A Level RS

Gaunilo successfully defeats Anselm’s Ontological Argument. Discuss. [40]

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St Anselm presented his ontological argument in Proslogion books 2 and 3.  He began with a quotation from Psalm 14:1 “the fool says in his heart there is no God”, reasoning that existence is part of the definition of God, so that anybody who denies God’s existence is asserting a contradiction and so a fool.  Gaunilo, a contemporary of St Anselm, responded in his wittily titled “on behalf of the fool”, rejecting Anselm’s reasoning systematically and concluding that atheists are not necessarily fools.  Although St Anselm and Gaunilo were operating within different worldviews and with difference concepts of what existence entails, on balance and because Gaunilo’s more modern worldview dominates today, Gaunilo successfully defeats St Anselm’s ontological argument. 

Firstly, Gaunilo is successful in pointing out that the atheist can recognise the word “God” without necessarily holding the entire concept of God in intellectu. He wrote “this being is said to be in my understanding already, only because I understand what is said.”  Whereas St Anselm asserts that the atheist, in recognising the word God understands that God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived of” and – because existence is a perfection – necessarily exists in re while simultaneously denying God’s existence, Gaunilo suggests that people often recognise a word without fully understanding what it refers to, as may be the case with God. Gaunilo later elaborates, explaining that as Anselm admits that God is unlike any other thing, it must be impossible for any person to understand what “God” is, because our understanding of new objects is usually built out of like objects. This is persuasive, as Aquinas would later agree [Summa Theologica 1,2,1] because God’s nature is to be mysterious and ineffable, so resisting all attempts to define him, let alone analyse that definition to determine whether necessary existence is part of it. Gaunilo continues by writing “I have in my understanding all manner of unreal objects, having absolutely no existence in themselves” – examples of such could be Gruffalos or unicorns – and he suggests that it would be possible to hold an idea of God who doesn’t exist in intellectu.  This also is persuasive because, as Kant later wrote, “Whatever, therefore, our concept of an object may contain, we must always step outside it, in order to attribute to it existence…”  Existential statements must be synthetic and capable of verification through the senses; it is not possible to analyse something, even God, into existence.  While it is clear that Gaunilo (and later Kant) assume existence to refer to existence in the phenomenal world of time and space rather than to a non-contradictory concept or “clear and distinct idea” as Anselm (and later Descartes) did, it is Gaunilo’s worldview which dominates today and this supports the success of Gaunilo’s argument in defeating Anselm’s ontological argument.

Secondly, Gaunilo is successful in pointing out that the idea of God in intellectu exists prior to the existence of God in re being realised.  He used St Anselm’s (and St Augustine’s) example of a painter and painting to make this point, reasoning that the idea of the painting exists in the mind of the painter before paint is applied to canvas. He wrote “The picture, before it is made, is contained in the artificer’s art itself; and any such thing, existing in the art of an artificer, is nothing but a part of his understanding itself.”  In the same way, for Gaunilo the idea of God exists in the mind primarily and before the reality of God is admitted.  This suggests that the atheist could have the idea of God in their mind separately from the necessary reality of God, leaving the possibility that God could only be the idea of a necessarily existing being and not a necessarily existing being.  This links to Aristotle’s concept of the formal cause; the sculptor may have the form of the sculpture in his mind, but until he acts as an efficient cause on the material cause of the stone, the sculpture can’t be said to be real.  Similarly, the soul as the formal cause of the body can’t be understood to exist independently of a body, in the way that a wax seal can’t exist without wax.  Of course, Plato would disagree, arguing that forms are more real than material objects which reflect them, because they are complete and unchanging. However, Anselm’s platonic worldview has been replaced by the more Aristotelian worldview of Gaunilo today.  Few would accept that ideas are more real than material objects, so that most would agree with Kant when he wrote “If then, I try to conceive a being, as the highest reality (without any defect), the question still remains, whether it exists or not. For though in my concept there may be wanting nothing of the possible real content of a thing in general, something is wanting in its relation to my whole state of thinking, namely, that the knowledge of that object should be possible a posteriori also…” The painting is only an idea until paint meets canvas in the real world… and however perfect it may be in concept won’t change that fact. Therefore, Gaunilo is successful in defeating Anselm’s ontological argument, because he identifies Anselm’s failure to establish God’s existence a posteriori as well as a priori. 

Of course, Anselm rejected Gaunilo’s criticisms one by one in his “Responsio” reasoning that Gaunilo must be a fool if he believed that somebody could recognise the word God without appreciating that it refers to a supremely perfect being which – logically – must have the property of necessary existence.  A person saying that a triangle has four sides could only be an idiot; Anselm cannot accept that an atheist is anything other than a fool.  Further, Anselm rejected Gaunilo’s (mis)use of his analogy of the painter and painting, pointing out that while the idea of any normal object may well exist separately from and prior to its reality, this cannot apply to God who exists necessarily.  In God’s case and God’s case only, the idea and the reality must be simultaneous and identical.  However, Gaunilo’s reduction of St Anselm’s ontological argument to absurdity through the perfect island remains more persuasive than St Anselm’s indignant ripostes in the Responsio.  This is because Gaunilo appeals to common sense when he wrote that “If a man should try to prove to me by such reasoning that this island truly exists, and that its existence should no longer be doubted, either I should believe that he was jesting, or I know not which I ought to regard as the greater fool: myself, supposing that I should allow this proof; or him, if he should suppose that he had established with any certainty the existence of this island.”  In the same way Kant is persuasive when he appeals to common sense, writing “a man might as well imagine that he could become richer in knowledge by mere ideas, as a merchant in capital, if, in order to improve his position, he were to add a few noughts to his cash account.”  We all know that we can’t analyse or think anything into existence, whether holiday islands or money! 

In conclusion, Gaunilo’s criticisms of St Anselm’s ontological argument successfully defeat this attempt to prove God’s existence from reason alone… that is, for those who share Gaunilo’s modern worldview.  Of course, those with a Platonist worldview – like Anselm himself and Rene Descartes – would disagree.  As Norman Malcolm wrote “in those complex systems of thought, those ‘language games’, God has the status of a necessary being. Who can doubt that?” and yet claiming that God exist surely refers to more than a rule of one language-game?  As Gaunilo rightly pointed out, rooting our concept of what exists in mere ideas is more likely to be foolish than rooting existence in shared experience. 

