Philosophy - Metaphysics of God

Outline the Paradox of the Stone:

I or you could make an object we couldn’t lift

So there’s nothing logically impossible about making something that you couldn’t lift

But if God is omnipotent then he could lift any stone

Therefore he couldn’t make a stone he couldn’t lift

Something logically possible that God can’t do

So God is not omnipotent

Either he cannot make the stone, or he cannot lift the stone

Outline the Problem of Free Will / Foreknowledge:

Humans have free will

God knows everything including everything that will happen in the future (Omniscience)

But if God knows what I will do in the future, then it seems as if my choices are predetermined

B8ut if my choices are predetermined, I am not free

So we have to give up either the belief in an omniscient God or our own free will

God does not take away our free will, but our free will seems incompatible with God’s omniscience

What are the two possible responses to the Problem of Free Will / Foreknowledge?

God does not have foreknowledge - this rests on God being everlasting therefore he hasn’t experienced and thus cannot know the future

God’s foreknowledge is compatible with our free will - His knowledge of what we will do is not before we do it, it’s all as the same time - there is no “before” an event

Outline the Euthyphro Dilemma:

“Is what is pious, pious because the Gods love it? Or do the Gods love what is pious, because it is pious?”

Either morality is independent of God

Or morality is dependent on God

What are the implications if morality is dependent on God?

If God is supremely good, then he must be source of morality not just the communicator - So if God isn’t the source of morality, God can’t be supremely good (in a moral sense)

God isn’t omnipotent as God cannot change moralityThis implies that morality is arbitrary and that God's goodness is questionable if morality can be altered. Thus, any action commanded by God would be deemed moral, regardless of its nature.

What are the implications if morality is independent of God?

If God is benevolent then God is the ultimate judge of morality - but what if what’s moral is based on God’s arbitrary whims, then these have no basis - so God’s judgements have no moral force, and he cannot be benevolent

Morality become arbitrary - but God’s will isn’t arbitrary but it’s determined by God’s nature - and it isn’t subject to change as God’s nature is unchanging

What is the proportionality principle?

Like causes imply like effects

So to challenge an analogy, find a weakness in the comparison

The stronger the resemblance between two things being compared, the stronger the conclusion that can be drawn from this resemblance, and vice versa

Outline Hume’s Design Argument:

Natural phenomena resemble products of human design as each have parts that are fitted together to achieve a purpose

Similar effects have similar causes

The cause of products of human design is an intelligent mind that designed them

So the cause of nature is an intelligent mind that designed it

As the complexity of nature is so much greater than any human construction, the cause of this complexity must be equally greater than any human designer

The designer is God

Define spatial order:

regularities of co-presence - parts arranged in a space with high complexity such that they work towards a purpose

e.g. the eye

Define temporal order:

patterns / regularity in the behaviours of objects across time - regularities of succession

e.g. music, laws of nature

What is Hume’s objection to the design argument from analogy?

It is a bad analogy

The order in the observable universe is too different in comparison to the order of the entire universe

We cannot extrapolate from one small part to the whole and the comparison does not work

On the one hand the universe resembles a machine has it has parts fitted together for a purpose, so requires a designer

On the other hand it resembles a carrot because the parts work together naturally and do not require a designer

Outlines Paley’s deductive design argument:

Anything that has spatial order is designed

Nature contains things which have spatial order

Therefore nature has a designer

This designer must be vastly more intelligent and distinct from nature

Therefore God exists as the Universe’s designer

It avoids Hume’s analogy objection as it isn’t comparing anything

What is the problem of spatial disorder, and how does Paley respond to it?

Many objects have a complex structure yet no clear defined purpose

e.g. appendix

Paley - there is sufficient evidence of order to conclude there is a designer - even if we found the watch in a field with a broken cog, we would still say it seems designed

What is Hume’s objection of constant conjunction

To know that A causes B, you need repeated experience of A leading to B

E.g. we know how a house is built as we have seen a house under construction before

We have never seen the universe being built, we have no idea and cannot reliably predict how it came to be

So any design argument is never justified

Explain the Epicurean Hypothesis:

What if there was a finite amount of matter in the Universe, but an infinite amount of time?

In that case, every possible combination of matter would already have been seen, including the appearance of design

So perhaps the Universe is just cycling through a long process, sometimes it appears ordered, but sometimes not, it doesn’t have a plan

Hume himself does not believe this hypothesis, but it suggests that the order and complexity of the universe could have a natural explanation

Outline Swinburne’s abductive design argument

Abductive = argument from the best explanation

The universe exhibits temporal order

We can explain this order in terms of: A) Chance, B) Scientific explanation, C) personal explanation

Chance is too unlikely and has no explanation

We cannot use scientific laws to explain why there are scientific laws - circular argument

Other temporal regularities (e.g. art) are explained in terms of the personal choice of a creator / designer

So by analogy - we can explain the laws of nature in the same way

So the laws of nature were designed, and the designer is God - immaterial and seperate from what is designed

How does the analogy objection apply to Swinburne’s argument?

