Observatory paper
It’s Not All Cut and Dry
In an age where we can access almost any information within seconds using amazing technology at our fingertips, there are few things that we accept without absolute proof. Religion is something that cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, which raises the question addressed in the debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens, is it more reasonable to believe in theology? Craig would argue that it is more reasonable to believe in God based on evidence supported by his five “topics of discussion”: cosmology, teleology, mortality, the resurrection of Jesus, and the immediate experience of God. Hitchens, on the other hand, does not believe that there is sufficient proof that a higher power is responsible for setting evolution in motion. This question has been relevant among philosophers and “civilains” since the creation. The difference between theism and atheism and which is more reasonable lies in the difference between being born and being made. Craig and a much earlier theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, have similar ideas about the idea of why it is more rational, and evident, that God exists. Aquinas maintains throughout the insert of his Summa Contra Gentiles, that there are that “these truths that make belief in God rational are beyond the realm of human reason, therefore, ‘it was necessary that the unshakeable certitude and pure truth concerning divine things should be presented to men by way of faith’” (Aquinas, 103). However, there is a thought provoking quote by Aquinas that allows me to believe that doubting some of these truths is also reasonable, “there is also the fact that, in youth, when the soul is swayed by the various movements of the passions, it is not in a suitable state for the knowledge of such lofty truth” (Aquinas, 102). This “statement” coming from a prominent theologian and man of science is a comfort to me because I do not agree that having doubts is wrong in the way that Hitchens makes them
In an age where we can access almost any information within seconds using amazing technology at our fingertips, there are few things that we accept without absolute proof. Religion is something that cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, which raises the question addressed in the debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens, is it more reasonable to believe in theology? Craig would argue that it is more reasonable to believe in God based on evidence supported by his five “topics of discussion”: cosmology, teleology, mortality, the resurrection of Jesus, and the immediate experience of God. Hitchens, on the other hand, does not believe that there is sufficient proof that a higher power is responsible for setting evolution in motion. This question has been relevant among philosophers and “civilains” since the creation. The difference between theism and atheism and which is more reasonable lies in the difference between being born and being made. Craig and a much earlier theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, have similar ideas about the idea of why it is more rational, and evident, that God exists. Aquinas maintains throughout the insert of his Summa Contra Gentiles, that there are that “these truths that make belief in God rational are beyond the realm of human reason, therefore, ‘it was necessary that the unshakeable certitude and pure truth concerning divine things should be presented to men by way of faith’” (Aquinas, 103). However, there is a thought provoking quote by Aquinas that allows me to believe that doubting some of these truths is also reasonable, “there is also the fact that, in youth, when the soul is swayed by the various movements of the passions, it is not in a suitable state for the knowledge of such lofty truth” (Aquinas, 102). This “statement” coming from a prominent theologian and man of science is a comfort to me because I do not agree that having doubts is wrong in the way that Hitchens makes them