Russel Copleston text

Question 1

Why do they define their terms at the start of the debate and why is this perhaps in vein

Answer 1

So the debate is not reduced to semantics and they can address the core differences between their views. Despite this, their understanding of each other’s position is not always clear throughout and the discussion on the cosmological arguement ends with an intractable difference of opinion

Question 2

What position does Russell take

Answer 2

Agnostic

Question 3

What do they agree to define God as

Answer 3

A supreme personal being - distinct from the world and creator of the world

Question 4

What moral disagreement do they have

Answer 4

Russell disagrees with the idea that there can be no objective morality without God

Question 5

Broadly speaking, why is Russel not convinced by C’s cosmological arguement

Answer 5

He disagrees with a number of assumptions and self evident truths in the arguement

Question 6

Summarise the CA C presents

Answer 6

1) There are some beings in the world that do not contain in themselves the reason for their existence

2) The world as we can conceive of it is the aggregate of all the individual objects contained inside it

3) None of these individual objects contain in themselves alone the reason for their existence

4) There is no world outside or distinct of the individual objects which form it

5) Just as individual objects do not contain in themselves the reason for their existence; the totality or world of objects does not contain the reason for its existence

6) Therefore the world of objects must have a reason for its existence external to itself

7) This reason must be an existent being

8) That being is either the reason for its own existence or not

9) If not, then we get an infinite regress of causes and there is no explanation for existence

10) Therefore, there must be a being which in itself contains the reason for its existence

11) This being is God

Question 7

What kind of cosmological arguement is this an example of

Answer 7

One from contingency

Question 8

How do contingency arguements work

Answer 8

By arguing that everything requires an explanation, we can deductively reach the conclusion that God is the only explanation for the universe as a totality

Question 9

Explain their disagreement over necessary and contingent beings

Answer 9

Russell says that the term ‘necessary’ can only be applied to analytic propositions such as ‘all red cars are red’. Russell thinks the idea of God as a necessary being implies that God exists simply by deduction, straying close to the ontological arguement

C: We seem to have arrived at an impasse. To say that a necessary being is a being that must exist and cannot not exist for me has a definite meaning. For you it has no meaning

C thinks existence is part of God’s essence, but it is not possible to actually argue that he does exist from this notion as we have no clear intuition of God’s essence. Instead it is through knowledge of the world that we come to know God’s essence and from there his necessary existence

C says that if God did not exist necessarily then we would have to find a reason why God exists and the contingency arguement would fail. R says that just because we can identify contingent objects this does not mean there has to be a necessary being. Also says that logic of dividing objects between these two states is perhaps unwarranted

R: The difficulty of this arguement is that I don’t accept the idea of a necessary being and I don’t admit there is any particular meaning in calling other things contingent. These phrases for me don’t have any significance except in a logic I reject

C thinks the proposition ‘if there is a contingent being then there is a necessary being’ is analytic and this provides logical proof for God so long as we are willing to accept the existence of a contingent being. Russell objects by saying this is part of a logic that is not necessarily correct

Question 10

Who developed the principle of sufficient reason in its modern form

Answer 10

Gottfried Leibniz

Question 11

How does C use the principle of sufficient reason

Answer 11

Expresses the idea that everything in the universe, as contingent, has a complete cause for its existence. This means the principle arguably states the inverse; that nothing can come out of nothing. C uses this principle to argue there must be a necessary being, as he sees this as being the only thing that could exhaustively explain a contingent universe, as the only other options would be infinite regress, which does not provide an explanation

Question 12

What is R’s problem with this

Answer 12

Relies on cause and effect being a universal truth, which is a difficult notion to uphold following Hume’s theory of induction, especially in relation to events that we have no experience of

R: the whole concept of cause is one we derive from observation of particular things; I see no reason to suppose that the total has any cause whatsoever

