Intro Flashcards
Functionalist strategy
Rituals, beliefs, communities, objects, etc are religious based on how they function in the lives of participants
Problem with Durkheim’s defintion of religion? “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, uniting into one single moral community…”
places no constraint on content of unifying matter
Substantive strategy
Rituals, beliefs, communities, objects, etc. are religious when concerned with superempericial reality
Problems with substantive strategy
Too inclusive - could include deism, but is that really a religion?
Superemprical reality
not observable by techniques recognized by science, nor straightforwardly grounded/conertable to the former
Combined strategy (Schiillbrack)
Religion best understood both in terms of a distinctive function and a substantive orientation toward super-empirical reality
Naturalism
Opposite of supernatural, says any good or value in universe is accidental
What are the personal aspects of reality
consciousness, cognition/understanding, free agency, morality, value,
2 characteristics of “hard-nosed” naturalism
- Non-teological - world not oriented toward any goal/end
- Personal aspects of reality are not fundamental, rather reducible to impersonal material reality
Traditional theism
Personal reality is the most fundamental, not emerging from impersonal reality; a supremely good personal being is the ultimate reality
Four features of God in the Bagavad Gita
- God is independent of the world God creates and sustains inasmuch God does not depend on the world for God’s existence or well-being
- God is not only the source of the world, but also the telos/goal
- God is a person
- Our language insufficient to characterize God
“Atman is Brahma”
Atman is the individual self, Brahma is the fundamental reality
Some sources/criteria for theorizing about God
- Scripture/revelation
- Religious experience
- Explanatory riteria
- Religious adequacy
- Perfect Being Theology
- Moral reasons
- Epistemic reasons
- Political reasons
explanatory criteria:
Adequately explaining existence/features of our world requires there (necessarily) be a being with such and such features
Religious adequacy argument
- I worship God and will continue to
- If I worship God, then I ought to conceive of God as having these properties that would make him worthy of worship
- Therefore, I believe God has these properties
Perfect Being Theology
God is an unsurpassably great being, that than which nothing greater can be conceived
3 Key attributes according to classical theism
- Metaphysical necessity
- Aseity
- Maximal simplicity
Metaphysical reality
God could not have failed to exist; the existent of contingent reality requires an explanation that is non-conteinent/necessary
Two objections to metaphysical reality:
- Something is absolutely necessary only if it is logically necessary; God’s existence cannot be logically necessary; God’s existence cannot be logically necessary
- Possibility of godless worlds: if God is necessary, then no possible world w/out God; but there is a possible world w/out God; therefore, God is not necessary
Nomological necessity
It must be so given the laws of nature that we have; weaker kind of necessity
What is Hick’s reply to the logic objection of metaphysical necessity:
Rejects logical necessity and settles for conditional necessity - given that God has always existed and exists independently, his ceasing to exist is impossible
Aseity
God exists a se (from himself), nothing in god is derived from anything else
What is one crucial implication of aseity?
It affirms simplicity
Simplicity
God is maximally simple, with no metaphysical complexity of any sort, since parts are prior to the whole
Why do the parts have to come before the whole?
Because otherwise
counterexample to parts being prior to the whole (3)
- an instant of time has to be in the context of larger time to be considered an instant
- finite region of space
- tooth
Extreme simplicity
God’s knowledge can’t be distinct from his wisdom, nor his existence from his essence; he is not distinct from his properties
Why might negations be more accurate
Anything to can think/conveieve of is not God; more negations, closer to are to what God is
what is a crucial implication fo divine simplicity?
Negative theology
According to Maimonides, does God resemble a just person?
No, though the effects of God might
Negative theology
Describing God through negations is superior to describing God through affirmations
Why are positive affirmations bad?
We think of wisdom and existence to be distinct, but in God they are not…claiming “God is wise” is not as accurate as “God is not wise”
Critique of negative theology
If we are failing to see any kind of conception to God, what are our grounds for worshipping him?
According to Maimonides, what two roles do positive affirmations mean?
- They are, in disguise, negations of privation (God is living) means God is not dead
- They are ways of describing God’s action
Aquinas’ understanding of positive attributes
God is merciful, and wise, and powerful, but not in the same way that creatures are; but we cannot understand that way
Hick’s main claim
It doesn’t make sense to say God is logically necessary, but it is ontologically/factually necessary
Logical necessity
Truth is logically necessary if provable with axioms of logic and definitions
Core Buddhist teaching?
