Friday, October 28, 2011
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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The theist that is presented in part V wants to believe that, through the design argument, God is infinite and perfect. However, the dialogue in this part suggests something different. First, I do not think that we can conclude that God’s attributes are infinite because we do not know if the universe is finite or infinite. Because we believe that the universe is not infinite, we CANNOT conclude that the creator of the universe is infinite. Therefore, the design argument does not prove that there is an infinite God. Next, we cannot prove that the designer of our universe is perfect. In class we talked about the idea of trial and error, it took many trials for our universe to be created, and we do not even know that it is currently perfect. It could be something much more complex. Therefore, it is possible that our designer is less than perfect. Even if our universe was perfect and as complex as it could ever be, it doesn’t prove the designer’s/God’s perfection; he may have gotten lucky or stumbled upon the creation of our universe after many errors and failures. Lastly, I do not think that we can validate the claim that there is only one God. Nowhere in the text, does it prove that the creation of our universe was the work of a single designer; it could have been a team effort. If, in fact, a team of designers created the universe, it only further proves my point that the designer is not perfect. A group can hide the flaws of an individual, even it that person was such a divine figure. In conclusion, I do not believe that what is presented in part V is completely valid and I can think of many flaws that could be presented in response to this portion of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
ReplyDeleteWhen considering the traditional view of God, I believe that Philo is correct in stating that God isn’t the creator of the universe for several reasons. The limits of our knowledge on the universe ultimately disprove the belief that God is not the designer of the universe. One reason is that, as of now, we have no way of proving if the universe is perfect or not. If there is no evidence to support the universe’s perfection, then it is considered false. This contradicts the traditional view of God as a supremely perfect being, which means that either God is not the creator OR God is not perfect, which supports Philo’s claim. Another reason is, like Josh said, we have no way of proving that the universe is infinite. Because we have no way of proving it, it must be considered false. If the universe is not infinite, than we have no way of proving that the creator is infinite. God is thought of as an infinite being, but because we don’t consider the universe infinite, God is either not the creator of the universe or God is not an infinite being. From these reasons we develop two conclusions: Philo was correct and God is not the designer of our universe; or Philo was incorrect and God did create our universe, but God is not a perfect being and thus the universe is not perfect.
ReplyDeleteIn Philo’s argument I agree that the God he describes is not the traditional God that we describe as a society. On page 29 Philo’s argument is argued with the cause of nature. The cause of nature had to have come from an idea of infinite ideas. But Philo states that God’s mind is not infinite because the earth is finite. Where I think Philo fails at in his argument is, we do not know when the universe or world will end. Who are we to say that the earth does not last for eternity and human life will always exist. I think that Philo cannot argue an argument that is uncertain with uncertain evidence. Rather God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent is not relative to the argument. The argument is just to prove that an intelligent being created the universe. Which is undeniable in my opinion because if something did not create matter how did it become to exist? The idea of a traditional God is not necessary to prove that some God created the universe. In my opinion I think the argument of God’s existence is not provable because of the contradicting evidence, also it is relative. The existence of god or what kind of God that created the universe is all upon our opinion and that cannot change without a substantial amount of evidence to prove either way. Philo cannot deny that there is something or some kind of intelligent human being out there that designed and craved the universe to what it is today.
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