Modern Theology

René Descartes

Argument from Thought Where do we get our concept of God? It’s the concept of something perfect We never experience perfection So, the concept of God can’t come from experience So, the concept of God is innate It must come from something perfect So, God must exist

Descartes’s Premise “Now it is manifest by the natural light that there must at least be as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect. For, pray, whence can the effect derive its reality, if not from its cause? And in what way can this cause communicate this reality to it, unless it possessed it in itself?”

Descartes’s Premise “ And from this it follows, not only that something cannot proceed from nothing, but likewise that what is more perfect -- that is to say, which has more reality within itself -- cannot proceed from the less perfect.”

Descartes’s Argument The cause of the idea of X must have at least as much reality as X –We get the idea of fire from fire –We get the idea of red from red things The cause of our idea of God must have at least as much reality as God Only God has as much reality as God So, our idea of God must come from God

Descartes’s Ontological Argument God has all perfections Existence is a perfection So, God has existence

Blaise Pascal ( ) Does God exist? Place your bet Total uncertainty— no data What should you do?

Pascal’s Wager “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”

Pascal’s Wager You believe You don’t believe God Heaven Hell No God VirtueNothing A bet on God can’t lose; a bet against God can’t win

Kant’s Moral Argument We can’t prove God’s existence rationally But we can’t live and act except by assuming that God exists

Kant’s Moral Argument Bad things happen to good people; the wicked prosper Why, then, be good?

Kant’s Moral Argument It’s rational to be moral only if it’s rewarded That doesn’t happen in this life It must happen in another life So, there must be an afterlife, and a just God

Leibniz ( )

Leibniz Principle of Sufficient Reason: “Nothing happens without a sufficient reason.” So the universe— the series of contingent causes— must have a sufficient reason for its existence: Something which is its own sufficient reason for existing: God

Leibniz’s Argument The world of efficient causes:... <— c <— b <— a | G1 | G2 | God

Sufficient Reason By the principle of sufficient reason, everything exists for a reason, including the entire series of contingent causes Take the entire history of the universe, finite or infinite, and ask why it exists Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is this particular history actual? There must be a sufficient reason for the entire universe. And that is God

Material v. Spiritual The sufficient reason for everything cannot be the universe itself, or anything material, since matter is indifferent to existence or nonexistence It must be something outside the realm of the material, temporal world that explains the existence of everything else There must be something spiritual that explains the existence of everything, spiritual and material And that can only be God

Three Kinds of Evil Metaphysical evil: the evil of anything in comparison with God, who is the most valuable being Moral evil: evil done intentionally by human beings or other moral agents Natural evil: evil in the universe for which no moral agent (other than perhaps God, the Creator) is responsible—for example, disease, old age, and death

Best of All Possible Worlds God is the omnipotent Creator of everything God is omnibenevolent, or all-loving So, this, the universe that God has created, is the best of all possible worlds

Metaphysical Evil There is metaphysical evil just in there being a universe at all Thus God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence are compatible with metaphysical evil God, being omnibenevolent, would create a universe just to let creatures have their day in the sun Thus metaphysical evil is not just compatible with an all-loving God; it is explained by God’s loving-kindness

Moral Evil Moral evil brought about by agents other than God results from free will Free will is itself something good Free-will theodicy: freedom is a valuable attribute of a creature God does something good in creating beings who are free Thus given a God who is omnibenevolent and the assumption that it is likely some with free will will sin, then moral evil is to be expected, too

Natural Evil The main problem is natural evil— disease, old age, and death Leibniz contends that the universe is so complex, and its parts are so interdependent, that changing its structure to eliminate these natural evils would result in something even worse

James Branch Cabell “The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”

Voltaire

Candide (1759) Voltaire mocks Leibniz’s view as Candide and his Leibnizian friend, Dr. Pangloss, witness the Seven Years’ War, the Lisbon earthquake, and other misfortunes

Pangloss’s Theodicy Poor Vision: “It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles; therefore we wear spectacles.”

Pangloss’s Theodicy Venereal Disease: “... it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal.”

St. Thomas Aquinas ( )

Aquinas’s Design Argument All bodies obey natural laws All bodies obeying natural laws act toward an end Therefore, all bodies act toward an end (Including those that lack awareness)

Aquinas’s Design Argument Things lacking awareness act toward a goal only under the direction of someone aware and intelligent Therefore, all things lacking awareness act under the direction of someone aware and intelligent: God

Aquinas’s Design Argument All things lacking awareness act under the direction of someone aware and intelligent The universe as a whole lacks awareness Therefore, the universe as a whole acts under the direction of someone aware and intelligent- namely, God

William Paley ( )

William Paley Suppose you find a watch –Intricate –Successful You’d infer that it had an intelligent maker Similarly, you find the universe –Intricate –Successful You should infer it had an intelligent maker, God

David Hume ( )

Hume’s Criticisms Analogy isn’t strong Universe may be self-organizing Why machine, rather than animal or vegetable ?

Hume’s Criticisms Taking analogy seriously: –God not infinite –God not perfect Difficulties in nature Can’t compare to other universes Maybe earlier, botched universes Maybe made by committee

Hume’s Skepticism Variability: Many hypotheses are possible Undecidability: We have no evidence that would let us select the most probable So, we cannot establish God’s existence