Aquinas generalizes everything in the universe based on the small amount of things he has actually seen or experienced. These generalizations should not be made without strong evidence. It can also be argued that not taking your surroundings into account whilst considering the universe is a huge error of over simplification, which makes the argument of induction seem week. David Hume however had a very strong empiricist view on the universe and can say that the assumptions based on what’s around us can only be applied to the present and do not provide any information on the past or future of the universe. Bertrand Russell also put forth the argument that the universe is a brute fact and it created itself.
Assess the claim that the universe provides no evidence for the existence of an omnipotent god’ 35 marks It is often claimed by philosophers that the universe provides no evidence for the existence of an omnipotent god due to the fact there are flaws in this argument. Firstly, the idea of god being omnipotent, simply means that god would be ‘all-powerful to do anything that is possibly logical to do’, which is an idea explored by Aquinas. This idea would solve problems created by Dawkins who suggested the idea that god being omnipotent is incoherent. Yet by suggesting that god is all powerful in things that is logical would mean that he would not do illogical such as change the past of change what humans believe is fact such as 2+2=4. Therefore both Aquinas and Dawkins would suggest that the God could in fact be an omnipotent being as it is still logical for him to be so.
The universe is like the watch in the sense that it has complex features that work together perfectly; therefore the universe like the watch must have been designed. Teleologist’s like Paley would argue that the only one with such power to crate the universe is God. However this argument does not demonstrate empirical evidence to God’s existence, it only concludes that there is a designer, not that he designer is God. Therefore ‘God exists’ is not an empirical hypothesis as there is no known empirical method of proving God’s existence. Secondly ‘God exists’ is not an empirical hypothesis because the knowledge
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.
Stacey Snyder Professor McMichael Introduction to Philosophy April 08, 2014 Paley’s Teleological Argument In this paper, I will be discussing Paley’s teleological argument for the existence of God. This is a valid argument but in my opinion it is not enough to prove the existence of God. I believe that even if all the premises are true and they relate to the conclusion, which they do, that the argument can still be proven wrong by other theories. Paley’s teleological arguments, also called the design argument, attempts to prove that God exists by proving that God created the earth and created humans. Paley’s version of the argument is commonly recognized by the “watchmaker” analogy which is as follows.
The design argument (DA) starts from the observations about the world from there towards the conclusion that God exists. This argument appeals to the world as proof of Gods existence and therefore relies on our experiences. The DA is a posteriori argument for the existence of God; it seeks to prove that there is evidence for a designer in the world and used external imperial evidence as its proof. It is an inductive argument, which means it’s based on experience and the most probable explanation. William Paley is a classical contributor to the DA and like St. Aquinas he believed that the world is too complex and well ordered to have happened by chance therefore it must have designed by a greater being, ‘God’.
Explain what is meant by intelligent design Intelligent design comes from the creationist teachings who's belief is that science is unconstitutional however even though it is believed the universe is created through a higher intelligent design, it does not necessarily have to be God. Creationists also believe that the story of creation from the bible is literally true and actually occurred. According to them the creation of the universe was designed through a higher being, that being God. Intelligent design is split into three smaller subsets, the first being irreducible complexity of which all objects and organisms in the universe have. Meaning they are very complex and are not able to be explained through the 'simplistic' means of natural selection and evolution theories.
He does not see why order means there has to be a designer. However, he is open to the idea of a designer or creator but doesn’t see why this has to be a God. He believes that there are many different possibilities such as a “team of Gods” or even a totally different entity. Hume believes the world is far too complex to be compared to something as simple as the mechanism of a watch. He believes there truly is no comparison.
As far as restoring God "to his rightful place in the universe" is concerned, I doubt that any amount of arguing, scientific or otherwise, will convince the skeptic or disuade the believer. In short there is no simple solution to the God question. Indeed, God is one of those central problems of constructing a theory of man. Even an atheist constructing a theory
This is especially true of Christianity. In short it can be said that theology works on religion. Theology is in fact based on religion. It is a system of studying about God especially Christian religion. Religion does not deal with any sort of rational analysis.