Overall, I believe that Aquinas’ 3 ways are not very convincing as a proof of the existence of God. The different ways in which Aquinas try to prove the existence of God just make it either impossible for there not to be a God, which rejects any other ideas or, they make misleading assumptions that are not justified. My first reason for believing that Aquinas’ 3 ways are not very convincing is the 2nd way – from Cause. David Hume argues that you cannot see, hear or use any of your senses to see a cause. You cannot see a cause only two things happening in conjunction with one another.
Another weakness is the consequences, in some situations when consequences are too severe that many think it is better to break a rule than allow awful thing to happen. The theory is too rigid, sometimes the consequences can change the rightness or a wrongness of an action, but in this theory the person is judged on the action which can be unfair. It’s inflexible as you should be able to break a rule if the individual’s circumstances warrant it. There is no consideration to human emotion, there are situation where individuals break rules because of emotions, for example if a person is scared they may lie to protect themselves which in Kant’s eyes this would be morally wrong. The theory is a priori, some claim we out our duty a priori but it is also argued we need to refer to experience to work out what is right.
Once that which can be deemed certain is distinguished from that which is questionable, one can carefully derive the truth. Truth cannot come from that which is false, so it is essential to determine the validity of each principle in order to gather pure and certain knowledge. One of Descartes’s chief principles in his system of reasoning is that one must disregard all prior knowledge and precepts in order to discover the ultimate truth. He sees these preconceived notions as false until otherwise can be proven undoubtedly true. Descartes says, “never to accept anything as true that I did not plainly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid hasty judgment and prejudice; and to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself in my mind so clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to call it
Off the Precipice into the Gorge: Why Utilitarianism Can’t Save Us Introduction In his article, “A Critique of Utilitarianism” Bernard Williams is concerned that consequentialism has found plausibility in people’s minds due to a misunderstanding of and negative reaction to non-consequentialist theories. [1] Though he does not offer an alternative ethical theory, Williams successfully takes on the project of exploring how utilitarianism and those who uncritically embrace it have accepted an unworkable standard for defining right actions. Williams offers a unique and penetrating thesis: to define right action only by reference to whether it produces a good “state of affairs” necessitates a fundamental clash between an agent’s moral character and that allegedly right action. [2] In its attempt to compensate and maintain viability as a moral theory, utilitarianism smuggles into its calculus the agent’s non-utilitarian-based moral feelings. For a conscientious observer, this double standard should seriously cause him to question the ability of a consequentialist perspective to prescribe satisfactory moral understanding and guidance.
He thinks that Aquinas had made an error in linking cause and effect – as have any other humans that have done the same. Cause and effect are two completely different things, linked incorrectly in the mind by induction. Hume argues that because of this error, there is no cause and effect chain and therefore, no first cause. He argues that we have no direct experience of the creation of the universe and so we cannot speak meaningfully about it. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) agrees with the idea that we cannot try to comprehend something outside of our reach – we can
Explain the criticisms of the Cosmological Argument. The Cosmological Argument has been criticised time and time again, but i am only going to go into two of the most well known criticisms. Hume criticised the link between cause and effect and says that just because we have an effect that doesn't mean we have to have a cause, an example of this is the universe it is an effect but it doesn't necessarily have to have a cause. Hume also said that our senses can be wrong, meaning the way that i may see something can be different to how someone else may see the same thing, and Hume said that when we see an effect it is instantly in our human nature to make an assumption about the cause. This shows that the argument is subjective and not solid
Augustine and Skepticism St Augustine refuted the teachings of other philosophers, this is for the reason that he felt his theories were more appropriate and explained things in more detail. He also repudiated total skepticism in three ways, which are principal of non-contradiction, the act of doubting, and sense perception, which should be considered when analyzing his theories (Moore & Bruder, 2011). St Augustine’s first refutation of skepticism consists of the principle of non-contradiction. The principle states that a proposal and its contradiction cannot be true at the same time. According to this idea, one or the other must be true however; both cannot be true at the same time.
Agnosticism is the purely epistemological stance that sufficient evidence does not exist for or against theism therefore the best stance on the argument is no stance at all. Combinations of these positions are possible due to their varying natures, but here only the argument between theism and atheism is examined more closely. The problem of evil is described and used to argue against the existence of God. Richard Swinburne’s solution to the problem of evil is explained and used to revise the original atheist’s argument from evil to its best, but still insufficient, form. Commonly, atheists hold the view that organized religions are corrupt and actually cause more harm than good.
His skepticism exists because a priori “truths” exist don’t necessarily pertain to the real, material world. Knowledge gained by experience is also suspect for Hume. He believes that knowledge gained by experience is unfounded because inductive reasoning is based on the habit of constant conjunction, or the assumption that patterns from the past will repeat themselves in the future. He is skeptical about this because the argument for inductive reasoning is circular—you have to assume the conclusion (that inductive reasoning is a reliable method of acquiring knowledge) to reach the conclusion. In other words, it is necessary to use inductive reasoning to prove inductive reasoning.
But this contradicts the definition of God. Therefore, we must posit that God exists.” (p. 5). Despite the many debates Anselm’s theory created over the meaning of “greater” and “being”, Crutcher (2010) argues that Anselm’s theory fails “as an argument against non-theists because its premises can be freely doubted.” (p. 5). If one doubts that God exists, they will also doubt the qualities predicated to God. “The conclusion