Thursday, October 31, 2013
God -- Or Some Lesser Designer
In Chapter V, Philo devises several arguments that accept that the universe has a designer, but deny that that designer is God. Given our traditional definition that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, is Philo correct? Or is there a response to his arguments? Does it matter if the designer is the traditional God?
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Cleanthes makes two claims that come into effect in part V. The first claim is that the proportion of one’s belief should be proportional to the degree of one’s evidence. The second argument claims that the universe and human machinery resemble one another therefore their creators must resemble one another. The following are the arguments laid out by Philo. In a way, some of Philo’s arguments can be applied to Christian views on the tripartite God.
ReplyDeleteThe first objection, the infinite cause, argues that there is no evidence that the universe is infinite and it is fact that humans are mortal. Therefore with regard to the design argument and the evidence based approach, it cannot be concluded that the creator of the universe is infinite. One part of the Christian God is Jesus. Jesus is a mortal being. It is possible that Jesus is the part of the traditional God that is finite, and Philo’s conclusion isn’t far off by saying that God must be finite.
The second objection says that there is no evidence that our universe is perfect. Also, humans are not perfect, and our inventions surely are flawed. Thus, it cannot be concluded based on the design argument and the use of an evidence based approach, that the creator of the world is perfect.
The third objection, unity, states that there’s no reason to believe that the world has only one creator. Human objects are commonly created by multiple individuals. Based on the similar effect similar cause argument, it would be more plausible to conclude that there are multiple creators of the universe. Since there are three parts to the Christian God, it can be argued that the creation of the universe was a collaborative effort. Jesus is on Earth, God is in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit is in our hearts. All three parts control a different part of the universe.
Lastly, if similar effects have similar causes, there is no reason to state that the creator does not have a body. All living things on this planet reproduce asexually or sexually. Hence, the creator of the universe could have a human body and reproduced to create this universe. Jesus is the part of God that has a body and the ability to reproduce. Jesus was the son of a mortal woman and God. Therefore, God reproduced with a woman to create another part of himself on Earth.
Theism is defined as the belief that at least one God exists. Over time, this word has been defined as the belief in only one omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being. Ultimately, even if Philo’s objection cannot be fully applied to monotheistic religions of today, Philo’s objections contain everything needed to name him a theist and keep a belief in “God.”
It is not necessary that God be all of these things to maintain a belief in some creator. The danger comes when people believe in hell and heaven, which requires a belief that God has certain characteristics. For those, who may not have a strong faith to begin with, Philo’s conclusion about the designer would be sufficient to get atheist and agnostics to change their minds. Philo gives the best argument towards God’s existence, because it uses evidence to prove the existence of some type of creator.
Philo’s concept of God, if God exists, is completely different than the traditional concept of God. Philo actually has good sense in his arguments because, as he points out, we don’t have evidence that God is the traditional God. Rather, there are many possibilities for what God could be like which we must take into account. God need not be an infinite being because we do not know if the universe is infinite. It is also vain of us to assume that our universe is perfect because this would require our universe to be a creation made by a perfect designer. There is a possibility that God is not perfect and instead made the universe by accident or stole the plans from another god, so this is not necessarily true either. We also have no basis for the claim that there is only one God and that God does not have a well-defined physical body like humans. Essentially, we have no evidence for any claims we make about God, and our traditional concept of God is all wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt does not matter if the designer of the universe is not the traditional God because the universe was created by whatever God there is. Human opinion of God also does not matter because the universe already exists, and there is no reason to believe that the universe will stop existing if humans stop believing in a traditional God. The idea of a traditional God has nothing to do with the makeup of the universe but rather has to do with how humans live their lives and what they expect the afterlife to be like. To simplify the idea of God greatly, God’s omniscience and omnipotence are motivations for people to behave well since God knows what everyone does and can punish people if they misbehave. God’s omnibenevolence is a reassurance that if people do behave badly there is still a possibility of redemption. Therefore, in my opinion, the only relevance of the traditional idea of God is as a method of maintaining social order and making people be nice to one another.
In Chapter V, Philo lays out the “design argument” to prove the existence of God. He essentially makes a comparison between a machine and the universe, using inductive reasoning to argue that as the universe is like a machine, it must have an intelligent maker possessing an intellect proportional to the grandness of the universe. He starts by establishing that the universe is like a machine and contains an infinite number of lesser machines. The way these machines, and therefore the universe, is designed mirrors the way the human minds designs machines. Therefore, there must be some intelligent maker responsible for the creation of the universe, just as intelligent humans are responsible for the designs of machines; yet, because of the large scale of the world and its machines, the creator must have a power proportionate to this grandeur. So, there must be an intelligent designer of the universe that resembles the human mind but on a very large scale. Therefore, God exists.
