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
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.
And for morality to require God in such a way, there must be a direct link between the two. I believe that morality is defined by God, therefore immoral actions are wrong solely because God forbids them. Similarly, the “rightness” of moral actions is only because God has commanded them. In today's world things are defined as “right” or “wrong” or “moral” and “immoral.” This is because God, is the one that has allowed us to even understand what morality is. I believe that God is the creator and sustainer of all things, and that we would not even be self aware, let alone aware of right and wrong, if God had not created within us his image, and therefore the ability to make moral distinctions.
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.
The basic premise of the Kálam argument is that something must of caused the universe to begin to exist, this cause must be necessary therefore it is God. The Kálam argument agrees with the term infinite regression, in which is a chain going infinitely back in time with no beginning. St. Thomas Aquinas was a believer of the cosmological argument, Aquinas set out ex nihilo nihil fit, basically meaning nothing comes from nothing, Aquinas believed since nothing can come from nothing, the universe exists so therefore God must of made it. Aquinas’ theory is equivalent to the second way, in which is ‘causation’. The second way states that cause and effect are natural, whatever happens is caused by something, and something cannot cause itself because that would mean
Infalsafiable it may be I do not find it persuasive due one singular point of contention. I cannot find tenable any argument that is contingent on the existence of God or any divine spirit. Berkeley’s answer to his own admission of the likelihood of the continued existence of ideas over time is contingent on the existence of God or some sort of Divine perceiver. Berkeley’s theory presents God that is at all times perceiving. If, for lack of better terminology, God were to “turn his head” all that is not being perceived would cease to exist.
He based his argument on the statement “Does God will something because it is good or is something good because it is willed by God?” There are two ‘horns’ to this argument which stem from the statement; these both critiques of the link between religion and morality. Horn one questions “Does God command x because it is good.” This argument suggests that God is inferior to good, or perhaps good could even be temporally prior to God. In addition both God’s omnipotence and omniscience are damaged; he cannot claim full responsibility for creating the world and therefore cannot possibly have full control as it is not his creation. He also may not have the knowledge of right and wrong if it is independent of him. An independent good takes away from religious motivation to do good, we can be good for the sake of being good as opposed to seeking eschatological reward, for example going to heaven in the afterlife.
Alex Griffiths AO1: Examine the main features of the cosmological argument (21) AO2: Comment on the view that the weaknesses of the cosmological argument show it is a failure (9) The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument based on the existence of the universe. The argument is based on the fact that the universe exists but is also based on the assumption that there must be an explanation for its existence and that this explanation is infact God. Thomas Aquinas is the scholar behind this argument and he believed that everything we observe today has a first mover and therefore there has to be a first cause (a first cause) in order for the universe to exist. The argument concludes that this first mover is God. Infinite regress is rejected by this argument, it argues that there has to be a first cause, and explanation for the existence of the universe.
One of Aquinas’ ways of proving God’s existence; ‘the uncaused causer’, states that every cause in the universe has an effect, the chain of cause and effect must have a terminus to avoid infinite regress. Aquinas rejects infinite regress because it denotes that there cannot be an answer to the question “what is the explanation?” Therefore there must be a necessary being that started the chain, this for Aquinas is God but this is not a satisfactory answer for everyone. Bertrand Russell, somewhat like Aristotle, states that the universe is a “brute fact”, although unlike Aristotle did not see that there needed to be a Prime Mover or Uncaused Cause. Russell made another criticism when he suggested that one cannot go from saying that every event has a cause thus the whole universe has a cause, it is like moving from saying that every human being has a mother to the claim that the human race as a whole has a mother. One cannot move from individual causes to the totality (whole, everything) has a cause.
Descartes declares he has to determine if there is a God and if he does exist, whether he can be a deceiver. The reason he has to determine the existence of God and what he is, rests in his theories of ideas. This is because we do not know if there is an outside world and we can almost imagine everything, so all depends on God’s existence and if he is a deceiver. “To prove that this non-deceiving God exists, Descartes finds in his mind a few principles he regards as necessary truths which are evident by the “natural light” which is the power or cognitive faculty for clear and distinct perception.” If arguments is presented in logical trains of thought, people could not help but to be swayed and to understand those arguments. Natural light