Arguments For The Existence Of God Flashcards
What Christians think the Designer is like (5)
Monotheistic Perfect Omniscient Eternal Transcendent
Copleston’s response to Russel
Cosmological argument
There’s a limit to how different a whole can be from the parts that make up that whole.
You can’t get necessary things from combining contingent things - they’re too different.
Fallacy of composition
Inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true if every part of the whole.
Principle of sufficient reason
Everything must have an ultimate reason or cause.
Explain Kant’s second objection to Anselm (ontological argument)
The only way we can find out if things exist is through the experience of our senses.
Looking at definitions can’t tell whether things exist - only what they’d be like IF they existed.
Regularity
Following a fixed pattern of use / purpose.
Explain:
“A cause is proportional to its effects”
Hume’s other objection to Paley.
The simplest explanations are the most likely to be true.
Why assume this designer has lots of other qualities?
There’s no Christian God, but there probably is a designer(s).
What part of the cosmological argument does Russel say is a fallacy of composition?
Aquinas thinks everything in the universe is contingent, including the universe itself.
What Kant denies
That we can use existence as a property / predicate.
According to Kant, what makes something a predicate?
If it adds to our knowledge of that thing.
Analytic statement
A statement that follows from a definition.
Summarise Russel’s argument
1) Everything in the natural world is contingent.
2) If everything is contingent, then at some point there was nothing in the natural world.
3) Nothing comes from nothing.
Conclusion: Therefore there’s at least one necessary thing.
4) There’s no reason to say this isn’t the Universe itself - the next steps to a God are unjustified.
Give the cosmological argument in full.
1) Everything in the natural world is contingent.
2) If everything is contingent, then at some point there was nothing in the natural world.
3) Nothing comes from nothing.
Conclusion 1: Therefore there must be at least one necessary thing.
4) Everything necessary is either caused or uncaused.
5) The series of necessary beings cannot be infinite.
Conclusion 2: Therefore there is an uncaused being existing of its own necessity.
Conclusion 3: This is God.
Explain Gaunilo’s Parallel
1) It’s possible to conceive the greatest possible island.
2) It’s greater to exist in reality than not to exist in reality.
Conclusion: Therefore, as the greatest conceivable island, it must exist.
BUT IT DOESN’T!
Explain the Design Argument
1) Some objects in the world exhibit complexity, regularity and purpose.
2) The complexity, regularity and purpose is evidence that these objects were designed.
3) The Universe also exhibits complexity, regularity and purpose.
Conclusion: It is likely the Universe was designed.
Conclusion 2: This designer is God.
What did Paley observe that simple things don’t do and what does that mean?
They don’t organise themselves into complex things.
There is no complexity of order.
There must be a designer.
What type of argument is the cosmological argument?
Inductive, a posteriori
Fallacy
A failure of reasoning that makes an argument invalid.
Give the ontological argument
1) God is (by definition) the greatest conceivable being.
2) It is greater to exist in reality than not to exist in reality.
Conclusion: Therefore, as the greatest conceivable being, God must exist.
How is the teleological argument and the watchmaker analogy linked?
The design argument is based on / inspired by the analogy.
If God is the greatest conceivable being, what does this mean?
He must have the great-making property of existence (He exists).
What does Paley rely on to reach his conclusion of God being the designer, and not some other reason?
Process of elimination
A priori argument
An argument that doesn’t involve observation - just logical reasoning.
A posteriori argument
An argument that relies upon observation to be true.