Kantian Ethics is too abstract to be used in practical moral decision making. Discuss [40]

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Immanuel Kant proposed his system of ethics in “The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals” (1785) and subsequently refined his thinking in “The Critique of Practical Reason” (1788) and “The Metaphysics of Morals” (1791).  For Kant, reason demands that we follow the Categorical Imperative whenever we are faced by a moral situation, involving human wellbeing.  He explained what the Categorical Imperative using six different forms of words in the Groundwork, variations of three principles; universalisation, ends and means and kingdom of ends. He was clear that these principles are not laws, to be followed unquestioningly, but rather descriptions of how a rational person (good will) will choose to act, freely, in a moral situation.  Further, that the different formulations were not intended to be applied separately, as they all describe the single moral demand of reason.  While Kantian Ethics does begin with an abstract principle, the Categorical Imperative, it is intensely practical and is in fact the best guide to moral decision making in the real world. 

Firstly, the Categorical Imperative does not seek to be a rule to follow unquestioningly.  Despite the common charge that Kantian Ethics is “harsh and inflexible” as Allen Wood put it, in reality Kant demands that we act autonomously, applying the demands of reason to each specific moral challenge.  In this way, Kantian Ethics – although it expresses the abstract demands of reason – is also intensely practical.  It recognises the complexity of moral situations and supports individuals to make their own decisions, rather than attempting to simplify things to a set of secondary precepts or rules as Roman Catholic Natural Law or Rule Utilitarianism do.  Natural Law produces sweeping rules that often seem to clash, and offers little practical help in resolving these dilemmas, resulting in a diversity of interpretations ranging from Grisez to Hoose.  On the other hand, Kantian Ethics is more practical in explicitly prioritising negative duties over positive duties, helping people to navigate a way through the clashing duties that dominate practical moral decision making.  Rule Utilitarianism ranges between harsh inflexible versions that try to reduce the complexity of moral decision making to a few absolute edicts and impractical versions that generate huge numbers of highly specific rules which still struggle to support practical decision making. On the other hand, Kantian Ethics is more practical, avoiding rules altogether and simply supporting people to be fully human, making decisions rationally and freely on the basis of the specific situation.  Kantian Ethics also recognises the existence of moral absolutes and handles these much better than Situation Ethics, which (at least in Fletcher’s formulation) implies that even dropping a nuclear bomb, murder or rape might be justified in some situations in a way that most people feel deeply uncomfortable about.  It also avoids the problem of prediction, which blights situation ethics and act utilitarianism, and does not demand that people predict and weigh up consequences with insufficient information to do this accurately. Of course, the support Kantian Ethics offers to individuals facing dilemmas can’t make their decisions easy.  Being reminded by conscience – which Kant defined as “practical reason holding the human being’s duty [i.e. the Categorical Imperative] before him” – that my action in helping my dying grandmother to die quickly rather than suffering on for days enacts the same maxim as a murderer is deeply uncomfortable.  Yet this reminder is an important one.  It is impractical to pretend – as Fletcher’s Situation Ethics seems to do – that the situation justifies one in taking a life, when this denies inevitable feelings of guilt and possible implications for how we relate to human life after we have crossed the line of taking it.  Kantian Ethics cannot make practical decisions easy, but it clarifies those decisions in a way that is practical and helpful if not pleasant to experience.  It follows that – despite being abstract – Kantian Ethics is the best approach to real-life moral decision making.

Secondly, Kantian Ethics is practical because it is rooted in human experience. Kant argued that when faced with another human being, reason demands that we treat them as we would wish to be treated.  While reason is abstract, the feeling of empathy and agape-love that it supports is not and is part of human experience every day.  In the “Critique of Practical Reason” he called the formulation of the Categorical Imperative “always treat humanity, whether in the person of yourself or another, always as an end and never as a means to an end” the “Practical Imperative” because it is what we instinctively do in any case.  Kant presupposed that we all have a conscience, which he defined as “practical reason holding the human being’s duty before him for his acquittal or condemnation in every case that comes under the law.” As he pointed out, human beings are “pathologically loving”; it is human nature to treat others as we would wish to be treated and so not to use people as a means to an end.  Of course, Bernard Williams accused Kantian Ethics of being “atomistic” and encouraging people to focus on their own moral characters, ignoring the demand to help others in a positive way if it would mean breaking a negative duty.  For example, Kantian Ethics encourages people not to pull the lever in the Trolley Problem, which feels selfish.  Yet the fat-man version of the same problem shows that Kant was right and that what we might feel comfortable with in theory we shrink from doing in practice.  For another example, as Onora O’Neill has shown, Kantian Ethics prioritises our duty to those we have promised to protect (i.e. the duty not to lie or break a promise) over our duty to help famine-stricken countries overseas (i.e. the duty to save life).  Nevertheless, Kantian Ethics does this because a decision to break a negative duty, whether killing a person as a means to an end in the trolley problem or breaking a promise to the electorate, doesn’t just affect that person or that situation, but sets an example which erodes the principles of the sanctity of human life or trust in government, making it more difficult for all other people to hear and follow the demand of reason and the Categorical Imperative in the future.  Kant’s principle of the Kingdom of Ends shows that it is irrational to act inconsistently, because we each set an example to everybody else, so any inconsistency prevents society developing towards the summum bonum. He appeals to reason which shows the consequences of prioritising consequences to be much worse consequentially, then the consequences of making a few tough decisions in order to uphold a principle.  Even Utilitarians John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick and Peter Singer recognise this, suggesting that rules such as “do not murder” should be enforced more or less strictly for the sake of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”.  Mill even campaigned to keep the death penalty for murder, against his fellow Utilitarian Bentham’s followers, partly because he believed in the importance of vindicating the law protecting the sanctity of human life as well as in the deterrent example that death represents.  It follows that, while Kantian Ethics does not make individual moral decision-making easy, it is practical and consistent with what most people recognise to be the most effective way to behave and run a society. 

