semester: Semester VI in BAG Philosophy; Semester II as a Generic Elective in BAPCH
- Maximum marks: 100
- Duration: 3 hours
- Medium: printed in English and Hindi
- Questions in the paper: 8 in two sections of four each; attempt any 5 with at least 2 from each section
- Sample answers shown here: 2 (Question 1 and Question 5)
- Questions in the paid file: all 8, with all three options of Q4 and Q8 solved, which comes to 12 written answers; 6 questions are not answered on this page
- Exam session: June 2026 term-end examination
What the BPYG-172 Solved Question Paper June 2026 covers
BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion is a 6-credit IGNOU Generic Elective under CBCS, offered in the Bachelor of Arts (General), Bachelor of Commerce (General) and Bachelor of Science (General) programmes, that examines what religion is, whether God's existence can be argued for, and how religions should live together.
The June 2026 paper has eight questions in two sections. Section A opens with the anthropological origin of religion, moves to William James and religious language, and asks whether theological statements can be tested. Section B begins with the Kalam cosmological argument, then asks you to define religion, explain its higher form and write on feminist philosophy of religion.
Two short-note questions add six more topics: free will theodicy, interreligious dialogue, religious fundamentalism, the ontological argument, secularism and the evidential problem of evil. Our file answers every one of them, so you can choose the notes you are most confident about on exam day.
One structural fact decides how you should prepare. Three of the four Section A questions — Q1, Q2 and Q3 — came from Block 1 alone, and Section A needs at least two of your five answers. A learner who skipped Block 1 could have answered only Q4 there, one short of the minimum, with no way to make it up in Section B. Block 1 is the one block on this paper you cannot do without.
8 questions · 20 marks each · attempt any 5, at least 2 per section · about 400 words an answer, or two 200-word notes · roughly 2,000 words in 180 minutes = 36 minutes a question
Every question costs the same twenty marks for the same four hundred words, so there is no cheap question. Because each section prints four questions and you must take at least two from each, the only possible splits are three answers from one section and two from the other.
This IGNOU BPYG-172 Question Paper is not an easy read for first-time philosophy students. Questions like the testability of theological statements expect you to know debates from logical positivism onwards, while the feminist question needs a clear structure, not just opinions. That is exactly where model answers help.
Two BPYG-172 answers you can read before you order
Question 1 and Question 5 of the BPYG-172 June 2026 paper are answered in full below; the other six questions are answered only in the paid file.
We picked one long question from each section so you can judge the depth and style on both halves of the paper. Question wording follows the printed paper, with the paper's own numbering.
Question 1 Section A Any 5 of 8 Block 1, Unit 2 20 marks about 400 words Origin of religion set in all 7 earlier papers
1. Discuss and analyze anthropological perspective regarding the origin of religion. 20
The anthropological perspective treats religion as a human cultural creation and tries to find its earliest form by studying tribal and pre-literate societies. Nineteenth-century anthropologists were deeply influenced by the idea of evolution, so they assumed that religion grew in stages, from simple beliefs about spirits and powers to the developed world religions. Five theories make up this perspective.
1. Animism: E. B. Tylor. In Primitive Culture (1871), Edward Burnett Tylor gave a minimum definition of religion as belief in spiritual beings. Early people, he argued, reflected on dreams, trances, sleep and death and concluded that every person has a soul that can leave the body. This idea was then extended to animals, plants and objects. Worship of spirits and ancestors followed, and over time it developed into polytheism and finally monotheism.
2. Animatism or pre-animism: R. R. Marett. R. R. Marett, in The Threshold of Religion (1909), said that something came even before belief in souls. Early people felt awe and fear before an impersonal, supernatural power, which Melanesian peoples called mana (a term reported by the missionary R. H. Codrington). For Marett, religion began in emotion and ritual action rather than in reasoning about souls.
