Archive for AS Philosophy

Religion and Science

May 16, 2009 at 10:48 pm · Filed under AS Philosophy, Recent Posts

It’s a good idea to know a bit of background information about the universe and its origins.

ABOUT SIZE

We are a rather insignificant blue/green planet, part of the solar system.

It is usually thought that the universe is 13.9 billion years old and that our sun is around 5 billion years old

The size of our universe is determined by our ability to observe it. We cannot for example observe anything that is moving away from us at a speed greater than the speed of light, because the light from it would never reach us.

Method

It is quite a good idea to trace each part of the topic through

The Big Bang

  • Trace the early findings of scientists like Newton, Lemaitre and Hubble.
  • have a rough idea about the concept itself (You’re not expected to be a scientist).
  • Follow up ideas of Stephen Hawking, Fred Hoyle and Dr John Polkinghorne.
  • Christians and non Christians seem to accept these findings.

Creatonism

  • To a certain extent the work you did on God the Creator should be useful here.
  • Creationists though accept the Bible as literally correct the inerrant word of God.
  • These people are mainly conservative evangelical Christians.
  • They feel that science challenges the relevance of God.
  • Many of their objections are fuelled by their dislike of the findings of Charles Darwin.

Evolution

  • Make sure you know and understand the main findings of Charles Darwin.
  • His work on natural selection brought him into direct conflict with the teaching of the church in his day.
  • It pointed out that mankind was only one species among many instead of being the pinnacle of God’s creation.
  • See also on this point your work on the Design Argument – Darwin’s objections.
  • Be aware of the ideas and conclusions of Richard Dawkins.

Intelligent Design

  • This is a bit like the Design Argument restated with bits of the Cosmological Argument thrown in for good measure!
  • However its origins are not religious and it is opposed to Charles Darwin’s findings.
  • It is cosmological insofar as it begins with the world and looks to an ultimate cause, which is not part of this world.
  • It sees regularity and purpose in the intricate parts of life and seeks an intelligent designer.
  • Developments of this point of view may be seen in the work of Michael Behe and Stephen Jay Gould.

Conclusion

  • You need to be able to evaluate the various positions.
  • Evangelical Christians with their Bible based viewpoint – some maintaining a “God of the Gaps theory”, other using pseudo scientific ideas based on the Fossil record.
  • Roman Catholics who maintain a propositional view of the Bible. It is the true word of God, but needs to be understood and interpreted using human reason (do you detect Thomas Aquinas in there somewhere?)
  • Other Christians who take a non-propositional view of the Bible and think the Bible is the work of men who wrote down how God interacted with human beings. They have no problem with accepting the scientific findings of physicists (Big Bang) and Biologists (evolution) and find in them no challenge to their faith.
  • Athiests who want to follow the scientific route and believe that science in all its forms has contributed to the idea of the death of God.

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The challenge of evil

May 14, 2009 at 10:21 pm · Filed under AS Philosophy, Recent Posts

There is quite a lot to handle here.

Remember there are different types of evil – Natural Evil and Moral Evil. Make sure you know which is which.

Then there is the formulation of the problem of evil known as the inconsistent triad, often drawn in the shape of a triangle

  • Is God willing, but not able to prevent evil? Then he is not omnipotent.
  • Is God able to prevent evil, but not willing to? Then he is not omnibenevolent.
  • Is God omnipotent and omnibenevolent? Then why is there evil in the world?

David Hume made a similar point. If there is evil in the world either:-

  • God is not omnipotent
  • God is not omnibenevolent
  • Evil is an illusion

Then we need to move into the theodicies

Augustine and Irenaeus are the two that seem to attract the examiner’s attention. On the grounds that pictures tell the tale better than words try this PowerPoint. Click the picture of the devil to view.