Of course, the existence of people who are apparently without conscience and claim not to feel a duty to treat others as ends does seem to undermine Kant’s case, suggesting that the Categorical Imperative does not appeal directly to everybody through reason.  For example, mass murderers like Ian Brady and Myra Hindley or Levi Bellfield seem to be without a conscience and describing them as “pathologically loving” seems ridiculous.  Nevertheless, in “Religion within the boundaries of reason alone” (1794) Kant explained that the reason why some people appear to be without a conscience and why they don’t recognise the demand of the Categorical Imperative is because of Radical Evil.  Once a person has acted irrationally, out of deference to authority, fear or habit once, it becomes easier and easier to do the same again to the point whereby we feel powerless to change and become a “good will”. Like St Augustine, Kant saw the Human condition as one whereby we don’t do what we actively want to do and feel unable to change. For Kant, this is because rationally we appreciate that in order to deserve the heavenly reward (that Kant postulated to make sense of his moral system) we would have to have a good will, which in practice none of us have because we have all fallen short of acting on one at some point, not least in childhood.  Without any reasonable hope of reward, it becomes irrational to follow the demands of reason.  It is not rational to do what will make us miserable forever and can never result in any happiness.  In effect, we are trapped between the demands of reason with respect of moral action and following the categorical imperative and the demands of reason with respect of not doing what will only make us miserable.  Kant’s solution to this and way of making it possible to change and be good despite feeling trapped was controversial.  Again, Kant depended on St Augustine’s theology.  That is, to trust in the order and fairness of the universe, to believe in the possibility of moral regeneration, to assert our freedom to do what is right.  Jesus’ example is important; He showed that it is possible to have a “good will” making it rational to trust and believe.  While Goethe accused Kant of “smearing his philosopher’s cloak with the shameful stain of original sin” and recent writers have speculated that Kant was losing his reason by the time he developed this part of his theory. In fact, Kant makes rational sense of Augustinian teachings about the human condition and why it is difficult to do what we know we ought. While it is true that Kantian Ethics is extremely demanding and sets an impossibly high standard, it is the fact that it is demanding and not its abstract nature which is the reason why many people are reluctant to use it in moral decision making.  This shows that despite being abstract, Kantian Ethics is also practical, because it is rooted in real human experience.

In conclusion, Kantian Ethics is practical and can be used in moral decision making, despite being rooted in abstract concepts such as reason and duty.  This is because Kantian Ethics is more practical than Natural Law, Situation Ethics and Utilitarianism, being focused on helping people to make decisions autonomously, rather than forcing people to follow absolute rules that take no account of complexity or forcing people to predict and weigh up consequences with insufficient information to do so accurately.  Also, because Kantian Ethics is rooted in the practical experience of being human and provides a rational explanation of why people feel unable to do what they know they should do.  Kantian Ethics may be harsh and demanding, but so is the world and so are the dilemmas we face.  Rather than letting us hide behind rules or forcing us to play God, Kantian Ethics supports us to recognise and have the strength to follow our consciences and the demands of reason, which Kant called the Categorical Imperative.  Act fairly and consistently, honour and don’t use people, set an example and act as though you were being watched… these are moral guidelines we all recognise from childhood and practical experience. They are not too abstract to be practical and should always determine how we make moral decisions.

Assess Boethius’ view that divine eternity does not limit free will. [40 marks]

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Boethius discusses the relationship between God’s eternity and human free will in his “consolations of philosophy” Book V.  Here, in dialogue with “Lady Philosophy” Boethius confronts the apparent problem caused by God’s omniscience, namely that it limits human free will.  He wrote: “if God foresees everything, and can in no wise be deceived, that which providence foresees to be about to happen must necessarily come to pass.”  It seems that if God knows what I will do and there are no alternate possibilities, then I am determined by God’s knowledge and cannot justly be held responsible for my actions.  This undermines God’s goodness, as Christians believe that human beings will be judged and rewarded or punished by God based on their free choices.  Boethius wrote, if God knows what we will do before we do it then “Vainly are rewards and punishments proposed for the good and bad, since no free and voluntary motion of the will has deserved either one or the other; nay, the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous, which is now esteemed the perfection of justice, will seem the most flagrant injustice…” Nevertheless, Boethius argues – through Lady Philosophy’s responses – that God’s eternal omniscience is compatible with human free will, meaning that God’s omniscience does not undermine God’s omnibenevolence and justice.  Unfortunately, Boethius’ argument is unsuccessful in this respect.

Firstly, Boethius argues that because God is outside time and space, his knowledge of our choices is contingent and does not make what we choose necessary.  Boethius uses the analogy of a chariot; my knowledge that it passed me at a particular time does not make it travel faster or slower or take that route… my knowledge of its motion is contingent on its motion and does not make its motion logically or naturally necessary.  Similarly, God’s knowledge of my choices is contingent and does not determine what I choose.  St Anselm later developed Boethius’ argument, again emphasising that God’s knowledge of what I do does not make me do what I do.  However, despite Boethius’ attempt to “play the mystery card” and muddle the issue, writing “the movement of human reasoning cannot cope with the simplicity of the Divine foreknowledge”, his argument is unconvincing because if God is outside space and time then He must be wholly simple and His knowledge of creation cannot be separate from his single act of creation.  The things that God knows contingently, can’t be contingent on human choices or events in time – Boethius acknowledges that  “it is preposterous to speak of the occurrence of events in time as the cause of eternal foreknowledge” – so God knows what he knows about human choices contingently because he created us to act this way and because our choices are contingent on Him.  As St Thomas Aquinas reasoned, and more recently Gerry Hughes sj. explained, God’s knowledge is not like our knowledge… If God is wholly simple, as a timeless-eternal God must be, then God’s knowledge can only be causative and not reflective.  Boethius emphasises the difference between God’s knowledge, which comes from pure rational intuition and not from limited observation, but seemingly fails to appreciate that there can be no separation in God’s timelessly simple nature between God’s knowledge of what he creates and his action in creating it. If God’s knowledge of what we do depends on how He created us to act, then clearly Boethius view that divine eternity does not limit free will must be mistaken.