3. Magic before religion: J. G. Frazer. James George Frazer, in The Golden Bough (1890), proposed three stages of human thought: magic, religion and science. Magic rests on two principles: like produces like (homeopathic magic) and things once in contact keep acting on each other (contagious magic). When magic repeatedly failed, people began to pray to and please powerful beings, and that was the birth of religion. Science, in his view, would finally replace both.
4. Naturism: Max Müller. Friedrich Max Müller traced religion to the awe early people felt before great natural forces such as the sky, the sun, fire and storms. Names given to these forces were slowly personified into gods, which is why he described mythology as a kind of disease of language.
5. Primitive monotheism: Andrew Lang and Wilhelm Schmidt. Andrew Lang, in The Making of Religion (1898), and later Wilhelm Schmidt found belief in a supreme high god among some of the simplest societies. This challenged the neat evolutionary line running from many spirits to one God.
Analysis. The anthropological approach was the first systematic, comparative and naturalistic study of religion. It linked belief to dreams, death, emotion and practical needs. Yet it has serious weaknesses.
Most early theorists were armchair scholars who relied on travellers' reports. Unilinear evolution is not supported by evidence, as primitive monotheism shows. Calling tribal people primitive was ethnocentric. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, in Theories of Primitive Religion (1965), criticised these theories as guesses about what early people must have thought.
Finally, explaining how a belief began does not prove it true or false. The origin question is anthropological; the question of validity belongs to the philosophy of religion. So the anthropological perspective is valuable as history of belief but cannot settle whether religion is true.
Question 5 Section B Any 5 of 8 Block 2, Unit 8 20 marks about 400 words Kalam rising: long answer 2024, note 2025, long answer 2026
5. What is Kalam Cosmological argument? Critically evaluate Kalam Cosmological argument. 20
The Kalam cosmological argument is an argument for God's existence from the claim that the universe had a beginning. The word kalam refers to medieval Islamic speculative theology. Thinkers such as al-Kindi and al-Ghazali (in The Incoherence of the Philosophers) developed it, and William Lane Craig revived it in The Kalam Cosmological Argument (1979).
Structure of the argument. Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Premise 2: The universe began to exist. Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause. Craig then argues that this cause must be uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, enormously powerful and personal, because only an agent acting by choice could produce a temporal effect from a timeless state. That cause is identified with God.
Support for the premises. Premise 1 is defended as a basic intuition: nothing comes from nothing. Premise 2 is defended in two ways. Philosophically, an actually infinite number of past events is said to be impossible, illustrated by David Hilbert's infinite hotel, and an infinite past could never be crossed by adding one event after another.
Scientifically, the expansion of the universe observed by Edwin Hubble (1929), Big Bang cosmology, the second law of thermodynamics and the Borde, Guth and Vilenkin theorem (2003) are cited as evidence of a beginning.
Critical evaluation. First, Premise 1 is drawn from causes inside the universe. David Hume warned that we cannot simply extend this rule to the universe as a whole; doing so risks the fallacy of composition. Some also point to quantum events that seem to lack a determining cause.
Second, Premise 2 is disputed. Georg Cantor's set theory treats actual infinities as consistent in mathematics, so critics say an infinite past is not logically impossible. Physics near the Big Bang is still uncertain, and some models describe a universe without an absolute first moment.
Third, there is a gap between the conclusion and God. Even if the universe has a cause, the argument alone does not show that the cause is one, personal, good or the God of any religion. J. L. Mackie, in The Miracle of Theism (1982), pressed this point, and Immanuel Kant had earlier argued that cosmological reasoning quietly depends on the ontological argument.
Fourth, critics call the exemption of God special pleading, although defenders reply that the first premise covers only things that begin, and God is held not to begin.
Conclusion. The Kalam argument is simple, clear and engages modern science, which is why it remains central to the philosophy of religion. However, each premise is contested and the step from first cause to a personal God needs further argument. At best, it shows that belief in a creator is rationally defensible, not that it is proved.
