Arguments For The Existence Of God Flashcards
The teleological argument (observation)
- a posteriori argument that claims the world we live in is too complicated to have simply arrived at the result of chance: therefore, there must be some being which designed the world
- Aquinas developed the design argument, the last of his ‘five ways’ is this argument. He said nature seemed to have order and purpose, he suggested nothing inanimate is purposeful without a ‘guiding hand’. He used example of an arrow, he said for an arrow to fly it has to have been shot by someone. The world we live in is the arrow and God is the archer. Therefore, everything thats moving but has no intelligence must be directed to its goal by God
- William Paley argued using analogy of someone stumbling across a watch. The person would notice how well designed it is an could tell it was made by someone rather then it just happening there. He said looking at the watch was similar to looking at the world
The cosmological argument (observation)
- is a posteriori argument that says there must be a reason for the existence of the universe, and this reason has to be something which is not part of the physical world of time and space
Aquinas made ‘five ways’, the first three are versions of the cosmological argument:
1) the Unmoved Mover - everything in motion, or changing, has to be put into motion, or changed by someone else, he said this sequence of moving things couldn’t be infinite, but there must have been an unmoved move to set it off (God)
2) the Uncaused Causer - everything must have a cause, they cannot cause themselves, must be caused by something else (God) e.g. needing dough is caused by bakers
3) Contingency - world is full of contingent beings, dependent on something else for their existence
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
- Gottfried Leibniz raised the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ In order to address this he offered a form of the cosmological argument, which he based on his ‘Principle of Sufficient Reason’
- it states that everything which exists must have a reason or cause for its existence, whether or not we know the reasons why something exists, there still must be a reason
Hume’s criticisms of arguments based on observation
- argued order in the world does not enable us to leap to the idea of a Divine Orderer, we do not know, for a fact, that all order comes about because of an intelligent idea. Also believed order is a necessary part of the worlds existence, any world would look designed, because if it were chaotic, it would not survive. Just because the world is orderly, is not enough to conclude God designed it
- if there is a creator, there is no reason to suggest its a Christian God, we have a finite and imperfect world; there is no need to assume that there must be an infinite, perfect God behind it
The ontological argument (reason)
Anselm:
- a priori argument that argues everything (except God) exists in a contingent way; it depends upon other factors. We as people are contingent as we would not exist if our parents hadn’t existed before us
- Anselm argued if we can imagine a God who is perfect in every way, where nothing could possibly be greater, then this God must exist in reality. He said its greater for something to exist in reality then in the mind, so a God who exists merely in our heads, would be inferior to a real God, but we have already agreed that God cannot be inferior to anything, so if you are able to imagine a perfect God, then that God must exists in reality otherwise it would not be perfect
Descartes:
- thought we are born with concepts that are innate and universally shared, and thought one of these is the concept of what God is
- we understand God to be a supremely perfect being, with every perfection as his attributes, and for Descartes, existence is a perfection, therefore, because God has all the perfections, and existence is a perfection, God must exist
Gaunilo’s criticism of Anselm
- he claims that God is beyond our understanding, so Anselm cannot conclude that for God to be the greatest he has to exist in reality, its possible for him to be the greatest being while not existing in reality
- proposed replacing the idea of God with the idea of an island in Anselm’s argument, explains we could imagine the ‘most excellent lost island’, then using Anselm’s logic, for such an island to exist in our minds means it would be inferior to the same island existing in reality. If the island is truly the most excellent, it cannot have the inferiority that comes from it being a concept only, therefore it must exist in reality. But clearly there is no such island in reality
Kant’s criticism
- Kant argued existence is not a predicate
- predicates of something describe what that thing is like, he argued existence does not tell us anything about an object that would help us identify it in anyway. When we say something exists we aren’t saying it has this or that quality or characteristics, we are saying that this concept has been ‘actualised’
- Kant’s point is that when we are thinking of God, we are thinking of a concept. Whether or not that concept is actualised is an issue which cannot be resolved by simply adding ‘existence’ to the different predicates we ascribe our concept
- we can predicate of a unicorn that it is like a horse with a horn, but adding ‘exists’ to our description will not make any difference to whether to concept is actualised
A02:
can existence be treated as predicate?
- Norman Malcolm argued existence in the ordinary, contingent kind might not be predicate, but that necessary existence, which only applies to God, is different
- necessary existence is a characteristic that draws a distinction between God and everything else, just like his other characteristics (omnis), which are predicates. necessary existence is a distinguishing characteristic which sets us apart from God, and therefore can be used as a predicate
