Philosophy 1010

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Philosophy 1010 Class 8/8/13
Title Introduction to Philosophy Instructor P
aul Dickey E-mail Address pdickey2_at_mccneb.edu
Tonight Pop Quiz (Chapter 3 4) Chapter
Four Tomorrow (8/9) Final Exam will be posted
on Quia. Next week No Class. Submit Final
Essay FINAL EXAM by e-mail BEFORE 8/15, 530
P.M. For every 4 hours the essay and/or exam
is late, a full grade will be reduced. NO
EXCEPTIONS.
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Chapter 4 Philosophy and God (a Metaphysical
Study)
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Does God Exist?

• Theism is the belief in a personal God who is
  creator of the world and present in its processes
  and who is actively engaged in the affairs of
  humans.
• Pantheism is the belief that God is the universe
  and its phenomena (taken or conceived of as a
  whole). God exists but is not personally involved
  in the lives of men.
• Atheism is the denial of Theism. (Metaphysical
  View) It states that there is no God.
• Agnosticism is the view that it cannot be known
  whether God exists or not. (Epistemological
  View)
• According to Logical Positivism, the question
  Does God Exist? is meaningless.

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First, Can We Even Make Sense of the Question?

• Surely before trying to answer the question, one
  needs to ask the following questions
• What does one mean by the word or concept of
  God?
• What is the sense of existence that is being
  asserted when one says God exists.
• Without being clear about these issues, the
  argument often becomes mostly subjective.

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What Do We Mean by God?

• If we say that God is the creator of the
  universe, do we mean
• 1) that there is a Being that is God that could
  or could not be the one who created the universe,
  but as a matter of fact is the creator of the
  universe? Or
• 2) that by definition that God is the Being that
  created the universe such that it would be a
  logical error to say that God did not create the
  universe.
• Note that if we mean the first, we have still not
  said who (or what) God is, apart from what he has
  done.
• If we mean the second, of course given the
  inherent assumptions, then God exists. But we
  have committed the logical fallacy of begging
  the question.

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What is the Meaning of Existence that is Being
Used to Say that God Exists?

• Is existence a property of an entity? I say This
  chair is black. Blackness is a property of the
  chair. So that I would say that this chair has
  the property of existing and thus there could
  be chairs some of which have the property and
  some dont. Then would I say that some chairs
  exist and some do not like I would say some
  chairs are black and some are not?
• Or is existence of the chair identified in terms
  of its relationship to a real world, say Hobbes
  material world or Berkeleys mental world? But
  then what sense does it make to say that Gods
  existence is dependent upon a world that He
  created and itself came into existence after
  Him?
• If not, then what is this form of existence for
  God that we are asserting?

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Is it Possible to Talk About Something that Does
Not Exist?

• We generally believe that only things that exist
  can have properties. Thus, by referring to God
  with properties, I.e. omnipotent, do we prove
  that God exists?
• Probably not of course. We do refer to Santa
  Claus as having a white beard and living at
  the North Pole. And then turn around and say
  Santa does not exist.
• Bertrand Russell proposed a Theory of
  Descriptions to account for how we refer to
  things that appear to have properties or
  characteristics but may or may not exist.

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How is it Possible to Talk About Something that
Does Not Exist?

• Russells solution is to take names to be
  shorthand for descriptions. For example, Santa
  Claus is a person who goes by the description
  that he lives on North Pole, and delivers toys to
  kids for Christmas, and the sentence Santa
  doesnt exist should be understood as There is
  no X, such that X is a person that lives on North
  Pole, etc., etc.
• Thus, presumably for Russell to say God does not
  exist would be to say There is no Being, such
  that the Being existed prior to the creation of
  the universe, and then created the universe,
  etc., etc.

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So, is Logical Positivism right after all?

• Theism is so confused and the sentences in which
  'God' appears so incoherent and so incapable of
  verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of
  belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is
  logically impossible.
• A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic
• Wikipedia suggests A. J. Ayer (1910-1989) was an
  atheist. Ayers position on the existence of God
  should not be confused with atheism. Of course,
  claiming that God does not exist also lacks
  analytic or empirical verifiability and is thus
  also meaningless.
• Many (perhaps most?) mid to late 20th century
  philosophers who abandoned strict logical
  positivism (including Russell and Wittgenstein)
  still found Ayers response to this issue quite
  credible.
• On the other hand, maybe the question is too
  obvious and important to give up on, so lets
  stumble on .

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The Traditional Proofs The Ontological
Argument

• Saint Anselm (c. 1033-1109) provided the
  classical ontological argument (proof) for the
  existence of God
• First of all, Anselm argues, God is that Being
  for which none greater can be conceived.
• But if God did not exist, then we could conceive
  a greater Being, namely a God that does exist.
• Thus, God must exist.
• Note This argument does not give evidence of
  Gods existence. It attempts to prove it.
• Unfortunately, the argument seems to suppose that
  
• Existence is a property of a thing, and
• Non-existence is an imperfection.