It compares things that are too dissimilar

Human Temporal Order = simple, small scale, variable

Natural Temporal Order = very complex, large scale, invariable

Swinburne - there is still no better explanation - abductive

How does Swinburne respond to Hume’s experience objection?

Scientists make conclusions about the causes of unique things (e.g. human race, the universe)

The Universe has similarities to things we have experienced

Outline the objection to Swinburne that God is not the better explanation:

We now would need to explain God, yet we cannot explain God - so why is God a better explanation than saying the natural laws “just are”?

Response - We shoudl explain as much as we can explain, to explain natural laws is to have explained one more thing

Outline the Kalam argument:

The Universe is composed of temporal phenomena that are proceeded by other temporal phenomena that are ordered in time

An infinite regress of temporal phenomena is impossible (infinite library)

Therefore the universe had a beginning

Everything that begins to exist was caused

Therefore, there is a cause of the existence of the universe

This cause would have to be personal, timeless and immaterial

Therefore God exists

What was Aquinas’ First Way?

Some things are in motion

Something that moves must be caused to do so by something else

The potentiality of an object must be actualised by something already in a state of actuality - firewood is potentially hot, a match is already hot and actualises the potential of the wood

So whatever moves, must be caused by something else, but there cannot be an infinite chain

Without an intial ‘mover’ there would be no subsequent movement

The first ‘mover’ is God

Outline the difference between temporal and atemporal causation:

Temporal Causation - cause comes before the effect

Atemporal Causation - cause occurs alongside the effect - cause disappears = effect disappears

Outlines Aquinas’ Second Way:

The Universe contains sustained causation

Nothing in the universe sustains itself, it must be sustained by something distinct

If there were an infinite series of sustaining causes, there would be no first sustaining cause - no cause indepedent of another cause

If there were no 1st sustaining cause there could not be any other sustaining causation, as removing the cause would remove the effect - atemporal

Therefore given the first point, there must be a first sustaining cause

God is the sustaining cause

Outline Descartes’ Cosmological Argument:

I exist as a being from one moment to the next

Even if I had always existed, the fact that I continue to exist would still require a sustaining cause

I cannot be the cause of my continued existence because: a) I would have made myself perfect and I’m not b) If I had the power to do this I’d know I had the power

No other finite being (i.e. parents) could be the ultimate cause because: A) my parents don’t keep me existing moment to moment B) I have an idea of an infinite, perfect being, there must be as much reality as the cause and effect, so the idea must have a perfect infinite cause

Therefore, the only possible cause of my continued existence is a supremely perfect being

Therefore God must exist

Outline the possibility of an infinite series objection to the cosmological argument:

Hume - it is not a matter of fact that there cannot be an infinite series of causes, as we have not observed the creation of the universe

Nor is it a relation of ideas that there cannot be an infinite series of causes

The CA fails

Response - infinite library shows infinity does not work in reality

Outline the objection to the Principle of Causality in the CA:

Hume - If the truth were a priori, we would not be able to conceive of something without a cause

It cannot be a posteriori as we don’t possess any experience of the Universe being made or the cause of the creation and we have no good reason to believe the common case in the Universe applies to its beginning

So the Universe having a cause cannot be justified a priori or a posteriori

Outline Aquinas’ 3rd Way:

Contingen beings exist in the universe

If everything were contingent, there would be a time when nothing existed

If this were true, there would be nothing now as nothing comes from nothing

Since contigent beings do exist now, there must be something that exists necessarily

This necessary being is God

Outlines the objection to the CA in the fallacy of composition:

The fallacy of composition is believing that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole

E.g. Every brick in this wall is red, therefore the wall is red - TRUE

Every brick in this wall is small, therefore the wall is small - FALSE

Committed by Aquinas’ 3rd Way - Even if every event in the Universe has a cause - this doesn’t mean that there has to be a cause of the universe itself

If every individual thing did not exist at some time, that does not mean there was a time when nothing existed

Outlines Leibniz’s argument from the Principle of Sufficient Reason:

The principle of sufficient reason: There is an explanation for everything

Every contingent thing is explained by the existence of some other contingent things

But we still require an explanation of why the entire set of contingent things (i.e the universe) exists at all

Only the existence of a necessary being could explain this

So this necessary being (God) exists

Outlines the objection of the impossibility of a necessary being for the CA:

Hume and Russell - Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent, so there cannot be a being that must exists

All claims of existence are a posteriori, and we cannot claim something’s existence without experience of it