Exam-hall note on length. Both answers above run well past the 400 words the paper allows, because the full file doubles as a study resource. Keep every name, book and date — Tylor 1871, Marett 1909, Frazer 1890, Evans-Pritchard 1965, Craig 1979, Hilbert, Cantor, Mackie 1982 — because in a philosophy paper those are exactly what lift an answer above a general one. Cut structure instead: in Question 1, four of the five theories plus a short analysis will fit; in Question 5, the four premises and three of the four objections are enough.
Questions answered only in the full file
The six questions below are printed as they appear in the June 2026 paper; their answers, including every short-note option, are inside the full BPYG-172 file.
Where the printed paper has a clear slip, the correct form is given in square brackets.
Section A — attempt at least two questions from this section
2. Discuss William James' analysis of Religious language. 20
3. What is a theological statement? Are theological statements testable? Discuss. 20
4. Write notes on any two of the following in about 200 words each: 10 + 10
(a) Free will theodicy
(b) Interreligious dialogue
(c) Religious fundamentalismSection B — attempt at least two questions from this section
6. Define religion. Explain the higher form of Religion. 20
7. Write an essay on the feminist philosophy of Religion. 20
8. Write notes on any two of the followings [following] in about 200 words each: 10 + 10
(a) Ontological Argument for the Existence of God
(b) Secularism
(c) Evidential Problem of Evil
How to use the choice rule. Five answers, at least two from each section, four questions printed in each — so you must take three from one section and two from the other, and you cannot use four answers from your stronger section. Q4 and Q8 are the safest place to find that third answer, because each offers three options and you write only two, so one weak topic out of three costs you nothing. That double choice is why our file solves all three options in each.
BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion blocks and units
BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion is taught through 3 blocks and 14 units of IGNOU self-learning material.
Block 1 builds the foundations, Block 2 tests the case for God, and Block 3 turns to living with many religions. You can open the official units on the eGyanKosh BPYG-172 course page. Block and unit titles below match eGyanKosh exactly. The third column shows what IGNOU has examined from each unit, and the last shows where each June 2026 question came from.
| Block | Unit | Topics examined from this unit | June 2026 question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Block 1 Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion | Unit 1 Meaning and Nature of Religion | Definitions of religion, salient features, higher forms of religion | Q6 |
| Block 1 Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion | Unit 2 Theories of the Origin of Religion | Anthropological, psychological and sociological accounts of how religion began | Q1 |
| Block 1 Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion | Unit 3 Religion, Philosophy of Religion, and Theology | How philosophy of religion differs from religion itself and from theology | None |
| Block 1 Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion | Unit 4 Religious Language | Analogical and univocal readings, non-assertive interpretations, theological statements | Q2, Q3 |
| Block 1 Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion | Unit 5 Religious Experience | Rudolf Otto and the category of the holy, William James, mysticism | Q2 |
| Block 2 Problem of Affirming God's Existence | Unit 6 Different Conceptions of God | Types of theism, deism, pantheism | None |
| Block 2 Problem of Affirming God's Existence | Unit 7 Nature and Attributes of God | Omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, God as eternal | None |
| Block 2 Problem of Affirming God's Existence | Unit 8 Traditional Arguments for God's Existence | Kalam cosmological, ontological, moral and fine-tuning arguments | Q5, Q8(a) |
| Block 2 Problem of Affirming God's Existence | Unit 9 The Problem of Evil | Logical and evidential problems, free will, soul-building and best-possible-world theodicies | Q4(a), Q8(c) |
| Block 2 Problem of Affirming God's Existence | Unit 10 Challenges of Atheism and Agnosticism | Defining atheism and agnosticism, arguments offered for each | None |
| Block 3 Religious Pluralism | Unit 11 Religious Pluralism and Secularism | Philosophical responses to plurality, Indian version of secularism, state and religion | Q8(b) |
| Block 3 Religious Pluralism | Unit 12 Religious Fundamentalism | Meaning of fundamentalism, its link with terrorism, threat to democracy | Q4(c) |
| Block 3 Religious Pluralism | Unit 13 Inter-religious Dialogue | Why dialogue is needed, dialogue as a way to ease religious conflict | Q4(b) |
| Block 3 Religious Pluralism | Unit 14 Contemporary Debates | Current debates in philosophy of religion, including feminist critiques | Q7 |
Unit totals come to 14: five units each in Blocks 1 and 2, and four in Block 3.
