God: Basics

Question 1

What is the meaning of God being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent?

Answer 1

Omniscient: God knows all truths
Omnipotent: God can do everything
Omnibenevolent: God is morally perfect

Question 2

What does it mean if God is eternal or everlasting?

Answer 2

Eternal: God exists outside all of time
Everlasting: God exists inside all of time

Question 3

What is the paradox of the stone?

Answer 3

There cannot be an omnipotent being because there will always be something that it can’t do: either it can’t make a stone it can’t lift, or it can make the stone but can’t lift it

Question 4

What is the Euthyphro dilemma?

Answer 4

There cannot be an omnibenevolent being because there’s problems with both ways of understanding this:
If God decided what’s good, this would be random and could change
If God didn’t decide what’s good, it would be outside of God’s control

Question 5

What is the compatibility, or otherwise, of the existence of an omniscient God and free human beings argument?

Answer 5

If God knows everything he knows what I will do. And because God can’t be wrong, I can’t do anything else and so I am not free

Question 6

What is moral evil and natural evil?

Answer 6

Moral evil is suffering caused by free human beings e.g. murder
Natural evil is suffering caused by nature e.g. a tsunami flattening a town

Question 7

What are the logical and evidential forms of the problem of evil?

Answer 7

Logical: If God exists, God would stop evil because God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good. But evil exists. So God cannot exist

Evidential: If God exists, it’s likely we’d know about a good reason to explain evil. But we don’t, so it’s likely God doesn’t exist

Question 8

What is Plantinga’s Free Will Defence response to the logical problem of evil?

Answer 8

The logical problem of evil fails - a good God would not stop evil because evil is the result of our free will which is valuable

Question 9

What is Hick’s soul-making response to the logical problem of evil?

Answer 9

The evidential problem of evil fails - there is a good reason for evil, which is that we need evil in the world to develop morally and to have a proper relationship with God

Question 10

What is the design argument from analogy (as presented by Hume)?

Answer 10

Human objects (e.g. a telescope) are ordered because they were designed
Natural objects (e.g. the eye) are ordered, so it’s likely they were also designed
The designer of nature is God
So God exists

Question 11

What is Paley’s design argument: argument from spatial order/purpose?

Answer 11

Natural objects are ordered (e.g. the eye) and so they must have been designed
This designer must be God. So God exists

Question 12

What is Swinburne’s design argument: argument from temporal order/regularity?

Answer 12

The universe is ordered by the laws of nature
These can’t be explained by science, so the best explanation is that an intelligent being designed them
This intelligent being is God
So God exists

Question 13

What is Hume’s objection to the design argument from analogy?

Answer 13

Human objects are actually quite different to nature e.g. human objects don’t reproduce but nature does
So just because human objects have a designer, it doesn’t make it likely that nature has a designer

Question 14

What is the problem of spatial disorder (as posed by Hume and Paley)?

Answer 14

If God designed the universe, it would all be ordered
But some parts of the universe (like a jungle or eyes that do not perform their function) are disordered
So we can’t say God exists and designed the universe

Question 15

What is the argument that the design argument fails as it is an argument from a unique case (Hume)?

Answer 15

We can only say how something was made if we have seen lots of things like it and seen how they were made
With the universe we have not seen lots of things like it because there is only one universe (UNIverse!)
So we can’t say how it was made and can’t say it was designed

Question 16

What is the argument for whether God is the best or only explanation?

Answer 16

There are other (better) explanations of the order that we see in the universe - for example it came about because of evolution, without the need for a God existing

Question 17

What is the Kalām argument (an argument from temporal causation)?

Answer 17

The universe began and something other than the universe must have caused this
This cause is God
So God exists

Question 18

What is Aquinas’ 1st Way (argument from motion)?

Answer 18

Things in the universe change
Everything that changes is caused to change by something else
Something must be the first thing to cause change
This is God
So God exists

Question 19

What is Aquinas’ 2nd Way (argument from atemporal causation)?

Answer 19

Everything in the universe is sustained in existence by something else
There must be something that starts all this sustaining / sustains the whole universe
This is God
So God exists

Question 20

What is Aquinas’ 3rd way (an argument from contingency)?

Answer 20

If everything could exist or not exist, at some point nothing would exist
But if nothing existed at one point, then nothing would exist now
So there must be something that has to exist
This is God
So God exists

Question 21

What is Descartes’ argument based on his continuing existence (an argument from causation)?

