Response to “On Being an Atheist” Ida Hart PHIL 201 – B30 LUO Dr. David Beck McCloskey’s article, “On Being an Atheist” contains arguments that he uses to explain Atheism, the non-existence of God. Using the claims made by theists and attempting to taint the character and nature of the Christian God, he points out what he calls several defects of the arguments. In his introduction he offers a brief reminder to fellow atheist stating the grounds and the inadequacies of these grounds for theism. He later calls them “proofs”, alleging that the proofs do not provide adequate justification for believing that God exists. This only proves that he is among the many that choose to use the arguments in the wrong way. He, along with others …show more content…
McCloskey’s claim that you need, “to get the proof going, genuine indisputable examples of design and purpose are needed” (McCloskey, 52), is not reasonable. McCloskey’s alluding to the probability of certain examples of purpose and design as the work of a powerful, malevolent, or imperfect planner or designer causes it to be disputable, (McCloskey, 52). Evans and Manis purposes an example of a design that proves the existence of a designer of the universe. The analogical version confronts the argument stating that some objects exists to serve the other, thereby fulfilling a proposed goal. I suggest that materials which are intelligently combined together are types of manmade machinery that comes from an intelligent design, (Evans and Manis, p. …show more content…
McCloskey argues, “No being who was perfect could have created a world in which there was unavoidable suffering or in which his creatures would (and in fact could have been created so as not to) engage in morally evil acts, acts which very often result in injury to innocent persons.” (McCloskey, 56). The argument is based on the assumption, that for God to exist and be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent there should be no evil since He would have the power to eliminate it. “It does not seem to be true…that a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can. What is true, perhaps, is that a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can without the loss of a greater good or the allowance of a worse evil,” (Evans ad Manis, p. 160). If evil was to be eliminated, this would be probable cause for the elimination of the human race, considering it is the source that commits this evil out of their free will. Evil exists, as the opposite of good, and without both, there would be no evil or good (unbalance as some considers it). It is important to appreciate the fact that the opposite of something helps in understanding the meaning for its exact
The conclusion, thus, is that Nature was created by intelligent design. This argument is the centerpiece of Paley’s “Argument from Design”, as he spends the previous two sections deliberately lining the specifics of a watch, the clear order a watch follows, and that there must be a creator for a watch. In this section, he puts forward an analogy that nature is like a watch in that both have specific orders and contrivances which thus mean that both were created by an intelligent
I have to admit that Zimmerman’s talk was hard at times for me to comprehend. I would love feedback if I understood his divine argument wrong, because I have had a few discussions about it with my peers and many took away different views from his final argument for a divine being, and in this paper I will explain how I understood his final argument. To come upon the divine being of God, he had to eliminate all the other contingent and necessary options believed by other philosophers and scientists through reasoning. He explained how it wasn’t possible for their to be no answer for the cosmos, nor were any of the contingent explanations of science, philosophy, or an infinite past made any sense.
On the teleological argument, McCloskey’s claim that “to get the proof going, genuine indisputable examples of design and purpose are needed” is not reasonable. Why does one side of the equation need examples and the other does not, is not a fair assessment of a problem. There should always be examples to prove that each side is disputable or undisputable for the premise. A person can assume that a statement is true but that does not make the argument true and in all fairness why would that argument be considered true without some type of proof. The teleological argument is to show probability of theism, exhibit purpose of order, design and infer that the cause must be an intelligent
William Paley’s argument from design starts off with a man seeing a watch on the side of the road. The argument is whether or not someone designed the watch, or if the watch randomly just showed up there itself by random chance. He makes an analogy of watches and humans. He says that since there is a designer that made the watch, there must be a designer that made us humans. The reason that he compares watches to humans is that is because they are both complex and have parts that work very well together.
God can't guarantee that that world won't contain evil. All evil in the world is the result of free actions by created creatures and there is no possible world God could have created that contains a better balance of both moral good and evil. The Free Will Defense concludes that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good, and God creates free men who sometimes preform morally evil actions is not contradictory or necessarily false. "It is possible that God, even being omnipotent, could not create a world with free creatures who never choose evil.
