by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright September 2016
Philosophy of Religion Handout 2 -- Arguments for the existence of God
Define these terms that have to do with ‘proofs’ or ‘arguments’ for the existence of God (first use the glossary of the reader as some of the answers are there—pp. 373-381 and then you may use this http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/theistic-proofs/ to help answer those that are not there):
Ontology (ontological argument): "An argument for God's existence that begins with the idea of supreme perfection or unsurpassable greatness."
From Wikipedia: "Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality as well as the basic categories of being and their relations."
Cosmology (cosmological argument): "An argument for God's existence from the need to provide the best explanation for the existence of contingent beings or the universe."
Teleology (teleological argument): "An argument for God's existence that attempts to explain the significant means-ends order found in the world."
Intelligent design argument: "Narrowly, the label for an intellectual movement (with some political and religious associations; currently know as ID) focusing on special cases in biology that allegedly cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution. Broadly, any theistic view of the universe as created and in some sense ordered by God."
Principle of Sufficient Reason: "For everything contingent that exists or happens, there must be a reason or explanation for why it exists or happens."
Infinite Regress: "A sequence of reasoning or justification that can never come to an end." (google search)
Reductio ad absurdum: "A common form of argument which seeks to demonstrate that a statement is true by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial, or in turn to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance." (Wikipedia)
Law of contradiction: "States that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e.g. the two propositions "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive." (Wikipedia)
The Classic Ontological Argument—Anselm:
What is Anselm’s definition for God? Why? What ought to be concluded from his definition? Reproduce his argument below—including how he uses a reductio ad absurdum to convince one of his claim (reader pp. 81-84 and reading pp. 133-134 and http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/anselm.shtml specifically for the ‘structure’ of the ontological argument).
First, a couple of notes:
o The web site mentioned above has an odd phrase that it uses many times: "than which no greater can be conceived". At first I thought it was a typo that should have read "that which no greater can be conceived" but I guess I was wrong, given how many times it gets used. This leaves the mystery of: what does it mean?
o The opening section in this chapter of The Reader sure espouses a weak definition of proof: "Proofs are best understood as person-relative." (top of pg. 80) This would seem to indicate they do little more than justify what a person a priori wants to believe in, and these proofs will be meaningful only to other people who have similar belief systems. Yikes! This is a far cry from the proofs that are used in science. And further down on page 80, "proofs play a minor role in our intellectual life" Also, there is no discussion of the power of trying to disprove a hypothesis and failing. And in the end of the section... "Consequently, in what follows we shall adopt 'argument' in place of 'proof;' this accommodates theists who offer deductive or inductive evidence for God's existence, while maintaining our emphasis on the person-relative nature of the argument." All-in-all, these proofs/arguments aren't going to carry much weight if you're not already a fan of the idea being proved.
o Double ouch! The "than which" phrase is also in The Reader and The Readings. I guess it's coming straight from the horse's mouth.
One more editorial: Reading Anselm's biography in Wikipedia left me surprised. This guy is Middle Ages? His logic sounds like it is steeped in 1960's hippie culture. It is sure self-referential and based on personal metaphysical experiences. That said, this is what he is arguing.
Now answering the assignment question:
The essence of Anselm's argument is two steps:
o A mind exists that can conceive of an almighty God.
o If such a mind exists, God exists.
This is Middle Age variant on "I think, therefore I am." It is "I think, therefore God exists."
More editorial: I agree with Gaunilo: Man! This is self-referential! And yes, as Anselm himself said, this is much more prayer than proof.
One mystery I see is why this became and remains a popular concept. Another is why it took until the Middle Ages to come up with this concept in a way that is enduring. What social change made Anselm the enduring proponent of this concept, not some Roman Empire philosopher?
What is Gaunilo’s objection/reply to Anselm (reader pp. 82 and reading pp. 135-137 and http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/anselm.shtml specifically the perfect island objection)?
Gaunilo says that many more things than God can have this "if I can think of it, it must exist" relation. Well... many more things should be able to have this relation. He gives the example of a perfect island. Since there don't seem to be other concepts existing in the real world with this relation, it is not relevant to God's existence, either.
What is Kant’s objection/reply to Anselm (reader pp. 83-84 and http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/anselm.shtml specifically “existence is not a predicate” objection)?
Kant argues that this is a definition problem. It depends on the definition of existence. That's where this "existence is not a predicate" fits in.
The Cosmological Argument (atemportal or ‘without consideration of time’)—Aquinas:
List and briefly explain each of the Five Ways of Aquinas also explaining how it claims to avoid an infinite regress (ad infinitum) and relies upon the principle of sufficient reason. (http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/aquinasfiveways_argumentanalysis.htm this is a very simple, yet excellent, version of the argument. Also, reader pp. 89-93).