God and Evil

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Moral Argument for the existence of God (Kant)

May 12, 2009 at 7:36 am · Filed under AS Philosophy, Recent Posts

Background to KantKant

Remember that Kant was a Protestant. Since the days of the Reformation, Protestantism had been characterised by its emphasis on faith. The Catholic church on the other hand stressed the importance of reason as a foundation of faith. It is also woth remembering that Kant had rejected the so called “proofs of the existence of God” put forward by the rationalists, especially Descartes (see the Ontological Argument). He didn’t think there must be a God simply because we have an idea of God (reason). Nor did Kant agree with the conclusions of Aquinas who had decided that there must be a God because everything had to have a first cause.

Kant thought that it was essential for morality to presuppose that man has an immortal soul and that God exists and that man has free will. He refers to these as postulates – and to postulate is to assume something which ultimately cannot be proved.

Kant’s Argument

1. Kant believed in the fairness of the universe.

2. He believed that everyone seeks complete happiness and virtue,

3. This he referred to as the summum bonum (the highest good)

4. Kant thought that because everyone seeks it, it must be achievable.

5. However clearly not everyone achieves it in this life. Many die unfulfilled and unhappy.

6. He thought there must be a life after death where the summum bonum is achievable.

7. If there is a life after death, there must be a God.

8. God therefore is a “postulate of practical morality”.

This argument does not state there is a God who is the source of morality and who dictates what is moral and what is not. Kant’s line is that God is required for morality and fairness to achieve its end.

I am indebted to Dr Peter Vardy for some of the wording in the 8 points above.

View this PowerPoint on the Moral Argument

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Teleological or Design Argument

May 8, 2009 at 2:08 pm · Filed under AS Philosophy, Recent Posts

 

The Design argument has two parts

Design in respect of regularity

Design in respect of purpose

Regularity

This looks at design in terms of regularity in the universe – from this it may be deduced that there is a designer. Thomas Aquinas’ fifth way makes this point. Natural bodies act in a regular fashion to accomplish their end. An arrow always works in the same way. It flies towards its target, but in order to do so it requires an archer to fire it.

John Wisdom’s parable of the gardener. One of the explorers sees order amd regularity in the garden. The plants could not have been arranged as they are without a gardener. Despite the fact that no gardener actually appears, the evidence suggests to him that there is a gardener who tends the plot.

Even William Paley used evidence from Newton’s laws of motion and gravity to suggest that there is design in the universe with the rotation of the planets etc. An external agent must have imposed such order.

Purpose

The obvious one to go for is Paley’s tale of the watch. How it was found by a traveller and from it he deduced that there had to be a watchmaker. The mechanism of the watch suggested that it had a purpose. The dials and cogs were not placed there at random. The object had a purpose – to tell the time. There also had to be a designer who had deliberately put the thing together.

Paley had another illustration from the world of human anatomy. He concentrated on the complex nature of the human eye. Such a device which lacked its own intelligence must have been specifically designed for the purpose of sight. Therefore there had to be a designer.

Before you leave Paley look closely at his dates 1743 – 1805

 

The Opponents

Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882

1.Natural selection is a very important challenge to the teleological argument. It provides an alternative way to Paley to explain why there is order and regularity in the world. The irregular and the dysfunctional simply died out.

2. Darwin’s theories can be checked by scientific research.

3. Paley’s argument depends on the model provided by creation narratives in Genesis – that the world was created in a static state with no hint of development such as is envisaged by evolution. Once the Genesis accounts are seen to be unhistorical and unscientific, much of what Paley said can be challenged.

David Hume 1711-1776

Remember that Hume lived and wrote his works before Paley. He was responding to the teleogical argument of people like Plato, Aquinas and Isaac Newton. He could never have read Paley. What is more surprising is that Paley doesn’t seem to have been affected by the writings of David Hume.

Hume presents his views in his work Dialogues. Here three characters Philo, Cleanthes and Demea are discussing the issue. It is probably that it is Philo who represents the ideas of Hume.  

1. Humans do not have enough experience of world creators to conclude that there is only one designer.

2. If the argument was successful it might point to a designer of the universe, but why should this be the God of Christianity or Judaism?

3. It is in fact unlikely to be God, because there is so much evil in the world and things go wrong. Surely a God would not allow this.

4. Hume pointed out that the model did not fit. The world is a complex machine and complex machines have more than one designer. Many people contribute to the manufacure of such a machine. The idea of God does not fit.

