1. EXISTENCE OF GOD You need to be able to…
List/give/describe the arguments for & against - KU
Explain/ evaluate/analyse the arguments for & against and whether they are strong/ effective/ useful - AE
Say to which extent you agree with the arguments and why - AE

2. Cosmological Argument or First Cause Argument
Brute Fact is the Universe exists.
AQUINAS:
Uncaused cause
Unmoved Mover
Possibility & Necessity
Leibniz added: There must be a reason things exist and are the way they are. That reason is God.

3. Arguments Against
HUME: The Schoolboy Objection
RUSSELL: Why does it need a cause?
The Big Bang
Science
BOHR: Quantum Physics
Hubble Telescope images
Red Shift Principle
Doppler Effect

4. Responses to arguments against
The Schoolboy Objection is irrelevant as God
in NOT contingent and NECESSARY
God could have created the Big Bang
Belief is SPIRITUAL not PHYSICAL and science cannot overcome that.
COPLESTON accuses Hume & Russell of not facing up to the question and
Answering a question with more questions:
Ockham’s Razor…

5. Teleological Argument or Design Argument
Telos means ‘purpose’
The Universe is undeniably complex.
Examples
Design
Or Chance?

6. PALEY’S Analogy
So…
AQUINAS’ Argument from Harmony : Can’t be chance species have ADAPTED e.g.
Fish need fins & tails
Dogs need sharp teeth

7. Anthropic Argument: Natural Laws such as The Laws of Gravity
and the conditions in The Goldilocks Zone
can’t have come about by CHANCE.
Reason & Faith
Reason says there is TOO much blind chance involved
Faith says proof is NOT needed now; God will reveal it one day

8. Aristotle’s Four Causes
Material cause - marble
Efficient Cause - craftsman
Formal Cause -skill
Final Cause – designer’s idea is driving other causes
God?

9. Arguments Against
Analogies can only give likelihood of something being true; they are not fact.
Criticism 1:Hume says Paley’s Analogy is weak;
compares mechanistic with organic.
Criticism 2:Hume asks why does designer have to be ‘God’. Why not
a team of designers
a junior designer
or an evil force?
ESPECIALLY SINCE>>>

10. Flaws in design
99% of species extinct
And
Lottery Fallacy argues that given enough time or tries, conditions would eventually be perfect for existence.

11. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
Supported by Richard Dawkins shows
Blind process of adaptation
Natural selection and
Survival of the fittest

12. Responses to criticisms
St Augustine said Genesis needn’t be
taken literally.
7 days could be 7 ages and slow evolution could have been God’s creation process
Tennant said evolution can’t explain man’s appreciation of…

13. The Problem of Suffering & Evil
God the creator…
He alone made the universe
All life relies on Him for existence (all life is contingent)
He relies on no other being for existence (God is not contingent)
God is…
Spiritual not physical
Omniscient (all knowing)
Omnipresent (present everywhere)
Omnipotent (all powerful)
Eternal (not created; always has and always will exist)
Benevolent (good, loving)

14. Evil exists
Natural
Moral

15. Arguments against
If God is
Present everywhere…does He not know about suffering?
All Knowing… why did He created a world with suffering?
All powerful… can’t He stop the suffering?
Loving… why does He let people suffer?
Dostoyevsky’s character Ivan Karamazov didn’t want anything to do with a God that let innocent children suffer.
Others decided He couldn’t exist.

16. Responses to arguments against
Free will defence theodicy
Adam & Eve root of all evil; the original sin
Not necessarily literal
Adam & Eve made wrong choice.
All suffering is from wrong human choices
If there wasn’t free will we would be…

17. God gives hope that one day suffering will end…
Without God and faith in Him, and what he has planned for us, what would be the purpose in life?

18. You need to be able to…
List/give/describe the arguments for & against - KU
Explain/ evaluate/ analyse the arguments for & against and whether they are strong/ effective/ useful - AE
Say to which extent you agree with the arguments and why