Cosmological argument AO2

Question 1

Hume’s challenges

Answer 1

-argued that the mistake humans make is to allow imagination to make a connection between cause and affect
-argues what Aquinas argues is induction, a method of reasoning where a conclusion can be observed by linking observation of causes and effects to draw a conclusion
-Implied 2 possibilities
*that the universe could simply be ‘brute fact’ that we do not require a first cause
A beginning does not automatically mean God was responsible

Question 2

Challenges from Aj Ayer

Answer 2

cannot be verified, therefore meaningless

Question 3

Challenges from John Stuart Mill

Answer 3

“nearly all things which men are hanged and imprisoned for doing to each other are nature’s everyday performances”

-poison, freezing, innocent killed by wild animals, starvation

Question 4

Challenges from Schliermacher

Answer 4

logical contradiction in a perfect world that can go wrong, cannot be created by God

Question 5

Support from Augustine

Answer 5

natural evil is not caused by God but by ‘privatio boni’

Question 6

Support from Swinburne

Answer 6

• believes the argument is strong as it leads to the conclusion that is likely the God of classical theism
• Uses ockham’s razor to highlight why it is good
• “when you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is better”
• Since it is simple it is strong

Question 7

Challenges from Kant

Answer 7

-cosmological argument appeals to our experiences of this world and concludes with something outside our world

Question 8

Challenges from Bertrand Russel

Answer 8

-fallacy of compostion: wrong to assume that since humans have a mother that the world has a mother

Question 9

Support from science

Answer 9

-big bang highlights the world has a begginning/cause

Question 10

Ontological argument

Answer 10

• Anselm defines God as ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’
• if we have an idea of a God who is perfect in every way, where nothing could possibly be greater then this God must exist in reality
• If a God who just existed in our heads and did not actually exist, he would be inferior to the real God, which was already agreed as it is known all is inferior to God