Philosophy of Religion

1. Philosophy of Religion

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 it’s very nature it must exist in order to be deemed perfect.

7. 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!

8. 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.

9. 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!

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. St. Thomas Aquinas • Gave 5 proofs for God’s Existence… • The first 4 ways fail but the 5th…

13. 5 ways… • Motion • Efficient Cause • POSSIBILITY AND NECESSITY • DEGREES OF PERFECTION • DESIGN

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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!

25. Of the 2 choices one makes more sense. • H1- Random • H2- Designer • H3- ????

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. Which designer? • If there is a designer, who is the designer? • A higher being? Which higher being? • What are humans doing?

29. Evolution • Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection, Evolution of Species. • Charles Darwin Published the Origin of Species in 1859

30. 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.

31. Our earliest ancestor? • Previous estimates put the split at as much as 7 million years ago — meaning that Toumaï, 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.

32. 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.The region bearing the most similarity is the X chromosome. This is exactly what one might expect if the two lineages had continued to interbreed after first starting to separate.

33. Hybrids • If a hybrid population did exist, the question remains as to whether it died out, or whether modern humans or chimpanzees (or both) are its descendants.

34. Who’s related to whom? • It's very difficult to say, admits Reich. • "The fossil data suggest, very tenuously, that it may have been humans who are descended from the hybrid population." • “Human-like fossils far outnumber chimpanzee-like ones in the fossil record, making it difficult to see exactly who was sleeping with whom at the time.” (Nature)

35. Evolution • Evolutionary theory is as true as any other scientific theory. • Natural selection or survival of the fittest has been confirmed by evidence from the world. • It is a way of organizing our experiences of the world, not unlike any other scientific law.

36. Poster boy atheism • Who needs God? • Evolution • Explains the world without positing a higher power or deity.

37. Darwin is a Theist! • “But with regard to the material world, we ca at least go so far as this- we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interposition of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws”- • Whewell: Bridgewater Treatise Prologue, Darwin’s Origin of Species

38. Evolution • H1- Random • H2- Designer • H3- Evolution • H4- Evolution + Designer • Evolution does not rule out the possibility of intelligent design for the universe.

39. Descartes 3 Proofs Ontological Argument Cosmological Argument (Contingent & Necessary Being) Teleological Argument (Design)

40. Ontological Argument We have the idea of God, perfection, in order to have that idea of perfection, it must have come from the perfect being…God.

41. Cosmological Argument I exist, but did not cause myself to exist, therefore there must exist a necessary being, God, which causes me (and the rest of the world) to exist.

42. Teleological Argument The purpose and harmony of nature. The complexity of creatures; surely there is a designer.

43. Kant argues against these Ontological Argument- problem: Existence is not a property of objects. Cosmological Argument- problem: he claims some contingent beings are necessary or at least eternal. (Contingent & Necessary Being) Teleological Argument (Design)- problem: he claims that at best there may be a architect but not a interactive designer.

44. Kant argues we should all hope • Kant claims that we should all hope that God exist. In that way justice will be served to those who have lived a wicked and unjust life and yet prospered in this world. • If you are a moral agent, then you must assume the God’s existence in order to be rational.

45. The Rationality of Belief • John Henry Newman • Soren Kierkegaard • Blaise Pascal (1623- 1662) • Julian of Norwich • Codification of Bible • William James • Nietzsche • Freud

46. John Henry Newman • Our feeling of conscience lead us to knowledge of God. Our sense of conscience emanated from a supreme being that will judge our actions.

47. Soren Kierkegaard • True understanding of God is beyond our comprehension. • God is beyond time and space. • Jesus became part of time part of space. He became a contradiction, a paradox. • Truth is subjective, truth is relative. Belief in God is contradictory.

48. Blaise Pascal • Pascal thought belief in God served our rational self interest. • He proposed a prudential argument for God’s Existence.

49. Pascal’s Wager

50. Possible Outcomes A) If you believe in God, and he exist, then you are going to heaven and are going to reap infinite rewards. B) If you don't believe in God, and he does exist, then you are going to hell and suffer infinite pain. C) If you believe in God, and he does not exist, you have wasted some small measure of energy. D) If you don't believe in God and he does not exist, then you have saved some small measure of energy.