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The Ontological Argument Kants Objection

• Immanuel Kant argued against Anselms Ontological
  Argument that it defines God into existence, that
  is, Anselm has formed a concept of God that
  itself requires existence as a property.
• Nonexistence was an imperfection, thus God could
  not have that property since he by definition is
  perfect.
• And thus, Anselm is begging the question.
• Few philosophers or theologians today accept
  Anselms Ontological Argument.

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The Traditional Proofs The Cosmological
Argument

• Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) provided several
  cosmological arguments (proofs) for the
  existence of God that were of the following form
• First of all, Aquinas argues, Some things move.
  
• What moves must be moved (caused) by something
  prior.
• This movement (causation) can not have an
  infinite regression for it must have an origin.
• The origin of the movement (the cause) cannot
  itself move (or be caused).
• Thus, God (the original mover or first cause)
  must exist.

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The Traditional Proofs The Cosmological
Argument

• After Newton, it is necessary to refine Aquinas
  first argument to refer to acceleration rather
  than motion.
• More damaging to his argument however is an
  objection that questions the assumption that
  there can be no infinite regress in the causal
  sequences of the universe. How do we know that
  the universe is not infinite?
• The Big Bang theory seems potentially to
  counter this objection. The universe (along with
  space and time) does appear to have had a
  beginning.
• But the argument still does not preclude
  alternatives. Could our universe have come into
  existence from events in another universe and
  thus we could still have an infinity of events in
  multiple universes?

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The Traditional Proofs The Cosmological
Argument

• Aquinas believed that even if the universe
  existed forever, then there would still need to
  be a First Cause which would be God.
• David Hume (1711-1776) disagreed. He claimed that
  if one had an explanation for all the parts of a
  thing (in particular, all individual causal links
  in the universe), it did not require an
  additional explanation for the whole.
• Many analysts, most notably Arthur Schopenhauer
  (1788-1860), have argued that the arguments
  premise that every event must have a cause is
  actually inconsistent with his conclusion that
  God does not have a cause.

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The Traditional Proofs The Argument From
Design

• The Argument From Design, also known as the
  teleological argument (thus being traced back to
  Aristotle) states that the order and purpose
  manifest in the working of nature, and
  particularly, human nature require that there be
  a logical designer or God.
• This argument is very popular today and is
  probably the most prevalent and strongest
  argument for the existence of God.
• The best known early formulation of this argument
  was given by the theologian William Paley
  (1743-1805).
• Paley compared natural organisms to the mechanism
  of a watch and by analogy argued that as the
  design of the watch demonstrates the existence of
  a watchmaker, natural design shows the work of a
  Divine Agency.

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The Argument From Design

• Relying on a multitude of examples including the
  migration of birds, the adaptability of species,
  and the human eye, Paley seemed to make a pretty
  convincing argument given the science of the day,
  
• David Hume did object however on the basis that
  as an argument from analogy, the argument was
  weak. Arguments from analogy are only as strong
  as our knowledge of the relevant similarities.
  In this one, we do not know how nature and living
  things are made and thus that it is at all like
  a watch being made.
• Hume was arguing against Paleys assumption that
  complex order can be produced only by an
  intelligent being. That may or may not be the
  case, Hume would say. Anticipating Darwin, he
  suggested that perhaps a finite amount of
  particles in random motion might achieve order.

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The Argument from Design Darwinism

• Charles Darwin (1809-1882) filled in the missing
  pieces of Humes argument by producing scientific
  evidence for just what the mechanism could be in
  nature to produce the order and appearance of
  design that Hume was suggesting.
• Darwin suggested that the process was one he
  called natural selection. Over millions of years,
  Darwin argued, random mechanical processes could
  produce organisms that seemed perfectly designed.
  
• Darwin contended that life forms exhibit
  inherited variations that were gradually
  selected in a struggle for survival to produce
  new characteristics of species and even new
  species.

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The Argument from Design Darwinism

• Others continue to defend the Argument From
  Design while granting the possibility of natural
  selection processes, rationalizing that it is
  then just the process by which God produces
  living things.
• But this later posture gives up a lot of
  theological ground. It allows for God to act
  randomly and that He allows harmful consequences
  to exist in his creation.
• For many others, the Darwinian theory of
  evolution was taken as a threat to the Argument
  From Design which seemed to be the last bastion
  of a ultimate support for the existence of God.
  Thus many theists to this day resist the
  Darwinian view which meanwhile has become the
  dominant scientific theory within Biology and has
  also developed extended applications in other
  sciences and our entire intellectual culture.
  William Dembski (1960- ) argues for an empirical
  theory of intellectual design and specified
  complexity.

