Philosophy (arguments based on observation)

Question 1

Aquinas Summary

Answer 1

Priest

Theologian

13th century Philosopher

Question 2

Aquinas’ teleological argument

Answer 2

Called ‘From the Governance of the World’

Things that lack knowledge act for a purpose

This acting for a purpose will always lead to the best result

This must happen by divine intention

Anything that lacks knowledge needs something with knowledge to guide it

E.g. a lost child with an adult

Thus, God is directing things to their purposes

Question 3

Arguments against Aquinas’ teleological argument?

Answer 3

Hume - doesn’t prove the existence of Christian God

Why does it have to be God and not some abstract universal principle

What specifically does God guide us to do?

Question 4

Paley summary?

Answer 4

18th century
English
Christian Philosopher

Question 5

Paley’s Purpose argument?

Answer 5

All things have a purpose

E.g. we have eyes especially designed to see

This suggests an intelligent designer

Question 6

Paley’s regularity argument?

Answer 6

All things have an order

E.g. the seasons

This suggests an intelligent designer

Question 7

Paley’s analogy of the watch?

Answer 7

In ‘Natural Theology’ (1802)

Paley says if you find a watch on the floor, due to its complex design, you assume it was intelligently made

So why don’t we do the same with e.g. a rock?

The world is even more complex than a watch so that only further suggests the existence of a God

Question 8

Arguments against Paley?

Answer 8

Hume - doesn’t prove Christian God

Hume - universe is not the same as a watch

Darwin - says that the adaptations we can see are due to evolution

Bertrand Russel - (19th to 20th century atheist philosopher) - Fallacy of Compossion

Just cause parts of the world, such as watches, are designed, doesn’t mean the whole world is

Question 9

Aquinas’ 3 ways?

Answer 9

First: Unmoved mover

Second: Uncaused causer

Third: contingency and necessity

Question 10

Aquinas’ First Way?

Answer 10

Unmoved mover:

Everything has something that has put it to motion

E.g. a ball is rolling because someone pushed it

All the things in the world must have this

This can not go onto infinity (wasn’t explain why)

So there must be a First Mover, God

Question 11

Aquinas’ Second Way?

Answer 11

Uncaused Causer:

Everything has an efficient cause

Nothing’s efficient cause can be itself

We can not go back into infinity

Therefore, there must be a first thing which had the efficient cause of itself

That being God

Question 12

Contingent beings

Answer 12

Require something else for their existence

e.g. a person requires parents

Question 13

Aquinas’ Third way?

Answer 13

Contingency vs Necessity:

Contingent things are things which could not have existed

However, if all things are contingent, then there was a time where nothing existed

If that is the case, that nothing would have been created, as things can’t come from nothing

Therefore, there exists a necessary being (God), who started everything

Question 14

How did Hume argue that randomness, not God, created the world?

Answer 14

the Epicurean Hypothesis from 200BCE said that given an infinite amount of time, all the particles in the universe would be able to combined into every possibility

As a result, some could have combined to create a stable planet for humans to live in

Question 15

Hume’s ship rebuttal to Paley and Aquinas?

Answer 15

A ship is complex

needs multiple people to built it

Why can’t the world too

Question 16

Cosmological argument summary + who proposed it?

Answer 16

Aquinas

All things must have a cause

That initial cause must be God

Question 17

Ways in which Darwin disproves the argument for God?

Answer 17

Extinction - why does God create animals only to kill them off? surely that is too cruel for God

Evolution shows how species are create over time, not at once through God

Random mutations can occur suggesting that God is not in control

If He is and is doing them, then why would he e.g. make someone born disabled

Question 18

Argument against Darwin?

Answer 18

There is no evolutionary reason to recognise the beauty of things

Yet we do

So there’s a God

Weakness:
Beauty in e.g. physical attractiveness is helpful for identifying partners for reproduction

Question 19

Logical fallacies in the arguments for God?

Answer 19

Assumptions - e.g. does everything really have to have a purpose?

Infinite regress - why can’t things infinity regress e.g. numbers?

Uncaused cause - why does God have to be the special uncaused cause? why can’t it just be the universe e.g. big bang theory

Question 20

Which particle that has recently been discovered is self-causing?

Answer 20

Higgs-Boson