5 In fact Hume doubted if the world should be compared with a machine at all, it is more like something which grows and develops of its own accord – eg vegetable.

John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873

1. Mill was horrified by the fact that within the world of nature there is evidence of cruelty. Wild animals kill each other, tear each other to pieces for food,freeze to death and die of starvation or lack of water. How could a benevolent God allow such cruelties in the animal kingdom.

2. Nature’s ways were sometimes reigns of terror, death by hurricane, famine or disease. These aspects of “natural evil” in Mill’s eyes counted agains the idea of a good God.

3. He also believed that there was more misfortune in the world than good. In the end evil seems to win.

4. He found the idea that evil was intended to produce virtuous people unacceptable. Even when the church taught that a reward in heaven awaited those who suffered needlessly. For him this meant that the world could be unjust and unfair. This could not be described as the work of a benevolent designer.

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Radio Debate between Copleston and Russell 1948

May 4, 2009 at 11:10 am · Filed under AS Philosophy

The Cosmological argument with Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell

Copleston put forward his argument which concentrates simply on contingency.

  • 1 There are things in the universe which are contingent – that is there was a time when they did not exist eg you and me.
  • 2 Everything in the world is like this. Nothing in the world contains within itself the reason for its own existence ie nothing is self explanatory.
  • 3 The cause of everything must be outside of the world.
  • 4 This cause must contain within itself the reason for its own existence.It must be a necessary being.
  • 5 This being is God. 
Frederick Copleston

Frederick Copleston

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

 

In 1948 there was a famous radio debate between Fr Frederick Copleston SJ and the agnostic philosopher Bertrand Russell.

 

 

 

Russell refused to accept the idea of necessary beings. Beings that exist and cannot be thought not to exist.

 

He replied “…what I am saying is that the concept of cause is not applicable to the total.” Just because each human has a mother does not mean that the whole human race has a mother. He thought that the universe was just a brute fact and needed no explanation for its existence – “I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all.”

At the end of the discussion there was a sort of stalemate because Russell felt that Copleston was importing the idea of God into the argument, under his claim that there had to be a necessary being which was the cause of the universe.

Russell was unmoved over his point that there are no such things as necessary beings.

Listen to a recording of this debate

Read a transcript of what was said

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Cosmological Argument

May 4, 2009 at 10:34 am · Filed under AS Philosophy

As an introduction to the Cosmological argument take a look at this PowerPoint.

PowerPoint on the Cosmological Argument

Thomas Aquinas

Don’t forget Aquinas was a champion of the philosophy of Aristotle. You can see the more scientific approach coming through in what Aquinas says.

Remember too the importance of causation we say in Aristotle and the idea of the Prime Mover.

This argument a posteriori. Aquinas looks at the world and draws conclusions from what he sees. The difficulty with this view is when one moves beyond the world. Contingent facts are fine but do they need a necessary cause?

 (One) The argument from motion 

  1. Everything in the world is moving or changing.
  2. Nothing can move or change by itself.
  3. There cannot be an infinite regress of things changing other things.
  4. Therefore, there must be a first (prime) mover (changer).
  5. This is called God.

 (Two) The argument from causation

  1. Everything in the world has a cause.
  2. Nothing is the cause of itself.
  3. There cannot be an infinite regress of causes.
  4. Therefore, there has to be a first cause to start the chain of causes.
  5. This first cause we call God.

(Three) The argument from contingency

  1. Everything in the world is contingent (can either exist or not exist).
  2. If things cannot exist, there must have been a time when they did not exist.
  3. If everything cannot exist, then there must have been a time when nothing existed.
  4. Things exist now so there must be something on which we all depend which bought things into existence.
  5. This necessary being we call God.

Objections of David Hume 1711-1776

Hume was an atheist and an empiricist so there was not chance that he might be sympathetic to Aquinas’ point of view.

1. Hume thought the argument was logical but not correct.

2.Using the evidence of Aquinas there seemed to be no reason why there simply had to be one Prime Mover or world creator, logically there could have been lots of them .

