Philosophy - Quotes

Question 1

Problem of Evil: Alexsander Solzhenitsyn

Answer 1

“The battle-line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.”

Question 2

Problem of Evil: Jordan Peterson

Answer 2

Evil exists because good is possible. By personally reading history, you recognise bad exists at your core, which straightens you out.

Question 3

Problem of Evil: J.L Mackie

Answer 3

It is impossible to reconcile God as both all-loving, all-powerful and good, with evil and suffering. (Created inconsistent triad)

Question 4

Problem of Evil: Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov.1

Answer 4

“Acts of great evil.” -> stories of turks + mothers, or boy killed by hounds.

Question 5

Problem of Evil: Genesis

Answer 5

“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness; so that they may rule over the fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and all over the creatures that move along the ground.”

Question 6

Teleological - J.S Mill

Answer 6

“Not even in the most contracted, distorted frame of good created by religion, can nature be made to resemble the work of a being all at once, good and omnipotent.”

Question 7

Teleological - Hume

Answer 7

“The strength of an analogy lies in the similarity between it and the analagous”

“Anything must produce anything.”

Question 8

Teleological - Frederick Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury)

Answer 8

Genesis was a religious message, not a scientific document and does not conflict evolution.

Question 9

Teleological - Dawkins (The blind watchmaker)

Answer 9

“Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distant target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection.”

Question 10

Teleological - John Polkinghorne

Answer 10

Modern physics, chemistry and biology are beginning to understand the complexity of matter. It can work with religion to understand experience and life.

Question 11

Teleological - Aquinas

Answer 11

“Nothing comes from nothing. The universe exists so something must have made it.”

Question 12

Teleological - Russel

Answer 12

Aquinas was already religious, thus the cosmological argument does not substantiate as scientific argument.

Question 13

Teleological - Entropy / Does god play dice? Ian Stewart.

Answer 13

Science has shown things move from high order to low order, yet we still have such complexity in the world that could not have come from simple things. Therefore God or something else must exist.

Does god play dice?
“Chaos theory has shown that even simple systems with the most precise laws can nevertheless act in a random manner.”

Question 14

Teleological - Vardy

Answer 14

“Mill assumes that an imperfect world implied a limited designer.”

Question 15

Teleological - Swinburne

Answer 15

Anthropic principle makes sense, but is not conclusive evidence of God. Simply makes it more probable.

Question 16

Cosmological - Lee

Answer 16

Cannot derive any knowledge of God from nature as it would categorise God which is simply impossible.

Question 17

Cosmological - Hume / Russel

Answer 17

• Points out Aquinas contradict himself when saying everything has a cause except God.
• Hume notes that what is true of a part is not necessarily of the whole (Fallacy of composition)
• Russel notes we cannot assume the universe has a mother simply since all humanity does.

Question 18

Cosmological - Kant

Answer 18

The argument moves beyond phenonemal understanding and cannot be possible. Idea of necessity as a being is incoherent as it applies only to thought.

Question 19

Cosmological - Leibniz

Answer 19

Eternity still needs an explanation. Principle of sufficient reason. Therefore, we still need to recognise universe depends on god.

Question 20

Cosmological - Nelson

Answer 20

“If a series were literally infinite, there would be no need for a first cause.”

Question 21

Cosmological - Kenny

Answer 21

Newton’s Laws prove Aquinas wrong. Something cannot move itself.

Question 22

Cosmological - Coppleston

Answer 22

The contents of the Universe cannot contain the cause of the universe. We need an external explanation.

Question 23

Problem of Evil - John Stott

Answer 23

“Suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith.”

Question 24

Problem of Evil - Augustine

Answer 24

“God judged it better to bring out good out of evil, that to suffer no evil to exist.”

Question 25

Problem of Evil - Dostoevsky

Answer 25

“The presence of Good outweighs Evil.”

Question 26

Problem of Evil - Genesis

Answer 26

“God saw all that he had made and saw it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

Question 27

Problem of Evil - John Hick

Answer 27

“In a world devoid both of dangers to be avoided and rewards to be won we may assume there would be no moral development.”

Question 28

Problem of Evil - Hans Kung

Answer 28

“God suffered on the cross so he could look suffering humanity in the face.”

Question 29

Plato - A.J Ayer

Answer 29

“You can not make statements on the metaphysical. It is unverifiable.”

“We shall maintain that no statement which refers to a “reality” transcending the limits of all possible sense-experience can possible have any literal significance,”

Question 30

Plato - Karl Popper

Answer 30

“Plato looks for certainty in an uncertain world. When he can not find it - he seeks for a metaphysical answer.”

Question 31

Plato - Aristotle

Answer 31

“Dear to me is Plato, but dearer is the truth.”

“The world of forms fails when pushed to its logical extremes.”

Question 32

Plato - Tadeusza Kottabinski:

Answer 32

The concepts Plato appeals to prove the theory of the forms hold water, are not concerete concepts but a loosely held group of nouns.

Question 33

Plato - Descartes

Answer 33

“I think therefore I am.” - We cannot know anything beyond ourselves.
“Concepts in the mind help us construct reality, but do not become reality themselves.”

Question 34

Plato - Dawkins

Answer 34

“The world of forms seems counterintuitive as the physical world appears so real.”

Question 35

Aristotle - Russel, Sartre and Dawkins

Answer 35

Fallacy of Composition. Aristotle assumes that there is a final telos for humanity which may not be the case.

Question 36

Aristotle - Hume

Answer 36

Fallacy of Affirmation of the consequent. Interaction between objects does not mean one caused the other to move.