Block 1 is the block you cannot skip, and Block 2 was thinner than it looks. Block 1 fed four of the eight questions, including three of the four in Section A, so without it you could have answered only Q4 in that section, one short of the minimum two. Block 1 plus either of the other blocks completes the paper comfortably. Block 2, by contrast, produced questions from only two of its five units: Unit 8 on the arguments for God and Unit 9 on the problem of evil. Units 6, 7 and 10 — conceptions of God, the attributes of God, and atheism and agnosticism — gave nothing at all, and nor did Unit 3 in Block 1.
Pair this table with our BPYG-172 Study Material if you want unit notes alongside the solved answers.
How the BPYG-172 question paper is set and marked
The BPYG-172 Question Paper carries 100 marks in 3 hours, and you answer five of eight questions with at least two from each section.
Every question is worth 20 marks. Long questions expect about 400 words, while Questions 4 and 8 split into two notes of about 200 words each. The table shows how June 2026 filled that pattern.
| Part | Questions | Marks and length | June 2026 topics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section A long answers | Q1, Q2, Q3 | 20 marks each, about 400 words | Anthropological origin of religion, William James on religious language, testability of theological statements |
| Section A short notes | Q4, any two of three | 10 + 10 marks, about 200 words each | Free will theodicy, interreligious dialogue, religious fundamentalism |
| Section B long answers | Q5, Q6, Q7 | 20 marks each, about 400 words | Kalam cosmological argument, defining religion and its higher form, feminist philosophy of religion |
| Section B short notes | Q8, any two of three | 10 + 10 marks, about 200 words each | Ontological argument, secularism, evidential problem of evil |
| Choice rule | 8 printed, attempt any 5 with at least 2 per section | About 2,000 words, 5 × 20 = 100 marks in 3 hours | Paper printed in English and Hindi |
A smart plan is to pick at least one short-note question, because two well-made 200-word notes are often easier to score on than one long essay on an unfamiliar topic, and the three-option choice means one weak topic in the set costs you nothing. The same choice rule applies across most papers on our BAG Question Paper pages.
Philosophy of Religion topics IGNOU keeps repeating in BPYG-172
The origin of religion and the problem of evil were set in all 7 earlier BPYG-172 papers we checked, from December 2022 to December 2025, and both came back in June 2026.
We read every official BPYG-172 paper published on IGNOU servers for December 2022, June 2023, December 2023, June 2024, December 2024, June 2025 and December 2025. A topic is counted once per session, whether it came as a long question or a short note. The count column covers those seven earlier papers, and the last column shows separately whether June 2026 repeated each one, so the current paper does not inflate its own history.
| Topic | Sessions asked | Earlier papers (of 7) | In June 2026? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Origin of religion (anthropological, psychological, social views) | Dec 2022, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 7 | Yes, Q1 |
| Problem of evil and theodicies | Dec 2022, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 7 | Yes, Q4(a) and Q8(c) |
| Meaning, nature and definition of religion | Dec 2022, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Jun 2025 | 6 | Yes, Q6 |
| Arguments for the existence of God | Dec 2022, Dec 2023, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 6 | Yes, Q5 and Q8(a) |
| Religious language and theological statements | Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 6 | Yes, Q2 and Q3 |
| Secularism and its Indian version | Dec 2022, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Dec 2025 | 6 | Yes, Q8(b) |
| Inter-religious dialogue | Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Dec 2025 | 5 | Yes, Q4(b) |
| Religious pluralism | Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 5 | No |
| Attributes of God (omniscience, omnipresence, eternity) | Dec 2022, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Dec 2025 | 5 | No |
| Religious fundamentalism | Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Jun 2025 | 4 | Yes, Q4(c) |
| Theism, atheism and agnosticism | Dec 2022, Jun 2024, Dec 2024, Jun 2025 | 4 | No |
| Religious experience, the holy and mysticism | Dec 2022, Jun 2023, Jun 2024, Jun 2025 | 4 | Partly, through Q2 on William James |
| Feminist philosophy of religion | Dec 2023, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 3 | Yes, Q7 |
| Kalam cosmological argument, a subset of the arguments row above | Jun 2024, Dec 2025 | 2 | Yes, Q5 |
Two themes have a perfect record. The origin of religion and the problem of evil were set in every one of the seven earlier papers and again in June 2026, which makes Unit 2 and Unit 9 the two most reliable units on the course. Ten of the fourteen themes came back this session.
