Russell and Copleston anthology

Context of Russell?

• Agnostic

• Logical positivist

• Analytical, deductive

• Universe is brute fact

• Religious experience = subjective

Russell objective for Aseity (God's self-existence)

• Analytic propositions are only necessary things

• Self-evident would be contradictory to deny e.g. all black cats are black

'I ought to say you're looking for something that can't be got, and which one ought to expect not to get'

• Russell says total explanation is waste of time

• We can get probability, not causation

Russell - taxi cab fallacy

• Science is not a taxi we can get in and out of

• Russell accepts principle we can look for explanations of things until you get to universe

Religious experience - Russell

• Subjective, private

• Not backed up by other's observations

• Mystics claim to experience things we don’t agree with - example of demons and devils

Religious experience and fictional character inspiration

• Greek heroes example

• God is fictional character

Russell counter to Copleston saying belief has a good effect on someone - he says this doesn’t help make it true

• Person may have full belief, doesn't give any evidence as to whether their interpretation is correct

• Copleston reply: belief can cause the moral effect, moral life makes us more likely to trust them

• Russell reply: a lot of people have false beliefs that enrich their lives

 

'He is loving a phantom' - Russell

Believer may be effected, love may be real, but doesn't mean the figure of love us.

Copleston context

• Believes in God

• Inductive, a posteriori

• Existence of God = important as if he doesn't exist we must re-evaluate

• Religious experience = objective

• Follows argument from contingency

Copleston Defines God:

Omnipotent personal being who exists outside of space and time, creator of world

Copleston Explaining Universe existence:

Something existed necessarily, it doesn't require an explanation because it 'contains within itself the reason for its own existence'

Copleston aseity defence

• Because a statement is analytical doesn't have to be tautology (true by definition, doesn't tell us anything about world)

• Calls Russell 'dogmatic' as he doesn't acknowledge 'necessary' can be applied to ideas as well as words

Fallacy of composition - Russell accuses Copleston of committing this

• You can't assume that because the component parts of something have a quality, the whole thing has that quality

• Universe is made of contingent things, doesn't mean universe is contingent automatically

Copleston goes from Deductive to inductive

Shifts from arguing that there must be an explanation to it is reasonable to assume there is

Copleston on Religious experience

• Draws on Otto and James

• Ineffable, transient, objective

• Maybe naturalistic explanations

• Pure experiences can be measured by positive effects - makes them objectively valid as the love and compassion is valuable

Copleston says Russell is…

Said Russell is deluded, objectively real encounters with God lead to people have transformative lives e.g. Nicky Cruz or Ian Mcdowell