3. He challenged the idea of cause and effect. Does one thing cause another to happen or is that simply the pattern we put on a series of events.

4. He questioned why the Prime Mover of world creator had to be the God of Christianity.

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Anselm and the Ontological Argument

May 1, 2009 at 10:45 pm · Filed under AS Philosophy

Before you begin you need to know a bit about the man.

In addition to all the dates of birth and death etc, remember that the Anselm was essentially a monk and a priest. He lived his life within a believing monastic community. What we now call a “proof of the existence of God” was for Anselm part of a prayer. In our criticism of Anselm we may doubt and debate his main premise that God is “that, than which no greater can be thought to exist.” But for Anselm, living a thousand years ago, within a community who believed and never doubted the existence of God, this statement would not have seemed out of place or unusual.

Try this as a way in to the discussion. Click the picture to view a Powerpoint

Don’t forget this is an a priori argument, which relies totally on reasoning.

Introduction

He starts with a Psalm. The fool has said in his heart, “there is no God”. But even the fool knows what the term “God” means. So, reasons Anselm, God exists in the mind of the fool.

Step One

Anselm begins with a premise. He tries a statement that sums up what might describe God. God is that, than which no greater can be conceived.

Step two

To look at two ideas, existence in the mind and existence in reality. “Which” asks Anselm is better, to exist in the realms of thought ie the mind or to exist in reality? The obvious conclusion is that it is greater to exist in reality than simply in the mind

Step Three

If God is that than which no greater can be conceived, he must exist therefore in reality and not just in the mind. So God exists in reality

Enter Gaunilo

Gaunilo was also a monk who lived at the time of Anselm. Obviously he believed in God, but he was unhappy with Anselm’s argument for two reasons.

Gaunilo’s first objection – He disputes whether God exists in the mind of the fool. He may understand the meaning of the word “God,” but because he uses the word in a meaningful way, it does not imply that God exists in the man’s mind. He simply knows the meaning of the word and nothing else.

His second objection is about existence in reality being better than existence in the mind. Gaunilo talks about a perfect lost island. He imagines a perfect island and all the lovely things on it. But that does not mean that such an isalnd exists. Good point Gaunilo.

Anselm’s response to Gaunilo

Anselm maintains that one cannot compare an island with God. Gaunilo’s island is a contingent obect. It would be observable. God is not a contingent being he is a necessary being.

Gaunilo’s argument looks attractive and he does point out well that it is possible for something to exist purely in the mind. One does not alway have to have a reality in existence. For example everyone has an idea about unicorns. We know what the are supposed to look like and a child might well draw a picture of a unicorn, butof course in reality they do not exist. Gaunilo’s mistake is to place a contingent object alongside a necessary being and assume that the two can be treated in exactly the same way.

Anselm’s second argument

There are some things which exist and can be thought not to exist – that would include, you, me, all the objects in the room in which you are sitting etc.

So there must be things which exist which cannot be thought not to exist – that is quite a difficult one an not easy to say what Anselm had in mind. Some people talk about abstract ideas like love and beauty. Others go for basic elements of the universe. In fact Anselm probably didn’t have either of these two areas in mind. He might well have seen the second sentence as a logical opposite of the first.

Clearly God, who is that than which no greater can be conceived, must go in the second category.

Therefore God necessarily exists.

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Goodness of God

April 28, 2009 at 6:25 pm · Filed under AS Philosophy

Essays on the goodness of God must really include a discusssion of the Euthyphro dilemma
See the PowerPoint if you are in doubt about this.

Creation – how is the idea that God is good – shown in the creation narratives – not simply those in Genesis but also the ones in Job 38 and in several Psalms, especially Psalm 104.

Law and Covenant – your examiner is very keen on this idea. The ten commandments show God’s goodness in the personal and social life of mankind. The whole idea of covenant – that binding agreement between God ad man, shows how God cared for Israel, despite the fact that at various times in their history they rebelled against him.

