Philosophy: Here and Now Lewis Vaughn Chapter 2 Definitions

Cosmological arguments

Are arguments that try to show that from the fact that the universe exists, God exists.

Teleological arguments

Are arguments that try to show that God must exist because features of the universe show signs of purpose or design.

Omnipotent

All-powerful

Omniscient

All-knowing

Omnibenevolent

All-good

St. Thomas Aquinas aargues:

That some things in the universe are caused to exist, and that nothing can cause itself to exist or come into being through an infinite series of causes. Do there must be a first uncaused cause of everything- and this first uncaused cause is God.

William Paley argues by analogy:

He asserts that a watch is devised by an intelligent designer; the universe resembles a watch in that it too looks as if it were designed by some intelligent being; therefore, the universe was probably also created by and intelligent designer-- in other words, bu God.

Ontological Argument:

An argument that tries to demonstrate God's existence by logical analysis of the concept of God.

Argument from religious experience:

Is a argument of this form: A person seems to have experienced God; The experience must have actually been a genuine encounter with God; therefore, God probably exists.

St. Anselm

He first poists a definition of God as the greatest possible being. this assertion, Anselm says, implies that God must actually exist, because if he did not exist in reality (and only existed in our minds), he would not be the greatest possible being. (Existing in reality is thought to make something greater than if it exists merely in someone's mind.) Therefore, God exists.

Argument from Evil:

Is a argument purporting to show that since there is unnecessary evil, an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God must not exist.

Theodicy:

Is a defense of the traditional conception of God in light of the existence of evil.

Free Will Defense:

It maintains that evil is a necessary result of humans having free will. God created people with the freedom to choose between good and evil, but he could not give people free will and at the same time ensure that they would never do evil. That's impossible even for God. So the evil produced by humans is a necessary result of their enjoying God's gift of freedom.

Theist:

Is someone who believes in God.

Theism:

Is the belief in the existence of God.

Atheist:

Is someone who denies God's Existence.

Atheism:

Is the denial of the existence of God.

Agnostic:

Is someone who neither accepts nor denies God's existence.

Monotheism:

The belief in one God.

Polytheism:

The belief in many gods.

Deism:

Is a belief in one God who created the world but left it unattended to run on its own.

Pantheism:

Is the view that God and the universe are one and the same thing, and divine Whole.

Panentheism:

Is the view that although God and the world are distinct, the world is a part of God.

A posteriori argument

Radios from empirical facts about the world to the conclusion that God exists. Cosmological, teleological, and religious-experience arguments are of this kind.

A Priori argument

Logically derive the conclusion that God exists from concepts of God. Ontological arguments take this form.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (famous five ways)

One: argument from motion.

Two: nature of the efficient cause.

Aquinas's argument from motion

It is obvious that some things in the universe are moving (that is, changing), and if they are moving, something else must have caused them to move. And this "something else" must also have been moving, set in motion by by yet another thing that was moving, and this thing set in motion by another moving thing, and so on. But this series of things-moving-other-things cannot go on forever, to infinity, because then there would not be something that started all the moving. There must therefore be an initial mover (a "first mover"), an extraordinary bring that started the universe moving but is not itself moving by anything else -- and this bring we call God.

Aquinas's first-cause argument:

He maintains that everything we can observe has a cause, and it is clear that nothing can cause itself. For something to cause itself, it would have to exist prior to itself, which is impossible. Neither can something be caused by an infinite regress of causes -- that is, a series of causes stretching to infinity. In any series of causes, Aquinas says, there must be a first cause which causes the second, which causes the third and so one. But in an infinite series of causes, there would be no first cause and thus no subsequent causes, including causes existing now. So infinite regresses make no sense. Therefore, there must be a first cause of everything, and this first cause we call God. (Here Aquinas is not thinking of a first cause of a temporal series of causes, as in a sequence of falling dominoes, but of a first cause that sustains the whole series of causes, like the bottom building block that holds up all the others in a stack.)

William Paley

Natural Theology: The watch against the ground story.

David Hume

Dialogues concerning Natural Religion