Philosophy 110 Test 2

Which of the following claims would not be accepted by a supporter of the greater goods defense?

God could have made the world less evil while still achieving the same goods.

Which of the following propositions, if true, offers a solution to the Problem of Evil?

God is not perfectly good. God's power has limits. God's knowledge has limits a, b, and c are all adequate to resolve the problem of evil.

Harmonizers

Harmony between the teachings of science and religion.

Perspectivalism

Not different territories, they just describe the territory in different ways.

With which of the following claims would both a believer in natural theology and an atheistic evidentialist agree?

Objective evidence is required for religious belief.

Which of the following adjectives would Kierkegaard have been least likely to use to describe belief in God?

Objectively Uncertain

Sally says that religion has no place in discussions of the origins of life, or of the universe, since these are natural phenomena. Religion should stick with what it's meant to deal with, the soul and God. Which model of the relationship between science and religion is Sally adopting?

Territorialism

Which of the arguments for the existence of God is an a priori argument?

The Ontological Argument

Teleological Argument

The argument for God's existence based on the evidence of design in the world.

Thomas Aquinas believed that it was logically impossible for the world to have always existed without a beginning.

False

To be an agnostic is, by definition, to be a nonevidentialist.

False

William James's essay "The Will to Believe" was an attempt to defend W.K. Clifford's position.

False

Which of the following is not a criticism of the Free Will Defense?

There is nothing wrong, in theory at least, with the idea of an infinite chain of determining causes.

Which of the following claims does not directly attack Anselm's Ontological Argument for God's existence?

There may in fact be entities which exist that are greater than God.

Of the three main arguments that attempt to prove God's existence, only the Ontological does not rely on sense experience.

True

Pascal assumes that the only options are belief or disbelief in the Christian God, but he does not consider other religious options.

True

The cosmological argument for God is a type of a posteriori argument.

True

The greater good defense claims that some evils are necessary in order to achieve certain good ends.

True

The ontological argument is an example of an a priori argument.

True

The opposite of a contingent being is a necessary being.

True

The problem of evil is used by the atheist to provide a positive argument orevidence for the nonexistence of God.

True

There are both atheists and theists who are evidentialists.

True

W.K. Clifford's argument rejects the notion of basing beliefs on faith alone.

True

Necessary Being

A being who contains the reason for its existence within its own nature.

Contingent Being

A being whose existence depends on something outside itself, such that neither its existence nor its nonexistence is logically necessary.

According to William James, a belief or decision may be justified based on faith only if it meets which one of the following criteria?

A decision one way or the other is unavoidable.

Which of the following offers the best definition of the word "theodicy"?

A justification for God's permitting evil to exist.

Which of the following best characterizes the difference between a posteriori and a priori arguments for the existence of God?

A posteriori arguments rely on our experiences while a priori arguments do not.

Which of the claims below is not an objection made by Philo (a character in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) to the argument from design?

Although the notion of an infinite regress of causes is puzzling, it's not logically incoherent.

Who gave a famous Ontological argument?

Anselm

Moral Evil

Bad actions and their unfortunate results for which humans are morally responsible.

Which of the statements below would a nonevidentialist be most likely to reject?

Belief in God must be supported by objective, rational arguments.

John Hick's theodicy maintains that

Even an all-powerful God could not make free persons into ready-made, perfected moral agents.

Which statement best characterizes John Hick's position?

Even an all-powerful God could not make free persons into ready-made, perfected moral agents.

Which of the following is\are a premise in Anselm's argument?

Existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind alone.

According to the text, moral evil is the only kind of evil there really is.

False

An essential premise of the cosmological argument is the claim that everything has a cause for its existence.

False

Anselm believed that God was so far beyond human reason that it was impossible for the mind to conceive of him.

False

Anselm's critic, Gaunilo, rejected the ontological argument because he was an atheist.

False

Blaise Pascal believed that faith could be proven by reason.

False

Everyone who believes in God agrees with the premise that he is all-powerful.

False

It is an essential claim of all atheists that it can be proven that God does not exist.

False

John Hick argues that God made the world a paradise in which we could experience nothing but pleasure, thus human moral wickedness is the cause of all suffering.

