Philosophy scholars (not nature and attributes)

Popper

API- Plato is too determined to find certainty in this world that can’t be found

Ayer

ATI- describing good or bad is our emotional influence

Dawkins

ATI- can’t talk of transcendent worlds

Russel, Sartre, Dawkins

ATI- critique the idea of telos and purpose, especially the final cause

Bernard Williams

SMB- what we do to our body affects our minds

Peter Geach

SMB- how can a disembodied should ‘see’ the forms

Magee

SMB- platos dualism gives meaning to our world

Evans

SMB- plato gives a rational argument for the existence of another realm

Brian Davies

SMB- plato’s linguistic argument only shows ‘I’ am distinct from my body

Lawson-Tancred

SMB- analogy of car to illustrate Aristotle’s view of the forms

Kenny

SMB - Aristotle is unclear about the soul after death

Gilbert Ryle

SMB- ghost in the machine, 3 analogies

Daniel Dennet

SMB- substance dualism thinks incorrectly of the ‘I’ am watching my life

Hume

SMB- critical of Descartes I think therefore I am, wasn’t aware of an I

Swinburne

SMB- neuroscience alongside the soul, science cannot disprove it

Ward

SMB- science can only take us so far, soul ensures morality

Anthony Flew

SMB - the Cheshire Cats smile criticism

Skinner

SMB- behaviourist view that we have learned behaviours , yet Dennet still says there is something elusive to humans

Hume

AbO- criticised the use of analogies to be misleading and inferred

Tennant

AbO- modern design argument from the anthropic principle

Flew

AbO- uses ockams razor for Gods existence

Dawkins and Russel

AbO- flaw in aquinas assumption of purpose

Leibniz

AbO- Principle of Sufficient Reason for purpose, supported by Anscombes idea of a rabbit with no parents

Craig

AbO- the cause of the universe must be a logically necessary being

Mackie

AbO- criticism of Kalam argument that invite regress may be possible

Russel

AbO- just because every human has a mother doesn’t mean all humanity has a mother

Plantinga

AbR- islands have no intrinsic maximum or internal worth unlike God

Russel

ObR- it is bad grammar like saying the present king of France is bald

Descartes

ObR- another version of the argument using the analogy of triangle and angles and hills and valleys

Aquinas

AbR- gods existence not proven just a priori, god is beyond comprehension

Kant

AbR- existence isn’t a predicate, adds nothing like £100 Thalers

Malcolm

AbR- necessary existence could be a predicate

Otto

RE- 3 qualities of it are mystery, god is of ultimate importance, god is attractive and dangerous

Happold

RE- mystic understands the physical is only part of reality

William James

RE- objective stance and describes 4 qualities- passivity, ineffability, noetic, transcience

Schliermacher

RE- it is self-authenticating and should have priority over doctrine, supported by Calvin and the sensus divinitus

Russel

RE- the positive effects of an experience doesn’t make it real

Swinburne

RE- principle of testimony to believe individual accounts and principle of credulity what people is usually right

Davis

RE- only accept someone’s word when the experience is trivial

Feuerbach

RE- naturalistic approach that it comes from the mind

Freud

RE- physcholoigcal approah that people are fooling themselves for a parent figure

David Winnicott

RE- psychological view that this is like a transitional object the balance reality and imagination

Persinger

RE- physiological explanation in a disproved experiment

Caroline Frank

RE- the sincerity of an account doesn’t make it true

first Hume then Mackie

PoE- developed the inconsistent triad

Dostoyevsky

PoE- challenge that God is good

Hannah Arendt

PoE- challenge the idea that evil exists

Mills

PoE- suffering leads to the idea of a sadistic God

kant

PoE- challenge to Irenaeus that people aren’t means to an end

Hume

PoE- challenge to Irenaeus that out world could be more hospitable and still teach us

Phillips

Poe- critique theodicies that give reason to evil with example of holocaust as unjustifiable

Law

PoE- evil god hypothesis

Alston

PoE- we can’t guess reasons for evil from our limited perspective

Pinker

PoE- if original sin is real there isn’t the possibility of improvement

Schleiemacher

PoE- challenge angels with less grace unless created imperfectly

Plantinga

Poe- free will defence

Pseudo- Dionysius

RL- apophatic is only only way to truthfully speak of god

Moses Maimonides

RL- apophatic to describe what he’s not with analogy of ship

Gregory of Nyssa

RL- mysticism of darkness that understanding leads to lack of understanding again

Brian Davies

RL- Maimonides analogy of ship could lead to many conclusions

Flew

RL- apophatic leaves little difference between defining god and nothingness

Hick

RL- we must rely on Gods revelation for knowledge as we are limited

Blackstone

RL- analogy must be changes to univocal language to understand them

Ramsey

RL- models and qualifiers

Evans

RL- there is nothing wrong with god being mysterious

Tillich

RL- symbolic understanding

Randall

RL- symbolic is non-cognitive and has no objective reality

Comte

20thC -stages of human thinking that inspired VC - theological, metaphysical and positivist

Swinburne

20thC- all ravens are black cannot be verified, like toys in the closet at night

Ayer

20thC- verification principle

Hick

20thC- god is echatologically verifiable using analogy of celestial city

Philips and Brummer

20thC- faith statements aren’t same as scientific but are like poetry and literature

Popper

20thC- original falsification principle

Wisdom

20thC- original parable of gardeners

Flew, Basil, Mitchell

20thC- members of falsification symposium