Arguments Based On Observation

Question 1

What are the two arguments based on observation?

Answer 1

Teleological
Cosmological

Question 2

What are the arguments, a priori or a posteriori?

Answer 2

A posteriori

Question 3

What argument is the teleological based off of?

Answer 3

Design

Question 4

What argument is the cosmological based off of?

Answer 4

Origin of the universe

Question 5

What do Aristotelian-Thomistic scholars think?

Answer 5

That efficient causality is unthinkable without final causality

Question 6

What does that mean?

Answer 6

Efficient causes change things or bring them into existence
Final causes are just the outcome of these causes

Question 7

Who proposed the cosmos is directed by intelligence?

Answer 7

Plato

Question 8

How many ways did Aquinas give to prove God exists?

Answer 8

5

Question 9

Which of the five ways is the teleological argument?

Answer 9

5th

Question 10

What is the focus for Aquinas?

Answer 10

How we achieve our purpose - due to God

Question 11

Who was Aquinas inspired by?

Answer 11

Aristotle

Question 12

What is natural theology?

Answer 12

Understanding the existence of God by observation

Question 13

What was the main aim for Aquinas?

Answer 13

To allow Christians to use Aristotles common sense as also evidence for a God

Question 14

What was Aquinas’ book called?

Answer 14

Summa Theologica

Question 15

What is Aquinas’ fifth way?

Answer 15

The natural world obeys natural laws
Natural things flourish as they obey these laws
Things without intelligence cannot guide themselves
Therefore they need something with intelligence to guide them
This is God

Question 16

What is the analogy to prove Gods guidance?

Answer 16

Archer and arrow
Without an archer the arrow will not move

Question 17

Who came up with another design argument?

Answer 17

William Paley

Question 18

What did Paley observe that objects have to be designed?

Answer 18

Regularity - seasons of the year
Purpose - eye to be able to see

Question 19

What is the analogy of the watch?

Answer 19

If someone went across the heath and found a rock they wouldn’t question it
If they found a watch they would ask how it got there and assume a designer
This is due to its complexity
Therefore the universe must have a designer

Question 20

Who critiques the design argument?

Answer 20

David Hume

Question 21

Why does he think an a posteriori observation is flawed in proving a perfect God?

Answer 21

The world contains imperfections like evil

Question 22

How does Paley respond to this?

Answer 22

Even a broken watch must have a watch maker

Question 23

Why does Hume criticise the use of the analogy?

Answer 23

Just because the universe and a watch are complex doesn’t mean they have the same cause
You can’t compare things that are not like for like

Question 24

Why does Hume say that the universe could not have a designer?

Answer 24

We have not seen it being made or anything like it
We can see a watch being made

Question 25

What did he say we can’t prove even if we have evidence of design?

Answer 25

That it was designed by the God of classical theism
It could be made by a apprentice God
It could be made by multiple Gods

Question 26

How does Swinburne respond to this?

Answer 26

Ockham’s razor
There could be multiple Gods but it’s simpler if there’s only one
The uniformity to the laws of physics suggest a simple designer

Question 27

What is Hume’s Epicurean hypothesis?

Answer 27

Given an infinite amount of time atoms will collide in such a way that an orderly arrangement will come about

Question 28

What is an analogy explaining this?

Answer 28

If there was an infinite amount of monkeys typing on an infinite amount of type writers they would eventually write all the works of Shakespeare

Question 29

What is a scientific view that apposes this?

Answer 29

Time began at the big bang

Question 30

What is an argument around this?

Answer 30

There may have been infinite universes before ours

Question 31

What is an argument that animals and plants were designed?

Answer 31

Darwin’s theory of evolution

Question 32

Why does evolution not support the design theory?

Answer 32

There’s no order as organisms change and adapt to their surroundings instead

Question 33

Who made arguments against evolution?

Answer 33

F.R. Tennent

Question 34

What principles did he have to apposition this?

Answer 34

Aesthetic
Anthropic

Question 35

What is Tennent’s aesthetic principle?

Answer 35

Evolution cannot produce humans
Perception of beauty isn’t a survival advantage

Question 36

What did Dawkins respond with?

Answer 36

Beauty makes animals more attractive to their mate which produces an offspring, which is good for survival

Question 37

What is a defence of Tennent?

Answer 37

Sexual attraction isn’t the only beauty like music and literature

Question 38

What is the counter defence?

Answer 38

The evolution of the perception of beauty could simply be a byproduct of the evolution of intelligence

Question 39

What is Tennent’s anthropic principle?

Answer 39

Our universe has to be in a certain order for evolution to be possible which suggests a design

Question 40

What is an example Dawkins and Atkins point to be profound suffering and cruelty on the process of evolution?

Answer 40

The female digger wasp lays eggs in the caterpillar so that the larva can eat the insides out as they grow
She also stings it to paralyse it so it’s alive when they are eating it

Question 41

What does evolution also challenge?

Answer 41

Causation including a telos
As natural processes can be explained without referring to a goal

Question 42

What is Swinburne’s design argument from temporal order/regularities of succession?

Answer 42

Laws of nature are unchanging which is unlikely just by change and science can explain why but not how

Question 43

What is an example of this?

Answer 43

Everything in the universe has been made up of 12 fundamental sub-atomic particles
Carbon has the same properties it had 10 billion years ago

Question 44

What is the explanation called where the regularities were created by an intelligent mind?

Answer 44

Personal explaination

Question 45

Who suggests the multiverse theory?

Answer 45

Max Tegmark

Question 46

What is the multiverse theory?