Jesus - the goodness of God is seen in the fact that God’s son was born at all, let alone in some of the things he did. Don’t overlook the crucifixion. Can the goodness of God include the crucifixion? Think of it from the point of view of a Christian who will say “Christ died for (on behalf of) our sins.

Christianity – the goodness of God is all about human reconciliation with God, redemption of the world by Jesus, through his death, the concept of grace etc. Take your time over these they are quite complicated.


PowerPoint on the goodness of God

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Creation Quiz

April 12, 2009 at 9:23 pm · Filed under AS Philosophy


God the Creator Quiz


If you think you have got this one under control, try this –

1. What does creatio ex nihilo mean?

  • Creation out of pre-existent matter
  • Creation out of chaos
  • Creation out of matter
  • Creation out of nothing

2. On which creation myth might the Genesis 1 creation story be based?

  • Babylonian epic
  • Assyrian creation story
  • Creation narrative from the Indus Valley
  • Egyptian royal saga

3. Who was asked “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”

  • Adam
  • Job
  • Noah
  • Enoch

4. In the Genesis 1 creation story, what was created on the first day?

  • The world (firmament)
  • Light
  • Man and woman
  • Sun

5. What name is given to someone who believes that every word of the Bible is true?

  • Dogmatist
  • Fundamentalist
  • A Didactic person
  • Philanthropist

6. In the Adam and Eve creation story (Genesis 2-3) Why did Adam hide?

  • Because he wanted to be like God
  • Because he was afraid of the serpent
  • Because he had eaten an apple
  • Because he was naked

7. Whose book “Origin of Species” changed for ever the way most people think about creation?

  • T H Huxley
  • Samuel Wilberforce
  • N Copernicus
  • Charles Darwin

8. From which Old Testament book is this passage taken?

“Thou didst set the earth on its foundations
so that it should never be shaken
Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment
the waters stood above the mountains

  • Psalm 104
  • Genesis 6
  • Amos 8
  • Mark 13

9. Which New Testament gospel opens with the words

“In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God
and the word was God?”

  • Matthew
  • Mark
  • Luke
  • John

10. Who first put forward the “Big Bang” theory of the origin of the universe?

  • Fred Hoyle
  • Georges Laimatre
  • Edwin Hubble
  • Stephen Hawking

For answers and an interactive version of this quiz click here

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Creatio ex nihilo or not

April 7, 2009 at 8:47 pm · Filed under AS Philosophy

Creating something out of nothing?

Creating something out of nothing?

 

In Favour of…

The religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam when discussing the creation of the world, speak of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). This is typified, for example, by the assumption that the first verse of the Bible (“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”) indicates that only God is self-existent, and all other things have their being from God.

This is very like the language of the Christian view in Hebrews 11:3, which states, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear”.

Early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria supported the idea, saying that God created the world out of unformed matter ie that which is completely non existent.

 

From the point of view of the sort of philosophy you will meet later in the course creatio ex nihilo is pretty crucial. For people like Anselm, Aquinas and even Paley, their whole idea that God is a necessary being, looks a lot more uncertain if one denies ex nihilo. It opens up possibilities that someone or something else was also in the creation business and that for most Christian Philosophers would be unacceptable.

 

But against…

The belief that God gave shape to pre-existing things was not unheard of, and that idea became more fully articulated especially under the influence of Greek philosophy.

Ancient Near East creation myths and Plato’s Timaeus where the ‘Demiurge’ worked with materials that were not totally compliant to his will.

The Platonic view presents the notion that the pre-existing materials placed limits on what the ‘Demiurge’ could do with them. This is because they were not created ex nihilo and not totally subject to his will.

 

Some biblical scholars point out that the text of both creation stories in Genesis entertain the idea of pre-creation matter. They see evidence that the biblical account, like other ancient religious views, presumes pre-existence of some kind of raw material, albeit without form: “Now the earth was formless and void, darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the waters.” God then fashions the disordered material, to create the world.

It is, I suppose, another way of looking at things, but in Christian circles it hasn’t really taken off, although I notice that talk of creatio ex nihilo tends not to be pushed to the front when the religion and science debate takes off – or it could be that I just missed it.

 

 

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