Secondly, Boethius argues that because God is outside time and space, his knowledge of events in no way precedes those events, so the use of the word “foreknowledge” to describe God’s knowledge of what is future to us is a misleading analogy.  If God’s knowledge is not really foreknowledge, but knowledge of what happens in an eternal present, then there is less sense that God’s knowledge determines choices and events.  Boethius was what Brian Leftow calls a Universal Presentist, seeing that past and future exist because they are eternally present to God.  St Anselm later developed Boethius’ argument, suggesting a four-dimensional view of time, whereby God’s knowledge of the time in which each event occurs is theoretical and part of the eternal present through which God sees creation.  Nevertheless, neither Boethius’ nor Anselm’s view of God’s eternity is compatible with human free will.  Just because every event is simultaneously present to God, there are no alternate possibilities, which is the very definition of determinism.  Further, Boethius’ view of God relating to creation in an “eternal present” only emphasises how Boethius’ Classical Theist God is incompatible with the Bible and thus Christian Theology and faith.  If God’s creation of the world, the fall, the incarnation and atonement, as well as the eschaton and final judgement occur concurrently to God then there can have been no other option for humanity but to have sinned and been saved… their choices were immaterial, and what God punished them for and then saved them from through Grace was always part of God’s design.  As Nelson Pike pointed out, the God of the Bible is “unavoidably tensed”, suggesting that Boethius’ view of divine eternity must be mistaken.  Further, as Anthony Kenny pointed out, the timeless-eternal view of God is “radically incoherent” and leads the divine attributes to be empty… a timeless-eternal God is incapable of acting in time, being morally good or responding to prayer or events.  What, then does it mean to call this being God, who is apparently impotent, amoral and unresponsive?  William Lane Craig likens the timeless eternal God to a granite block and rightly asks what the point of worshipping that would be!  Again, Boethius’ view that divine eternity does not limit human free will is mistaken because it contradicts its own claim that God’s knowledge must be the same as God’s creative action within God’s wholly simple nature, and because this whole concept of God is not compatible with Christian theology or faith. 

Of course, Boethius’ view has its defenders.  EL Mascall used string theory to suggest that God’s knowledge might have a temporal pole and an atemporal pole, yet while this is a helpful analogy in terms of understanding how God’s eternity might coexist with time and space, it does little to explain how God’s knowledge does not determine our actions.  On the contrary, if God’s knowledge of what I will do at any point in time depends on knowledge that is fixed at its other eternal pole there seems if anything less opportunity for me to act spontaneously.  Further, as already explained, St Anselm saw in Boethius’ view a way to reconcile God’s eternal omniscience with free will, and – according to Katherin A. Rogers in “Anselm and Freedom” (2009) his development of Boethius’ argument “offers a definition of freewill which involves a hierarchy of choice, prefiguring that recently proposed by Harry Frankfurt” p. 60  Like St Augustine, Frankfurt defines freedom as the ability to do what one wants to do.  Remember, St Augustine defines God’s omnipotence as His being able to do whatever He wants to do.  Similarly, for Frankfurt and – if Rogers is correct in her analysis – for Anselm, and perhaps for Boethius also, a person is free if they can do what they want to do. As Rogers reads him, Anselm argues that the human will is created by God with the twin desires for benefit and for justice… the will is created to want both, but able to decide which to pursue and how.  The will, created in the image of God, has aseity and decides freely and not because of preceding natural causes.  Here, Anselm was perhaps anticipated by Boethius, who wrote “that which hath the natural use of reason has the faculty of discriminative judgment, and of itself distinguishes what is to be shunned or desired…” [Consolation Book V.I] Which suggests that human freedom resides in the ability of the will to decide which desire to pursue.  This analysis suggests that Boethius and Anselm were at the least compatibilists on the issue of free will, and that their reasoning may have allowed for a greater measure of freedom. Nevertheless, Rogers’ analysis focuses on the work of St Anselm, which goes well beyond Boethius’ argument, so just because St Anselm’s view of divine eternity might be compatible with some very limited free will does not mean that Boethius view alone can do this.

In conclusion, Boethius’ view that divine eternity does not limit human free will is mistaken.  Boethius’ view of divine eternity is self-contradictory – reasoning that God’s knowledge can’t be prior knowledge because of God’s eternity, but then relying on God’s knowledge being separate from God’s action in creating what he knows.  Further, Boethius’ view of divine eternity only emphasizes the lack of any alternate possibilities, which shows that his view is inconsistent with Christian theology and faith.  While Boethius’ failure to reconcile divine eternity and human free will does not mean that Classical Theism will always lead to hard determinism, as Rogers’ argument regarding St Anselm’s development of Boethius’ position has shown, the possible success of later developments of his argument does not mean that Boethius’ own view was persuasive. 

‘Anselm’s four-dimensionalist approach successfully explains God’s action in time.’ Discuss. [40]

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St Anselm developed his understanding of how God relates to and acts in time on the basis of work already done by Boethius and before that by St Augustine. All these Classical Theists understood that God exists eternally, outside time and space. This means that Aristotle’s arguments for a Prime Mover, as well as Plato’s arguments for a Form of the Good, lend rational support for faith in God. Nevertheless, placing God outside time and space raises significant questions concerning if and how God can act within time, as well as what God’s knowledge of events within time is like and what God’s goodness can entail. If God is outside time and space then all of God’s actions – including every word that God says – must be concurrent within one simple, single act of creation. St Augustine, Boethius and St Anselm all attempted to resolve the particular problem of how God’s eternal foreknowledge seems to nullify human free will, and yet even St Anselm’s sophisticated understanding fails to explain for this, let alone how God could act in time, successfully.

