Response to an Athiest Essay Example
Response to an atheist 1. McCloskey refers to the arguments as “proofs” and often implies that they can’t definitively establish the case for God, so therefore they should be abandoned. What would you say about this in light of my comments on the approaches to the arguments in the PointeCast presentation (Lesson 18)?
2. On the Cosmological Argument: McCloskey claims that the “mere existence of the world constitutes no reason for believing in such a being [i.e. a necessarily existing being].” The former is not a purely a priori argument, nor is it presented as such by its author Samuel Clarke (11 October 1675 – 17 May 1729) was an English philosopher and Anglican clergyman.. It starts from a fact and it often explicitly appeals to facts. The intelligence, for example, of the self-existence arid original cause of all things is, he says, "not easily proved a priori," but "demonstrably proved a posteriori from the variety and degrees of perfection in things, and the order of causes and effects, from the intelligence that created beings are confessedly endowed with, and from the beauty, order, and final purpose of things." The theses maintained in the argument are:
1. That something has existed from eternity
2. that there has existed from eternity some one immutable and independent being
3. that that immutable and independent being, which has existed from eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be self-existent, that is, necessarily existing
4. what the substance or essence of that being is, which is self-existent or necessarily existing, we have no idea, neither is it at all possible for us to comprehend it
5. that though the substance or essence of the self-existent being is itself absolutely incomprehensible to us, yet many of the essential attributee of his nature are strictly demonstrable as well as his existence, and, in the first place, that he must be of
2. On the Cosmological Argument: McCloskey claims that the “mere existence of the world constitutes no reason for believing in such a being [i.e. a necessarily existing being].” The former is not a purely a priori argument, nor is it presented as such by its author Samuel Clarke (11 October 1675 – 17 May 1729) was an English philosopher and Anglican clergyman.. It starts from a fact and it often explicitly appeals to facts. The intelligence, for example, of the self-existence arid original cause of all things is, he says, "not easily proved a priori," but "demonstrably proved a posteriori from the variety and degrees of perfection in things, and the order of causes and effects, from the intelligence that created beings are confessedly endowed with, and from the beauty, order, and final purpose of things." The theses maintained in the argument are:
1. That something has existed from eternity
2. that there has existed from eternity some one immutable and independent being
3. that that immutable and independent being, which has existed from eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be self-existent, that is, necessarily existing
4. what the substance or essence of that being is, which is self-existent or necessarily existing, we have no idea, neither is it at all possible for us to comprehend it
5. that though the substance or essence of the self-existent being is itself absolutely incomprehensible to us, yet many of the essential attributee of his nature are strictly demonstrable as well as his existence, and, in the first place, that he must be of