Arguments for the existance of God Flashcards
What are the 3 main arguments for the existence of God?
-Design
-Cosmological
-Ontological
A priori
Arguments based on reason alone (logical argument)
A posteriori
-Arguments based on experience
-Using evidence in the world (sense experience)
What are the two types of proof?
Inductive = A set of premises that move towards a conclusion that is not logically necessary, but is only probable. The conclusion of the proof is not contained within the premises, making it synthetic.
Deductive = A set of premises that move towards a logically necessary conclusion. It does not conclude anything that is not already in the original premises, making it analytic.
What is the Design Argument?
-Inductive, a posteriori, synthetic, teleological, analogical.
-Paley’s watch = the watch is complex and has a purpose, meaning it must have a designer + the world is complex and has a purpose, meaning it must also have a designer (God).
-The designer of the world is metaphysical and transcendent.
Define inference.
Define analogy.
Inference = conclusion reached through evidence and reasoning.
Analogy = an inference where information or meaning is transferred from one subject to another.
Strengths of the Design Argument
-Simple explanation - “Simplicity is always evidence for truth” (Swinburne).
-FWD agrees that evil may be unavoidable in order for God to bring about good.
-Compatible with evolution.
Weaknesses of the Design Argument
-All-powerful God of Christian theism is a greater cause than needed to account for the design of the universe.
-Existence of evil.
-Nature can design itself so the universe probably designed itself in the first place.
What are Hume’s arguments against Design Argument?
-Hume argues the universe is more like a vegetable than a machine (evolution rather than design).
-Hume argues we have no experience of universe-making meaning our ideas are anthropomorphic.
-Existence of evil and suffering in the world suggests a limited designer, meaning it can’t be God.
-‘Epicurean Hypothesis’ - since the world is nothing more nor less than changing arrangements of its atoms, given infinite time it was inevitable that atoms should arrive at an ordered state.
What is the value of the Design Argument for faith?
-It supports faith by reasoning.
-It provides a valid argument against atheists: it is reasonable to believe God exists, in the same way it is reasonable to believe he does not.
-Some would use H.H Price’s argument about ‘belief in’ and ‘belief that’: Paley provides evidence for belief THAT God exists, whilst also suggesting the wondrous beauty of nature gives reason for belief IN God.
What is the Cosmological Argument?
-Aquinas
-Links to his first 3 ways: motion, causation and contingency.
-Mostly contingency: everything is contingent, meaning at some point there must have been nothing that existed.
-Nothing can come from nothing meaning there must be a necessary being that exists. This being is God.
Aquinas’ 5 ways
1) The argument from motion - everything in the world is moving, nothing can move/change by itself, therefore God is the Prime Mover.
2) The argument from causation - everything in the world has a cause, nothing is the cause of itself, therefore God is the first cause.
3) The argument from contingency - everything in the world is contingent (can exist or not exist), there must be something that brought things into existance, this necessary being is God.
4) The Argument from Degrees of Perfection - things in the world vary in degrees of qualities like goodness etc, there must be a perfect standard of these qualities by which all other things are measured, God is this standard.
5) The Argument from Design - this way argues that the order and purpose in the universe imply an intelligent designer who created it, God is the designer.
Anthropomorphic
We lift ideas from our own limited experience and impose them on the universe.
Russell’s criticisms
-Aquinas’ 3rd Way commits the Fallacy of Composition (inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true for part of the whole).
-Rejects the claim that any being can be necessary. Saw the argument for a cause of the universe as having little meaning/significance. Argued it it a “question that has no meaning”.
-Argued the universe exists as a ‘brute fact’. “I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all” (Russell)
What are strengths of the cosmological argument?
-Swinburne argues it’s a strong inductive argument as it leads to a likely conclusion. He uses Ockham’s razor (“simplicity is evidence for truth).
-A posteriori meaning empirically verifiable.
-Big Bang Theory proves the world does have a beginning, and science doesn’t know the full cause (God may have worked through science), and we can measure time.
-Supports faith and gives meaning to existence.
What are weaknesses of the cosmological argument?
-Contadictory as Aquinas claims infinity is impossible yet God is infinite.
-Hume and Kant argue i fails to suggest the existence of an all-loving God of Christian theism, instead simply suggesting there is a first cause.
-It arrives at conclusions based on assumption, Russell argues it commits the fallacy of composition.
What is the value of the cosmological argument for faith?
-Though there are alternative possibilities, they are no more likely than the existence of a God, meaning it provides evidence for faith.
-We can observe constant change and motion (contingency) in the world, meaning the idea of a necessary God is a simple concept.
-Supported by design argument.
What is the Ontological Argument?
-Anselm
-A priori + deductive
-God is a necessary truth, not a contingent one.
-God is “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived”.
-If God existed only in the mind, we could think of something greater, namely a God who existed in reality also.
Gaunilo’s criticism of Anselm
-Used a parody of Anselm’s argument
-Gave an Ontological Argument for the existance of a ‘perfect lost island’, claiming it makes little sense because we know such an island cannot exist.
-Suggested Anselm’s argument can be used to prove the existence of an endless number of perfect objects.
-We can show that the perfect island does not exist, so Anselm’s argument does not work.
How does Anselm respond to Gaunilo?
-“God cannot be conceived not to exist - God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived - That which can be conceived not to exist is not God.”
-Anselm claimed that the island cannot be perfect unless it is an island ‘than which no greater can be conceived’.
-The island would have to exist necessarily, but islands are contingent so they can’t exist necessarily.
-Therefore the logic of the argument relating to a perfect island does not apply to God.
Kant’s objection
-Existence is not a real predicate, because it adds nothing to the concept of a thing.
-Kant therefore objects to Anselm’s a regiment as he argues there is no difference between our concept of God and our concept of a God that exists.
-Uses the example of Thalers (like coins). Each predicate adds to our concept of the Thalers, but saying ‘they exist’ adds nothing.
What does Barth believe about Anselm’s argument?
-Anselm’s argument is about faith, not logic.
-Emphasises the importance of faith “I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this too I believe: that unless I believe, I shall not understand” - Anselm.
-If humans could prove the existence of God purely by logic, then we would not need God’s revelation, and God himself could just be another object of human knowledge.
What are arguments against Barth’s interpretation?
-Anselm’s ‘The Fool’ refers to atheists. If Anselm’s argument is not intended to be logical proof to convince atheists, then why does he go to so much trouble to demonstrate the truth of the argument?
-Anselm mentions in Proslogium that he is looking for a proof.
-Gaunilo responds to Anselm’s argument precisely because he thinks that it is a proof.