False

Monotheism is the belief that God and the world are identical.

False

Proponents of Natural Theology consider faith to be an appropriate source of evidence in the attempt to prove the existence of God.

False

Soren Kierkegaard believed that faith should never go beyond what can be proven on the basis of reason.

False

The "greater goods defense" is an argument that concludes that evil is an illusion.

False

The Problem of Evil is an argument most often used to argue in favor of believing in God.

False

The problem of evil is that of explaining how to turn people from their evil ways to do good.

False

The teleological argument is a type of a priori argument.

False

According to your text, John Hick's critics, Edward Madden and Peter Hare, argue that

Hick assumes that the only choice God had was between the present amount of evil and no evil at all.

Which of the following premises in the Problem of Evil does the Greater Goods defense attack?

If God exists and is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then evil would not exist.

Three of the following, if true, serve as criticisms of Pascal's Wager. Which one is not a criticism?

It is impossible to rationally prove that God exists.

Which of the following claims is the most likely to be rejected by both Pascal and James?

It is possible to demonstrate the existence of God on the basis of sense experience.

Which of the following criticisms of the free will defense is/are mentioned in the text?

It seems possible that God could make us so that we always freely choose the good. God could allow people to be free to commit minor evils while preventing them from committing major evils. The value of having the amount of freedom we have does not justify the amount of moral evil that results. all of the above.

What does Richard Taylor believe would be the case if we supposed the world had no beginning?

It would still be reasonable to ask why such a world existed at all.

The free will defense typically attempts to explain

Moral Evil

A pragmatic nonevidentialist theist and a fideist theist are most likely to give different answers to which of the yes/no questions below?

Must belief in God be based on faith alone and not on reasons, whether objective or subjective?

Joe says that evolutionary biology describes how species come about, but not why they come about; religion explains the why. Which model of the relationship between science and religion is Joe adopting?

Perspectivalism

Cosmological Argument is

Posteriori

Teleological Argument is

Posteriori

Ontological Argument is

Priori

Adversarial Model

Science and Religion attempt to answer the same questions about reality but give conflicting answers

Territorialism

Science and religion cannot conflict because they deal with different realms of reality.

Which of the following statements most accurately represents the position of Intelligent Design theorists like Behe and Dembski?

Science reveals to us that certain types of biological complexity cannot be adequately explained by evolutionary mechanisms but, rather, are best explained in terms of intelligent design.

Which one of the following philosophers is best described as a fideist?

Soren Kierkegaard

Greater Goods Defense

The claim that God allows some evil to exist because it is necessary to the achievement of a greater good.

Free Will Defense

The claim that God could not create creatures who have freedom of the will but who are incapable of doing evil.

Atheism

The claim that God does not exist

Evidentialism

The claim that belief in God must be supported by objective evidence

Non-evidentialism

The claim that it is not rationally required to have objective, rational evidence for our basic beliefs and stance toward life

Monotheism

The claim that one God created the world and sustains it while transcending it

Fideism

The claim that religious belief must be based on faith alone and cannot be justified by appeal to either objective or subjective reasons

Agnosticism

The claim that there is not enough evidence for us to know whether God does or does not exist; sometimes religious skepticism

Three of the following four concepts are directly related to the Ontological Argument for God's existence. Which concept does not belong?

The concept of cause and effect

Problem of Evil

The difficulty of reconciling the existence of suffering and other evils in the world with the existence of God.

Which of the following would be instances of fine-tuning as it is described in the text? (Mark all that apply.)

The force of gravitation is just so as to allow stars to form without collapsing on themselves. The strong nuclear force is just so as to allow elements to form. The energy state of the universe immediately after the big bang was just so as to cause the universe to expand at just the right rate to allow matter to coalesce.

Which of the following are examples of attacks that critics make against fine-tuning arguments, according to the text? (Mark all that apply.)

The mathematics of probability cannot function when dealing with possible universes, since we don't know how many possible universes there are or whether some are more probable than others. It is possible that most or even all possible values of the various constants of the universe are actually realized and that, therefore, there exist multiple universes, possibly an infinite number of them, so that it is not surprising at all that at least one of them would have intelligent life.

