CA Strengths and Weaknesses

CA Strengths and Weaknesses

1. STRENGTHS

   • Richard Swinburne: God may just be the simplest explanation.
   • An a posteriori: based on evidence.
   • The Big Bang Theory shows that there is a start.
   • Scientists cannot show what caused the big bang so it could be God.

2. WEAKNESSES

   • David Hume and Bertrand Russell.
   • Aquinas contradicts himself.
   • Why does the prime mover have to be God?
   • Principle of Entropy: everything will eventually collapse and decay.

3. David Hume

   • Argument begins with a familiar concept but moves on to something that we cannot understand.
   • All particle matter can be destroyed and anything can be altered
     • Inconsistent not extend this to a deity
   • Why should it be the God of classical theism? Even if we do believe in a necessary being it does not have to have the characteristics of the classically theistic God.

4. Bertrand Russell

   • "Every man who exists has a Mother, and it seems to me that your argument is that, therefore the human race must have a Mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a Mother - that's a different logical sphere.
   • Russell Claims that not everything needs an explanation - 'the universe is a brute fcct'
   • He does not dismiss completely the quest for an explanation.