The First Way: Argument from Motion
The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes
The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and Necessity (Reductio argument)
The Fourth Way: Argument from Gradation of Being
The Fifth Way: Argument from Design
The Temporal or Kalam Cosmological Argument—al-Kindi, al-Ghazali and William Craig:
http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/theistic-proofs/the-cosmological-argument/the-kalam-cosmological-argument/
Reproduce the kalam cosmological argument (reading pp. 162 and reader pp. 86-89) and also explain the terms ‘actual infinite,’ ‘potential infinite,’ ‘Hilbert’s Hotel’ and explain what they have to do with the argument. Also explain how modern science and the big bang theory support this type of argument.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument:
(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
(2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.
Therefore:
(3) The universe has a cause of its existence.
(4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Therefore:
(5) God exists.
o actual infinite -- that the existence of an infinite number of anything leads to logical contradictions
o potential infinite -- potential infinites are purely conceptual, and clearly both can and do exist
o Hilbert's Hotel -- Hilbert’s Hotel is a (hypothetical) hotel with an infinite number of rooms, each of which is occupied by a guest.
Modern sciences have discovered The Big Bang and quantum mechanics. The Big Bang gives time a beginning and quantum mechanics rules out infinity in the classical sense.
The Teleological Argument—analogical, anthropic and intelligent design:
Analogical: What does Paley think the universe is like? What ought to be concluded from how the universe is ‘organized’ (http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/theistic-proofs/the-teleological-argument/the-argument-from-analogy/ and reading pp. 177-179 and reader pp. 93-94)?
Paley came up with the "watch idea": that something as means-ends complex as a watch, or life on earth, requires an intelligent designer, a creator such as God. The other widely cited example he came up with is the complexity and well-directed design of the eye.
Anthropic or Fine Tuning Argument and Intelligent Design: What does the fine tuning, anthropic argument and the Intelligent Design argument state as the reason we ought to conclude God is involved in the creation (reader pp. 94-101)?
"Defenders of the Anthropic or Fine Tuning Argument note that the inorganic world contains a vast complex of seemingly unrelated conditions, many of which have a very low antecedent probability, given what we know about the prior natural causes."
Further Roger thought: If the probability of our universe is only one in ten billion... Man! That creator sure has to be intelligent and have a delicate touch. Or he has done a whole lot of experimenting.
Some critiques of the arguments:
Give two of the three reasons Hume believes the argument from analogy (analogical argument) does not work from here (reader pp. 93-94) and four other reasons he disagrees with these types of arguments from here (http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/teleological_hume.htm)?
"First, the strength of the argument depends upon the similarity between the things held to be analogous."
"Second, to think that the principle governing human creation of machines -- that reason is required for means-ends adaptation -- governs all of nature is unreasonable."
1. The Universe is orderly
2. Order is the result of design
3. Design presupposes intelligence
4. As the universe is so complex in design, there must be a complex intelligence
What are the two questions that Mackie believes the cosmological argument is open to (reading pp. 170-176)? Mackie gives several reasons why the cosmological argument fails, give five of them below. The first is on p. 172, column 1. The second is on p. 173, first column, beginning of the first full paragraph. The third is on p. 174, column 1, first full paragraph. The fourth is on p. 174, column 2, first full paragraph towards the end. The fifth is on p. 175, last full paragraph and ends on page 176.
Argument fails because:
1. The regress of causes. Why must this regress terminate at all?
2. The question of impermanence of things or a series of things messing with the question of infinity.
3. Where items are ordered by a relation of dependence there cannot be infinite regress or a circular situation.
4. Why should God be an exception to this infinite regression problem?
5. What time frame does God exist in? And does this answer become part of the infinite regression problem?
Read Paul Edwards’ critique of the cosmological argument here and reproduce the Eskimo objection that is at the bottom of the online entry http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/EdwardsCosmoCritique.htm. What does Edwards think he has accomplished by giving an explanation as to why each Eskimo is in N.Y. and what it means for his critique of the cosmological argument?
"Let us assume that we have now explained in the case of each of the five Eskimos why he or she is in New York. Somebody then asks: “All right, but what about the group as a whole; why is it in New York?” This would plainly be an absurd question. There is no group over and above the five members, and if we have explained why each of the five members is in New York we have ipso facto explained why the group is there. It is just as absurd to ask for the cause of the series as a whole as distinct from asking for the causes of individual members."
--The End--