PHIL355_PreFinalStudyGuide

But why did not God make humans free and yet also morally perfect, in the sense that they would always freely choose the good over the bad? Explain

Here, as noted, Hick agrees with Mackie that being free and always choosing the good are logically compatible. Hick argues that instead, God made the human person initially morally imperfect, because goodness that is acquired and developed through one's free effort is better than ready-made, prefabricated perfect goodness. (And God, as all-good, would want what is better for His creatures in a choice between two alternatives)

According to Hick, what are the two kinds of Christian theodicies? Why does he reject the Augustinian theodicy? What is the role of human freedom in Hick's Irenaean theodicy? How does Hick show that the kind of world we live in makes human freedom possible? Explain fully.

According to Hick, the two kinds of Christian theodicies are the Augustinian and the Irenaean. The Augustinian is based on the notion of the Fall: Human beings, in the persons of Adam and Eve, began in a perfect state, in Paradise. Then there was the Original Sin, resulting in the Fall, as a consequence of which human beings became subject to death, suffering, and physical evils (Paradise Lost. This theodicy involves the traditional free-will defense: All kinds of evil, both moral and physical, originated from Adam and Eve's free choice to disobey the Creator. The Irenaean of which Hick presents a contemporary version: - Creation through evolutionary process, human beings begin as immature creatures and grow to be a full persons. - Human perfection (full, mature personality, likeness of God) is envisioned in the future rather than in past. Hick rejects the Augustinian theodicy because he thinks that it is logically possible, but finds it to be extremely implausible. He argues that if Adam and Eve were really created perfectly good and yet free in the perfect environment of Eden, they would never actually commit sin. Hick shows that the kind of world we live in makes human freedom possible by explaining the God's general purpose in creating humans was so we could know and love Him, in a loving fellowship which begins here in this world but can find its fulfillment only in a much-better afterlife existence, which is no longer bogged down by the limits of matter. Death, from this perspective, is not a dead-end, but a transition to the main event for human existence. Human freedom is an essential condition for accomplishing God's purpose because a genuine relation of friendship and love requires to possibility of refusal or rejection of this relationship.

Hume's Critique of the Teleological Argument

Cleanthes: World a huge machines made up of smaller machines: machines exhibit coordination of parts to fulfill certain functions or purposes; in short, exhibit design. Nature exhibits similar designs are human artifacts, though exceed the latter in scope and sophistication. According to the rules of analogy, similar effects point to similar causes. Hence, as human artifacts point to human intelligent designers, so does natural things point to superior intelligent designer, aka God. Phil: According to the rules of analogy, similarity of two things on certain respects point to their similarity in other repects. The greater the similarity of these two things, the greater the likelihood of being similar in other respects. Perfect or exact similarity equals perfect of exact similarity in other repects. The lesser the similarity, the weaker the analogy holds. Application of the rule: a house and a universe, which both exhibit design. A house points to its cause, an architect; the universe, points to its cause, God. But the universe is more dissimilar than similar to a house, so the analogy between them is a weak one. - What weakens the analogy further is that what is true of the parts of something may not be true of the whole of that something. So the fact that intelligence is the cause of human artifacts is no justification for thinking that this same intelligence is the cause of the origin of the universe. - This is particularly true considering that in our experience, order and design are not caused only be intelligence, but by other factors (many of them unknow) like the development of the fetus - Furthermore, while we have the experience of the origin of human artifacts, we have never had any first-hand experience of the origin of universe - However, if we allow ourselves to conclude to a Divine intelligent designer as origin of the design of the universe, this Divine intelligent designer should also be traced to a prior new intelligent principle. Why not go further? Why not stop at the material world? How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum ... it were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world. - By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that Divine Being, so much the better. When you go one step beyond the mundance system, you only excite an inquisitive humor which is impossible ever to satisfy. - Part V; Assuming that there is a Divine designer, then, according to the rules of analogy, like effects can only have like causes. If the effects are finite, then the cause must also be finite. Also, given the fact that we have no experience of difference universe productions, we have no way of knowing if this universe is a good or defective one. Even if this universe is a perfect one, we cannot be sure if this the work of one creator or many creators. Or is the perfection merely the result of trial and error of many universes, or the imitation of other perfect universes. - The universe resembles more animal bodies and vegetables (organic) than a watch, so its cause resemble more generation and vegetation, rather than human creation

C.S. Lewis' argument for God's existence is (at least in this article) the human experience of quarrelling. How does this lead him to affirm a common norm of human conduct or "Law of Human Nature"?