Principle of Sufficient Reason

The principle that everything that exists must have a reason that explains why it exists and why it has the properties that it does.

Natural Theology

The project of attempting to provide proofs for the existence of God based on reason and experience alone

Natural Evil

The suffering of humans and animals resulting from natural causes such as genetic defects, disease, earthquakes, etc.

Pascal's Wager is best summarized by which of the following?

There is more to gain and less to lose by believing in God.

A priori arguments are based on reason alone and not data obtained from experience.

True

A theodicy is an attempt to justify God's permitting of evil to occur.

True

According to Kierkegaard, there is a difference between knowing about God and having faith in him.

True

According to Pascal, deciding whether or not to believe in God is not an optional decision.

True

According to the text, Blaise Pascal and William James believed that there was no practical difference between being an atheist and being an agnostic.

True

All versions of the cosmological argument contain the claim that the universe is not self-explanatory.

True

An evidentialist is one who claims that belief in God must be supported by objective evidence.

True

Anselm assumes that existence is a property that makes a being greater.

True

Based on the definitions offered in the text, it is possible for an atheist to be an evidentialist.

True

Fideism is one form of nonevidentialism.

True

Consider the following claims. Which does not directly attack Aquinas's causal version of the Cosmological Argument for God's existence?

Uncaused beings or events are possible.

Kalam Cosmological Argument

Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The Universe began to exist. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

For Kierkegaard, we can gain a sense of our authentic self only when

we stand before an infinite God who knows us as we are.

Kierkegaard's view on the relationship between faith and reason is that

when faith and reason conflict, faith should be given the priority over reason.

In his argument for God, William Paley uses the analogy of

a watch found upon the ground.

The principle of sufficient reason states that

everything that exists must have a reason that explains its existence and its properties.

Soren Kierkegaard's position is an example of

fideism

Anselm's argument may be viewed as a reductio ad absurdum argument because

he begins with a premise that is the opposite of what he wants to prove and shows that it leads to a contradiction.

W.K. Clifford's story of the shipowner was intended to make the point that

it is always wrong to believe anything on insufficient evidence.

A criticism of the cosmological argument mentioned in the text is

it seems possible that there could be an infinite series of causes. the uncaused cause of the universe could be matter and energy. it makes no sense to say the existence of something is necessary. all of the above.

Pascal's, James', and Kierkegaard's position on faith and reason could be best described as

nonevidentialism.

Another name for agnosticism is

religious skepticism

C. S. Lewis's Natural Order defense claims that

suffering results from the laws of nature, which are necessary if there is to be human freedom at all.

In the reading, C.S. Lewis argues that

suffering results from the laws of nature, which are necessary if there is to be human freedom at all.

Natural evil consists of

terrible events such as tornadoes that are produced by nature.

In his refutation of the teleological argument, David Hume argues that

the analogy between human creations and the universe is weak. we have no other universe with which to compare this one. it supports the conclusion that God has all the limitations of human creators. all of the above.

The teleological argument claims that the existence of God is needed to account for

the apparent design in the universe.

Natural theology is

the attempt to prove God's existence on the basis of reason and experience alone.

According to William James, an essential condition for an act of faith to be a reasonable option is when

the decision one way or the other is unavoidable.

The teleological argument argues for the existence of God on the basis of

the evidence of design in the universe.

Which of the following does not play a central role in Aquinas' "first cause" version of the cosmological argument?

the idea that existence in reality is greater than existence just in the understanding

In his parable about the two worshipers, Kierkegaard says that the worshiper who is genuinely in the truth is

the one who prays to a false idol with utmost passion.

Gaunilo's point concerning the island is that

the ontological argument could be used to prove the necessary existence of a perfect island.

Which of the following most accurately completes the statement? According to the Cosmological Argument from contingency,

there are both contingent and necessary beings.

The free will defense assumes that

there are some things that are logically impossible for God to do.

Pascal's discussion of gambling and religious belief is intended to show that

there is more to gain and less to risk in believing in God.

An agnostic is someone who claims that

there is not sufficient evidence to support either theism or atheism.