Metaphysics of God

Russell
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. He said the ontological argument uses the word 'exist' wrongly. Existence cannot be a predicate. Russell argues that existence is not a property of things but of the idea of those things.
Kant
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. To argue against the ontological argument, Kant attacks the idea that denying God exists is like denying that trianlges have 3 sides which would be a contradiction. He criticised the claim that existence is a property of perfection.
  2. He also argued against the ontological argument by saying existence is not a predicate. A predicate is something we can have or lack. To say that X does not exist is ridiculous.
  3. He further argued against the ontological argument by saying existence can always be challenged as it needs external verification (synthetic proposition).
Anselm
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. Ontological Argument: By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined. A being that necessarily exists in rality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exit. If God exists as an idea but does not exist in reality, then we can imagine something greater than God. But we cannot imagine something greater than God. If God exists as an idea, then god exists in reality. God exists as an idea. Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.
Leibniz
1. The Concept of God
  1. Compossibility - Proposed by Leibniz; The idea that a number of attributes can exist without giving rise to any contradictions or conflicts with any of the other attributes.
2. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. Possible Worlds: The world Good chooses to create must be the very best possible world. This means that the pain and suffering of this world are just some of the essential ingrediants which go into constructing the best possible world.
Mavrodes
1. The Concept of God
  1. He argues that the stone paradox makes a false assumption: it presupposed the possibility of something logically impossible.
Savage
1. The Concept of God
  1. He says the Stone Paradox is trying to show that the concept of an omnipotent being is self contradictory.
Malcolm
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. His reconstruction of Anselm's Ontological Argument: Gods existence is contingently false - a being like God could exist but there isn't such a being. God's existence in contingently true - a being like God could exist and there is a being like that. God's existence is necessarily true - it is logically necessary that any being with the properties of God exists. Malcolm argues that 2 and 3 cannot apply to God.
Hume
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. He argued against the ontological argument by saying you can't take an idea from mind, apply logic and reach a conclusion that is based in the external-observable universe.
  2. The Epicuran Hypothesis: The universe exists as it does as a result of random movements of a finite number of atoms. Over an infinite period of time these atoms will take every possible position, some of them ordered, some of them chaotic.
Aquinas
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. He argued against the ontological argument by saying that the human mind cannot be sure of it's concepts of God - God is beyond human understanding. We can only know God through a posteriori arguments, e.g. cosmological and design.
  2. The Teleological/design argument (Aquinas' fifth way) Things that lack intelligence, e.g. living organisms, have an end. Things that lack intelligence cannot move towards their end unless they are directed by someone with knowledge and intelligence. Therefore, there must be some intelligent being which direct all intelligent natural things towards their end. This being we call god.
Frege
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. He distinguished between 1st and 2nd predicates. 1st Order - tells us something about the nature of concepts and apply directly to the objects themselves. 2nd Order - apply to concepts not the objects themselves. Existence cannot be used as a predicate to prove Gods existence.
Davies
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. To argue against the ontological argument, he attacks the idea of definition leading to existence
Paley
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. Examination 2 What is watches could lead to the creation of more watches? Does this remove the need for a designer? He said not. This just illustrates that infinite regress can be rejected. But this ties on the basis of practical grounds at is simply defers the question "who designed this then?".
  2. Paley's argument from design: A watch has certain complex features. Anything which exhibits these features must have been designed. Therefore, the watch has been designed by a designer. The universe is like the watch in that it possesses the same features, except on a far more wondrous scale. Therefore, the universe, like the watch has been designed, except by a wondrous universe maker - God.
Swinburne
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. Swinburne's Teleological Argument: Regularities of succession occur both as natural phenomena and as a refult of free human action. Regularities of succession in the human world can be properly and fully explained by the rational choices of a free agent. This is because fee agents have the intelligence, power and freedom to bring about regularities of succession. Regularities of succession that are the result of natural laws (e.g. gravity) cannot be explained by reference to other natural laws.
    1. Continued... However, by analogy with point 2, regularities of succession in the natural world can be fully explained by the rational choices of a free agent. The universe, and it's natural laws, is immense and complex. Therefore, regularities of succession in the natural world can only be fully explained by a free agent who has the immense intelligence, power and freedom needed to bing about such order in the universe.
