Exam board: OCR Religious Studies (Year 1). A01 focused notes and several evaluative essay plans for the Arguments for the Existence of God based on Observation part of the Philosophy of Religion paper. I have consistently achieved A*s in Religious Studies by using these as revision. Please reach ...
ARGUMENTS BASED ON OBSERVATION: COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
A POSTERIORI
Synthetic statement: Based on evidence found from observation
Inductive reasoning: Probable conclusions
PRIME MOVER IS GOD?
Aristotelian notion of an Unmoved Mover, external to contingent beings that causes motion
in the Universe
FIRST WAY
There is a first Mover, which initiates change but is not itself changed.
Unmoved Mover
SECOND WAY
God is the Efficient Cause or “Uncaused Causer” of the universe
God can’t be changed
THIRD WAY
God is pure Necessity, and we are Contingent being’s dependent on him
If everything we observe is contingent, then the explanation for the existence of the
universe would seem to lie outside it
Other Necessary beings cannot be God, as they are finite and, in a series,
That thing that is external to Contingent beings is a Pure Necessary being, that is God
INFINITE REGRESS
Cause and Effect cannot just be it needs to be caused by something external to it
External First Cause because otherwise it would be Contingent
First Cause does not need to be Caused
Criticism: Depends on itself as an explanation, which is a fallacy
LEIBNIZ
Principle of Sufficient Reason: There is REASONING behind why things are the way they are;
there is always an explanation. That explanation of the world is God creating it
Example: Infinite geometry books copied from one another. Whilst we can explain the
contents of a current edition, we cannot explain why the books exist at all.
RUSSELL’S OBJECTION
Fallacy of Composition: Inferring whole from one small observation
Rationalist viewpoint criticizing Third Way
Just because every individual man has a mother, doesn’t mean the human race as a whole
has a mother
The Universe itself could be a necessary being
COPLESTON
The universe is contingent, and contingent things need an explanation
That explanation CANNOT be infinite regress, so it must be a Necessary entity
, HUME
Logically false: All statements about God existing are synthetic, and therefore PROBABLE
ARGUMENTS FROM OBSERVATION: TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
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