Non-existence of a personal self, there is no “you” that endures throughout time
Nagarjuna’s claim on emptiness
there exists no unchanging, enduring beings, self-substisting substances (not only humans); generalizes non-existence of self to all things
Implications of Nagarjuan’s claim on emptiness
There can’t be anything like God that exists necessarily, that exists outside of the contingent interactions of mundane objects, to explain contingent reality
ethical implications of non-existence of self
Privileging of future you is a mistake; if I’m not future Max, I have no more reason to fear Max’s upcoming painful experience than a friend’s
Co-dependent origination
Infinite chain of relatedness
Objection and counter objection to Emptiness?
- Can’t we pick out something, like atoms, that exist in a robust way?
- World comes down to our experience (we measure gravity and define electricity in term of its affections, now describing electron in relational terms)
Implications of Buddhism argument
By denying that world is intelligible, you are relieved of a pressure to assume a necessary being who makes the universe intellitibel
Two options for God and time?
- Divine temporality/Wolterstorff
- Divine atemporality (Boetthius)
Divine temporality
Everlasting - God is in time with a past, present, and future; god has a history, with changes internal to God (although maybe his essence still doesn’t change)
Divine atemporality
God isn’t in time and has no past or future; 2024 isn’t happening right now; no aspect of god is dynamic
2 arguments for divine atemporality
- Temporality as an imperfection
- Atemporal knowledge of the future leaves room for human freedom
Why might temporality be an imperfection?
You are subject to time, unable to access whole life
Counterargument to temporality being an imperfection
Maybe being able to anticipate all feelings for future is inappropriate, maybe being surprised (like when listening to music) is a perfection
Why might Wolterstorff argue that God is timeless?
Needs to be able to say that God redeems and plans; therefore must be temporal and answer prayers
4 steps of divine temporality argument
- God knows September 2024 is present, not past
- Next month, God will know September 2024 is past, now present
- Thus, there are properties God possesses now he won’t possess next month
- If God’s properties change through time, then God is not timeless
Radical conception of omnipotence
An omnipotent being can do anything (including making square circles, making it that 1 plus 1 equals 5
What is one interpretation of Aquinas’ view of omnipotence
Omnipotence limited to absolutely possible actions; logically incoherent/intrinsically impossible things not included
One criticism of radical conception of omnipotence -
God could have made it the case that the radical conclusion is false, could make the reason for one argument support another; you give up on reason here
Why is the paradox of the stone problematic
Creating an uxliftable stone is not intrinsically possible; but if God cannot lift it, God is not omnipotent
What is Mavrodes’ response to the stone paradox?
a stone that God cannot lift is intrinscically impossible, for such stone is equivalent to “a stone which cannot be lifted by Him whose power is sufficient for lifting anything” - which is contradictory. this is why God can’t create that stone, any more than he can create a square circle
Why is the paradox of the stone significant?
It’s a self-binding action (preventing future self from doing certain things in the future) - can be useful; maybe God remembering our sins no more is good for him, or god restraining from intervening allows us more responsibility
One response to Mavrodes’ response, and one step further
Maybe there is a stone-moving power that God cannot destroy - BUT if that’s so, then God can destroy his own stone-moving power. Meaning he doesn’t have any power, and can’t move the stone. Can either say God can destroy all stone-moving powers, or that he can move all stones (reductiv ad absurdum)
Reductive ad absurdum
a method of proving the falsity of a premise by showing that its logical consequence is absurd or contradictory.
Are arguments against omnipotence (or omniscience, or perfect goodness) arguments against God’s existence? according to Martin
Yes, since God is these qualities by definition.
What is one response to Martin’s argument that God is unable to feel envy, because he doesn’t have that knowledge of acquaintance, and therefore is not omniscient?
Maybe God can have fabricated memories or have feelings of envy from other people who have experienced it uploaded to him
Martin’s argument
If God is morally perfect, then he is unable to feel things such as envy (through knowledge of acquaintance), and therefore can’t be omnipotent
Outline explanatory criterion for omnipotent?
- God must have the sort of power that is required to create a universe
- because god is a necessary being, his power can’t be subject to arbitrary limits
- But could be non-arbitrary reasons God can’t do certain things (evil acts, forget)
2ways that God could know future free actions
- Helm’s theological determinism
- Perceptual model of knowledge of our free future actions
Why is determinism useful for providence?