Answer 21

The only explanation for the fact that I have an idea of an infinite being is that God put it there
The only explanation for the fact that I carry on existing is God
So God exists

Question 22

What is Leibniz’s argument from the principle of sufficient reason (an argument from contingency)?

Answer 22

There must be a reason as to why the universe exists
The only proper explanation for this is God
So God exists

Question 23

What is Issue 1: the possibility of an infinite series to Principle of Sufficient reason argument?

Answer 23

The universe could be infinitely old
If so it doesn’t have a beginning, so it doesn’t need a cause

Question 24

What is Issue 2: Hume’s objection to the ‘causal principle’ to Principle of Sufficient reason argument?

Answer 24

Nothing we can think of, and nothing we can experience, gives us good reason to think that everything has to have a cause
So this part of cosmological arguments is wrong

Question 25

What is Issue 3: The argument commits the fallacy of composition (Russell) to Principle of Sufficient reason argument?

Answer 25

Just because everything within the universe needs a cause/explanation, that doesn’t mean the whole universe needs a cause/explanation

Question 26

What is Issue 4: The impossibility of a necessary being (Hume and Russell) to Principle of Sufficient reason argument?

Answer 26

I can imagine God not existing, so God doesn’t exist necessarily

Question 27

What is Anselm’s ontological argument?

Answer 27

God is the greatest being I can think of
If this being didn’t exist, it wouldn’t be the greatest being
So God, the greatest being I can think of, must exist.

Question 28

What is Descartes’ ontological argument?

Answer 28

God is perfect
If something is perfect, it must exist
God must exist

Question 29

What is Issue: Gaunilo’s ‘perfect island’ objection to Anselm?

Answer 29

“We can think of the greatest conceivable island so it must exist” is a bad argument as there obviously isn’t such an island
Therefore the ontological argument must also fail because it has the same faulty logic

Question 30

What is Kant’s objection based on existence not being a predicate to Descartes ontological argument?

Answer 30

Existence isn’t a property of things, so it isn’t a property of God
This means that the ontological argument doesn’t show that God must exist

Question 31

What is Empiricist objections to a priori arguments for existence to Descartes ontological argument?

Answer 31

We cannot know something exists just by thinking about it - we need experience of it
So any argument that says we can know God exists through thinking alone must be wrong

Question 32

What is Malcolm’s ontological argument?

Answer 32

Either God it’s impossible for God to exist or God must exist
It is not impossible for God to exist
Therefore God must exist

Question 33

What is the distinction between cognitivism and non-cognitivism about religious language?

Answer 33

Cognitivists think religious statements like ‘God exists’ are saying something true or false
Non-cognitivists think religious statements like ‘God exists’ are not saying anything true or false

Question 34

What is the verification principle challenge to religious language?

Answer 34

Verification Principle challenge: Religious statements like ‘God exists’ are not true or false. They are meaningless. This is because statements like ‘God exists’ are not true by definition, and we can’t use experience to check if they’re true

Question 35

What is a Cognitivist response to Ayer: Hick’s response to Ayer (eschatological verification)?

Answer 35

Religious statements like ‘God exists’ are true or false and they are meaningful
This is because we can use experience to check if they’re true after we die, if we go to heaven and meet God

Question 36

What is Flew on falsification (Wisdom’s ‘Gardener’) (non-cognitivist about religious language)?

Answer 36

Falsification Principle challenge: Religious statements like ‘God exists’ are not true or false
They are meaningless
This is because nothing a believer could experience would make them think that ‘God exists’ is false

Question 37

What is a Cognitivist response to Flew: Basil Mitchell’s response to Flew (the Partisan)?

Answer 37

Religious statements like ‘God exists’ are true or false and they are meaningful
This is because a believer can have doubts and so can think about ‘God exists’ being false.

Question 38

What is a Non-cognitivist response to Flew: Hare’s response to Flew (bliks and the lunatic) (agrees with Flew on non-cognitivism about religious language but disagrees with Flew about meaningfulness)?

Answer 38

Religious statements like ‘God exists’ are not true or false. But they are still meaningful in a different way because they are, to use Hare’s word, ‘bliks’ - a way of seeing the world that affects the actions and beliefs of the person, but that isn’t changed by evidence