Augustine defends the god of theism by rejecting the existence of evil as a force or power opposed to god as it would reject the premise that god is omnipotent. Below are the ways in which he justifies moral and natural evil, which respectively mean evil caused by human acts, and evil events caused by the processes of nature. To justify evil, he solves the problem by defining evil as a ‘privation’ – which means when something is ‘evil’, it is not defined to contain bad qualities but is seen to be falling short of perfection, or what it is expected to be. Take a rapist as an example. Adopting Augustine’s idea of ‘evil’, we are to say that he is not living up to standards expected of human beings.
‘We see examples of design throughout the natural world and conclude that an intelligent designer is clearly demonstrated.’- Assess whether this argument succeeds. Because of the complex nature of the world and the ability of things to fill such a specific purpose, we can conclude that this cannot be merely coincidence. We can infer that an intelligent designer such as God has created the universes and everything in them because of this. I will seek to prove that this argument does not succeed and that there are in fact alternative explanations for what a theist would see as ‘intelligent design’. The design argument was formulated by Paley.
How successful is the teleological argument in proving the existence of God? The teleological argument is an a posteriori argument: it tries to justify the existence of God by asking “Why are we here?” Is it due to design or chance? The argument goes as far back as the days of Cicero and has been objected by the likes of Charles Darwin. One of the first known teleological arguments is the argument from analogy, which is argued by William Paley and Aquinas. Paley believes that some natural objects display design like qualities- they display a fitness to purpose.
Hick argues that if God had created humanity in his presence then the gap between God and humanity would be so small that it would limit our freedom. Hick calls this knowledge gap between God and humanity ‘The Epistemic Distance’. Hick further explains that if we were created too close to God in terms of knowledge, we would be overwhelmed by him and would worship him for the wrong reasons. Humans are not born
Thus, he believes there is no reason why should you live a moral life rather than for one's self. Fidley asks Seltzer one last question, “what motivation for adopting the moral point of view can you possibly offer without a belief in God and immorality?” which leads us to this quote, “When religion tells us that there is nothing more we can say about morality than that we can’t see the reasons for it, but do it if you know what’s good for you, then I do condemn it. We can do better than that. We can become moral grown-ups. And if there were a God, surely he would approve”.
McCloskey attempts to make an argument for the non-existence of God and to give reasons why atheism is more comforting than theism. This paper is a response to that article which will address certain ideas raised by Mr. McCloskey. This author is a theist and will present arguments to show the reasoning for the existence and necessity of God. To begin with, McCloskey suggests in his article that the theist’s arguments are “proofs” which do not provide definitive evidence for the existence of God, so therefore, they should be discarded. This is not a justified argument due to the fact that theists do not try to definitely prove the existence of God.
Socrates uses a rather elaborate argument to show this definition is also insufficient. If the gods approve of something because it is holy, their approval cannot be what makes it holy, he says. If an act is holy because the gods approve of it, we still do not know what makes it holy or why the gods approve. It seems that any attempt to define holiness by the will or approval of the gods is bound to fail. Even in contemporary society, we tend to associate morality with some kind of divine will, but through the Euthyphro, Socrates seems to suggesting we think along another line altogether.
He states that it is either Christianity went wrong or our instincts went bad. He believes that our instincts have gone wrong. He goes on to say that we have been lied to and that our sexual desires is in the same state of any of our other natural desires and if we stop hiding it then things will be alright. Many people think that Christian Chastity is impossible, but when one really puts there mind to it they will be surprised at what they can overcome. Lewis then goes on to say that we cannot simply do it on our own strength but to go to God for our strength.
THEOLOGY ESSAY A)EXPLAIN THE KEY IDEAS OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT AND GIVE REASONS WHY SOME PHILOSOPHERS REJECTED THIS ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. The Design argument looks at the order and purpose, or telos, in the world and states that it implies that there must be a designer who made the world ‘just right’ for human existence. Religious believers go on to state that this designer is God. The argument states that if one uses one’s senses to look at order, such as gravity and the motion of the planets, which exists in the world, it is likely that one will accept that there is a designer God who created the world and gave it this order. Thus, the argument is a posteriori, based on experience, and inductive, containing a conclusion that
In response to the option in which God creates a world with free agents and no evil, a world with no evil would mean a world with no good, so it would be impossible for God to create a free agents that only choose good, since evil does not exist. It would limit free will, and limited free will is not free will. The reason why it would be impossible for good to exist without evil existing is that we need evil to exist so that we can define it and understand what it is and how it works. After we find out that information, we could base what good is off of what evil is not, which is what we do now with