God could control what everyone does without limiting freedom, but could command you to choose something freely
Rebuttal to objection that theological determinism is incoherent?
God has a casual relationship to the world in which he determines what we will do without undermine our freedom
Theological determinsm
God foreknows what I will freely do tomorrow because God decides what I willl freely do tomorrow
Perceptual model fo knowledge of our future free actions
God knows about future free human choices in virtue of their occurrence; the free choices we make informs God of what we will freely do; directionality world to God
Two versions of the perceptual model, and similarity?
- Atemporal “perceptual” knowledge
- Simple foreknowledge
The directionality
Atemporal “perceptual” knowledge
God sees all history as though ti were a single present reality (Boethius) - excludes foreknowledge, sa that suggests a temporal state
Simple foreknowledge:
God knows what we will freely do, and knows this by seeing the future (temporal version)
Problem with the two versions of the perceptual knowledge
Perceptual knowledge of the future is of limited providential utility (Bassiger)
Why would perceptual knowledge of the future be of limited providential utility?
Nuclear weapons
What is the outcomes of the nuclear weapons thing with perceptual knowledge?
The facts about whether creatures will freely choose to deploy nuclear weapons can’t inform God’s choice:
- Either he sees humans will freely choose to use them, so he doesn’t make that world….so it’s true that they do use them (since he saw them) and they don’t (since world not created) - incoherent
- He does make a world where possible, humans face free choice since god sees that they will never be deployed (incoherent explanatory circle - the fact that God gives them a choice is explained by the fact that they have that choice and choose well)
Middle knowledge
God has knowledge of what creatures would freely do in circumstances that may or may not be actual
Necessary truths that are a result of divine volition
Nothing - God can’t decide that square is a circle
Necessary truths not a result of divine volition
Natural knowledge: known in virtue of God’s nature, logical, mathematical, and metaphysical necessities
Contingent truths a result of divine volition
Free knowledge: Truth gods knows in virtue of willing them (creation, redemption plan, etc.)
MContingent truths not the result of divine volition
Middle knowledge
Most critical part of middle knowledge?
Middle knowledge comes before God’s free knowledge; in fact, it informs divine deliberation
Does middle knowledge have providential utility?
Yes!!
3 objections to middle knowledge
- Grounding objection - what grounds it, since coungerfactual?
- God at mercy of conditionals of creaturely freedom, compromises divine providence; he has no control over which cards he is dealt
- susceptible to any argument that infallible foreknowledge and genuine freedom are incompatible
Difference between simlple foreknowledge and middle knowledge:
Simple foreknowledge God knows all the possibilities, but can’t act on that knowledge and change it, since that’s the real one
What does branch say?
If I am free with respect to the future choices, it is in m power to cause this very world, including all the particularities of the past, to proceed along either branch
How to disprove branch? 3 steps
- assumption: If god infallibly knows what I will freely do, and if the branch is true, then it is possible for me to choose not to eat the ceral
- That is incoherent
- Therefore, either branch is false or there cannot be infallible foreknowledge of free action
3 possible conclusions after denying branch?
- God has foreknowledge, therefore denying freedom
- Deny foreknowledge
- Deny branch
Incompatibilism
free will is incompatible with casual determinism
Libertarianism
Affirm incompatibalism, and say that we sometimes act freely
Compatbilist view q
Free will is compatible with casual determinism; laws of physics formed you in a way that you want to eat, that’s still free
Open theism
God is temporal and does not know all future contingents, since creatures have free will; risky!
Two plusses of open theism?
- Commitment to libertarian freedom
- Greater ability to account for existence of horrendous evil
What type of control does God have in process theism?
Persuasive but not coercive power
What is an ontological argument?
Appeals to the nature/essence of God in order to argue that he exists
Is the ontological argument a priori?
Yes! (Prior to the data of experience)
What is one complaint about the fact that if a UGB exists in the understanding alone, we can think of something greater than UGB?
Greatness of a thinkable thing that doesn’t exist is still the greatness that the thing would have were it to exist
What two things go together with risk-free?
Foreknowledge and divine determinismq
Why might theists like the incompatible argument?
can explain evil, otherwise in compatible both are compataible@
