Review of Self

 Thich Nhat Hahn

o No self
 Every moment I’m reborn as a new self
 My “Self’ does not exist
 I can perceive physical objects and other people, but I cannot perceive myself

Discussions of God

 Theism
o The belief that there is at least one God. Most cases, this is “God Exists.”
o Anselm – The Ontological Argument
 P1. God is that than which nothing greater can be thought of/conceived.
 P2. God that exists in reality is greater than God that exists only in the mind.
 C. God must exist in reality
 God must exist because if he doesn’t exist in reality, we were not thinking of
that than which nothing greater can be thought of/conceived. When you think
of that than which nothing greater can be thought of/conceived you must think
of God and therefore he must exist.
 Argument is flawed because Anselm just “made it up.” As if there is a perfect
island that exists only in the mind but does not exist in reality because it was
made up.
 A response to this was “I didn’t make it up because God is not perfect.
He is that than which nothing greater can be thought of or conceived.”
o Cosmological
 Every event in the universe has a cause
 Every cause has a cause that makes it happen
 Every cause is itself an event
 Chain of causation goes on infinitely (impossible)
 So, there must be a first cause. A perfect cause. An unmoved mover or “prime”
mover. Where we are now had to get started someway. This must be God.
o Teleological
 There are so many processes that have to fit perfectly together to sustain
human life
 Something is designed, like a watch, the product of intelligent design
 If humans are the product of intelligent design, there must be an intelligent
designer
 Agnosticism
o Root “Gnosis”
 Meaning “knowing.”
 Prefix “A” meaning “un”
o Strong
  The belief that it is impossible to prove whether or not there is a God, and we
will never prove the belief wrong or right. We cannot know/answer this
question
o Weak
 The belief that we don’t know yet whether there is a God
 Atheism
o The belief that there is not a God
 Anti-Theism
o The belief that God does not exist and that it is bad to believe in a God

The problem of evil

 God must be:

o Omnipotent (all powerful)
o Omniscient (all knowing)
o Omnibenevolent (all good)
 If God is these three things
o Then there would be no evil in the world
o There is evil in the world, so:
o There is no “Tri-Omni” God.
o Hell
 How could an all-good God create a place where people are condemned?
 Theodicies:
o Limited God
 God cannot be all three “tris.” Get rid of one and you have a limited God.
o Ineffability
 We cannot understand God. He is so far beyond us that we cannot start to
understand. Something may appear evil, but it may be part of a greater grand
design by God
o Free Will
 It is good that we have free will
 God created us with free will because he wanted us to love him
 It is our free will to choose evil over good that brings evil into the world. It’s our
fault, not God’s
o Metaphysical
 Good cannot exist without evil. This only holds if good was a type of evil and
vice versa.
o Naturalist
 There is no good, there is no evil, there are just events and things that happen.