Where C disagrees is that he perceives the idea of cause and effect to be basically true and intelligable enough for the world to be perceived as a chain of causes, such that going back in time all things that currently exist must have been part of this chain and to prevent infinite regress there must have been a beginning to this chain

Question 13

What jump does R accuse C of making on the basis that there are contingent objects around us

Answer 13

That the universe as a whole must therefore be a contingent thing. He even says that this concept of the universe has little substance

R: I think the word universe is a handy word in some connections, but I don’t think it stands for anything that has a meaning

He thinks we can talk about the universe effectively in ordinary conversation, but arguing that it requires explanation is applying ideas of cause and effect without justification. R thinks C moves from a particular observation to a general observation without justification

Question 14

How does C counter this

Answer 14

Tries to appeal to science to justify the arguement, claiming the entire enterprise of scientific enquiry relies on order and intelligability in nature, so that not to apply the idea of cause and effect to the universe by Russell shows inconsistency

Question 15

How does R counter this

Answer 15

Says C is generalising scientific inquiry. Says the scientists might think order is likely to be found but does not assume it. Says that in modern physics there are instances where ordinary law and order seems to break down and it is therefore required for a scientist to be open minded about the laws of cause and effect

Question 16

Why does the debate on the CA break down

Answer 16

R cannot accept the logical jump from applying cause and effect to particular objects and to the universe as a whole, thinks it’s illegitimate to ask about the cause of the universe

Question 17

What do they discuss in particular in the RE section

Answer 17

Whether the best explanation for religious experience is the existence of God

Question 18

Why is it not a good counter arguement to say that REs can be explained away by pyschological states

Answer 18

Because if God did exist it could be supposed that upon creating humans he also created the psychological capacity for REs

Question 19

What does C look to argue in this section

Answer 19

That certain forms of true RE, that of something that transcends the self and is wholly loving, can only be properly explained by a being that holds these qualities

Question 20

How does R respond

Answer 20

Thinks that moving from inner states to the existence of an external being is a difficult jump to make, especially when the private nature of RE makes it hard to verify its real presence and substance. Points out how hard it is to accurately determine when someone has had a true RE.

While RE might be wholly convincing for the believer, it is impossible to convert it into an arguement for God that could not be an arguement for anything else. If we imagine 10 people had a mystical and transcendental experience of a three sided square, then under C’s logic we would have to accept this as evidence for such a thing despite its contradictory nature

While we do commonly move from our experience of things to a belief about their existence, these experiences are verified by others perceiving similarly to us. RE is difficult because by nature they are ineffable and so unverifiable by conventional standards

Question 21

How does C try and counter this

Answer 21

By appealing to the precision of REs, their good moral effect on people and that they are of the ultimate reality

Question 22

How does R respond to this

Answer 22

Thinks these things do little to improve the flaw that there is no logical connection between RE and the being that caused them

Compares being inspired by a mythical figure that you thought was real to being influenced by a religious experience saying both were ‘loving a phantom’. R means no matter the intensity or subject of experience, there is no necessary connection between the private RE and the existence of an entity causing the experience. This, combined with the ineffability of God and the possibility of naturalistic causes of RE mean that it is impossible to reliably state that God must be behind these experiences

Question 23

Who was Russell

Answer 23

Considered one of the great modern western philosophers. Contributed to the growth and development of analytic philosophy. Atheist and generally regarded religion as little more than superstition

Question 24

Who was Gottfried Leibniz

Answer 24

One of the first western philosophers to develop the contingency arguement discussed in this debate. Russel refers to his distinction between truths of reason (necessary truths) and truths of fact (contingent truths). This is important as both kinds are governed by the principle of sufficient reason, with necessary truths being governed by the principle of non contradiction. This means that a necessary truth’s sufficient reason for it being true is that it is not contradictory in its negation

