Cosmology, Theism, and Logic: Condensed Notes

Novel: a work of fiction, usually book-length; not just any book.
Definitions vs existence: defining a term does not by itself guarantee that the thing exists.
Theism vs other views:
- Theism: belief in a God with notable attributes; commonly discussed in Abrahamic contexts.
- Monotheism: one God who created the universe and is open to petitionary prayer.
- Deism: God created the world, sets up laws, then does not intervene directly.
- Atheism: belief that there is no God.
- Agnosticism: epistemic position claiming insufficient evidence to know whether God exists; not a claim about theism/atheism.
Religions offer different conceptions of God; debates often focus on content (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, benevolence).

Four key traits often discussed: omniscience, omnipresence, benevolence, and omnipotence.
Omniscience: knows all true propositions, all false propositions, complete history, and non-happenings.
Omnipresence: present everywhere and at all times; consistent with a single, non-pantheistic God.
Benevolence: will or desire is wholly good; all wants/desires are good and none are evil.
Omnipotence (often included): the power to do all that is logically possible; discussed in relation to other attributes.
Definitions don’t entail existence: the concept of God having these features does not by itself prove God exists.

Cosmological (First Cause) Argument: existence of God is guaranteed by causation and the nature of being; focuses on why there is something rather than nothing.
Teleological (Design) Argument: biological/physical order implies design and hence a designer; to be discussed later.
In class, the cosmological argument is the starting point; both arguments are historically influential and commonly considered by theists and atheists alike.

Dependent vs Self-Existent: two ways beings can exist
- Dependent: existence depends on prior causes or on being composed of parts.
- Self-Existent: not dependent in either sense and capable of explaining its own existence if intelligible.
- Neither: exists without a known explanation (the concept is debated for intelligibility).
Dependence concepts:
- Causal dependence: caused by something else.
- Compositional dependence: made of parts (e.g., table depends on atoms, quarks, etc.).
Examples used in class:
- Tables: composed and causally dependent; can be destroyed or prevented from existing.
- Electrons: noncomposite (not made of parts) but may still be dependent in other senses.
Self-Existent vs Explaining Existence:
- A self-existent being would be such that understanding its nature suffices to explain why it exists.
- Whether such a concept is coherent is debated; some argue it should be intelligible to reason and science.
Destruction vs prevention:
- If a being is dependent (composite or caused), it can be destroyed or prevented from existing.
- A truly self-existent being would be immune to destruction or prevention in the relevant sense.
From self-existent to theism: If a self-existent being exists, it is a plausible candidate for omnipotence; additional steps are needed to argue benevolence and omniscience.

Not merely “not dependent”: being self-existent requires that its existence is explained by its own nature.
The debate centers on whether self-explanatory or self-explanatory-by-understanding is a coherent notion.
Examples and objections:
- Some entities (e.g., certain elementary particles) may be noncomposite yet not obviously self-explanatory.
- If something exists forever and is nondependent, that does not by itself explain why it exists.
The cosmological argument treats self-existence as a potential explanatory step toward God, but not a guaranteed conclusion.

Deductive argument: truth-preserving; if premises are true, the conclusion must be true.
- Valid forms (examples):
- Modus ponens: from $p o q$ and $p$ , infer $q$
- And-Elimination: from $p \land q$ infer $p$
- Or-Introduction with negation: from $p \lor q$ and ¬p infer $q$
- Hypothetical syllogism: from $p o q$ and $q o r$ infer $p o r$
- Note: validity is about form, not truth of premises.
Truth-preserving vs truth-giving:
- A valid deductive argument guarantees the conclusion if premises are true, but does not guarantee premises themselves are true.
Examples and pitfalls:
- There are valid forms with true premises but false conclusions if premises are misapplied; conversely, true premises can yield a false conclusion in an invalid form.
Importance for philosophy of religion: assessing whether arguments for God are deductively valid helps evaluate the strength of theism arguments.

Novel = fiction; don’t conflate with “book” in general.
Theism aims at a God with omniscience, omnipresence, benevolence, and omnipotence; definitions do not entail existence.
Cosmological argument centers on dependency vs self-existence and uses a logical framework to argue for a self-existent being as a precursor to God.
Self-existent vs dependent concepts are crucial: nothing dependent can be destroyed or prevented; self-existent things raise questions about intelligibility of self-explanatory existence.
In logic, deductive validity ensures conclusion if premises are true; form matters more than content for validity.

$ext{Modus ponens:}<br>ewline p o q,\, p \, herefore \, q$

$ext{Other valid forms:}<br>ewline p \land q \therefore p<br>ewline p \lor q, \neg p \therefore q<br>ewline (p o q) \land (q o r) \therefore (p o r)$