1. Philosophy 1010 Class 8/8/13 Tonight: Pop Quiz (Chapter 3 & 4)
Title: Introduction to Philosophy
Instructor: Paul Dickey
Address:
Tonight: Pop Quiz (Chapter 3 & 4)
Chapter Four
Tomorrow (8/9):
Final Exam will be posted on Quia.
Next week:
No Class. Submit Final Essay & FINAL EXAM
by BEFORE 8/15, 5:30 P.M.
For every 4 hours the essay and/or exam
is late, a full grade will be reduced. NO EXCEPTIONS.

2. (a Metaphysical Study)
Chapter 4
Philosophy and God
(a Metaphysical Study)

3. Does God Exist?
Theism is the belief in a personal God who is creator of the world and present in its processes and who is actively engaged in the affairs of humans.
Pantheism is the belief that God is the universe and its phenomena (taken or conceived of as a whole). God exists but is not personally involved in the lives of men.
Atheism is the denial of Theism. (Metaphysical View) It states that there is no God.
Agnosticism is the view that it cannot be known whether God exists or not. (Epistemological View)
According to Logical Positivism, the question Does God Exist? is meaningless.

4. First, Can We Even Make Sense
of the Question?
Surely before trying to answer the question, one needs to ask the following questions:
What does one mean by the word or concept of “God?”
What is the sense of existence that is being asserted when one says God exists.
Without being clear about these issues, the argument often becomes mostly subjective.

5. What Do We Mean by “God?”
If we say that God is the “creator of the universe,” do we mean:
1) that there is a Being that is God that could or could not be the one who created the universe, but as a matter of fact is the creator of the universe? Or
2) that by definition that God is the Being that created the universe such that it would be a logical error to say that God did not create the universe.
Note that if we mean the first, we have still not said who (or what) God is, apart from what he has done.
If we mean the second, of course given the inherent assumptions, then God exists. But we have committed the logical fallacy of “begging the question.”

6. What is the Meaning of Existence that is Being Used to Say that God Exists?
Is existence a property of an entity? I say “This chair is black.” Blackness is a property of the chair. So that I would say that this chair has the property of “existing” and thus there could be chairs some of which have the property and some don’t. Then would I say that some chairs exist and some do not like I would say some chairs are black and some are not?
Or is existence of the chair identified in terms of its relationship to a real world, say Hobbes’ material world or Berkeley’s mental world? But then what sense does it make to say that God’s existence is dependent upon a world that He created and itself came into “existence” after Him?
If not, then what is this form of existence for God that we are asserting?

7. Is it Possible to Talk About Something
that Does Not Exist?
We generally believe that only things that exist can have properties. Thus, by referring to God with properties, I.e. omnipotent, do we “prove” that God exists?
Probably not of course. We do refer to Santa Claus as “having a white beard” and “living at the North Pole.” And then turn around and say “Santa does not exist.”
Bertrand Russell proposed a Theory of Descriptions to account for how we refer to things that appear to have properties or characteristics but may or may not exist.

8. How is it Possible to Talk About Something that Does Not Exist?
Russell’s solution is to take names to be shorthand for descriptions. For example, “Santa Claus” is a person who goes by the description that he lives on North Pole, and delivers toys to kids for Christmas”, and the sentence “Santa doesn’t exist” should be understood as “There is no X, such that X is a person that lives on North Pole, etc., etc…”.
Thus, presumably for Russell to say “God does not exist” would be to say “There is no Being, such that the Being “existed” prior to the creation of the universe, and then created the universe, etc., etc…”.

9. So, is Logical Positivism right after all?
Theism is so confused and the sentences in which 'God' appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible.
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic
Wikipedia suggests A. J. Ayer ( ) was an atheist. Ayer’s position on the existence of God should not be confused with atheism. Of course, claiming that God does not exist also lacks analytic or empirical verifiability and is thus also meaningless.
Many (perhaps most?) mid to late 20th century philosophers who abandoned strict logical positivism (including Russell and Wittgenstein) still found Ayer’s response to this issue quite credible.
On the other hand, maybe the question is too obvious and important to give up on, so let’s stumble on ….

10. The Traditional “Proofs” The Ontological Argument
Saint Anselm (c ) provided the classical ontological argument (”proof”) for the existence of God:
First of all, Anselm argues, God is that Being for which “none greater can be conceived.”
But if God did not exist, then we could conceive a greater Being, namely a God that does exist.
Thus, God must exist.
Note: This argument does not give evidence of God’s existence. It attempts to prove it.
Unfortunately, the argument seems to suppose that
Existence is a property of a thing, and
Non-existence is an imperfection.