The Kalam argument is climbing. It was set as a long question in June 2024, as a short note in December 2025, and as a full 20-mark question again in June 2026. It sits in Unit 8, and on that trend it is worth preparing as a long answer rather than a note.
Four themes were skipped, and the top two of them are the clearest December 2026 targets:
- Attributes of God — omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence and God as eternal. Set in 5 of the 7 earlier papers and absent from June 2026, and Unit 7 produced no question at all. This is the first topic to prepare.
- Religious pluralism — also 5 of 7, and absent. Unit 11 appeared only through the secularism note, so the pluralism half of that unit was untouched. A student who treats Unit 11 as covered will miss it.
- Theism, atheism and agnosticism — 4 of 7, skipped, and Unit 10 gave nothing.
- Different conceptions of God (Unit 6) and religion versus philosophy of religion versus theology (Unit 3) — neither unit produced a question, and Unit 3 has not featured in the repeat table at all, which makes it the quiet gap on this course.
Read with the block analysis above, the message is consistent: Block 2 gave questions from only two of its five units, and three of the four skipped themes live in the units it left alone. For a ranked list across courses, see our IGNOU Solved Guess Paper.
How our BPYG-172 answers are written and checked
Each BPYG-172 answer is written by Prateek Talwar, Academic Head, against the 14 eGyanKosh units, kept to IGNOU word lengths and reviewed by Sheetal Kirola before release.
We started from the official June 2026 paper of BPYG-172, then studied the seven earlier papers listed above to see how IGNOU phrases recurring topics. Answers follow the unit's own vocabulary, so terms like non-assertive interpretation or soul-building theodicy are used the way your study material uses them.
We also checked the BPYG-172 assignment for June 2026 and December 2026, which IGNOU labels a Generic Course. It asks about Rudolf Otto and William James on religious experience, the feminist critique of religion and the Kalam argument, so the same thinkers are handled consistently in the solved file. Assignment questions on this course have proved a reliable guide to what the paper sets next, which is why we read them alongside the past papers.
Each answer carries an introduction, headed points and a conclusion. Thinkers, books and dates are included only where they can be checked in standard sources, which is why the sample answers name Primitive Culture of 1871 and the Borde, Guth and Vilenkin theorem of 2003 rather than leaving them vague. Question text is reproduced from the official paper, including its numbering, with any printing slip given correctly in square brackets.
Want to practise on older papers first? Our IGNOU Previous Year Question Paper section collects past papers by course.
BPYG-172 solved file index: every question and its unit
The BPYG-172 solved file covers all 8 questions; 2 are answered on this page and 6 are answered only in the full file.