Firstly, what Katherin A. Rogers claims to be St Anselm’s four-dimensionalism represents no real improvement over Boethius’ Universal Presentism in resolving the question of God’s relationship with time, whether regarding God’s knowledge or God’s actions. Whereas Presentism usually entails the belief that only the present moment really exists, the past and the future being illusory, in Boethius’ understanding because every moment is present to God, the future and past are as real as what we perceive to be the present. As Brian Leftow (in PRESENTISM, ATEMPORALITY, AND TIME’S WAY) explains, “Boethius is a temporal presentist… consider his classic simile: an atemporal God is as if on a mountain top, looking out on an entire future those lower down cannot see. It is part of the image that all the future is really there at once to be seen.” (p176) Yet this causes a problem for Boethius when it comes to God’s foreknowledge. If God sees the “future” in the same eternal moment as the “present”, how can any being be free? Because God knows what every being will do there are no alternate possibilities. Boethius argues that this problem results from out imperfect understanding of God’s eternal nature… “the reason of this obscurity is that the movement of human reasoning cannot cope with the simplicity of the Divine foreknowledge” Book V. Further, Boethius suggests that God’s knowledge does not make the outcomes of free actions logically necessary because God’s knowledge of them is contingent and dependent on those choices and outcomes occurring. “Boethius’s solution to the freedom-foreknowledge problem hinges on the claim that God’s knowledge is of all time at once and observational...” (Leftow, p176) Yet how can God’s knowledge of an event truly be conditional on that event taking place, such as to avoid making that event necessary, when God’s knowledge is eternal and identical with God’s power and goodness in God’s simple, single act of creation? Boethius’ analogy of the Chariot does nothing to help, because by his own admission, God’s knowledge is completely different to any knowledge we could have and because, as Boethius himself reminds us, there is no way that God could learn from us… as it seems He would have to if his knowledge of what we do depends on us. Further, St Anselm’s more developed position does little to resolve the problem. Like Boethius he contends that God’s knowledge, being of an eternal present, is not prior to events and so does not necessitate them. Whereas Boethius is what Leftow calls a “Universal Presentist”, St Anselm contends “but simply, you are, outside all time. For yesterday and to-day and to-morrow have no existence, except in time; but you, although nothing exists without you, nevertheless do not exist in space or time, but all things exist in you. For nothing contains you, but you contain all.” Proslogium XIX This suggests that every moment, whether we perceive it to be past, present or future, exist not only in God’s sight, but within God’s eternal being. Reflecting on what this might mean, St Anselm wrote in De Concordia 1.5 “although within eternity there is only a present, nonetheless it is not the temporal present, as is ours, but is an eternal present in which the whole of time is contained.” explaining that… “Eternity has its own simultaneity, in which exist all things that occur at the same time . . . and . . . at different times.” While Boethius position is so similar as to be identical in places, Katherin A. Rogers argues that this makes St Anselm the first true Four-Dimensionalist. She writes “Anselm, in a very clear and conscious way, adopts what I will call the “four-dimensionalist” theory of time, sometimes also called the “tenseless” theory. He is, to my knowledge, the first philosopher in history to do so.” She claims that St Anselm’s understanding of God’s relationship with time “does succeed in solving the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge,” which might imply that it would also resolve the question of God’s eternal action. Nevertheless, Rogers’ detailed argument concerning the differences between St Anselm, Boethius and St Augustine does little to advance St Anselm’s position. While it is true that when it comes to St Augustine and Boethius, “neither elaborates his views clearly enough to rule out other interpretations” (than four dimensionalism) it is fair to say that both philosophers positions suggest that every moment is present to God, and that God’s knowledge of events is not prior to those events occurring so can’t be understood to cause those events. Given this specific overlap between Boethius and Anselm, the technicalities of their positions as regards God and time seem largely irrelevant. Rogers ends by simply restating Anselm’s argument, that God’s knowledge of the outcomes of “free” actions does not make them happen, because although God’s knowledge of those outcomes removes any alternate possibilities God’s knowledge of what we perceive to be future events is knowledge of eternally present events to God. Yet, in all practically, this is the point already made by Boethius, that God’s knowledge of “future” events is conditional like our knowledge of a chariot passing, so not such as would influence or determine such events. Whether made by Anselm or Boethius, this argument is unsuccessful in resolving the problem of freedom and foreknowledge because by these Classical Theists’ own arguments, God’s knowledge is not like ours, being simple and identical with God’s power and being. My knowing that a chariot passes by does not make the chariot speed up or slow down, but God’s knowing is the same as his doing and his being… and his knowing, doing and being in what seems to be this moment to us is concurrent with his total knowledge, action and being because His nature is to be eternal and so wholly simple. It is difficult to accept that actions can be anything other than determined when they are part of God’s eternal necessity in this way. This shows that St Anselm’s four dimensionalism fails to explain how God could act in time, successfully.

Secondly, St Anselm’s so-called Four Dimensionalism is just as inadequate as Boethius’ or Augustine’s Universal Presentism in accounting for God’s actions in time. For example, the Bible’s Salvation Narrative is, as Nelson Pike once observed, “unavoidably tensed”. St Anselm’s four dimensionalist account of God’s relationship with time suggests that every moment is present in God, suggesting that the creation is a simple, single act. However, if the creation happened at the same moment as the Fall, if Moses received the Law from God at the same moment as the same Law was fulfilled in Jesus, if the incarnation, the resurrection and the second coming all really happened at once, then there seems precious little point in Christianity. Human free will and moral responsibility are null and God’s justice a joke. As St Augustine recognized in Book XII of his Confessions, if God is timeless-eternal and wholly simple, as rationally it seems that He must be, “what was spoken was not spoken successively, one thing concluded that the next might be spoken, but all things together and eternally. Else have we time and change; and not a true eternity nor true immortality…” When God said “let there be light” – as if in the same breath he said “I am what I am” and “this is my Son; listen to Him”… meaning either that all apparent “revelations” of God’s words which imply time and a sequence of events are effective fakes… or that God intended to deceive us into thinking his words and actions responded to events and individuals. Either interpretation is gravely problematic for Christians. So much of the Bible depends on God’s actions and words being sequential that accepting a timeless-eternal view of God could only result in abandoning the Bible as a meaningful source of authority. Further, suggesting that God intended to deceive us when he seemed to speak with and respond to the Prophets, or when he seems to respond to our prayers, is both incompatible with St Anselm’s own account of God’s omnipotence – which expressly excludes God’s ability to act from impotence, such as by lying or deceiving people (“Therefore, O Lord, our God, the more truly are you omnipotent, since you are capable of nothing through impotence” Proslogion Book VII) – and a fundamental assault on the Christian faith. What would Christianity be if God’s personal response to prayer and events can only be understood as the equivalent of an AI chatbot response, pre-programmed to give the appearance of personal service by some cynical cost-saving consultant! Again, it seems that St Anselm’s four dimensionalism fails to explain how God could act in time, successfully.

