Midterm 2 Flashcards
Modal Ontological Argument + what do you think
1) modal logic
2) there is a possibility god exists
3) god exists if and only if he exists necessarily
4) hence it is possible that it is necessary that god exists
5) using modal logic, god must exist necessarily
if the goal of this argument is purely to create the notion that believing in god is a rationale belief to hold than I have little to counter this argument with. While I do not believe that this argument is substantial in proving god exists let alone any of the qualities that god is commonly associated with, I recognize that this is not the goal of the argument. Based on modal logic this argument is sound so the question then becomes is modal logic sound, to which I would say yes based on what I have seen within this class as well as my own research, though I would likely have to conduct further research on my own time to fully come to this conclusion.
Plantinga Modal Ontological Argument + what do you think
1) there is a possibility of an unsurpassable greatness
2) it is necessarily true that an unsurpassable greatness is one which has maximal excellence in every possible world
3) it is necessarily true that a being that has maximal excellence possesses omnipotence, omnibenevolence and omniscience
4) it is necessary that an unsurpassable greatness exists in every world
if the goal of this argument is purely to create the notion that believing in god is a rationale belief to hold than I have little to counter this argument with. While I do not believe that this argument is substantial in proving god exists let alone any of the qualities that god is commonly associated with, I recognize that this is not the goal of the argument. Based on modal logic this argument is sound so the question then becomes is modal logic sound, to which I would say yes based on what I have seen within this class as well as my own research, though I would likely have to conduct further research on my own time to fully come to this conclusion.
Design Argument + what do you think
1) there exists complex structures in the world
2) nothing comes from nothing, hence these structures have a cause
3) it is highly improbable that structures of these complexity arose from chance collisions
4) for every x, if x has a purpose, x must have a purposer
5) for every y, if y is a purposer, y must be a mind
6) hence, these complex structures must have a purpose
7) hence, these complex structures must have been created by a mind
What do I think?: I’m not sure if I follow the analogies given (watch/human). ‘For every X is X has a purpose, X must have a purposer’ this is true within our world, but how do we know this is true for our world? Mother/people theory. We don’t know that this has correlation
Swinburn Finetuning Argument + what do you think
The world is specifically ‘fine tuned’ for life on earth. Any minor change and we would not be able to exist.
Dinosaurs? Extinctions? Life on earth has lived through major change let alone minor change
Spinazona counter (Design argument) + what do you think
Eye simply happens to be able to see, there is no purpose.
I think this is naive, you cannot ignore millions if not billions of nerves simultaneously working together to create a living organism as ‘this just happens to be, they have no purpose’
Hume Counter (Design argument) + what do you think
1) this does not prove god is perfect
2) this does not prove god is good
3) this does not prove that god is only one
4) this does not prove that god does not have a creator (baby god)
I think this does a great job of countering the western worlds idea of god, however I believe god is a relatively generic terms that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Not all definitions of god need to match these. For example if you take hinduism, there are gods that have been created (namely by other gods). Not all gods are considered necessarily good and there is certainly not only one god. While I cannot comment on the perfectionism piece the point is that these do not necessarily dispute gods existence. I feel like granting that there is a mind in the first place prior to making these claims is substantial enough.
Epicurean theory (design argument) + what do you think
- posit space
- posit atoms
- posit natural motion on part of atoms
- posit atoms have eternal properties (attract/repel)
posit= recognize the possibility of:
With this, we have everything we need to create intricate purposeful structures
created by atoms floating around, (creation by chance), some collisions have greater survival ability than others
Bertrand Russell belief (design argument) + what do you think
1) evolution disproves the need for god.
2) how could a god that is perfect create such an imperfect world (ku kulx klan)
Darwin belief (design argument) + what do you think
flip flopping
Definition of random mutation + what do you think
random mutation is one that has no correlation with the production of the mutant and the organisms need to survive
Dennett Counter + what do you think
1) if evolution was not created naturally, it would have to be created by a mind
2) if evolution was created by a mind, it would not be suboptimal
3) but it is suboptimal (backwards retina)
4) the universe must be created naturally
how do we define suboptimallity? for something to be suboptimal must we have something optimal to compare it to? furthermore who are we to decide if something is suboptimal? Perhaps there are reasons that retina is backwards that we simply have not discovered yet. This does not necessarily mean that it is suboptimal we may just not have discovered it yet.
Additionally just because an object is suboptimal does not mean it has not been created by a mind
Implication of evolutionary theory on design argument
evolutionary theory assumes that due to evolution (naturalistic), life can create and develop on its own so there would not be the need for God
anslems ontological argument
1) its greater to exist in reality than only in the mind
2) if the being greater than which cannot be conceived existed only in the mind, it would not be the being greater than which cannot be conceived
3) hence the being greater than which cannot be conceived doesn’t exist only in the mind
Gauinolo objection to Anselm + reply
parody objection
Same argument with island - must exist in reality, but it does not
counter: the idea of an island which is greater than which cannot be conceived is unintelligible, how do we decide which qualities are great? this is subjective?
Descartes ontological argument
the concept of god is the concept of a necessary existence, if one thinks of god has not existing than one is not thinking of god
there is no way of thinking of god as not existing
‘can you think of a triangle without three sides’
