Existence of God
Name the 3 main Philosophers who gave a version of the ontological argument.
Anselm, Descartes, Malcolm.
What does Euthyphro define 'piety' as?
"that which is dear to the gods" or "what the gods love"
what is the difference between a synthetic and an analytic truth? give an example of each.
An analytic truth is true by definition – the meaning of the words alone makes it true. e.g. "All bachelors are unmarried men."
A synthetic truth is true because of how it relates to the world. e.g. "The cat is on the mat"
who objected to the ontological argument, stating that 'existence is not a predicate'?
Immanuel Kant
Describe the paradox of the stone
Can God create a stone that he can’t lift?
If the answer is ‘no’, then God cannot create the stone.
If the answer is ‘yes’, then God cannot lift the stone.
So either way, it seems, there is something God cannot do. If there is something God can’t do, then God isn’t omnipotent.
How does Mary Midgley exaplain evil?
Evil is a faliure to live up to our full human potential.
Evil comes from our natural instincts like aggression or desire for power — which can be good, but if misused or unbalanced, lead to harm.
It’s not a force on its own, but the absence of good.
explain the difference between spatial and temporal order.
spatial order - arrangement of things in space fitted together for purpose.
temporal order – the regularity of events in time, where things happen in succession — one after another
what does "Every moment in time is ‘ET-simultaneous’ with God" mean?
From God's eternal (timeless) perspective, all moments in time — past, present, and future — are equally present to Him.
God sees and knows all events at once, rather than experiencing them in sequence like we do.
Give one reason for how all evil can be seen as moral evil.
- Natural evil entered the world due to human sin (e.g. the Fall in Christianity), so all evil ultimately traces back to human wrongdoing.
- God created everything. God is a free moral agent. "natural" evils are part of God's creation, so natural evil is actually just the result of the choice of a free moral agent. Therefore, all evil is moral evil.
What is Hume's 'constant conjunction' objection to the Design argument?
Whenever you have the cause, you get the effect. So to make a claim about cause and effect, we need repeated experience of the cause and effect occurring together in order to infer that one thing causes another. But the universe is a unique case, so we cannot make this inference about it.
what is the difference between God existing as everlasting and as eternal?
everlasting - God exists through all time, experiencing events in sequence with no beginning or end.
eternal - God exists outside of time, seeing all moments — past, present, and future — simultaneously.
What is Aquinas' 'first way'?
argument from motion:
Things in the world change, but change must be caused by something else — something already actual.
This chain of causes can’t go back forever, because without a first cause, nothing would change at all.
Therefore, there must be a first, unchanged cause of change, and this is God.
So, God exists.
Criticises actual infinity.
Even when the hotel is completely full, it can still take more people. You cannot add any number to infinity and get a bigger number: ∞ + 1 = ∞. If the hotel is full and infinitely more people show up, they can all be accomodated. ∞ + ∞ = ∞.
But it is impossible for the hotel to be full and still have room for more guests. So, there cannot be an ‘actual’ infinity.
How would an everlasting view of God explain how omniscience is compatible with God's nature as a being who allows human freedom?
Because God is everlasting, it is impossible for Him to know the future because of free will.
And so God’s not knowing what we will do before we do it is not a restriction on God’s knowledge, since omniscience only involves knowing what it is possible to know. God still knows everything it is possible to know at any given time.
What is the difference between necessity and contingency?
Give an example of each.
necessary - something that must be the case.
contingent - something that could have been otherwise.