11. The Ontological Argument:
Kant’s Objection
Immanuel Kant argued against Anselm’s Ontological Argument that it defines God into existence, that is, Anselm has formed a concept of God that itself requires existence as a property.
Nonexistence was an imperfection, thus God could not have that property since he by definition is perfect.
And thus, Anselm is begging the question.
Few philosophers or theologians today accept Anselm’s Ontological Argument.

12. The Traditional “Proofs” The Cosmological Argument
Saint Thomas Aquinas ( ) provided several cosmological arguments (”proofs”) for the existence of God that were of the following form:
First of all, Aquinas argues, “Some things move.”
What moves must be moved (caused) by something prior.
This movement (causation) can not have an infinite regression for it must have an origin.
The origin of the movement (the cause) cannot itself move (or be caused).
Thus, God (the original mover or first cause) must exist.

13. The Traditional “Proofs” The Cosmological Argument
After Newton, it is necessary to refine Aquinas’ first argument to refer to acceleration rather than motion.
More damaging to his argument however is an objection that questions the assumption that there can be no infinite regress in the causal sequences of the universe. How do we know that the universe is not infinite?
The “Big Bang” theory seems potentially to counter this objection. The universe (along with space and time) does appear to have had a beginning.
But the argument still does not preclude alternatives. Could our universe have come into existence from events in another universe and thus we could still have an infinity of events in multiple universes?

14. The Traditional “Proofs” The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas believed that even if the universe existed forever, then there would still need to be a First Cause which would be God.
David Hume ( ) disagreed. He claimed that if one had an explanation for all the parts of a thing (in particular, all individual causal links in the universe), it did not require an additional explanation for the whole.
Many analysts, most notably Arthur Schopenhauer ( ), have argued that the argument’s premise that every event must have a cause is actually inconsistent with his conclusion that God does not have a cause.

15. The Traditional “Proofs” The Argument From Design
The Argument From Design, also known as the teleological argument (thus being traced back to Aristotle) states that the order and purpose manifest in the working of nature, and particularly, human nature require that there be a logical designer or God.
This argument is very popular today and is probably the most prevalent and strongest argument for the existence of God.
The best known early formulation of this argument was given by the theologian William Paley ( ).
Paley compared natural organisms to the mechanism of a watch and by analogy argued that as the design of the watch demonstrates the existence of a watchmaker, natural design shows the work of a “Divine Agency.”

16. The Argument From Design
Relying on a multitude of examples including the migration of birds, the adaptability of species, and the human eye, Paley seemed to make a pretty convincing argument given the science of the day,
David Hume did object however on the basis that as an argument from analogy, the argument was weak. Arguments from analogy are only as strong as our knowledge of the relevant similarities. In this one, we do not know how nature and living things are made and thus that it is at all “like” a watch being made.
Hume was arguing against Paley’s assumption that complex order can be produced only by an intelligent being. That may or may not be the case, Hume would say. Anticipating Darwin, he suggested that perhaps a finite amount of particles in random motion might achieve order.

17. The Argument from Design & Darwinism
Charles Darwin ( ) filled in the missing pieces of Hume’s argument by producing scientific evidence for just what the mechanism could be in nature to produce the order and appearance of design that Hume was suggesting.
Darwin suggested that the process was one he called natural selection. Over millions of years, Darwin argued, random mechanical processes could produce organisms that seemed perfectly designed.
Darwin contended that life forms exhibit inherited “variations” that were gradually selected in a “struggle for survival” to produce new characteristics of species and even new species.

18. The Argument from Design & Darwinism
Others continue to defend the Argument From Design while granting the possibility of natural selection processes, rationalizing that it is then just the process by which God produces living things.
But this later posture gives up a lot of theological ground. It allows for God to act randomly and that He allows harmful consequences to exist in his creation.
For many others, the Darwinian theory of evolution was taken as a “threat” to the Argument From Design which seemed to be the last bastion of a ultimate support for the existence of God. Thus many theists to this day resist the Darwinian view which meanwhile has become the dominant scientific theory within Biology and has also developed extended applications in other sciences and our entire intellectual culture. William Dembski (1960- ) argues for an empirical theory of intellectual design and specified complexity.