Of course, St Anselm’s four-dimensionalism would be defended by Katherin A. Rogers, who would suggest that it is successful in explaining how God can know all events without removing the possibility of free actions or the justice of holding free agents responsible for what they choose to do. She points out how St Anselm’s four-dimensionalism is an improvement over the work of other classical theists who suggest that God’s eternal knowledge is so different and abstract that God’s omniscience might entail him not knowing what day it is! Nevertheless, in making God’s knowledge of ever present knowledge a function of God’s perfect self-knowledge, St Anselm comes very close to suggesting that all of creation exists within God. This striking view implies that God’s knowledge is contingent and depends on events, rather than causing them. While this is useful in facilitating free will, because being eternal God’s knowledge is identical with God’s action and God’s being, it also implies that God’s being contains time and space, whose nature is dynamic and the precise opposite to how God’s necessary being is usually understood. How can God be immutable if God’s knowledge depends on contingent events and God’s being contains all contingencies? St Anselm can’t pick and choose, maintaining that God’s knowledge is of contingencies but God’s being is necessary and immutable… if God is eternal, He is wholly simple and, as St Anselm himself explains in Proslogium XVIII all His attributes are really one attribute. Again, it seems that St Anselm’s four dimensionalism fails to explain how God could act in time, successfully.

Further, the alternative explanations of the relationship between God’s eternity and his action offered by Richard Swinburne is scarcely more successful than that offered by St Anselm. Swinburne suggests that an everlasting-in-time God could do anything which is compatible with His own previous actions and his attributes of omnibenevolence and omniscience. As in, God’s omnipotence consists in His being able to do anything that He wills (as St Augustine originally contended), bearing in mind that an omniscient being would not will anything contrary to what He has previously willed or which does not bring about the best possible world. This is a coherent explanation of God’s omnipotence which is better than St Anselm’s explanation in making sense of the Bible, and in making sense of God’s tendency to act in some situations and not in others. If God, from his omniscient (although temporal) perspective, could see that X action would bring about a worse outcome than doing nothing, then He would do nothing. Nevertheless, God’s omniscience could not entail His ability to know the outcomes of free actions, because He in His omnipotence made them free, so God’s assessment of the situation must needs be dynamic and ever-changing. Despite this, Swinburne’s account of God’s relationship with time is unsuccessful in explaining how God’s actions could be omnipotent in an absolute sense… God cannot break the laws of logic (as JL Mackie demanded that an omnipotent being should be able to do) because those same laws depend on God’s previous actions in creating said laws. In this regard, Anselm’s four-dimensionalism is more persuasive than Swinburne’s understanding, because being in-time Swinburne’s God is constrained in the present moment by His own past actions, which seems more of a constraint than actions which appear to be at different times to us having to be consistent with each other within God’s single, timeless creative act. Further, while Swinburne’s God can’t know the outcomes of free actions, and while this facilitates libertarian free will and genuine moral responsibility, this also radically limits God’s knowledge of the future, as human actions affect so much, given climate-change even the existence of the Earth. In supporting God’s knowledge of how events would seem to us from any given point in time as well as maintaining God’s knowledge of every moment as present, Anselm’s four-dimensionalism makes more sense of God’s knowledge than traditional Presentism, which holds that God knows every moment as present, but not which moment is present to us. It also makes more sense than Swinburne’s account of God’s knowledge, whereby God’s knowledge is radically limited by His decision to self-limit when it comes to the outcomes of free actions. Overall, while Swinburne’s account of God’s eternity is much more useful for Christianity than St Anselm’s, it offers interpretations of God’s attributes which turn out to be almost as empty as those of the Classical Theists. It seems that while St Anselm’s four-dimensionalism fails to explain how God could act in time successfully, so also other thinkers fail to resolve this problem.

In conclusion, St Anselm’s four-dimensionalism fails to explain how God could act in time successfully. Yet, this problem remains without a resolution. Classical theism renders God’s attributes empty words and faith in His existence pointless and yet Theistic Personalism, such as presented by Richard Swinburne, renders God’s attributes almost equally empty and surrenders the classical arguments as direct support for their God’s existence along the way. Much as Theistic Personalists like to co-opt the classical arguments for God’s existence to serve in cumulative arguments for God’s existence, or to defend the “reasonableness” of faith… they ignore or evade the fact that these same arguments support a God who is timeless-eternal and not a God who is everlasting-in-time. In the end, they like St Anselm must make a choice… either accept all of the implications of a rationally defensible faith-position and abandon Christianity, or stop appealing to reason at all and accept that faith in an everlasting God with meaningful attributes can only be based on experience.

Critically evaluate Kant’s criticisms of the Ontological Argument. [40] 

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The ontological argument is the name that Kant himself assigned to arguments which attempt to demonstrate God’s existence from reason alone.  Starting with an a priori definition of God, such as that God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived of” (St Anselm, Proslogion II) or that God is “supremely perfect” (Descartes, Meditation V), ontological arguments show that existence – or necessary existence – is part of that definition and thus that God’s existence is de dicto necessary, as the fact that a man is unmarried is de dicto necessary if he is a bachelor.  Having coined the term “ontological argument”, Kant went on to criticise these arguments in the opening to his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), arguing that the arguments fail because 1) all existential statements must be synthetic, 2) existence is not a perfection and 3) existence is not a predicate.  He concludes that the ontological argument is “so much labour and effort lost” because it cannot do what it sets out to do and prove God’s existence from reason alone.  Nevertheless, despite being enormously influential, Kant’s criticisms fail to establish the impossibility of an ontological argument for God’s existence because they depend on Kant’s worldview which he asserts dogmatically and fails to argue for. 

Kant’s claim that the ontological argument fails because all existential statements must be synthetic is nothing more than an assertion of his own critical worldview, developed in the years after Hume “awoke me from my dogmatic slumbers and gave a completely different direction to my enquiries…” in 1770.  Kant claims that “If, then, I try to conceive a being, as the highest reality (without any defect), the question still remains, whether it exists or not. For though in my concept there may be wanting nothing of the possible real content of a thing in general, something is wanting in its relation to my whole state of thinking, namely, that the knowledge of that object should be possible a posteriori also…” He points out that there is nothing self-contradictory about saying “God does not exist”, because existence cannot be part of the concept of God, but must always be established empirically, synthetically, so that existence is always contingent and includes the possibility of non-existence. Yet, what privileges a posteriori knowledge over a priori knowledge, beyond Kant’s assertion?  As GW Hegel noticed straightaway and as WV Quine late pointed out in his “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951) Kant simply asserts that meaningful claims must be either synthetic or analytic and that all existential claims must be synthetic.  Who says that the empirical senses are the arbiters of existence or that nothing can be said to exist that is incapable of being experienced through the senses?  How could it be reasonable to suggest that the senses of a hairless ape inhabiting temperate regions of an insignificant planet orbiting a small star on an outer spiral of the milky way provide the only window on reality?  As Plato and Descartes would have agreed, the “reality” we experience through our senses is ever-changing, imperfect and seen through the filter of senses and concepts in the mind.  Concepts and ideas are permanent and our window on them through reason less misty, so it is more reasonable to see these as ultimate reality.  Further, for followers of Wittgenstein, even if Kant’s worldview is accepted, as Norman Malcolm pointed out, Kant’s worldview and thus “language game” is just one out of many.  To those who hold a different worldview – such as a Platonic worldview in which ultimate reality is metaphysical and the means of accessing it reason – the claim that all existential statements must be synthetic is untrue and unconvincing.  It follows that Kant’s criticism fails to destroy the possibility of an ontological proof for God’s existence.  