Question 25

Who was Richard Swinburne

Answer 25

Formulated the principle of credulity to show how RE in its most basic form can be seen as prima facie evidence for God. The principle says that if an object seems to be present to a subject, then it is probable that the object is present. While some view this as oversimplifying the debate, its essence argues that if we trust our normal senses to verify the existence of the outside then we can equally trust them in matters of RE. Arbitarily dividing between the two by the properties of the experience is an inherently inconsistent approach

Question 26

Explain the debate over whether it is possible to distinguish between a necessary and contingent being

Answer 26

The major point R makes against the idea of a necessary being is that if expressed as an analytic arguement, then God’s existence as necessary would be self contradictory to deny. Therefore God is logically required to exist because it is in his essence to exist. This is the basis of the ontological arguement so R asserts that existence is not a predicate

Fundamental tension at the core of C’s arguement. He wants to argue that God is a necessary being, which is required for him to provide sufficient reason for the existence of the universe, but describing him as a necessary being is akin to saying that God must exist because existence is part of his essence

C seeks to justify the existence of a necessary being by saying that if there is a contingent being then there is a necessary being. He says that this proposition is a necessary proposition

Therefore a necessary being is predicated upon the assumption that there is a contingent being, which he argues we can discover through experience. However, just because we can define an object as necessary does not mean that this necessary object has to be God. R proves this by saying ‘the existent round square exists’ looks like an analytic proposition but it still doesn’t exist

Therefore if we accept the idea there can be necessary beings simply from the existence of contingent beings, then anything can be defined into existence simply by making existence part of its essence. Arguing that God is a necessary being is the same as arguing that a chair is a necessary being

Some have countered by saying that God, as the ultimate reality, is a different case to that of imaginary objects which we know are logically absurd to define into existence, but it is difficult to draw the line between what could count as an ultimate reality

C supposes that every object in the universe is contingent and the universe as a whole is therefore contingent. This opens up more difficulties as we have not observed every object and cannot guarantee that this principle applies

Debateable whether C can draw the distinction between contingent and necessary. R says the principe of sufficient reason must hold in order to maintain the distinction, and Liebniz held it as a governing principle of all truth, this claim is contentious

Question 27

Explain Kant’s idea that existence is not a predicate

Answer 27

If we describe existence as being part of God’s essence, then for the statement ‘God does not exist’ to be true, God would have to both exist and not exist, which is a contradiction. While theists might point out that this makes God necessary, the same can be said for any other object and an ontological arguement can be made for the existence of anything

Question 28

Explain the debate over whether the principle of sufficient reason can be applied to the universe

Answer 28

Relies on extrapolating the existent cause of one or a number of contingent objects to suppose that all things must have a cause or reason for its existence. By sufficient reason, C means an adequate explanation for the existence of some particular being

This isn’t necessarily a divisive statement. Philosophers and scientists often support some form of determinism, where the previous causes of a state of affairs are thought to fully explain its effects, but R finds difficulty with applying this proposition to the universe as a whole

R thinks the principle of sufficient reason makes sense in individual cases but there isn’t any evidence or logical reason to suggest why can apply it to a totality of things we are unable to fully grasp. What we perceive as effects having a sufficient cause is based on this occuring with individual objects

We must distinguish between the idea of cause in the principle of sufficient reason and the explanation for something’s existence. C points out that cause is a kind of sufficient reason, but because we can admit necessary beings (that have no cause) into our understanding of the universe, explanation is a more appropriate term. Therefore when we talk about the universe having sufficient reason, we talk about the universe needing adequate explantion for its existence. This draws up two problems

1 - What counts as an adequate explanation?

Does it mean a complete examination of everything until a certain time, position and extension of an object, or is it enough simply to be able to explain the state of an object or being at the present moment

Swinburne argues that sufficient reason means a complete explanation. Thinks an explanation includes every state or position of the object and what it depended on in any present moment

Philip Quinn thinks an adequate explanation is acceptable depending on the context.

