- Virtue is the root of ‘practical wisdom’.
- Defined ‘good’ as: emotion, intention, desire, imagination.
St. Augustine (AD 354 – 430)
- Christian, bishop of Hippo Regius (now in Algeria)
- Pursuit of truth: immorality of the soul, problem of evil, language and learning.
- Agreed with Plato on ‘three natures’:
- Bodies, limited in time + space
- Souls, limited in time, not space
- God, limited in neither.
- Saw God as not only the source of everything inc. knowledge. Evidence of philosophical development of ‘epistemology’ (study of nature, structure, interaction of knowledge).
- Free will important – for God to reward / punish people.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1224 – 1274)
- Lot of written work – ‘Summa Theologica’ (‘Summation of Theology’) left unfinished
- 4 months before death, religious experience while saying Mass – never wrote again.
- Felt that Aristotle’s system of logic + ethics was compatible with Christianity.
- 2 routes to God: divine revelation; human reasoning.
- Acknowledged superiority of revelation in ‘finding’ God, the same could eventually be found through reason.
- Did not accept ‘God Exists’ as self-evident, it is a proposition that requires demonstration.
René Descartes (1596 – 1650)
- Sought a ‘firm principal of philosophy’ that could not be doubted.
- Doubted everything and would not accept empirical evidence to prove something true.
- Our senses can deceive us and the only certainty was doubt.
- Could not doubt thoughts: ‘I think, therefore I am’ (cogito ergo sum) – he had proved his own existence but not the existence of the outside world. Therefore he needed to prove the existence of God – as God is perfect and would now allow deception.
- If God existed and had created the world, we can accept the reality of the external world’s existence.
The Classical Argument for Design (in summary)
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The design argument for God = the teleological argument. Telos (Greek) = end / purpose
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It is an a posteriori argument. It is based on observation of the apparent order in the universe and natural world, to conclude that it is not the result of mere chance, but design.
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The evidence from design points to a designer and the argument concludes that this designer is God. ‘With such signs of forethought in the design of living creatures, can you doubt they are the work of choice or design?’ (Socrates)
- The basic argument for design:
- The universe has order, purpose and regularity
- The complexity of the universe shows evidence of design
- Such design implies a designer
- The designer of the universe is God
- The argument makes the basic assumption that: there is order and design in the universe; and all things function to fulfill a specific purpose.
- Eg. The changing seasons, lifestyles of animals and birds, intricate organism of the human body + the perfect adaptation of its parts provide evidence of design.
- The design arguments are in 2 parts:
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Design qua regularity
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Design qua purpose
(Qua from Latin means: ‘as relating to’)
Design qua regularity and purpose – For coursework.info users, I include no notes on this, please research the basics.
David Hume
- Hume emerged as a major opponent of the design argument. His main reasons for opposing the argument included the following:
- Humans do not have sufficient knowledge + experience of the creation of the world to conclude one designer. We only have experience of what we can design + create, this limited experience is not sufficient to come to similar conclusions about the creation + design of the world.
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Even if the human experience of design was valid, the design argument would prove a designer of the universe, but not necessarily the God of Classical Theism. The design could be the work of several lesser gods or, alternatively, an apprentice god who has moved on to create bigger + better worlds: ‘This world, for all he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it.’
- There is no evidence to support this ‘benevolent’ God – the very existence of evil in the world would suggest a designer who is not benevolent or all-powerful.
- To try to discuss the design of the universe in human terms was not an acceptable analogy, because God transcends human understanding. If we use the analogy of manufactured objects, then it is more useful for a machine to be designed and made by many hands. This analogy would suggest many gods rather than one God.
- Hume dislikes the analogy of likening the universe to a vast machine. It is more like a vegetable or inert animal – something that grows of its own accord, rather than something made by hand.
This concludes the basic summary of the argument’s premises and a background of the contributory philosophers.