To have faith in someone on past knowledge, according to McCloskey, is reasonable however; it is unreasonable to have faith in God as we have no past knowledge of God. Theists base their knowledge of God on the revelations that He has given us, the Bible, and the
There are many reasons for why Christians believe in God. Firstly, some Christians believe that the Bible itself is from God, from himself and it is the revealed word of God. Christians believe that what is in the Bible must be true as it is there in the first place. Some, Christians are literalists who take what is in the Bible word for word, however, some are liberalists and understand what is in the Bible as a metaphor, however, still proves that God exists. Additionally, some Christians believe in the ontological argument by St Anselm, which suggests that God cannot not exist and so that it is logical to believe.
To use univocal or universal language for God raises the problem being that if we argue God is ‘all loving,’ we would also be able to describe a loved one as such, thus demining his almighty status as a supreme being, so how can we use words to accurately describe God? And Given that God is unlike anything or anyone that we can actually experience? Hence, if language applied to God is univocal, it has the effect of bringing God down to an anthropomorphic level. In contrast with this, to use equivocal language, the problem raised here is that God is ‘holy,’ it means that when applying to something else, so I can never know what a word means when it is applied to God. Using these different types of language demonstrates a difficulty; assuming that when we speak of God, we are speaking cognitively- assuming that our statement is something that is either true or false and that it is able to describe an extinct being, God.
But also Absolutism does not take other situation into consideration, things change and people change, so should the rules change as well? Personally, I think that they need to be amended; this could cause even worse conflicts than they are in this day and age, although it might be necessary, Common sense isn’t that common. An example of the Absolute theory is the Divine law theory; this is all stated in the bible, it dictates what’s good and what’s bad, according to the will of God. Everything we do, has the question behind it: Does it follow the will of God? This is the question absolutes ask before making any decisions.
Supporters and Opponents of the Divine Command Theory The principal components of the Divine Command Theory (DCT) are: in first place, the believe that an almighty God responsible for the creation of everything exists and because of this we owe him obedience. Second, the believe that what is wrong or right is determined by God, meaning that what he approves is the right thing and what he disapproves is the wrong thing. What God approves and disapproves can be found in the Bible, specifically in the Ten Commandments, which are clear examples of the things that God wants us to do and the things that he forbids. According to Hoff & Sommers (2010), John Arthur critics various aspects of the DCT, within these critics the most important ones are: in first place, the difficulty of demonstrating that God even exists. Second, he asks the following question, if God created evil and goodness, why can he simply make evil disappear?
If God is assumed to be good, then all of his actions are good, and this would include the creation of right and wrong. The idea of “wrong” would never exist in this case as God only does and creates things that are good. While the author never gives up the idea of God being good, as he states that all theologians also believe this and then proceeds to brainstorm potential reasoning for the creation of “wrong.” He suggests that a deity, more superior than God, gave him orders to do so. This is a plausible conclusion to the premise of God being good, but also creating right and wrong. But he seems more certain about the idea of the devil creating this
Some philosophers such as Aquinas believe that it is possible to talk meaningfully, truthfully and factually about God whereas others like Ayer believe this to be impossible. Philosophers have suggested that there are four ways that religious language might make truth claims about the reality of God and whether it can succeed in doing this – Via Negativa, Analogy, and Myth. The ‘via negativa’ or negative way is an attempt to prevent people from misrepresenting God. It claims that the only way we can talk about God is by saying what God is not. God is so beyond our ability to understand that the only way of seeing the reality of God is to continue saying what God is not, God is more than anything we can say of him.
God faring people accept the teachings of God and the best way to live. Euthyphro dilemma was “Is conduct right because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is right” (Rachel’s and 50-53)? The problem with this dilemma is that God is always right and what isn’t right is wrong according to God. Which makes Euthyphro confused because he isn’t sure anymore what is right and what is wrong. The concept of morality is mysterious is saying that just because god says its right to slap a child doesn’t really make it right.
From his theories the only way we can know things for sure is through cause and effect. One must experience something in order to come up with a spot-on conclusion. In order to experience one thing there has to be a cause, and from the reading, it is said that God is an uncaused cause; because God is an uncaused caused it is not valid to say he possibly exists. This is Hume’s argument, and if broken down we see in some way he does have a point. Every living thing on this earth must have a cause, God is said to be an uncaused cause (which means nothing caused God, but God caused everything), but many say that God is existing and if this is possibly valid he must have to exist.
He believes reason and faith are the two paths to access the truths of God’s existence. Faith is a trusted belief in God through scripture; it does not rest with logic and is beyond reason. But reason is a logical way of making sense of something that is not tangible. St. Thomas realized many people doubt the existence of God because there is no logic to explain God’s existence. For St. Thomas his mission in life was to prove the existence of God through reason.