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The existence of God- Arguments from observation - Coggle Diagram
The existence of God-
Arguments from observation
The teleological argument-
Aquinas' fifth way'
a posteriori arguments: the teleological arguement
the word teleological comes from the greek word telos, meaning goal or purpose. the world and things in it seem to move towards certain goals or ends
A posteriori arguments
-arguments based on observation are called in latin a posteriori arguments
-these have a prominent place in the philsophy of religion
-Aquinas' five ways are all a posteriori as he did not beleive an a priori argument 9an argument based pureply on logic or deduction) for God would be valid
-this was a consequence of the epistemology (theory of knowledge) that he had inherited from Aristotle
efficient and final causes
-aristotelain-thomistic scholars (working in the tradition of aristotle and st thomas aquinas) say that efficient casuality is unthinkable without finaal causlity
efficient causes change things or bring them into existance (eg heat is the efficient cause of the melting of ice and phosporous in a match head is the efficient cause of the flame on a match)
final causes are ust the outcomes of these causes- the water/ the flame. when we talk about telos, we mean these final causes
The teleological argument: Aquinas' fifth way
teleologial arguments go all the way back to plato. plato proposed that the cosmos is directed by intelligence
aquinas' fifth way
-aquinas' fifth way uses the observation that non intelligent organic life acts in certain ordered, cyclical and purposive ways. For example:
given the right conditions, acorns always grow into oak trees and not wombats
the moon has a regular 29 and a half day cycle
acting for goals and intelligence
-the fact that non intelligent things (like acorns and plankton) always act in certain ways for certain goals implies that they were given those goals by inteligence because only intelligent beings can assign a purpose to things and move that thing towards its purpose
archery example
-aquinas gives the example of arrows fired by an archer to hit a target
without the archer giving the purposive direction, the arrow would remain in the quiver
-a simplified verion of the argument might say that the order and purpose we see in the universe needs an expanation in terms of a guiding intelligence
Aquinas' fifth way
-the argument can be put like this:
the natural world obeys natural laws
natural things flourish as they obey these laws
things withought iintelligence cant direct themselves
-therefore, things without intelligence require something with intelligence to direct them to their goals
-this is god
efficient and final causes- melting ice example
Efficient causes change things or bring them into existence. Final causes are just the outcome of these causes. In the example of the melting of ice...
Teleological
The teleological argument- paley and evolution
william paleys design argument
william paley uses the complexity of design in his argument
paley design argument
-if someone found a rock on the ground, they would not need to ask how the rock got there- they would assume natural causes
-but if someone found a watch on the ground, the previous answer would not work- that the wach had always been there. they woukd assume a designer
-this is because of the complexity and inherent purpose of the watch- it has been put together in a complex manner to tell the time
-the universe is much more complex and ordered. so the universe must have a designer
cpunter teleological argument
-both teleological arguments 'beg the question'
aquinas assumes all things need a designer to conclude that God designed everything
paley gives the example of a watch, something which we know has been designed, as an analogy for the world, whose design is the thing in question
-hume said that the analogy can only compare similar things. the watch is not similar to the universe. as the universe seems organic, why not compare something organic, like a cabbage?
counter teleological arguments
-the universe is not like all the other things we can experience
-a watch has many designers usually- why not the universe?
-the universe could have come about randomly and still look designed, given enough time. philo's epicurean hypothesis (the world is the chance arrangements of atoms) is relevent
-the presense of evil and suffering in the universe prompts us to ask what kind of designer it has.
eg dawkins digger wasp example (a particualrly cruel example of suffering in the natural world)
evolutionary challenges to the design argument
There are some major challenges that Darwin’s theory of evolution has thrown up against the design argument. Here are the most important:
complexity and order are natural
-random changes can lead to order and complex systems can be self arranging- this is the upshot of the nature of evolution, in which organisms whih adapt to their environments can pass on their genes more effectively than ones that can't
-so there is no need to appeal to a diving intelligence to account for complexity and 'order'- they arise 'naturally' from the processes of evolution and natural selection
suffering in evolutionary processes
-dawkins and atkins point to profound suffering and cruelty in the processes of evolution
for example, the female digger wasp lays her eggs in a caterpillar so that the larva can eat the insides as they grow. she also stings it to paralyse it so it is alive and they are eating it
no need for goals
-evolution challenged the aristotelian account of causation which includes telos or purpose as it shows that natural processes can be explained without the need to refer to a goal
Cosological
The cosmological arguement
The cosmological argument usually refers to the presence of the cosmos as evidence for God instead of the nature of the cosmos (design arguments). It simply asks: why is there something instead of nothing?
three of aquinas' five ways
-the classic formulations of the cosmological argument can be found in the first three of aquinas' five ways. but thee have their roots in aristotelian philosphy
aquinas' first way
-all things are potentially moving 9ie they can change into something else)
an acorn can change into an oak
-to move from one state to another, all things require something actual to move them from their state of potentiality
a stick is potentially on fire and only becomes actually on fire when an actual flame is applied to it
1st way
-things cannot move themselves from a state of poetntial to actual this means everything requires something else to move it. but you must have a first mover that is not moved itself to cause the movement of other things. if yiu did not, there would be no explanation for the movement of the things whicg are currently in motion because you cannot keep going back forever in the chain of movemnt
-the 1st mover that imparts motion onto other things withought being movement itself is called God
aquinas' second way
-all things are caused by other things
-npthing can be the cause of itself
-you cannot keep going back in the series of causes forever, or you would have no things now- if there was no initial cause, there could not be other causes
-there must be a first cause, itself uncauses, which began the causes.