If Quinn is correct, C may only need to outline the core causal issues at stake, not every minute detail that might have affected an object until a certain moment. Possibly makes it easier to justify the universe being a contingent object with a basic causal chain, rather than a series of indeterminable forces and causal interactions. However, given the complexity of the universe, many would argue that more than an adequate solution would be required for the cause of the universe

2 - Can the principle of sufficient reason be methodologically or ontologically justified

Impossible to apply the principle of sufficient reason to the universe either a priori or a posteriori. Hume thinks we cannot regard the causal principle as a priori, as we can conceive of an effect without a cause at any point and what one can conceive of is inherently possible

This arguement is weak, however. We can imagine someone, who, failing to understand a true proposition, conceives of it being false, yet a proposition cannot be both true and false. A stronger arguement comes from extrapolating Hume’s analysis of cause and effect as a principle founded upon inductive experience. Here we can argue that cause and effect pertains to individual objects because we have experience of this. However, we do not have experience of the universe as a whole and so cannot reliably say it requires a cause in the same way as individual objects. Mackie says we have no right to suppose that the universe itself has to fall in line with our preference for order and familiarity

Some theologians say cause and effect is a self evident truth and that undercutting it in relation to arguements about the existence of God equally undercuts it for scientific enquiry

R points out that scientists look for causes when investigating phenomena but don’t necessarily assume they are there. In some cases they will investigate things with the expectation of a cause but they don’t regard it as certain they will find one. R says this is important in quantum physics where indeterminacy of relations between subatomic particles is a distinct possibility

Question 29

Explain the debate over the universe being the totality of and equivalent to the contingent things inside it

Answer 29

R says just because we can identify objects as contingent this does not mean the universe is contingent. By making this jump, C commits the fallacy of composition. (mother quote)

Important to note that this is an informal fallacy: so the totality of objects could still hold the same properties as the individual objects themselves. For instance, a wall made out of bricks is still itself brick as a whole. Defenders of a contingent universe have often argued similarly to this, that because the universe is matter, if matter ceased to exist, so does the universe, therefore it must be contingent similar to its parts

This is still quite a jump to make as we don’t have any experience of the universe as a whole and it is questionable whether we can just bundle matter together in a way that is meaningful. R repeatedly states that the universe does not necessarily demand explanation and could just be a brute fact. C asks whether he therefore agrees with Sartre’s idea that the universe is gratuitous (without good reason)

Question 30

What does their arguement on RE hinge on

Answer 30

Whether an epistemological connection can be made between an experience of something transcendent and the existence of God himself. Can we reliably say that God causes REs

Question 31

What idea does C borrow when he says that there is something specific about a certain form of RE that sets it apart from other experiences

Answer 31

Similar to Otto’s idea that all REs are numinous. This contains both the tendency to invoke a certain kind of fear, but also the tendency to attract, and the person experiencing feels a strong connection with some holy other. While C may disagree with the fear aspect, he does argue on similar grounds that there is something extra to RE and this extra can only be easily explained by the existence of God

Question 32

How does R respond

Answer 32

Criticises the idea we can make a connection between the experience and the existence of God. Appears odd that C draws the distinction between REs of God being connected to the existence of God and other forms of RE. If a bold experience of God is evidence for God, we is the same experience of angels not evidence for angels

Question 33

Explain the principle of credulity

Answer 33

If there is an absence of any reason to disbelieve them, one should accept one’s experiences. Therefore if God presents himself in such a way that it appears forceful and true, one should accept it. This makes REs foundationally rational in a way that makes them evidence for the existence of God

Question 34

Counter the principle of credulity

Answer 34

We could equally argue that if one experiences nothing but the material this is evidence against tthe existence of God

Could be a door to believing in any non existent object. Does someone experiencing a spaghetti monster mean that we should take this to be true. A theist could turn around and say such a thing has never been seen before, but the same conditions apply to God

While many people claim to have had an RE, we can never be sure what the experience was actually of

If there is no logical certainty REs are connected to God, is there any evidential certainty? This is, considering the large numbers of REs connected by similar conditions, it could be possible that this adds up to an inference to the best explanation that God exists