Use this index to see which unit each June 2026 question comes from before you decide what to revise.
| Q | Section | Question topic | Block and unit | Marks | Where answered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | Anthropological perspective on the origin of religion | Block 1, Unit 2 Theories of the Origin of Religion | 20 | On this page |
| 2 | A | William James and religious language | Block 1, Unit 5 Religious Experience, with Unit 4 Religious Language | 20 | Full file only |
| 3 | A | Theological statements and testability | Block 1, Unit 4 Religious Language | 20 | Full file only |
| 4 | A | Notes: free will theodicy, interreligious dialogue, religious fundamentalism | (a) Block 2, Unit 9; (b) Block 3, Unit 13; (c) Block 3, Unit 12 | 10 + 10 | Full file only |
| 5 | B | Kalam cosmological argument and its evaluation | Block 2, Unit 8 Traditional Arguments for God's Existence | 20 | On this page |
| 6 | B | Defining religion and its higher form | Block 1, Unit 1 Meaning and Nature of Religion | 20 | Full file only |
| 7 | B | Feminist philosophy of religion | Block 3, Unit 14 Contemporary Debates | 20 | Full file only |
| 8 | B | Notes: ontological argument, secularism, evidential problem of evil | (a) Block 2, Unit 8; (b) Block 3, Unit 11; (c) Block 2, Unit 9 | 10 + 10 | Full file only |
Because Q4 and Q8 are answered for all three options each, the eight questions come to twelve written answers in the file. Counting by block, Block 1 feeds four questions and Blocks 2 and 3 three each.
Programmes that study BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion
BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion is a Generic Elective under CBCS, shared by IGNOU's BAG, BCOMG and BSCG programmes.
Students in the IGNOU Bachelor of Arts (General) meet it most often, and eGyanKosh lists it under BAG Philosophy in Semester VI. eGyanKosh also places BPYG-172 as a Generic Elective in Semester II of the BA (Honours) Psychology programme, and as a third-year course in the BA in Applied Urdu.
Because it is a Generic Elective, Bachelor of Commerce (General) and Bachelor of Science (General) students can take it too, which is why IGNOU files the paper in its shared BAG, BCOMG and BSCG question paper folder. Every one of these groups sits the same paper, so the solved file is identical whichever programme you are enrolled in.
Get the full BPYG-172 Solved Question Paper on WhatsApp
Send a WhatsApp message to 9899436384 to get answers to all 8 questions of the June 2026 BPYG-172 paper.
The file holds six long answers of about 400 words and all six short-note options at about 200 words each, which is twelve written answers in all. You have already read Questions 1 and 5 here; the remaining six questions, from William James to the evidential problem of evil, are waiting in the file.
Message us with the course code BPYG 172 and the session June 2026, and our team will reply with details of the IGNOU BPYG-172 Solved Question Paper. Only use the number 9899436384 for this file. If you are preparing other BAG, BCOMG or BSCG courses in the same session, mention their codes in the same message.
BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion FAQs
How do I get the full BPYG-172 Solved Question Paper June 2026?
Send a WhatsApp message to 9899436384 and ask for the BPYG-172 Solved Question Paper June 2026. The full file answers all 8 questions of the paper: the six 400-word long answers and every short-note option in Question 4 and Question 8, so you can pick the notes you prefer. This page shows two of those answers, Question 1 and Question 5, and the other six questions are answered only in the file.
Which BPYG-172 answers can I read on this page?
You can read two complete answers here. Question 1 covers the anthropological perspective on the origin of religion, including Tylor, Marett, Frazer, Max Müller and Lang. Question 5 explains and critically evaluates the Kalam cosmological argument. Both show the depth and the style used for the remaining six answers.
How many questions must I attempt in the BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion exam?
You must attempt five of the eight questions in the BPYG-172 paper, with at least two questions from each section. Section A has Questions 1 to 4 and Section B has Questions 5 to 8. Every question carries 20 marks, so the paper totals 100 marks in 3 hours and about 2,000 words. Questions 4 and 8 are short-note questions where you write two notes of about 200 words each.
Can I answer four questions from one section of BPYG-172?
No. Each section prints four questions and the paper requires at least two answers from each, so with five answers in total the only possible splits are three from one section and two from the other. If the four topics you have prepared all sit in one section, you will be able to use only three of them. Questions 4 and 8 are the safest place to find that third answer, because each offers three options and you write only two.
