Class Summary 2/18

Subject 1: Medieval Cosmological Arguments

Medieval Cosmological Arguments deal with the principle “existence to get essence.” In these arguments, God is viewed as the essential cause, or formal cause. The cause of existence can best be described as “sheer existence subsisting of his very nature.” All other things share in the existence of God. This is the same cause that does not account for why things are like this or like that, but that they exist at all. The example that was given in class is fire. Fire is the hottest, and the cause of heat is everything else. We can have an infinite cause on a cat. However, its identity/form is finite or limited. For example, we can follow a cat’s evolutionary pattern back to the saber-tooth tiger, but its physical composition is finite.

Subject 2: Evaluating Cosmological Arguments

1. Why should we suppose that the beginnings of existence need a cause?

2. Why should we accept that the universe had a beginning?

3. Why is it absurd to suppose that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes?

4. Why is cause always necessary?

5. Can the universe just be there?

Subject 3: Design Arguments

While Cosmological arguments deal with the fact that the world exists, Design arguments pertain to the world’s certain features. These features suggest mind or intelligence and encompass:

1. Why the world seems ordered vs. random

2. Teleogical (The doctrine that final cause exists.)

3. Regularity (Are people born from people?)

Subject 4: History of Design Argument

1. Plato – Demiurgos

2. Cicero: “What could be more clear or obvious when we look up to the sky and contemplate the heavens, than that there is some divinity or superior intelligence?”

3. Aquinas described that nature is ruled by an “intellect” which gives order to nature.

4. Aristotelian Causes- material (such as cups), efficient (parents of a cat), formal (why a cat acts the way it acts, and final (medicine).

5. -Final Causation is something found in nature.

-Newton, Boyle-“We live in a context not a chaos”

Subject 5: Problems with Design

1. Is there really a resemblance between the universe and things made by human beings?

2. Human designers are finite, why then could the world’s designer be finite?

3. Human things are often constructed via many people, could there not be any Gods then?

4. Is this God too anthropomorphic?

5. Temporary Construction

6. Is order only a product of the human mind?

Subject 6: Ontological Argument

- The meaning of God makes God an absolutely necessary being

- Once we understand what a triangle means, we realize we cannot imagine one with four sides. If we understand what God means, we can’t imagine him/her.

Subject 7: Proslogian

1. The word God signifies “Something which nothing greater can be thought

2. Gaunilo: “For I would still not admit, indeed I would doubt or deny, that this is greater than any real thing. Neither would I grant it any other existence be than you have when the mind, on the basis of a word one only hears, tries to imagine something it has no knowledge of. For I deny or doubt that it is in my intellect or thought in any greater measure than are many dubious and uncertain things.”

3. Gaunilo’s Perfect Island Principle: “If one were to try to prove to me that this island in truth exists and its existence should no longer be questioned, either I would think he was joking or I would not know whether to consider him or me the greater fool, me for conceding his argument or him for supposing he had established with any certainty such an island’s existence without first showing such excellence to be real and its existence indubitable rather than just a figment of my understanding, whose existence is uncertain.”