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.
Since we know evil and suffering is a necessary bi-product of human life, we must acknowledge that evil does exist. This proves problematic as it then brings into question the traditional theist’s view of God. However, no traditional theist would accept Hume’s conclusions because it denies God of His perfection. There are ways of sidestepping this issue such as, atheism, deism and polytheism, but none are accepted by traditional theists, and are therefore not a true solution to the problem. A theodicy is seen as a true solution as it defends God’s nature in the face of evil and suffering.
This does not convince however that God does not exist because evil is necessary for the good. This means evil is needed in a perfect universe. The combination of the convincing arguments for God’s
I myself am an Atheist, and therefore in my opinion believe miracles are impossible as all miracles are by, definition impossible if they claim to be the action of a deity. There are four different definitions of miracles, A ‘radical change for the better’ in a person, an ordinary event which has Religious significance for the believer, A remarkable or unusual event which has been directly caused by God but does not go against or break the laws of nature and The ‘laws of nature’ are being broken by God, which is the definition David Hume (18th Century) uses. This more traditional understanding of a miracle is the understanding of classical Theism, namely that God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, and therefore he does intervene on occasion to perform miracles. As an atheist, David Hume refutes miracles, he does not believe that they can happen, although he has one of the most famous definitions of the traditional understanding of a miracle. Hume
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.
They only believe what they see. Their belief is not sustained by literature theory as from the Bible. “The scriptural geologists were not opposed to geological facts, but to the old-earth interpretations of those facts. And they argued that old-earth interpretations were based on anti-biblical philosophical assumptions, and in this they were correct. Buffon was a deist or secret atheist,12 as were Lamarck13 and Hutton.14 Laplace was an open atheist.15Werner,16 Cuvier,17 Smith18 and Lyell19 were probably deists or some sort of vague theists.
To what extent is the via negativa the only way to talk about God Within this essay I will be arguing that the via negativa is a very unhelpful way to talk about God as if we were to only talk about him negatively we would ultimately never know anything of God’s nature. Instead, I will argue that analogy is a better way to talk of God and I will refer to Aquinas’ ideas of analogical language. The via negativa (or apophatic way) claims that people can only talk about God in negative terms because he is transcendent and utterly different and greater than anything we can comprehend. Thus we cannot say what God is because his nature is beyond our comprehension. The word “good” in reference to God is meaningless as we cannot know what this entails; it is completely different from saying “the man is good”.
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.
Morality does not come directly from God. This is the idea behind the Autonomy thesis. This option says that an act is either immoral or moral based on things apart from the commands of God. Actions are right or wrong in and of themselves regardless of God’s commands. The issues with this option mainly deal with the definition of a theistic God.
However, in the case that he lacked omnibenevolence, evil would still cast a dark shadow in the world because perhaps God does not desire to relieve it. In actuality, God can be all three, and evil can and does exist. This is true because God is not responsible for the evil in the world. Evil blemishes the world wherever the world is lacking in goodness. If evil did not taint the world, the world would lack good and freewill, too.