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Ch. 13 Religion
Ch. 13 Religion
Philosophy of Religion
The philosophical study of religion is primary
focused upon three areas:
The existence of God
Rationality and of Religious Belief
The Problem of Evil.
Existence of God
St. Anselm- Ontological Argument
Gaunilo- Anti Ontological Argument
St. Thomas Aquinas- 5 Proofs
William Paley- Watch on Beach
David Hume- Weak Analogy
St. Anselm (1033- 1109)
St. Anselm argues for the necessary
existence of a perfect being.
His argument is a priori in nature.
It is based upon the meaning of certain
terms, and does not rely upon empirical a
posteriori evidence.
More Perfect
His argument, sometimes called the
ontological argument, because it is based
upon the nature of being.
Anselm says that if we imagine two
objects, both identical, but one exist and
the other does not, then the one that exist
is more perfect.
Can Perfection be More Perfect?
If something is already perfect, how can it
be more perfect?
Anslem, argues that perfection can not be
more perfect, so by its very nature it must
exist in order to be deemed perfect.
St. Anselm: Imagine the greatest
possible being
1. The greatest possible being is Perfect. It
is All powerful, All knowing, All good.
2. In order to be the perfect being,
IT must exist.
3. Because if you did not exist, then it would
not be the greatest or most perfect thing)
4. Therefore the greatest possible being
must necessarily exist!
Gaunilo
A French monk argues that existence does
not make something more perfect.
He employs a reductio argument.
The idea is that if Anselm is correct in his
assertion regarding God's necessary
existence, then the same would be true for
a perfect island.
Perfect Island
He ask us to imagine
the perfect island,
yet to exist in reality
is more perfect than
to simply exist in the
mind.
So in order to be
perfect, it must exist
in reality!
Reductio ad um Serdum
Believing in the perfect Island makes it
real?
This is absurd
Just as it is an absurdity to conclude that
God necessary exist simply because we
can conceive of him.
Island, No. God, Yes!
Anselm agrees that it is absurd to
conclude that the perfect island exist just
because you think of it!
But God is a different matter all together.
His existence is guaranteed by his
perfection.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Gave 5 proofs
for Gods
Existence
The first 4
ways fail but
the 5th
5 ways
Motion
Efficient Cause
POSSIBILITY AND NECESSITY
DEGREES OF PERFECTION
DESIGN
St. Thomas Aquinas (1224- 1274)
Wants to give a posteriori arguments for
the existence of God. He wants to go from
things that we see in our everyday
experience and draw conclusions from
these regarding the nature of reality. In
the Summa Theologica he gives the Five
Ways that God's existence can be proven
by empirical means.
St. Thomas Aquinas-Motion
1) Objects are in motion
2) If something is in motion, then it must be set into
motion by something outside of itself
3) There can not be an infinite chain of movers,
movees
________________________________________
4) So, there is a first, unmoved mover that sets the
world into motion.
5)Hence God exist and is the first unmoved mover.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Efficient Cause
1) Some events cause other events.
2) If an event happens, then it must be caused by
some prior event outside of itself.
3) There cannot be an infinite causal chain of
cause an effect
_______________________________________
4) So, there must be a first, efficient cause,
uncaused cause.
5) Hence, God is this first cause and exist.
St. Thomas Aquinas
POSSIBILITY AND NECESSITY
1) Contingent things exist.
2) Each contingent thing has a time when it
fails to exist (Aquinas assumes
contingent objects are not eternal)
3) So, if everything were contingent, then
there would be a time in the past when
nothing existed. A time of complete
emptiness
POSSIBILITY AND NECESSITY
4) That time of complete emptiness would have been in the
past.
5) If nothing existed in the past, then nothing would exist
now, since something cannot come from nothing.
6) So, if everything were contingent, nothing would exist
now.
(But clearly things do exist now, the world is not empty.)
_______________________________________________
7) Therefore a being exist that is not contingent.
8) Hence, God is this necessary being and he exist.
St. Thomas Aquinas
DEGREES OF PERFECTION
1) Objects have properties to greater or
lesser degrees
2) If an object has a property to a lesser
extent, then there must be an object that
has it to the maximum extent.
___________________________________
3) So there is a being that has all properties
to the greatest possible degree
4) Hence this being is God and he exist
St. Thomas Aquinas
DESIGN ARGUMENT
1) Among objects that have goals or purpose, some
have minds and others do not.
2) An object that has a goal, but does not have a
mind, must have been designed by a being that
had a mind.
3) So there exists a being with a mind who designed
all of the mindless objects that act for ends.
_________________________________________
4) Hence this Being is God and he does exist.
William Paley (1743- 1805)
Paley's Watch-
Imagine you are walking on a
beach and you see a rock
How did it come to be there?
The question seems absurd.
For all you know it has been
there forever.
Paley, find a watch on the beach
Now imagine you find a watch on the
beach.
How did it get there?
This question seems less absurd.
Perhaps it was created randomly- by the
wave action and the sand on the beach.
Paley- random or designer?
Or maybe it had a designer. Of those two
hypothesis which seems to be the most
likely?
Paley thinks , just as you most probably
do, that it makes more sense to talk about
the watch having a designer.
Watch --- Natural creatures
Paley wants to drawn an analogy
between the watch and nature.
Look at the complexity of nature and
natural organisms.
Does it not make sense to conclude that
they have a designer?
Paley thinks that the answer is obviously
yes!
Of the 2 choices one makes more
sense.
H1- Random
H2- Designer
H3- ????
Problems with design argument
It does not prove there is an interactive
designer.
It does not prove there is only one
designer.
It does not clearly show who is the
designer.
David Hume (1711- 1776)
Argues that the design argument is really
a very weak analogy.
It is one thing to talk about watches, it is
another to talk about living organisms and
still another to talk about the universe.
He claims that the argument does not
make it rational to conclude that the
universe has a designer.
Which designer?
If there is a
designer, who is the
designer?
A higher being?
Which higher being?
What are humans
doing?
Look who is playing God!
70% of our food is GE!
Evolution
Darwins Theory of
Natural Selection,
Evolution of Species.
Charles Darwin
Published the Origin of
Species in 1859
Chimpanzee and human
ancestors may have interbred.
Genetic analysis suggests a messy
split between the two lineages.
The evolutionary split between humans
and our nearest evolutionary cousins,
chimpanzees, may have occurred more
recently than we thought, according to a
new comparison of the respective genetic
sequences.
A Bizarre Love Triangle
Our two sets of ancestors may have
interbred many thousands of years after
first parting company.
Our earliest ancestor?
Previous estimates put the split at as
much as 7 million years ago meaning
that Touma, a fossil dating from at least
6.5 million years ago in Chad and
assigned to the species Sahelanthropus
tchadensis, was hailed as the earliest-
known member of the line that gave rise to
modern humans.
Harvard Med says
Researchers led by David Reich of
Harvard Medical School in Boston,
Massachusetts, now calculate that the split
may have occurred no more than 6.3
million years ago, and possibly as recently
as 5.4 million. That would make Touma
older than the time of the split.
How do they know?
The researchers make their claim after
comparing the genetic codes of humans,
chimpanzees, gorillas and other primates
in unprecedented detail more than 20
million DNA 'letters' in all. By checking the
differences between different species'
DNA sequences, they were able to
estimate the time since they first diverged.
We share an X.
Reich and his team explain in their study, published
online in Nature. Different sections of the genome differ
by different amounts, suggesting that they parted ways
at different times. The divorce period between the two
species, the data suggest, could have lasted a million
years.