-this is what people call God
aquinas' third way
-all things can possibly not exist 9all things are contingent)
-if time is infinate, there must have been a point when there was nothing
-if there was nothing once, there would be nothing now
-there must be somthing that is necessary (impossible not to exist)
-everything that is necessary is either caused by another necessary thing or not
-you cannot have an infinate series of such causes
-there must be an uncaused necessary being
-this is what people call God
criticisms of aquinas' three ways
-Hume- we have no experience of universes being made, so we cannot claim to know what caused this one
-it may be that an infinite regress is possible. this relates to the oscillating universe hypothesis- our universe alternates between the Big Band and the Big Crunch, our can be the first of many possible universes)
-it may be that the universe itself is necessary
-why assume that the necessary thing is a being, or even a being called God?
Humes critisisms: teleological and cosmological
Humes critisims of the teleological argument
David Hume saw the following faults in the teleological argument.
unsound analogy
-analogies are stronger the more alike the 2 things being compared are
-in this case of the deign argument,, huma claims that the world and the watch are very unlike each other
-the world is composed of organic and mineral matter, so iit is not like a machiene and more like an organism
one of many arguments
-hume says that the governing principle of the world could be one of many- such as generation or gravity- and that these woukd work equally as well as intelligence
-there might even be one supreme governing principle but many, each in charge of their own domain
principles with man-made analogy
-the analogy of a man made thing is bound to lead to the conclusion that the universe was designed. But hume points out that we already have experience or knowledfe of watchers or houses being made, and so this just begs the question when it comes to the universe
-the analogy of a man made thing also implies a human like God (like effects imply like causes) but this causes problems as God is meant to be infinite in his questions
imperfect and immoral god
-a perfect god cannot be inferred from the state of the universe
-as hume says ''the world is very faulty and imperfect, and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who abandoned it''
-analogy leads to a non moral god
one should judge the craftsmasn on the quality of the work they produce- earthquakes and illness do not imply a just Gos. There could be two Gods or forces: a good and an evil. that would explain far better the state of the universe
Humes riticisms of the csmological argument
david hume saw the folliwing faults in the cosmological argument
against sufficient reason
-hume attacks the principle of sufficient reason on which aquinas' third way is founded
the princple states that there should be a total explanation rather than a partial one for any phenomenon
the fallacy of composition
-hume argues that you cannot move from saying individual elements of the universe require an explanation to the whole universe requires one
this is to commit the fallacy of composition. this is to assume that just because all the individual members of a grouo of things have a certain property, the group itself has the property
for instance, just becayse all the tiles on a floor are square, this does not mean that the whole floor has to be square- it could be many other shapes
limitation: fallacy of composition
-but the fallacy of composition is not formal and does not always hold
if you substitute colour for shape in the floor tile example, the fallacy doesnt work (if every floor tile is red, then the whole floor WILL be red)
-so the question is whether contingency is more like shape or colour in the floor tile analogy. it is difficult to see, if everything in the universe is dependant on other things for existence, how the universe as a whole could not also be dependent on something else for existance
reality of the 'whole'
-home questions the reality of the 'whole' that people refer to, saying that 'whole' things are usually created by ''arbitrary acts of mind''
eg when we unite several countries into one kingdom, this has no influence on the nature of things. it is simply a human perception
'universe' a convient word**
-as it could be for our own perceptions, rather than reffering to any reality
-moern physics seem to provide some support for this- with the view of 'pocket universes' which exist within larger ones. To look for a 'whole' gets very difficult in this view
no cause/ always existed
-hume says that it is not inconcievable that the world hasd no cause or just always existed
he says ''it is neither intuitively nor demonstratively certain'' that every object that begins to exist owes its existence to a cause
like causes produce like effects
-hume says that like causes produce effects
eg parent rabbits produce baby rabbits
so as many things in the universe seem to be the offspring of two parents, why should we assume that there is one male 'parent' of the universe- wouldn't it make more sense postulate a male and female creator God?
causation- psychological effect
-to base an argument on causation is foolish as we can never be sure that causation is anything other than a psycological effect
-in fact, it is more foolish in the case of the universe, ebacsue as we lack past experience of formation of universes, we havent even got anything to base our 'habit of mind' on
existential propositions
-any being that exists can also not exist, and there is no contradiction implied in concieving its non existence. but this is exactly what would have to be teh case if its existence were necessary
-so the term 'necessary being' makes no sense a posteriori- any bring claimed ti exist may or may not exist
-in humes own words: ''all existential propositions are synthetic''