Answer 46

That our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes so the fact that ours is fine tuned for human existence is through the infinite possibilities

Question 47

What does Polkinghorne say about the multiverse theory?

Answer 47

It’s a ‘bold speculation’ and a ‘metaphysical guess’

Question 48

What does Tegmark say about Fecundity?

Answer 48

Although human life might not be possible with different laws of nature, other intelligent life could be

Question 49

How else does Hume argue that the universe might not be fine tuned?

Answer 49

We don’t know the default state of the universe

Question 50

What is the cosmological argument answering?

Answer 50

Why is there something instead of nothing?

Question 51

Where is the classic formulations of the cosmological argument found?

Answer 51

In the first three of Aquinas’ five ways

Question 52

What is Aquinas’ first way?

Answer 52

All things that move are moved by something else
The mover is moved by something else
This can’t go onto infinity as there would be no first mover to start moving
So there must be a first mover called God

Question 53

What is Aquinas’ second way?

Answer 53

All things are caused by other things
Nothing can be caused by itself
You can’t go back in an infinite chain of causes
There must be a first cause itself uncaused
This is what people call God

Question 54

What is Aquinas’ third way?

Answer 54

All things are contingent
There must be something necessary to have started everything
This is what people call God

Question 55

What is a contingent being?

Answer 55

Something that relies on something else for its existence

Question 56

What is a necessary being?

Answer 56

Something that does not rely on anything else for its existence

Question 57

What are the first three ways called?

Answer 57

1 - unmoved mover
2 - uncaused causer
3 - contingency and necessity

Question 58

Who objects to the causal principle?

Answer 58

Hume

Question 59

How does Hume object to this?

Answer 59

The causal principle can only be proved with a posteriori grounds
These can’t be proved
We don’t know if all effects have a cause only the ones we can observe

Question 60

How can this be defended?

Answer 60

All the effects we can see have a cause
This could be false but at the moment we are empirically justified

Question 61

What counters this?

Answer 61

We can’t assume that just because the causes in our universe are empirically justified, this is the same way the universe came into existence

Question 62

Who came up with the Principle of Sufficient Reason?

Answer 62

Gottfried Leibniz

Question 63

What is the Principle of sufficient reason?

Answer 63

If something exists there must be a reason why that thing exists
If there’s a statement that’s true there must be a reason that it’s true
If something happens there must be a reason why that thing happens

Question 64

What does the principle also state?

Answer 64

That there should be a total explanation rather than a partial one for any phenomenon

Question 65

What is the fallacy of composition?

Answer 65

Hume argues that you cannot move from saying individual elements of the universe require an explanation to the whole universe requires one

Question 66

What is an example of a fallacy of composition?

Answer 66

Because all the tiles on the floor are square doesn’t mean the whole floor has to be square

Question 67

What is a limitation of this metaphor?

Answer 67

If you substitute colour for shape it would make the whole floor the same colour

Question 68

How does Bertrand Russel illustrate this instead?

Answer 68

Just because every human has a mother doesn’t mean the human race has a mother

Question 69

What does Russel conclude?

Answer 69

The universe is ‘just there that’s all’
It could exist without reason,cause or explanation

Question 70

What do Aquinas’ 1st and 2nd not explicitly claim?

Answer 70

That the universe has a cause because it’s parts have a cause

Question 71

How does Copleston respond to the fallacy of composition?

Answer 71

A series is either uncaused or caused
If it were uncaused, reason for existence must be internal
Contingent things can’t be necessary
A series of contingent things must have a cause
There must be a cause external to them

Question 72

What does Hume say the reality of the ‘whole’ is?

Answer 72

‘Arbitrary acts of the mind’
When you unite several countries into one kingdom it has no influence on nature

Question 73

How does Russell prove that a series could have no cause or reason at all?

Answer 73

Quantum mechanics
Individual quantum transitions in atoms have no cause

Question 74

How does Coplestone respond?

Answer 74

Only some interpretations of quantum mechanics propose uncaused events
Science and philosophy is looking for causes and explainations

Question 75

How does Russell respond?

Answer 75

Scientists may look for causes but don’t assume there is one to find
Science should accept the possibility like with quantum mechanics that the universe like this could have no cause or explanation

Question 76

How can the word ‘universe’ be convenient?

Answer 76

It could refer to our own perceptions rather than reality

Question 77

What supports this?

Answer 77

Modern physics shows ‘pocket universes’ which exist in larger ones which makes it harder to look for a ‘whole’

Question 78

What is an example of Humes saying that like causes produce like effects?

Answer 78

Parent rabbits produce baby rabbits

Question 79

What can we assume from this?

Answer 79

That there’s a male and female creator God

Question 80

What’s another theory that would mean the cosmological argument would fail?

Answer 80

Infinite regress

Question 81

What does Hume say that something needed to be to be impossible?

Answer 81

Self-contradictory

Question 82

What is an example of this?

Answer 82

A four sided triangle

Question 83

Is infinite regress self-contradictory?

Answer 83

No

Question 84

How does Craig say that infinity is impossible?

Answer 84

He illustrates it with a library saying that if there were an infinite amount of red books and an infinite amount of green, then if you took away all of the green there would still be an infinite amount of red left

Question 85

How is this flawed?

Answer 85

It involves an infinite amount of physical objects
But infinite regress could be an infinite amount of objects existing over an infinite amount of time
He has shown the absurdity of physical infinities not temporal ones

Question 86

How does Aquinas claim infinite regress is possible?