PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY OF SCIENCE 7

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PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY OF SCIENCE(7)

• Vincent F. Hendricks
• Department of Philosophy and Science Studies
• Roskilde University
• vincent_at_ruc.dk
• Thursday, March 11 / 2004

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PHILOSOPHY / Philosophy of Religion

• In epistemology belief is scrutinized in order
  to fix what is taken to be justified belief about
  the world and its ontology
• Is there justified belief about the supernatural
  being, God, and in case there is, what sort of
  justification may be cited for a religious belief
  whether in
• there is no God atheism
• no information agnosticism
• there is one God monotheism
• there are multiple Gods polytheism
• Philosophy of religion attempts to answer this
  question through analyses of religious
  experience, but mostly through the arguments
  (traditionally) cited in favor of the existence
  of God

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PHILOSOPHY / Philosophy of Religion

• A sustained argument for the existence of God is
  the ontological argument
• Saint Anselm of Canterbury God necessarily
  exists because he is the being that whom nothing
  greater can be conceived, and if God did not
  actually exist our concept of God would be the
  concept of a being less great than of one who
  does exist, and it is the latter idea that we
  possess. Hence, God exists
• Structure of argument From a set of divine
  properties (omniscience, omnipotence, omnivolence
  ...) one may conclude the existence of God,
  because he would not have these properties did he
  not exist

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PHILOSOPHY / Philosophy of Religion

• Kantian objection
• Existence is not a first order property, but a
  second order one
• You need existence before properties can be
  ascribed
• Example A perfect circle has the property of all
  points of its circumference being equidistant
  from the center but it does not follow that any
  such figure exists anywhere and even if it did
  this fact would add no properties to the circle
  already described
• Divine or not, properties do not imply existence
  in and by themselves because then the square
  circle may as well exist too

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PHILOSOPHY / Philosophy of Religion

• The cosmological argument Everything that
  happens in the universe has a cause or an
  explanation, and the only thing that can provide
  this is God
• The causal argument Thomas Aquinas Everything
  that happens has a cause, the universe too must
  have a cause, and that cause is God
• The dependency argument Thomas Aquinas The
  universe contains countless contingent things,
  but a contingent being presupposes a necessary
  being
• Objection (1) Who caused God
• Objection (2) The problem of induction

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PHILOSOPHY / Philosophy of Religion

• The argument from miracles Miracles have occured
  at various times through history, and the
  existence of miracles is a proof of the existence
  of God because only God could cause miraculous
  events to occur
• Objection Demarcation of the miraculous
• Objection Unexplained does not mean miraculous
• Objection Under what conditions would an event
  be considered miraculous
• Objection Potential repetition does not make for
  miracles
• Objection Improbability does not make for
  miraculous
• Objection Definining miracles as divine
  intervention such than an intervention implies
  Gods existence only begs the entire question

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PHILOSOPHY / Philosophy of Religion

• The teleological argument Not blind chance but
  order and purpose govern the universe, and
  evidence of purposiveness permeates it. And when
  there is purpose, there must be a purposer where
  there is design, there must be a designer
• Objection Order is not clear and it is not clear
  that the universe is ordered in any specific
  sense
• Objection Is the order always the result of
  design
• Objection The problem of evil, the problem of
  theodicé
• There is no evil in this world
• Evil is necessary for the greatest good
• Good often comes out of evil
• The purpose of evil is not happiness but to make
  us virtuous
• Gods goodness is different from ours
• Human freedom as cause of evil

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PHILOSOPHY / Philosophy of Religion

• Alternative design arguments circumventing evil
• An omnipotent being who is malevolent
• A benevolent mut not omnipotent designer
• Ditheism Two beings with opposite purposes
• Polytheism
• A cosmic organism
• The argument from analogy
• Reflection
• Anthropomorhism and mysticism
• Religious hypotheses
• The utility of religion