5.2 comparison between a critic of religion and a religious believer

Question 1

What is the context of the Russell and Copleston debate?

Answer 1

• radio debate held between Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell

Question 2

Who is Frederick Copleston?

Answer 2

• a Jesus priest, a Christian theist and philosopher

Question 3

Who is Bertrand Russell?

Answer 3

• a British philosopher, who viewed religion to be akin to superstition

Question 4

How is the debate divided?

Answer 4

• the argument from contingency
• the issue of religious experience

Question 5

What is Copleston’s argument from contingency?

Answer 5

P1) everything in the universe is contingent
P2) the universe is teh aggregate of all the things in it
C1) therefore the universe is contingent
P3) contingent things require an explanation
C2) therefore the universe needs an explanation
P4) an infinite regress of explanations isn’t an explanation
C3) therefore an entity that posses necessary existence (aseity) is needed to explain

Question 6

What is Copleston’s argument from contingency centred on?

Answer 6

• why we should accept Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason and whether there has to be an explanation for everything

Question 7

What does Russell say in response to the principle of sufficient reason?

Answer 7

• the search for a ‘total explanation’ is a waste of time
• the universe is a brute fact; it’s the ultimate explanation

Question 8

How does Russell respond to the argument from contingency?

Answer 8

• just because one thing has a cause, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all things require a cause
• he also says that the word neccessary is useless unless applied to analytic statements

Question 9

How does Copleston describe a religious experience?

Answer 9

• ‘a loving, but unclear, awareness of some object which irresistibly seems to the experiencer as something transcending the self’

Question 10

What is the best explanation for religious experiences, according to Copleston?

Answer 10

• God, therefore God must exist

Question 11

What do Copleston and Russell debate around religious experience?

Answer 11

• they discuss the limitations of the argument, regarding its subjectivity
• the emotional response may be real, however the person in question is having an emotional response to what they percieve to be real
• there is no proof to be found of that thing existing to other people
• Russell = while religious experiences are the impact of an external source provoking a spiritual/emotional response, these same or similar provocations can be made through mediums such as art

Question 12

What are the strengths of the argument from religious experience?

Answer 12

• the ‘consensus of makind’ = there has been a wealth of individuals who habe come forward with accounts of religious experince; it seems improbable that every single person who has come forward with such an experience is making it up
• the change and effect which can be observed within the individual who has experienced the religious experience is argued by Copleston to be a strength of the argument
• logic dictates that if a religious experience is truly experienced, then it must have been enacted by something that has caused the experience (God)

Question 13

What are the weaknesses of the argument from religious experience?

Answer 13

• both Copleston and Russell agree that the argument from religious experience is relatively weak
• both agree that the argument from religious experience fails as the phenomenon of religious experience can be explained by psychological factors such as hallucinations
• while Copleston argues that evidence for the value of religious experience is found in the change which can be observed in the experiencer, they both agree that the same change or strong reaction can be seen in responses in people to things which are objectively untrue (e.g. suicide in Japanese culture in reaction to heroines in fiction)
• Russell = ‘the fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favour of its truth’
• an experience doesn’t necessarily point to God - it could just as easily point to Satan as it could to God

Question 14

What are the strengths of the argument from contingency?

Answer 14

• Copleston indicates that he has used this form of the argument as he believes it to be clear and logical, stating, ‘I have made use of his argument from contingent to necessary being, basing the argument on the principle pf sufficient reason, simply because it seems to me a brief and clear formulation of what is, in my opinion, the fundamental metaphysical argument for God’s existence.’

Question 15

What are the weaknesses of the argument from contingency?

Answer 15

• Russell stipulates that there is a clear issue of the assumption of implication within the argument - just because one thing has a cause, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all things require a cause
• Russell = ‘the difficulty of this argument is that I don’t admit the idea of a necessary being and I don’t admit that there is any particular meaning in calling other beings “contingent”. These phrases don’t for me have a significance except within a logic that I reject.’
• Russell = ‘I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn’t a mother - that’s a different logical sphere - fallacy of composition