Just like the cosmological argument, the moral argument has as its starting point a fact of experience. However, unlike the former, which begins with outer experience, the moral argument states with a concrete fact about the human person: Quarreling. What is quarelling? It is not animals fighting, it is "trying to show that the other man is in the wrong" and it implies appeal to a standard of behavior which you expect the other person to know about (a common rule or law about Right and Wrong). Nearly always, the other person replies that what he/she does really go against the standard, or if it does, that there is some special excuse. How is the Law of Human Nature different from the laws of nature? A moral law: can be disobeyed, which does not mean that they don't cease to hold or bind when disobeyed: The fact of moral obligation. Rule or Law about Right and Wrong used to be called Law of Nature. Not the same as what is nowadays called "laws of nature" which governed all physical and biological bodies. More exactly, Law about Right and Wrong means Law of Human Nature. We assume that everybody knows the law of nature and it does not need to be taught about it. A few oddballs here and there, but exception proves the rule. Can be disobeyed. Different from man-made laws because can go counter to social norms. It can be argued to be universal because there are fundamental commonalities in spite of cultural differences, it is not a matter of subjective opinion or taste. They are binding even if laws are broken then manifested in giving excuses or shifting of blame.

How does this existence of the Law of Human Nature lead to God and what does it tell us about God's nature?

The law that governs our conduct was not invented. No one put it there, therefore something or someone must have put it there. It's existence can only be explained by someone who wants people to orient their lives in a certain direction (while respecting our freedom). The only other alternative: A Fluke, A chance occurrence. The same director and lawgiver is the same power that explains why the universe is there in the first place and why it goes on the way it does, programmed to behave in certain ways through the laws of nature. Just as the moral law is not an object of external observation but can be known only from within, so, too, is the grand lawgiver and director. We can know that (and how) He operates in other people and the rest of the universe from the way he operates within us. This director or lawgiver is more like a mind, because it is hard to imagine "a bit of matter giving instructions"

According to Mackie, the theistic position on the issue of evil is illogical. What is this theistic position, and how does Mackie show that it is illogical? How does Mackie refute the theistic view that the good cannot (logically) exist without evil? Explain

Theistic position on the problem of evil: A) God is all-powerful B) God is all-good C) Yet evil exists The theistic position adheres --must adhere -- to all three propositions, but cannot do so consistently, because if any two of them were true, the third would be false. The contradiction in the theistic position is implicit, and can be made explicit by supplying the following additional premises: D) Good and evil are opposed, hence a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can E) There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do a. Conclusion: "A good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely" According to Mackie, the theistic belief is not only lacking in rational support or "non-rational," but even positively irrational because, on the issue of evil, its position is illogical or contradictory. Hence the problem of evil is not a scienftic problem (solvable by further observation), not a practical problem (solvable by action or decision), but a logical one. Mackie's critique applies for the (usual) view of God as both omnipotent and wholly good. 1) Good cannot (logically) exists without evil: a. This is not a limitation of God's omnipotence, because omnipotence does not mean doing the logically impossible i. Mackie's reply: 1. God cannot be limited by rules (e.g. logic) that he created 2. God could have created only the good, without any counterpart of evil (even if, in this scenario, we wouldn't notice the good) 3. God could have created good with just a little dose of evil for contrast (redness can occur even with just "a minute speck" of non-redness for contrast.)

What is Mackie's reply to the theistic view that God permits evil so that good may come out of it? Explain

This is a limitation of the supposed omnipotence of God, who could have achieved the good through good means. It is a limitation of God's supposed omnipotence to be subject to causal laws that he created. (Answering the claim that natural laws, not God, caused a catastrophic event.)

Paley and Intro to the Teleological Argument

William Paley's (1802) Argument from Design: -Paley is claiming that the teleological argument is stronger than the cosmological argument, which tries to demonstrate God's existence by the sheer existence of things. The teleological argument starts from the premise that things are organized, designed. -The difference between the stone and a watch: 1. A stone might always have been there. Not so for a watch, which points to a watchmaker. What is it about the watch, which makes it point beyond itself? 1. Watch performs a valuable function or purpose: tell time 2. Watch can't fulfill this purpose if its parts were differently sized, shaped, or arranged. This argument and adaptation between means and end suggests that the watch has been designed (parts shaped, sized, coordinated to achieve the function of telling time) -The material universe exhibits the same kind of functional complexity as a watch 1. Every indicator of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being grater and more, and that in a degree, which exceeds all computation. I mean that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtlety, and curiosity of the mechanism, and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety; yet in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity - Since the works of nature possess functional complexity, a reliable indicator of intelligent design, we can justifiably conclude that these works were created by an intelligent agent who designed them to possess this property. - Imperfections in the designed objects do not argue against the existence of the intelligent designer - As to the nature of the intelligent designer, these imperfections and defects have to be taken into account together with more ample evidence of "skill, power, and benevolence" of the intelligent designer, so as to convince us that these apparent blemishes of designed natural objects should be referred to "some cause, though we be ignorant of it, other than defect of knowledge or of benevolence in the author