McCloskey makes a statement that in order, “to get proof going, genuine indisputable examples of design or purpose are needed” (McCloskey, 1968). He holds his standard of indisputability to a high claim. In order for McCloskey to ask a theist for indisputable evidence of the existence of a Creator, I believe that there must be evidence from his own theory that is indisputable. This reminds me of a class I had in community college that was about Critical Thinking. My professor told me that I could no argue my religious foundation because it was based off of opinion and not known fact.
It is evident evil exists but it is not clear whether God exists. The purpose of Mackie’s and Plantinga’s argument is to prove whether or not God exist based on the existence of evil. Mackie does not agree on the existence of God and uses philosophy to prove it. He believes that there is no rational evidence that
One of the many inquiries that have been pondered throughout time has been the question of God’s existence. McCloskey was an atheistic philosopher that denied the existence of God and gave certain “proofs” to verify his absence. Two of the main arguments that theistic philosophers use are the cosmological and the theological arguments. McCloskey takes these arguments and uses his “proofs” against them to disprove God. Although the cosmological and the theological argument do not prove that God is an absolute being, these arguments use certain reasons and evidence to support and build a claim that God does exist.
The Design Argument The question of whether God truly exists has been debated between believers and non-believers for centuries. Also known as the Teleological Argument, the Design Argument argued by William Paley states that there are so many intricate details and designs in our world that there must be a creator. In addition, it also argues that this world could not have been created by chance alone due to the characteristics that make it the perfect condition for human life to exist (Pecorino). In this essay, I will be giving a brief overview of what the Design Argument is, then providing evidence and reasoning in favor of the argument, then addressing the criticisms of the argument, then comparing both sides of the argument, then finally
“The Problem of Evil” is simply the question, why does God allow evil to happen? God is omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving, and rational, therefore why does evil exist? There is either no God or he is not what we think he is, since evil could be prevented by him with no risk. Atheists and anti-theodicist see a problem with the idea that God could prevent evil. They believe that because God is so powerful and perfect, that he would not allow such immoral actions to be done.
Questioning if God is not omnipotent, the entire idea of God creating the world can be called into question. Another issue is that if it is said that God is no longer entirely good there is the possibility to say that God has evil or bad intentions, and we should denounce him. Lastly, if one says that evil does not exist, then there is no possible way to separate those people who are considered to be deviants of society. This would mean that those who commit crimes that are evil in nature like murder and rape would be considered to be normal and acceptable.
God acts with purpose, as can be seen in the book of gensis and the Creation stories. Outside of Aquinas’ Five Ways to prove God’s existence, the most key arguments that Aquinas puts forth are due to the analogical way humans speak about God. The univocal and equivocal nature in which humans use theological language to describe God Himself is an essential component to understanding God’s existence. Neither univocal nor equivocal descriptions can truly encompass the analogous relationship humans have with
The traditional claim of all Cosmological Arguments is defined as “something outside the universe is responsible to explain the existence of the universe” (PowerPoint 380). In the “causal argument,” or the First Cause Argument on the cosmological argument, “something” outside of the universe that is supposed to inform us about the existence of the universe is argued to be explained as God. As the first cause argument goes into depth and with the help of Thomas Aquinas, it is easy to see how God is responsible for explaining the existence of the universe around us. Within the first cause argument on the cosmological argument the following premises and conclusions are discussed: Premise 1: There exists things that are caused. Meaning that
Argument Because of imperfections in the world and humanity, evil exists. God created humanity to be imperfect; Therefore, God and evil co-exist. Hick’s theodicy states that in order for humanity to improve on their soul and growth, we need pain and suffering to aid us in this process. He suggests that evil and God can co-exist since
Who made the world we live in? This question has been debated for thousand of years and it is been the main fuel in many philosophers work. The Teleological Argument for God's Existence also known as the argument from design; it is the argument that our world and the universe surrounding it are complex that it was not created by accident, it was however designed by a intelligent designer. In 1802, William Paley created his analogical version of the teleological argument using an analogy of a watch. According to Ernest Nagel, Teleological argument is based on empirical evidence.