Pascal
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. Pascal's Wager The Argument that it is one's best interest to behave as if God exists, since the possibility of eternal punishment in hell outweighs any advantage in believing otherwise.
J.L. Mackie
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. The logical problem of Evil: 1- God is omnipotent 2- God is wholly good 3- Evil exists. This created the inconsistent triangle; at least one of the propositions made must be false.
    1. 2 years later, 2 more propositions were put forward: 4- A good being eliminates evil as far as it can 5- There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do
  2. He offers another version of Flew's argument. He also argues that a world in which we choose to do good is logically possible and well within God's omnipotent powers.
Darwin
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. The Evidential problem of Evil Instead of a logical argument he asked which of the hypothesis was the most reasonable: 1 - There is an infinitely powerful God who created the world or 2 - There is no God. Ultimately, he went with hypothesis 2.
Satre
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. He believed that humans live in constant anguish because we are 'condemned to be free'. He says there is no fixed design for how humans should be and that there is no God, so humans have to help themselves.
Midgeley
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. She defines evil as the absence of good. she said we are all capable of evil - we do this through caring for ourselves more than others, through thoughtlessness and through allowing one will to dominate all others.
St Augustine
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. God does exist and is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent, but we should realise that the enormity of pain and suffering is the consequence of an even greater God - Namely humans having free wil.l
Flew
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. Critiques of Leibniz - Antony Flew criticies the Free Will Defence on the basis of the basis of the meaning of 'free will'. For Flew, freely chosen actions are ones that have their causes withing the eprson themselves, rather than externally.
  2. Parable of the gardener - To Flew, religious language is not meaningful because it can't be falsified. This is because no amount of evidence that shows that God does not love us will ever lead believers to give up the assertion that God loves us.
Plantinga
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. Free Will Defence: He defines free will slightly differently than flew - it is a freedom to act: either to carry out an action, or to refrain from carrying out an action
  2. His argument: (in premise-conclusion form) A world with creatures who are free is more valuable than a world containing no free creatures at all. God can create free creatures but cannot (without removing their freedom( cause them to do what is morally right. Therefore, God created a world with free creatures capable of doing both what is morally right and what is morally evil.
Hick
1. Arguments relating to the Existence of God
  1. The Soul-making Theodicy - For Hick, there is more value in human goodness that has come about through the freely chosen actions or toil and effort than actions that have come 'ready-made". A harsh world allows us to develop as human beings and gives us the potential to change, understand, improve and move closer to God.
  2. The Afterlife Defence - God does exist, and is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent, but we should realise that the enormity of pain and suffering in this world is balanced by an even greater good, namely justice in the afterlife.
2. Religious Language
  1. The Eschatological Verification - VP is not enough to show that religious language is meaningless. The Eschatological Verification means you get verification in the afterlife or at the end of time.
A.J. Ayre
1. Religious Language
  1. Verification Principle: Something can only have meaning if it is a synthetic proposition (verifiable) or an analytic proposition (true by definition).
    1. However Ayer said you have to have experienced it first hand, so events that occured in history wouldn't have applied to the VP.
  2. Strong Verification Principle - Applies to anything that can be verified conclusively using empirical evidence.
  3. Weak Verification Principle - Refers to statements ht can be shown to be probable by observation and experience.
Popper
1. Religious Language
  1. Falsification Principle The view that statement is verifiable if it is known what empirical evidence could count against it or prove i wrong
Mitchell
1. Religious Language
  1. Parable of the Partisan He says the assertion 'God loves us' is tested with natural disasters. In some instances, their beliefs are falsifiable as they stop believing in the assertion
Hare
1. Religious Language
  1. "yes, but that was only his diabolical cunning; he's really plotting against me the whole time" Hare said the students claim fails the falsifiability test and is more like an expression of how they see the world.
    1. Bliks - A Blik is a conviction that formed an unfalsifiable, yet meaningful, worldview
Wittgenstein
1. Religious Language
  1. He says language is meaningful when it reflects or represents the world; if you can't paint a picture of it, it's not meaningful.
  2. He said that language didn;t exist just to describe or 'picture' things, but to promote a functional theory of meaning. Language statements (including religious) are not intended to be verifiable or falsifiable for everyone, but only for those who are within that ' form of life'.

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