Kant’s claim that the ontological argument also fails because existence is not a perfection fails because, as Charles Hartshorne pointed out, while ordinary contingent existence is not a perfection, necessary existence might well be.  Kant’s example of 100 thalers being the same in concept whether it exists or not, and not 101 thalers or 150 by existing, seems to make his point convincingly… and yet neither Anselm nor Descartes conceives of God’s existence being like the existence of other, contingent things.  A chocolate cake, a unicorn, a man or an island might be said to exist or not to exist, but only God can necessarily exist, so while existence might not alter the concept of cake, unicorn, man or island, necessary existence is of the essence of God as the supremely perfect being.  Charles Hartshorne suggested that Anselm’s ontological argument in Prosologion 3 might well evade Kant’s criticism that existence is not a perfection for this reason, nevertheless, Kant would reject this criticism of his point, rejecting the whole concept of necessary existence.  As he had already said, all existential statements must be synthetic, so necessary existence is, in Kant’s worldview, impossible.  JN Findlay noted this, suggesting that “it was indeed an ill day for Anselm when he hit upon his famous proof. For on that day he not only laid bare something that is of the essence of an adequate religious object, but also something that entails its necessary non-existence.” (Findlay, 1948) And that Anselm’s ontological argument in Proslogion III, by demonstrating how God’s contingent existence is impossible, shows that God’s existence is impossible because nothing can necessarily exist.  Yet, as I have already argued, Findlay and Kant are doing nothing more than asserting their own worldview, which excludes necessary existence not because it is inconceivable but because it is not compatible with their stated position which privileges things which can be experienced through the empirical senses. Further, as Hartshorne also pointed out, if it makes sense to talk about God’s necessary non-existence then it makes just as much sense to talk about God’s necessary existence. And, as Norman Malcolm pointed out, what is possible and impossible depends more on our language game than on what it might or might not refer to objectively.  It seems that in arguing that existence is not a perfection Kant got no further than Gaunilo had in refuting the ontological argument; again he just asserted that it was incompatible with his own limited worldview.  

Finally, Kant wrongly argued that existence is not a predicate.  By this Kant meant that existence cannot be accidentally predicated of God, because – as Anselm had pointed out – God’s existence is not something that might or might not be true of God.  Also, existence is wrongly used as an accidental predicate in relation to other things, because it adds nothing to the concept of the object (is not a perfection).  Rather, existence is the basis on which anything else can meaningfully be predicated.  As Russell pointed out, if I say “the present King of France is bald” I imply that there is a present King of France, which makes my predication of baldness meaningful.  If there is no present King of France, predicating anything of him is meaningless.  Similarly, if I say that God exists, I imply that there is a God who exists, smuggling my conclusion into my premises and in this way begging the question.  It follows that existence is not an accidental predicate and could not be used as one of God even if it were.  Further, existence cannot be essentially predicated of anything because… all existential statements must be synthetic. Here again, Kant reverts to asserting his worldview.  While He is right to point out that existence is not an accidental predicate because it is not a perfection, this is beside the point when it comes to the Ontological Argument, as Anselm pointed out in his Responsio to Gaunilo.  In this context, the question concerns whether existence is of the essence and nature of God, whether God necessarily exists.  As Hartshorne reasoned, necessary existence might well be predicated essentially of God, even if contingent existence cannot be used as an accidental predicate of anything.  For Hartshorne there are three alternatives for us to consider: 

i.God is impossible 

ii.God is possible, but may or may not exist 

iii.God exists necessarily. 

because God cannot be just a possibility, since he is by definition preeminent, so God’s existence is necessary.  Hartshorne’s modal ontological argument has been refined in different ways, including by Plantinga and Craig, but in essence – for those who share his worldview at least – it proves God’s necessary existence.  It seems that Kant’s criticism that existence is not a predicate fails to undermine the ontological argument either, at least beyond those who share his worldview.   

In conclusion, Kant’s criticisms of the Ontological Argument are persuasive if and only if you share his limited and dogmatic worldview.  Of course, many Philosophers did and do share this worldview – including Lotze, Schopenhauer, Russell and Findlay – and they will not accept the existence of other worldviews because it is part of their worldview to see their own perspective as the only truthful perspective on reality.  Nevertheless, for anybody who holds a different worldview – such as for St Anselm, Descartes, Hartshorne or Malcolm – Kant’s criticisms are ineffective and there is still the possibility of proving God’s existence a priori, from reason alone.  If ultimate reality is metaphysical and accessed through reason not empirical experience, and if existence is not defined in terms of being contingent existence, then the concept of God can de dicto necessarily contain His necessary existence despite His being incapable of empirical observation.  