19. Atheism
Atheists such as Richard Dawkins (1941-) state unequivocally that there is no God.
In taking a metaphysical position on the issue, Atheism assumes the same burden in regard to all the issues of meaning and evidence that Theism does.
Atheism must assert reasons that God does not exist just as we expected the Theist to provide “proofs” for the existence of God.
Many would argue that Atheism requires just as much faith as does Theism, but is it really a matter of faith or the strength of your argument?
The primary argument given by Atheists that God does not exist is the problem of evil.

20. The Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil in its simplest form argues that since evil exists in the world, then God is either not all powerful or all good. David Hume subscribed to this view.
St. Augustine took a position against this view, arguing that God created the universe and all the good in the world but the universe he created is not itself God and is imperfect, finite, and limited. In this way, it allows the existence of evil as incomplete goodness.
Many argue that St. Augustine does not resolve the issue. Why would not God who is all good ensure that there was no evil in His universe?

21. The Problem of Evil
A popular theological argument is that evil is necessary for the Good to exist. But then is God not omnipotent if he cannot create Good without Evil?
Another argument the Theist gives is that God allows Evil in order to give man Free Will. But how does this account for natural disasters such as hurricanes?
Or maybe, they think, we are confused about what is Good? What we think is Evil is Good in the mind of God?
John Hick (1922- ) argues that the presence of evil is necessary for Man to be made into the likeness of God. Experiencing evil gives meaning to virtue for Man and allows him to develop into virtuous beings.

22. Immanuel Kant
That injustice exists in the world should not lead us to reject God. Rather it should compel us pursue a perfectly just world. It is a moral obligation.
To believe that such a world is possible with evil fully punished and good rewarded would require a belief in God and an afterlife.
And since all moral obligations must be possible, then God must exist.
According to Kant’s argument, we must believe in God although perhaps we cannot know that God exists.

23. Agnosticism
Thomas Huxley ( ) argued that it is incorrect to say that one is certain of the truth of a proposition unless he can produce evidence that logically justifies that certainty.
Sigmund Freud suggested that our belief in God is an “illusion” and had its origins in infantile needs for a “father.”
Freud’s view was influential throughout the 20th century but is considered by most today as an insufficient explanation. Further, even if it were true as a psychological explanation, that does not make the claim that the belief is an “illusion” and that God does not exist true. Such an argument commits what is known logically as the Genetic Fallacy.

24. “The Will to Believe”
William James ( ) proposed that in the absence of irrefutable evidence for the existence of God, there still is justifiable reason to believe.
James suggests that in this condition, we have the option to choose what we believe. We do not have an option not to choose, as perhaps an agnostic might suggest. To choose not to make a decision is, for James, to decide.
James discusses three fundamental characteristics of such options:
1) “living or dead”
2) forced or avoidable
3) momentous or trivial

25. An Option is a person's decision among a set of hypotheses
An Option is a person's decision among a set of hypotheses. A genuine option is living, forced, and momentous.
A living option in one in hypotheses are live, i.e., they are real possibilities for someone. Since I grew up attending a Christian church and was raised to believe that way, it may not be a real option for me to become a Buddhist, but it is a real option for me to become a Presbyterian.
A forced option is a dilemma— the hypothesis cannot be avoided. I.e., for someone enrolled in this class to come to class or not is forced. Deciding whether or not God exists and/or we will conduct ourselves according to that may be forced in this sense.
A momentous option is one that is unique and may well be one's only opportunity. The choice is not trivial, but significant, because one only has one chance to do it.

26. “The Will to Believe”
James then argues when an option is genuine (that is, living, forced and momentous) and cannot be decided on intellectual grounds, it is justifiable to choose on the basis of our passional nature. In fact, James would argue one should so choose.
For James, our “passional nature” consists of all nonintellectual interests, emotions, desires, hopes, fears, commitments, our deepest personal needs, etc.
James would hold that when an option is not genuine, it makes the best sense to decide to withhold judgment until “the evidence is in.”

27. In Conclusion
W. K. Clifford, , argued against James (as did Thomas Huxley), asserting that it is absolutely and always wrong to make any judgment without sufficient evidence. By doing so, you make yourself vulnerable to logical and factual error.
To the contrary, James pointed out that this was one option that could be chosen and one that would have the advantage that it might protect us from believing what was false.
On the other hand, another option is to try to protect ourselves from missing out on the truth and the truth that would be the one that is ultimately significant to ourselves.
James would choose this option, while recognizing that it itself must be chosen not on rational grounds, but on passional grounds.