With god/s grounding the moral the foundation of the moral becomes arbitrary because it would only be good because god says its so. Also calling god good would not make any sense since he decided what good is or isn't, so how could he be good unless the moral was grounding him? If piety was a certain care of the god’s we could look to do always what is Pious and in return we would be worshiping/caring for the god/s if they exists. If the God’s are looking to something the “moral,piety” then if you act pious in your actions through life you will be in a way worshiping the god’s, because you are honoring what they already honer. The problem with this idea is when people think god grounds the moral
Denys Turner makes the point that Aquinas is misread, he says that Aquinas is just clarifying the existence of God for people who already believe rather than in an attempt to persuade non-believers. If this is the case, then this would mean that the Cosmological Argument does have value for religious faith. In conclusion, the Cosmological Argument shows no reason to believe in the loving Christian God which is why it has little
He said morality was innate; a part of us (a priori), and it was our moral duty to carry it out for good, which must lead to God. Accordingly Kant says good actions should be universalisable and free, so basically when making our ethical decisions we should ask ourselves a simple question "What if everybody did that?" if the answer is no, then the categorical imperative tells us that the action is wrong. So if I cheated on my AS-level exam to pass and be successful in the future, this would be my maxim, however I would not want others to do the same and therefore this action would be wrong according to Kant’s Categorical Imperative. My cheating pre-supposes that most people do not cheat even though they have the same reasons to cheat as I have.
(3) The world contains moral evil. Therefore: (4) It is not the case that God exists. In response to these arguments, the “free will defiance” holds that God chose to create humankind to be free, and that evil is the result of society’s abuse of that freedom. This defiance applies only to moral evil because society does not and cannot control natural evils. Natural evils, by definition, are those evils that occur as the result of natural processes.
His first form of the argument runs as follows: (P1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived (P2) If God exists in the mind alone (in intellect) then a greater being can be conceived (in re) (P3) God to be the greatest being, has to existing the mind and in reality, otherwise another being would be greater than God. (C) Therefore God must exist both in the mind and in reality. This method of reasoning aims to demonstrate the truth of something by reducing to absurdity the very opposite of what you are trying to prove. In Anselm’s case this would be that God does not exist, which he claims is absurd by means of an argument which he claims is logically necessary. For Anselm, God cannot not exist.
Hence, it doesn’t exist. Following the above, everything God creates is therefore perfect, hence omnipotent, a quality coherent to the attributes of the god of theism. Again, Augustine attempts to take the blame off God by saying that evil is committed by humanity’s abuse of free will. Yet, God couldn’t have created humans without free will because the point of our existence would be lost, as free will differentiates humans and gives us individuality – it gives our life meaning and purpose. If we were not given free will, the lack of freedom and choice would render us similar to robots.
On the other hand, Boethius also states that humans do not have free will. If God is omniscient then he already knows all of our choices, past, present and future regardless of whether we have even thought about them yet. This concept would suggest that human’s do not have a choice in their actions or the consequences of them, as, as some philosophers believes out future has already been predetermined. If this is correct and humans have no control over their actions then it would be wrong and unfair for God to punish someone, who had no choice but to do what God had already predetermined. If the Calvinist approach to predestination is true then there would be no need to hope of pray for anything as you cannot change your position, and God has already chosen who he will save before you are born.
Outline two key objections to the Ontological Argument and explain the responses made to them. The ontological argument was first introduced by Anselm in the ‘Prosologian’. It is an a priori argument as it is not based on empirical evidence but id deductive and analytic in that it allows one to use logical reasoning to reach a logically necessary conclusion which, in theory, cannot be disputed. Anselm defines God as ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’ (TTWNGCBC) and states that everyone, theist or not, can accept this definition. He argues that ‘the fool’ in Psalm 53 can conceive of God but fails to believe he exists.
Meaning that since good and evil are opposites, since god created good he would have to have created evil. Another response to this is that some theist think something’s cant exist unless their opposites exist so that being thought leads them to believe that since there is good there must be evil. Which I don’t think is true because some things exist because their opposites don’t like having peace. You cant have peace if there’s war. Since peace and war are opposites and one can only exist when the other doesn’t makes some theist response not very accurate.
It is therefore known through reason that we should follow these natural riles from God, because the opposite is equivalent to ‘condemning the command of God’. By following God’s will and getting closer to achieving our destiny with God, we should act morally. Someone who has an error with their morality also has an error with their rationality as they are not avoiding evil like they should be in order to fulfil their