Arguably impossible to accurately collate similar experiences together to form an evidential arguement for God, given its ineffable nature and people’s commitment to different Gods

C argues that the moral impact of the experience could be evidence

R says the good effect an experience has does not provide evidence that there is anything existent behind it. Whatever effects of RE we can identify do not add to the truth of God’s existence. For the religious person who has undergone transformation it may be undeniable but for the atheist who has not has this experience there are many other reasonable explanations. To be true evidence, REs would have to be common and uniform in the human pop such that its character and veracity is appreciated by all. R thinks that a private experience cannot be connected to the existent of God, only a public experience

Question 35

Implications on religion

Answer 35

If we accept C’s arguement that the existence of God can be proven deductively, then religion is vindicated. While there will be differences in how the existence of God is interpreted in the modern world, the foundations of all religions would have reasonable backing and so be able to assert themselves with greater influence within rational debate. Establishing to a reliable degree that religious experience springs from this existent transcendental being grants humans a degree of personal connection with this necessary being

In asserting the principle of sufficient reason, one is arguably committing to acknowledging that the universe is at heart determistic, for in everything there must be a sufficient reason for its existence at that moment. If this is true then it does not bode well for understanding how human free will can meaningfully impact the world. If everything requires a sufficient explanation, then so too do human activities

Only proves a deistic God and not the existence of the GoCT theists desire

R considered the universe a brute fact. Accuses theists of making unwarranted assumptions and epistemological jumps from observable objects to unobservable entities. If this belief is extended across religion, becomes difficult to regard religion than any more than a set of personal experiences and faith based beliefs. Faith is often more important than evidence to theists so his challenge would not greatly impact the prominence of religion

Question 36

Implications on human experience

Answer 36

R, in criticising the contingency arguement, makes a strong arguement for scepticism: that extending our knowledge beyond what is observable is inherently flawed. This means that realms of human experience we might normally engage with, beyond forms of empiricism, or even intuition, are unreliable

This idea impacts most strongly on the idea of RE in humans. In C’s view we should accept experiences of a loving, transcendental being as being connected to such an entity, R would say they can only be expressions of personal insight at best and delusions at worst. We cannot epistemologically determine that REs come from God

This is important if we consider that human experience of religion is possibly dictated by a person’s natural capacity to accept conclusions about the world beyond their ordinary perception. What one person perceives as RE could be perceived as a moment of delusion depending on the pre-suppositions of the experiencer. The amount of RE’s may depend on the extend to which religion is visible and present within society

If we accept the principle of credulity then it is possible to regard experiences of the transcendent as on the same level as ordinary experience of the outside world. Therefore alot hinges on the status we give RE within society and how we choose to interpret it

Question 37

Implications on morality

Answer 37

R was a non cognitivist; did not believe ethical statements contain any truth values, just expressions of emotion or preference

C believes morals are objective as coming from God. C therefore needs to existence of God to be reasonably asserted to justify his moral position. R’s natural scepticism leads him to reject the possibility of rationally affirming morality as a special value or truth, as this is too great an epistemological jump

If R is right and REs can’t be verified then can it be acceptable for religious people to form moral principles around them. In many world religions, moral principles have developed from visions of God

R points out that C’s arguement could be applied to any mystical being that is experienced. A person could therefore experience devils and develop moral principles based on this. C shields himself from this by talking about the good effect that genuine REs have, but to some critics this is akin to arguing that moral principles can only be genuine when they fit with our preconceived ideas of good

If moral experiences can’t verified but we allow morality to be developed from them, there becomes no firm foundation for morality, rendering it relativistic or a matter of faith. While some theists might be happy with the latter, it does little to convince the atheist that religious moral principles are ones which hold meaning and relevance. While moral principles derived from RE might be valid for the person receiving them, their lack of any verifiability would make any moral principles unsuitable for the wider public