1. The ontological argument

(1) Since God is conceived to be omnipotent, he is a perfect being.
(2) A perfect being is defined as one whose essence or nature lacks no attributes or properties in every respect.
∴ Thus, God exists. For if God lacked the attribute of existence, he would be lacking at least one attribute, and would therefore not be perfect. To sum up, since we have an idea of God as a perfect being, God must exist. (Saint Anselm of Canterbury)

Critique
It is a confusion to say that existence is an attribute. Kant’s example: when we think of $100 we are thinking of the nature of this sum of money; but the nature of $100 remains the same whether we have $100 in our pockets or not. So, the word “existence” does not signify any attribute and the idea of a perfect being does not involve the attribute of existence as a constituent of that idea. The ontological argument thus has a serious leak.

2. Cosmological arguments

The argument from motion – 1st way

(1) Some things are in motion.
(2) In the natural order, whatever moves is moved by something else.
(3) It is impossible for something to move itself.
(4) An infinite regress of motion is impossible.
∴ Therefore, there must be a First mover. This is God. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

The argument from efficient causation – 2nd way

(1) Every event must have a cause.
(2) Hence, an event A must have as cause some event B, which in turn must have a cause C, and so on.
(3) But if there is no end to this regress, an infinite series of actual events is unintelligible and absurd.
∴ Hence, there must be first cause, and this first cause is God, the initiator of all change in the universe. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Critique

If everything must have a cause, why does not God require one for His own existence? If God can be self-caused or moved, why cannot the world itself be self-caused or moved?
On the other hand, those who say that an infinite series of regressive causes is absurd are not familiar with the modern mathematical analysis of infinity.

The argument from possibility and necessity – 3rd way

(1) Contingent beings may or may not exist.
– from (1), we can deduce that it is logically possible that, at one time, no contingent beings existed.
– But contingent beings exist now.
(2) Therefore, something must have caused these contingent beings to exist.
(3) This “something” must be a necessary being or a series of necessary beings.
(4) An infinite regress of necessary beings is impossible.
∴ Therefore, there must be a 1st necessary being who causes the other necessary beings to exist and who is self-caused. This is God. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Critique

Coplestone argues that God exists proposing cosmological argument from possibility and necessity, while Russel defends an agnostic position. He wants to suspend judgement about God’s existence. According to Coplestone, contingent beings lead us to necessary beings. Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason: if x exists, there there is a sufficient explanation for why x exists. What we have is contingent beings that do not have a sufficient reason for existing themselves. Why the totality of contingent beings exists? Only the postulation of God will explain the series of contingent things.

According to Russel, this argument fails because a necessary proposition has to be analytic, but not synthetic:

  • A proposition is analytic iff its truth can be determined by the meaning of the nonlogical terms in the proposition or by virtue of its logical connectives. E.g. Irrational animals are animals, p v ∼ p. It’s self-contradictory to deny, necessarily true, could not have been otherwise.
  • A proposition is synthetic iff it is meaningful but not analytic. E.g. There are animals. It could be otherwise, not necessarily true.

So, Russel does not admit the idea of a necessary being and does not admit that there is any particular meaning in calling other beings “contingent”.

Moreover, Russel does not see any reason whatsoever to suppose that the total has any cause whatsoever. His illustration of this fallacy is as follows.
Every man who exists has a mother, but it does not follow that the human race should have mother. That’s a different logical sphere. The world is simply there.

Coplestone insists that if we considered that the total does not have any reason, science would not exist. Science assumes that there is order and intelligibility in nature. Otherwise, it would not look for causes when investigating nature. Russel replies that scientists do not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. They just observe causal relations between things. For instance, scientists cannot give explanation of pre Big Bang period.

Hence, Russel’s position is that it is illegitimate even to ask the question of the cause of the world, since we first should specify the logical and meaningful properties of God and then ask empirical questions. Otherwise, it is not a meaningful question. In a similar way, Flew defends antitheist position. He argues that there is no legitimate debate since the theistic position is meaningless. The argument is built from the perspective of the Carnap’s theory of meaning. If one claims that God exists, he/she should make a meaningful and verifiable assertion. One should clarify what the world would look like if God existed so that we could verify its properties . Otherwise, a claim looks like synthetic a-posteriori, but not verifiable. For instance, how does invisible, intangible Gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?

