It also puts limits on God’s power. According to the definition of a theistic God, God is omnipotent. If God is all powerful then he should be able to command whatever he wants but by saying that morality is independent of God would mean that God is subject to the rules of morality (Fisher, 359). All in all the main issues with the Autonomy Thesis are that it would only be reasonable if one was not considering the existence of a theistic
Because the Prime Mover existed he set of a chain of reactions which caused the world into existence. The Prime mover caused the movement of the cause and effect chain however the Prime Mover itself did not move as it was not subject to cause and effect. Therefore the Prime Mover cannot be described as a craftsman. Another attribute of the Judeo Christian concept of god is that god is all loving and also that he interacts with his creation. This is seen in the Bible when miracles occur and also when god punishes the world.
Another idea related to this is the idea of predestination which was the view of the philosopher- John Calvin. Predestination is the idea that our lives are set/planned out previous to the start of our lives. Calvin said that man is “inherently evil and is not capable of good as his free will chooses to reject God”. Therefore, this suggests that God has predestined our lives as to those who will be saved and who will not. This further reinforces that we have no choice or influence on our lives and the events that happen, so therefore God will know the ethical decisions we will make as he has already predestined them in our lives.
PART A: Explain Mill’s challenge to the teleological argument. (25marks) The teleological argument claims that God designed the world with a purpose. God is often described to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent. Mill criticises the idea of the teleological argument, he doesn’t believe that the world is designed by a God because within nature there are cruelty and crimes that are unpunished. Mill argues that if God designed the universe he wouldn’t have created something containing any evil at all it wouldn’t fit in with his description.
This evidence is consistent with Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Paul eluded to this when he said that God’s invisible qualities, eternal power, and divine nature is clearly seen, being understood by what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Rom.1:20). Therefore, we are to worship the Creator and not the creation (1:25). But fallen man do not give God the honor and glory for all the beauty and order He designed in His wonderful universe He created.
Analyse Hick’s vale of soul making theodicy. (30 marks) John Hick’s vale of soul making theodicy is a modern form of the Irenaean theodicy. This theodicy argues that both natural and moral evil are important, so they have a good purpose and therefore an all loving God is justified in allowing evil. Hick claimed that God had made humans morally imperfect to help them complete the process of creation themselves. He argues that humans are made in the image of God with the potential to accomplish perfection in the future, and then humans will then grow to become the likeness of God.
Simply put, the fine-tuning argument contends that the universe was designed to ultimately create human beings. Fine-tuning is an argument which is able to contest one of the atheist’s own theories to disprove God. This will be explained in more detail later in this paper. In response to this, McCloskey says the cosmological argument “does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause.” As mentioned before, the cosmological argument is but one part of a concurrence for the existence of God. It does not prove God’s existence; it argues that there must be a necessary being which created the universe.
It also gives us a very monotheistic view of God to oppose the idea of many gods or that there is no God. Clearly it is one God created here in Genesis. It also provides us with the beginning of redemptive history for mankind; he fall of man and his need for salvation (NIV 2-3). Summary: Genesis in its Greek meaning means “origins” and the Hebrew word is translated “In the Beginning (Marty 8). Genesis chapter one takes us through the beginning of the universe.
Instead it means than humanity is only saved by the free grace and mere good will of God and that whosoever believes in Christ and has faith may escape Hell. These concepts are illustrated throughout the works of Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Works Cited "Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-58, American Theologian and Metaphysician." The Columbia Encyclopedia. N.p. : Columbia UP, 2013.
Boethius was successful in his argument that God rewards and punishes justly.’ Discuss. (35) In this essay I am going to be examining Boethius and his theory of divine foreknowledge and attempting to come to a conclusion on whether or not his theory is successful in arguing that God rewards and punishes justly. Boethius’ argument is a very interesting theory that attempts to overcome the idea that God is partly responsible for human evil, if he knows in advance what we are going to do. It does so by arguing that God does in actual fact not know human actions in advance of us doing them and therefore cannot do anything about them. In this, Boethius’ ensures that God can be both omniscient and omnibenevolent.