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Atheism

• Atheists such as Richard Dawkins (1941-) state
  unequivocally that there is no God.
• In taking a metaphysical position on the issue,
  Atheism assumes the same burden in regard to all
  the issues of meaning and evidence that Theism
  does.
• Atheism must assert reasons that God does not
  exist just as we expected the Theist to provide
  proofs for the existence of God.
• Many would argue that Atheism requires just as
  much faith as does Theism, but is it really a
  matter of faith or the strength of your argument?
  
• The primary argument given by Atheists that God
  does not exist is the problem of evil.

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The Problem of Evil

• The Problem of Evil in its simplest form argues
  that since evil exists in the world, then God is
  either not all powerful or all good. David Hume
  subscribed to this view.
• St. Augustine took a position against this view,
  arguing that God created the universe and all the
  good in the world but the universe he created is
  not itself God and is imperfect, finite, and
  limited. In this way, it allows the existence of
  evil as incomplete goodness.
• Many argue that St. Augustine does not resolve
  the issue. Why would not God who is all good
  ensure that there was no evil in His universe?

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The Problem of Evil

• A popular theological argument is that evil is
  necessary for the Good to exist. But then is God
  not omnipotent if he cannot create Good without
  Evil?
• Another argument the Theist gives is that God
  allows Evil in order to give man Free Will. But
  how does this account for natural disasters such
  as hurricanes?
• Or maybe, they think, we are confused about what
  is Good? What we think is Evil is Good in the
  mind of God?
• John Hick (1922- ) argues that the presence of
  evil is necessary for Man to be made into the
  likeness of God. Experiencing evil gives meaning
  to virtue for Man and allows him to develop into
  virtuous beings.

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Immanuel Kant

• That injustice exists in the world should not
  lead us to reject God. Rather it should compel us
  pursue a perfectly just world. It is a moral
  obligation.
• To believe that such a world is possible with
  evil fully punished and good rewarded would
  require a belief in God and an afterlife.
• And since all moral obligations must be possible,
  then God must exist.
• According to Kants argument, we must believe in
  God although perhaps we cannot know that God
  exists.

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Agnosticism

• Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) argued that it is
  incorrect to say that one is certain of the truth
  of a proposition unless he can produce evidence
  that logically justifies that certainty.
• Sigmund Freud suggested that our belief in God is
  an illusion and had its origins in infantile
  needs for a father.
• Freuds view was influential throughout the 20th
  century but is considered by most today as an
  insufficient explanation. Further, even if it
  were true as a psychological explanation, that
  does not make the claim that the belief is an
  illusion and that God does not exist true. Such
  an argument commits what is known logically as
  the Genetic Fallacy.

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The Will to Believe

• William James (1842-1910 ) proposed that in the
  absence of irrefutable evidence for the existence
  of God, there still is justifiable reason to
  believe.
• James suggests that in this condition, we have
  the option to choose what we believe. We do not
  have an option not to choose, as perhaps an
  agnostic might suggest. To choose not to make a
  decision is, for James, to decide.
• James discusses three fundamental characteristics
  of such options
• 1) living or dead
• 2) forced or avoidable
• 3) momentous or trivial

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• An Option is a person's decision among a set of
  hypotheses. A genuine option is living, forced,
  and momentous.
• A living option in one in hypotheses are live,
  i.e., they are real possibilities for someone.
  Since I grew up attending a Christian church and
  was raised to believe that way, it may not be a
  real option for me to become a Buddhist, but it
  is a real option for me to become a
  Presbyterian.
• A forced option is a dilemma the hypothesis
  cannot be avoided. I.e., for someone enrolled in
  this class to come to class or not is forced.
  Deciding whether or not God exists and/or we will
  conduct ourselves according to that may be forced
  in this sense.
• A momentous option is one that is unique and
  may well be one's only opportunity. The choice is
  not trivial, but significant, because one only
  has one chance to do it.

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The Will to Believe

• James then argues when an option is genuine (that
  is, living, forced and momentous) and cannot be
  decided on intellectual grounds, it is
  justifiable to choose on the basis of our
  passional nature. In fact, James would argue one
  should so choose.
• For James, our passional nature consists of all
  nonintellectual interests, emotions, desires,
  hopes, fears, commitments, our deepest personal
  needs, etc.
• James would hold that when an option is not
  genuine, it makes the best sense to decide to
  withhold judgment until the evidence is in.

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In Conclusion

• W. K. Clifford, 1845-1879, argued against James
  (as did Thomas Huxley), asserting that it is
  absolutely and always wrong to make any judgment
  without sufficient evidence. By doing so, you
  make yourself vulnerable to logical and factual
  error.
• To the contrary, James pointed out that this was
  one option that could be chosen and one that
  would have the advantage that it might protect us
  from believing what was false.
• On the other hand, another option is to try to
  protect ourselves from missing out on the truth
  and the truth that would be the one that is
  ultimately significant to ourselves.
• James would choose this option, while recognizing
  that it itself must be chosen not on rational
  grounds, but on passional grounds.