EXISTENCE OF GOD

You need to be able to…

List/give/describe the arguments for & against - KU

Explain/ evaluate/analyse the arguments for & against and whether they are strong/ effective/ useful - AE

Say to which extent you agree with the arguments and why - AE

Cosmological Argument or First Cause ArgumentBrute Fact is the Universe exists.

AQUINAS:Uncaused causeUnmoved MoverPossibility & Necessity

Leibniz added: There must be a reason things exist and are the way they are. That reason is God.

Arguments Against

HUME: The Schoolboy ObjectionRUSSELL: Why does it need a cause?

The Big Bang

Science

BOHR: Quantum Physics

Hubble Telescope images

Red Shift Principle Doppler Effect

Responses to arguments against

The Schoolboy Objection is irrelevant as God in NOT contingent and NECESSARY

God could have created the Big Bang

Belief is SPIRITUAL not PHYSICAL and science cannot overcome that.

COPLESTON accuses Hume & Russell of not facing up to the question and

Answering a question with more questions: Ockham’s Razor…

Teleological Argument or Design ArgumentTelos means ‘purpose’

The Universe is undeniably complex.

Examples

DesignOr Chance?

PALEY’S Analogy

So…

AQUINAS’ Argument from Harmony : Can’t be chance species have ADAPTED e.g.

Fish need fins & tails Dogs need sharp teeth

Anthropic Argument: Natural Laws such as

The Laws of Gravity

and the conditions in The Goldilocks Zone

can’t have come about by CHANCE.

Reason & Faith

Reason says there is TOO much blind chance involved

Faith says proof is NOT needed now; God will reveal it one day

Aristotle’s Four Causes

1. Material cause - marble

2. Efficient Cause - craftsman

3. Formal Cause -skill

4. Final Cause – designer’s idea is driving other causes

God?

Arguments Against

Analogies can only give likelihood of something being true; they are not fact.

Criticism 1:Hume says Paley’s Analogy is weak; compares mechanistic with organic.

Criticism 2:Hume asks why does designer have to be ‘God’. Why not

a team of designers

a junior designer or an evil force?

ESPECIALLY SINCE>>>

Flaws in design

99% of species extinct

And

Lottery Fallacy argues that given enough time or tries, conditions would eventually be perfect for existence.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

Supported by Richard Dawkins shows

Blind process of adaptation

Natural selection and

Survival of the fittest

Responses to criticisms

St Augustine said Genesis needn’t be taken literally.

7 days could be 7 ages and slow evolution could have been God’s creation process

Tennant said evolution can’t explain man’s appreciation of…

The Problem of Suffering & Evil

God the creator…He alone made the universeAll life relies on Him for existence (all life is contingent)He relies on no other being for existence (God is not contingent)

God is…Spiritual not physicalOmniscient (all knowing)Omnipresent (present everywhere)Omnipotent (all powerful)Eternal (not created; always has and always will exist)Benevolent (good, loving)

Evil exists

Natural

Moral

Arguments against

If God is

Present everywhere…does He not know about suffering?

All Knowing… why did He created a world with suffering?

All powerful… can’t He stop the suffering?

Loving… why does He let people suffer?

Dostoyevsky’s character Ivan Karamazov didn’t want anything to do with a God that let innocent children suffer.

Others decided He couldn’t exist.

Responses to arguments against

Free will defence theodicy

Adam & Eve root of all evil; the original sin

Not necessarily literal

Adam & Eve made wrong choice.

All suffering is from wrong human choices

If there wasn’t free will we would be…

God gives hope that one day suffering will end…

Without God and faith in Him, and what he has planned for us, what would be the purpose in life?

You need to be able to…

List/give/describe the arguments for & against - KU

Explain/ evaluate/ analyse the arguments for & against and whether they are strong/ effective/ useful - AE

Say to which extent you agree with the arguments and why