ReplyDeleteObjections can be raised to this argument, most of which attack the claim that this intelligent designer is our standard Judeo Christian God. Traditional religious texts of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths depict God as omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient. Yet, with Philo’s design argument there is no proof that the intelligent maker is any of these things. The most interesting objection raised, in my opinion, is that perhaps the universe was designed by a group of lesser beings whose combined intelligence was or is proportional to the grandeur of the world.
However, I do think Philo accomplishes a great feat in establishing some supreme being or group of beings as the creator of our universe. Although we can’t be sure this creator is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient, I cannot see it really making that much of a difference to the Judeo Christian world today, as the design argument (excluding the last premise) can neither prove nor disprove the intelligent maker’s omnipotence, omni-benevolence, or omniscience. The idea of God in and of itself acts as a powerful force to some and non-relevant hoopla to others. As Philo’s argument makes no claims to the intelligent maker’s possession of the characteristics most religious texts attribute to God, I believe each human will continue to perceive Him just as they did before, regardless of their conviction with Philo’s argument. Some will assert Philo’s argument does not prove the existence of God, just some ultimate creating force; some may assert it defines a creator and just hasn't managed to take the last step towards defining that creator as God; others even, may dismiss Philo’s argument entirely. All in all, as much as I believe Philo accomplishes a great deal merely in establishing a creator, this notion does not have a massive impact on the arguments for the existence/nonexistence of God, because in a way, it can be spun for either side and viewpoints likely will not change.
I believe that while Philo is on the right track, he doesn't entirely have the full picture.
ReplyDeleteIn the first place, Philo is correct in saying that there is no traditional god. The "traditional god" of which he speaks in that of a big old dude (or multiple) with a white beard and robes in the sky who speaks to prophets and whatnot. Especially in modern times, we have long outgrown that notion, for the most part. Philo argues that this view of god is not the case, but rather the idea of god is some underlying, more subtle thing. I say "thing" and not "being" because the god of which he speaks is not exactly an anthropomorphic being, but rather an all-encompassing force that compels the world. Philo is correct in believing this because it is so far-fetched to the point of almost being silly to believe that god must be a human-like being that commands and orchestrates the universe like a puppeteer. It is a more elegant and believable to say that the universe is willed along by some unseen force that does not have a physical form.
This argument begs the question, however: "What is gravity?" Is gravity not an unseen force that does not have a physical form? Can one not categorize the electromagnetic force with that definition as well? Looking at the bigger picture by this definition, scientific theory in itself is the god that Philo speaks about. It is the all-encompassing force that drives the universe – something that Isaac Newton and many other physicists have worked to discover for centuries. In modern science, string theory is the emerging scientific theory. This basically suggests that string theory is god, which is pretty awesome.
Philo presents many objections to the arguments of Cleanthes, specifically against the idea that God is a perfect entity that is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent. Philo is in a sense correct, since Cleanthes has the burden of proof. In other words, if you cannot sufficiently prove your side of an argument by eliminating all other possibilities, then it is not a sound argument. Keeping this in mind, let us examine what refutations Philo suggests. First, he argues that there is no evidence that God is a singular body. Just like a machine could have been created by multiple people, the machine of the universe could have equally been created by a team of deities. This thus eliminates the need for each God to be perfect, rather as a collective they are. Another objection is that God is simply all powerful, and randomly created the universe. This eliminates the design argument, for God could now be a complete idiot. Lastly, the Philo suggests the analogy isn’t necessarily correct. He says that it could be something like an animal or a plant, rather than a person who creates a device. He believes Cleanthes uses poor inductive reasoning.
ReplyDeleteThere is no clear response to this argument, or at least none that Cleanthes proposes. However, in actuality it does not matter if these two factors are true. The designer does not necessarily have to be the traditional God. In these both cases, there is at the very least an all-powerful and all-good being pivotal to the argument. This alone means there has to be a God, thus upholding the main objective of Hume. This supports natural theology. Furthermore, there is still the distinct possibility that God is indeed how Hume originally describes him. Like I stated in the beginning, since neither side can clearly propose a definitive description, it is fair to believe in an equal potential across the board.