Cosmological + Teleological Flashcards
aquinas teleological argument?
• Fifth of Aquinas ‘Five Ways’ – takes over from Aristotle the theory of the four causes, in particular the final cause concerned with purpose/ telos. Aquinas maintained everything has a purpose, but cannot achieve the purpose (a move from actual to potential) without something making this happen – God.
Much like Aristotle’s Prime Mover, God is the guiding force that makes things achieve their purposes, just as the arrow needs an archer to hit the target
how does hume criticise aquinas teleological?
- Hume questions how one can look at effects and jump immediately to the cause – it is an inductive leap of logic to go from observation of this world (albeit ordered or not) to knowledge of an infinite, transcendent and immutable creator. This point can be illustrated by a pair of scales with one side hidden – all we know is that the object on the other side is heavier, we do not know what the object is.
- Cannot speak of the design/ purpose of the universe from our limited experience – how can know all things have a purpose, a cause
how does ockhams razor respond to hume criticism of teleological?
• Ockham’s Razor – the simplest explanation is that God must be responsible for such regularity/ purpose.
criticism of ockham razor (Descartes)
• Ockham’s Razor is a flawed philosophical argument with little justification. Moreover, the very fact that the idea of God is beyond human comprehension anyway (Descartes), makes it impossible to argue he could be a simple explanation. One may go further and argue there need not be a designer, a simpler explanation could be the Epicurean hypothesis (HUME IDEA THAT OUR UNIVERSE IS ONE OF JUST MANY POSSIBLE UNIVERSES)
paley teleological argument?
- William Paley in ‘Natural Theology’, like other enlightenment thinkers, used a mechanical model of a watch to explain his teleological argument – a watch, like the world, reveals an array of complexity and intricacy, “such design could not have come about by chance… there must be a watchmaker”
- If I were to come across a rock I could explain its origins referring to natural causes, whereas if I were to come across a watch there could be no natural explanation
- Due to the purpose, complexity, order and regularity of the world, Paley concludes that, by analogy, there must be a God
hume criticism of paley teleological?
- David Hume criticises the teleological arguments – “the world plainly resembles more an animal or vegetable than it does a watch” (‘Dialogues concerning Natural Religion’)
- The world seems more organic than mechanic – a cabbage is highly complex, but one does not infer a cabbage maker
- Humans arguably search for purpose/ design when perhaps “the universe is a brute fact”; by choosing a watch, Paley has predetermined his conclusion another leap in logic to claim supposed regularity points to an infinite deity
how does tennent respond to hume’s criticism of paley?
• F R Tennant suggests the universe exists for the sake of humankind, as if the initial conditions of the earth had been otherwise, we would not exist to observe these conditions. Can’t have just evolved, conditions are so right that it must have been designed, everything is for our benefit.
js mill and kenny response to tennent?
- J S Mill argues the world was clearly not set up for the good of humans – not only are human beings cruel, but nature is cruel; Stephen Fry echoes David Attenborough’s comment that the God who put the whale in the sea is the God who put the parasite in the eye of the starving child.
- From a flawed universe, the most we can infer is a flawed creator, “a God which is no more the source of good than evil” (Kenny) illogical to move from a cruel world to an omnipotent, omnibenevolent designer…
benthamite notion, boethius (use in teleological)
- The problem with the problem of evil and suffering is the very equating of evil with suffering – Benthamite notion that equates pleasure with good and pain with evil – there is no rational reason why we should make this connection
- We can accept that we dislike pain and like pleasure, but pleasure can lead to bad ends (overdosing on drugs) and goodness can come from pain (childbirth, exam success after lots of revision), so the very argument itself is based on a category error
- Thus God, whose nature we cannot possibly know and comprehend, allows suffering for His own omniscient reasons – as Lady Philosophy asserts to Boethius, the problem is with human understanding, not the nature of God
dawkins response to bouethius and benthamite notion
• ‘Origin of Species’ Charles Darwin proposes a scientific explanation, which offers a view of the world less congenial to teleological arguments – the world seems perfectly designed with us perfectly adapted, as a result of the theory of evolution, survival of the fittest!
wittgenstein response to dawkins?
• Wittgenstein’s Language Games: Ultimately the existence or non-existence of God cannot be disproved, and the validity of the teleological argument will be determined by one’s religious position – if one is playing the game of religion, the rules of this argument make sense, yet if one is playing the game of science, one will not be able to understand this argument the validity of the argument will most likely depend on one’s prior faith
dawkins fideism argument against wittgenstein?
CA: ERROR OF FIDEISM
• Richard Dawkins The God Delusion’ – “faith is… the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”
john cottingham existing faith argument in support of dawkins?
John Cottingham, believers may find proofs “reassuring as formal confirmations of the intellectual respectability of their religious outlook”
aquinas cosmological argument?
- In part I of his famous ‘Summa Theologica’ Aquinas gives his famous Five Ways for the existence of God, claiming we can only reach God through observation of this world (an Aristotelian notion of empiricism)
- Second of his Five Ways, “There is no case in which a thing is found to be its own efficient cause; to be so it would have to exist before itself, which is impossible” – we cannot be back to infinity of causes and effects, as there would be no first cause, thus later effects would not have occurred. So he concludes there must be a first efficient cause: God.
hume response to aquinas cosmological?
- David Hume – not necessary to assume everything has a cause at all. Aquinas commits a fallacy of composition; the way the argument is composed is flawed Just because there is a common property to a group doesn’t mean that property must apply to the group.
- Russell Reductio ad absurdum: “We all have a mother, so therefore the human race must have a mother… obviously the human race does not have a mother!” (or planet earth).