Which block of BPYG-172 must I prepare?
Block 1, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. It fed four of the eight June 2026 questions, including three of the four in Section A, so a learner who skipped it could have answered only Question 4 in that section, one short of the minimum two, with no way to make it up in Section B. Block 1 plus either of the other two blocks completes the paper. Block 2, by contrast, gave questions from only two of its five units this session.
Which BPYG-172 topics are asked most often in IGNOU exams?
The origin of religion and the problem of evil were set in all seven earlier BPYG-172 papers we checked, from December 2022 to December 2025, and both returned in June 2026. The meaning of religion, arguments for God's existence, religious language and secularism came in six papers each. Inter-religious dialogue, religious pluralism and the attributes of God appeared five times each. Revising these units first covers most of what IGNOU usually sets in this course.
Which BPYG-172 topics were skipped in June 2026?
Four of the fourteen we track. The attributes of God and religious pluralism had each appeared in five of the seven earlier papers and were both absent, and theism, atheism and agnosticism, which had appeared four times, was left out as well. Four units produced no question at all: Unit 3 on religion, philosophy of religion and theology, Unit 6 on conceptions of God, Unit 7 on the attributes of God, and Unit 10 on atheism and agnosticism. Start a December 2026 revision list with Unit 7 and Unit 11.
Is the Kalam argument important for BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion?
Yes, the Kalam argument is now a regular BPYG-172 topic and it is rising. It was asked as a long question in June 2024, as a short note in December 2025 and as a full 20-mark question in June 2026. It sits in Unit 8, Traditional Arguments for God's Existence. Our sample answer on this page shows how to present the premises and then evaluate them critically, which is what the two-part wording asks for.
Which IGNOU students study BPYG-172 Philosophy of Religion?
BPYG-172 is a 6-credit Generic Elective under CBCS, shared by IGNOU's Bachelor of Arts (General), Bachelor of Commerce (General) and Bachelor of Science (General) programmes. BAG Philosophy students take it most often, in Semester VI as listed on eGyanKosh. It is also a Generic Elective in Semester II of the BA (Honours) Psychology programme and a third-year course in the BA in Applied Urdu.
Are the BPYG-172 answers in English or Hindi?
The BPYG-172 solved file is written in English, matching the English half of the bilingual IGNOU question paper. The language is kept simple, with clear headings, short paragraphs and named thinkers, so that students who are more comfortable in Hindi can still follow and reproduce the answers. Ask on WhatsApp 9899436384 if you need help choosing which questions to attempt.
Who writes and checks the BPYG-172 answers?
The BPYG-172 answers are written by Prateek Talwar, Academic Head of Unnati Educations, and reviewed by Sheetal Kirola before release. Writers follow the 14 units of the IGNOU study material on eGyanKosh, keep long answers near 400 words and short notes near 200 words, and name thinkers, books and dates only where they can be checked in standard sources.
About the authors
This BPYG-172 solved paper was written and reviewed by the Unnati Educations philosophy team, which has prepared IGNOU answer sets since 2016.
- Prateek Talwar, Academic Head, Unnati Educations. He wrote all twelve answers for this paper, including all three options in each note question. He has worked on IGNOU philosophy material for over nine years and has prepared term-end answer sets across the BPY and BPYG course lists.
- Sheetal Kirola, Reviewer. She checked every answer against the 14 eGyanKosh units and the seven earlier official BPYG-172 papers, verified each thinker, book and date cited in the two sample answers, including Tylor's Primitive Culture of 1871, Frazer's The Golden Bough of 1890, Evans-Pritchard's critique of 1965 and the Borde, Guth and Vilenkin theorem of 2003, and confirmed that each answer matches the word limit printed on its question.
Our answers are written from the official IGNOU course material and past question papers, not copied from other websites. The question paper belongs to IGNOU; the answers are our own. If you find an error on this page, message us on WhatsApp and we will correct it and reissue the file.