Possible Questions Flashcards
Define everlasting (3)
-God exists within and throughout all time without beginning or end
-The idea of God existing outside of time does not seem to fit the belief that he acts on the world, for example through miracles
- These things happen at specific points in time suggesting God must participate in time
-This allows for a more personal relationship with humanity and love for them and the world
Define eternal (3)
-Suggested in Bible
-“ The one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy” Isaiah 57:15
- If God existed within time then there would be something that he had not created
- God would not be omnipotent and the creator of al things as he himself was subject to time
Define a temporal causation (3)
There is an order of efficient causes- everything has a cause and nothing can be the efficient cause of itself
Define the principle of sufficient reason (3)
No fact can ever be true or existent unless there is sufficient reason why things are as they are and not otherwise
Explain the paradox of the stone (5)
- An issue with God being omnipotent
- God either can or cannot create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it, so there is at least one thing God cannot do
- Therefore, he is not omnipotent
Explain the clash between God’s omniscience and human free will (5)
- When God is described as omniscient it means God knows everything
- If God is omniscient he knows all future human actions, if he knows this in advance it will necessarily happen and if a human action will necessarily happen it is not a free action
- Therefore, either God is not omniscient or humans are not free
Outline the Kalam Argument (5)
- Firslty, all things that begin to exist have a cause of their existence. Furthermore, actual infinites cannot exist.
- Therefore, the universe cannot be infinite and must have a beginning.
- If something is caused, it is either because it occurs naturally or is willed into existence
- Natural laws did not exist before the universe, so it must have been willed into existence.
Therefore, there must be a God that willed the universe into existence
Outline Aquinas’ third way from contingency (5)
- Relies on the idea of contingency in the sense of being dependant on other things
- It follows that things in the universe exist contingently, if everything exists contingently then it is possible that at some time, there was nothing in existence.
- If at some time, nothing was in existence, nothing could begin to exist as there cannot be an infinite chain of contingent things
- However, things did begin to exist
- Therefore, there is something that does not exist contingently, but must exist.
- This necessary being must be God
Explain Russell’s criticism that the cosmological argument commits a fallacy of composition (5)
- Commits a fallacy of composition
-Argues that as each thing in the universe has a cause it must therefore be true that the universe as a whole has a cause - He compares this to the example of mothers
Explain the issue with the ontological argument from Gaunilo about the perfect island (5)
- Reduction ad absurdum
- Following Anselm’s logic that it is greater for something to exist in reality as well as the imagination, that the perfect or greatest possible island must exist in reality as it is not perfect if it only exists in the imagination and not reality
- By reducing the argument to absurdity using the example of an island it shows how the argument has faults
Explain Aquinas’ second way from causation and Hume’s criticism of this
- Demonstrates through the existence of causes in the universe that there must be an unpaused first cause
- Hume says Aquinas has made a mistake in the way this argument was put together as just because there is a common property to a group doesn’t mean that property must apply to the group. Just because every event in a series has a cause, doesn’t mean the series itself has a cause
Explain the Kalam argument and the issue that an infinite series is possible
- Kalam Argument
- Critics argue that an infinite series of contingent events is logically possible and does not necessarily require a first cause
- For example, in mathematics set theory demonstrates that actual infinites are logically coherent such as numbers.
- Some philosophers extend this reasoning to the physical universe arguing that an infinite chain of events could be possible
Explain Descartes ontological argument and Kant’s criticism of this
- God is a supremely perfect being, a supremely perfect being contains all supreme perfection and existence is a supreme perfection along with omnipotence, omniscience and supreme goodness.
- Therefore God is a supremely perfect being who exists
- Kant’s criticism follows that the premise is only hypothetical and compares this to Descartes triangle analogy in which it is logically necessary for the triangle to have three sides however it is not necessary for the triangle to exist much like God, essentially to define something is to say that if it exists it will match the criteria not that it does exist
Explain Hume’s version of the argument from design from analogy and the criticism that it is a weak analogy
- Hume argues that nature is like human invention in the way it displays purpose so it must have similar cause to human inventions such as a mind that intended to create such design. Similar effects have similar causes.
- The criticism that it is a weak analogy follows that a typical human design such as a watch doesn’t reflect things in the world such as animals as they have no resemblance. For example, watches aren’t living and don’t reproduce. Likewise, the universe is not a watch so again, because the effects aren’t very alike, we can’t infer similar causes
Explain Anselm’s first ontological argument and Gaunilo’s criticism of the perfect island
- God is the greatest possible being ‘that than which nothing greater can be concieved’. It is greater to exist in both reality and understanding, therefore the greatest possible being must exist both in understanding and reality
