bullet summary: existence of god via observation

• how can we prove a non-human and non-physical god is real beyond doubt?
• attempts have been made via reason, but this can be done through observation fo the world either teleologically or cosmologically

• the teleological argument is built on aquinas‘ fifth way
• based on aristotle’s final cause, it states that everything has a purpose and comes to it by a design
• but not everything actually has a purpose, and why would a perfect god make useless things?

• william paley makes a design argument
• he points to the complexity of our brains, the eye, the wing, the planets rotating
• the say the order and harmony point to design
• he starts by saying that if you saw a rock you would not think it had a design
• but if you came across a watch, with its complex systems, you would assume it had been designed, even if it were broken or damaged
• the same is true of the universe
• but could it not be badly designed? or by multiple designers? or a dead designer?

• david hume’s criticisms are the most convincing responses
• aptness of analogy: he uses as easily comparable model, showing he had already chosen his outcome. a lettuce should still work but doesn’t
• epicurean thesis: the world cannot be chaos. with infinite time and finite particles we would eventually get to this stable combination. monkeys and typewriters analogy
• argument from effect to cause: we can’t go from an effect to something greater than needed to produce the cause. the jump to a transcendent creator is large. it could also be many gods or a baby god

• john stuart mill argues the evil in the world points to a lack of creation, a bad creator creates bad things
• natural evil was his biggest issue, a leaky boat is built by a bad shipbuilder
• it “leads to a god which is not more a source of good than a source of evil”. – Anthony Kenny
• darwin’s theory of evolution shows that natural selection ‘created’ things. if god created natural selection it is an imperfect, wasteful and slow design

• f.r. tennant and the anthropic principle
• this is the idea that the world was made so perfectly for us that it must have been planned
• the chances of it being different are so high
• our tiny dot in the universe cannot be the reason why the universe exists, and there is no proof. this is a self-centred argument

• richard swinburne argues that so few elements made such variation that it must have been planned
• he uses ockham’s razor here as the most likely is the most simple
• but just because it is likely doesn’t make it true. the universe is extremely complicated
• and is god really a simple answer?

• the cosmological argument comes from the first three of aquinas‘ five ways, from summa theologica
• the prime mover: things move and cannot move themselves, there must have been a first mover because we can’t have an infinite regress, that is god
• the first cause: things cannot cause themselves, there must have been an uncaused cause because we can’t have infinite regress, that is god
  • hume said cause and effect doesn’t exist because a cause stops being cause once the effect has happened and vice versa
  • god is a divine cause, what does that mean?
• necessity and contingency: the universe could either exist or not, so at some point there was nothing. there must be a necessary thing to be a source of contingency. this is god.
  • no real reason why there has to have been nothing
  • bertrand russell says you can’t speak of a necessary being because it is a contradiction. being implies contingency.

• aquinas and other rely heavily on the idea that infinite regress being impossible.
• but just because we cannot imagine it, doesn’t mean it isnt possible
• william temple said ‘it is possible to imagine infinite regress, but not possible to conceive it’
• there is no logical contradiction

• g.w. leibniz argued there must be a reason because we have a reason for everything here, and the external cause must be god
• this is a fallacy of composition as argued by russell and hume, we can’t go from every human having a mother to the human race having a mother

• is god really the end of the chain?: ‘god did it’ only makes more questions. why, when, why not something else? simpler to lack a creator.
• the problem of evil: why is there evil? undermines christian god’s omnibenevolence.
• explanation: no one can understand the explanation of god, which makes it pointless.
• chance: we like explanations, but why does there have to be one? it could just be chance.
• leap to transcendent: big leap from finite world to infinite god.

• strengths:
  • begins with things we can see
  • no definitions that we must accept
  • makes sense to most people that someone/thing started it
  • science says the universe has a beginning

• weaknesses:
  • Russell: maybe the universe just is. shut up.
  • maybe its always been here
  • no logical issue with things existing without a cause
  • hume said only analytic propositions can exist necessarily