3. Teleological arguments

The argument from gradation – 4th way

(1) In the natural order, things possess various degrees of a given attribute.
(2) The terms “more” or “less” make sense only if something is the maximum in a genus.
(3) The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus.
∴ Therefore, something must be the maximum of goodness, power and other perfections. This is God. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

The argument from design – 5th way

(1) Different things and processes in the world are integrated with each other.
(2) Different things and processes which lack knowledge act for an end or goal.
(3) Things with goals, act with design.
∴ This mutual fitness of things can be explained only by the assumption of a divine architect who planned the world and everything in it. Some intelligent being does direct unintelligent, natural things toward goals. This is God. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Critique

The conclusion of this argument is based on the following analogy. If we find a watch in some deserted spot, we do not think it came into existence by chance, and we do not hesitate to conclude that an intelligent creature designed and made it. The watch and world are alike. If the watch has a watch-maker, hence the world has world maker. One of the objections to this inference from analogy is construed in the following way. The natural system does not work like the mechanism of watch. It does not come from that if there is an order in nature, it requires an existence of the Designer. The order could be explained by the process of evolution, in which the variety of biological species, and their adaptations to their environments invoke no creator or acts of special creature. Nevertheless, the problem of this objection is that the Creator could make the mechanism that would cause a biological adaptation.

4. Kant’s justification of the categorical imperative

Nagel considers Kant’s Deontology as an introduction of God who makes us subjects not only of physical laws, but also of moral laws. These moral laws are categorical imperatives, which we must accomplish because we are autonomous moral agents. For instance, one of the imperatives is to act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. So, we are concerned with rational order. However, we should have some reward for being virtuous, since virtue does not always reap happiness. Kant believed that the highest human good is the realization of happiness, while being virtuous. But what can guarantee that the highest good is realizable? Such guarantee can be found only in God, who must therefore exist if the highest good is not to be an imaginary idea. Thus, God is a necessary condition for the possibility of a moral life.

Critique

During the debate with Russell, Copleston suggests that we have some sort of understanding of moral ideal. The recognition of this ideal moral order is part of the recognition of contingency of human beings. It implies the existence of a real foundation of God. In reply to this argument, Russell asserts that the law-giver has always been one’s parents or someone like. External customs and taboos can most easily be explained through environment and education.

5. Mystical and religious experiences

A proof of God’s existence is found in the occurrence of certain distinctive experiences when a person hears, for example, the voice of Christ.

Critique

The problem with these well-attested facts is that they don’t constitute evidence for the conclusion based on them. Evidence should be obtained under controlled conditions and that can be confirmed repeatedly by independent inquiries. Otherwise, the argument is abductive when conclusion is inferred through simplification of causes. It is not necessary that God is the cause of the experience. It might be hallucination caused by intoxicating substances like drugs or restrictive states such as depression, starvation, schizophrenia etc.

6. The problem of evil

The theologian would not deny that the fact of pain counts against the assertion that God loves men. If he does, why the world suffers from wars, catastrophes or natural disasters? Why does not he save dying people? We cannot say that would like to help but cannot: God is omnipotent. We cannot say that he would help if he knew: God is omniscient. So, God does not have any excuses as Stranger did in a parable “Parable of the Friend at Night”. It is about a friend who did not want to help his neighbor because of midnight and the inconvenience of it. Only persistent demands convince the friend to show his hospitality.

Mitchel wants to defend Christian doctrine, asserting that a Christian is committed by his faith to trust in God. Drawing an analogy between God and stranger, Mitchel accepts that faith is a challenge for the Christian to meet experiences that tell against this faith. So God is like stranger from the parable who tests our faith and demonstrates that we should not give up.

Bibliography:

  • Antony Flew, R. M. Hare & Basil Mitchell, Theology and falsification: the University discussion, in New Essays in Philosophical Theology. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
  • Anselm, St., Proslogion, in St. Anselm’s Proslogion, M. Charlesworth (ed.), Oxford: OUP, 1965. 
  • Aquinas, T., Summa Theologica, 1272, literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, London: Burn, Oates & Washbourne, 1920.
  • Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston Debate the Existence of God, 1948, in Reality in Focus: contemporary readings on metaphysics / edited by Paul K. Moser, Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1990
  • Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, 1787, second edition, translated by N. Kemp-Smith, London: Macmillan, 1933.
  • Nagel, Ernest, A Defense of Atheism in Reality in Focus: contemporary readings on metaphysics / edited by Paul K. Moser, Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1990