Is there really a moral difference between killing somebody and letting somebody die? [40]

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The answer to this question seems obvious. Legally, there is a significant difference between killing someone and letting them die. Killing somebody by active means, depending on the circumstances, might be treated as murder, manslaughter or causing death by dangerous driving for example, all of which are subject to serious punishments. On the other hand, letting somebody die might attract no penalty at all, because this is what we all have to do at some point when medical options are unavailable or not in a person’s best interests. In the case of Airedale NHS Trust v. Bland, the House of Lords judgement “thou shall not kill, but thou needst not strive officiously to keep alive.” When it is in a patient’s best interests it can be the right thing to do to do nothing and let them die. Even where a doctor is negligent and allows somebody to die who might have been saved the penalty is much, much less than if they actively killed somebody – and usually covered by insurance. Nevertheless, despite the obvious answer, the question concerns the moral and not the legal difference between killing and letting die. The answer to this is more contentious. On the one hand traditional Christian Ethics and Kantian Ethics would agree with the law, that there is the world of difference between killing and letting die, but on the other hand, Utilitarianism and Situation Ethics as consequentialist approaches to decision-making would reject that distinction, arguing that the effects of both are the same so as actions they are morally equivalent. Nevertheless, the claim that killing and letting die are morally equivalent is not persuasive. Consider other examples whereby the same effects are achieved by different means. Is there a moral difference between actively lying to a friend or not telling them something that you might have? Is there a moral difference between making somebody homeless and failing to help a homeless person by housing them? Most people would see acts of omission (failing to do good) as less morally serious than acts of commission (i.e. actively doing wrong), so there is a moral difference between killing and letting die.

Firstly, the fact that there is a difference between killing and letting die is supported by the Bible, which distinguishes between things we do intentionally and accidentally and things done actively and passively. In the Old Testament the penalty for murder (intentional, active killing of a person) was death [Genesis 9:6], but nobody suggested that fellow citizens should be executed for failing to feed famine victims. The moral instruction to leave crops for the poor to glean existed of course [Leviticus 23:22], but there was no specific and individual penalty for ignoring it. While Prophets warned that the people would be punished collectively for ignoring the rights of the poor and vulnerable [e.g. Amos 2], suggesting that ignoring these rights is immoral and against the will of God, there can be no doubt that there is a moral difference between active, intentional killing (murder) and letting die, whether intentionally or otherwise. On the other hand, in the New Testament Jesus equated the intention with the action in his moral teaching. In Matthew 5 He taught that anger was morally equivalent to murder, a lustful look morally equivalent with adultery. By this logic, allowing somebody to die with malign intent would be the equivalent of murder, and yet this principle has rarely, if ever, been adopted by Christian ethics. Perhaps the key to this issue is what the word “morally” means. Because it is often impossible to know what motivated an action it is not possible to put a lot of weight on intentions in law or in formal Christian ethics. A person might even be unsure about their own motivations, so it is extremely difficult to assess these objectively. Nevertheless, Christians believe that God knows the inmost secrets of our hearts, being aware of motivations that we might not even be aware of ourselves [Psalm 139]. In this case, intentions might make all the difference to the moral status of an action in God’s eyes, while in the eyes of formal Christian ethics they cannot. Having said that, a Roman Catholic might argue that the Church has been given the authority to “bind and loose” Matthew 18:18, and this would suggest that the moral judgement of the Church – which cannot give much weight to intentions – still applies in heaven. This suggests that there is a moral difference between killing and letting die, whatever the situation or motivations, although that does not mean that letting die is always morally permissable.

Secondly, most versions of Natural Law (used alongside the Bible and Church teaching as the basis for Roman Catholic Ethics) teach that actions are more significant than intentions, which suggests that there is a moral difference between killing and letting die. For example, because of Natural Law Catholic ethics would see it as far worse to use artificial contraception or abortion than to remain celibate and so childless. Contraception and abortion actively prohibit a basic human good – life – while celibacy might be necessary in order to achieve another human good, as in the case of Priests. Morally, there is a real difference between doing something – often for an evil intention – and committing not to do it for a good intention. In Summa 2i, 20, 1 Aquinas explains that an action may be good when carried out with a good intention, but morally evil when carried out with an evil intention. He uses the example of giving alms – good when done out of agape-love and evil when done for vainglory. This implies that saving a life might be good when in the best interests of a patient, but morally evil when done for other reasons, in which case allowing to die might be morally preferable. The same reasoning might suggest that killing would be morally wrong when done with a malign intention and potentially right when done with a loving intention, yet Aquinas stops short of this conclusion. He reasons that while it is a duty to follow synderesis, even if it leads us to make such a faulty decision, this does not excuse us if we carry out actions which contradict conscientia, as killing a person always would because it actively prohibits the basic human good of life. It follows that the wrongness of killing is not dependent on motivations, and yet the situation does make some difference. Aquinas acknowledged the difference between not acting in cases where you can and should act and not acting when you can’t do anything or shouldn’t because of an order etc. He wrote “the cause of what follows from want of action is not always the agent as not acting; but only then when the agent can and ought to act.” [Summa 2i, 6, 3] This suggests that letting a relative die when you can’t help or have been ordered, such as by a court, not to would be morally very different from letting a patient die as a doctor when you could and are allowed to help. Further, in Summa 2i, 76, 3 Aquinas notes that ignorance might reduce the sinfulness of an action, because it makes some actions involuntary, when “voluntariness is essential to sin.” In this way, there would be a moral difference between a person whose synderesis led them to kill an elderly relative out of compassion and a person who intentionally killed an elderly relative in order to benefit from a will. Nevertheless, this interpretation would be strongly rejected by the Roman Catholic Church today, which teaches that any active euthanasia is the moral equivalent of murder, evil. In 2020 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has reaffirmed Roman Catholic teaching that euthanasia is an “intrinsically evil act”. The letter Samaritanus Bonus: On the care of persons in the critical and terminal phases of life described assisted dying and euthanasia as “homicide”, and said that the sacraments must be withheld from those who are planning to end their lives. This underlines the moral difference that the Church perceives between killing somebody – regardless of motivations – and letting die.

Thirdly, Kantian Ethics agrees that there is a moral difference between killing and letting die. For Kant, the maxim behind our actions is the action considered independently of any context and, if it cannot be universalised, it is absolutely and always wrong. In this way killing a hated enemy, killing an elderly relative to benefit from their will, killing a relative who is begging for an easeful death and suicide are all morally equivalent. Because the maxim cannot be universalised, killing is absolutely wrong. Despite this, Kant also taught that intentions are even more significant in determining the moral status of an action than the action in itself. Famously, he began the “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals” (1785) by stating that “Nothing in the world—or out of it!—can possibly be conceived that could be called ‘good’ without qualification except a GOOD WILL.” If an action is undertaken out of fear or habit or for any other reason than freely, for duty’s sake, then this renders the action morally wrong, which pollutes the will and prevents it being worthy of the eternal reward which we must postulate as existing for good wills, so that they can do as they feel that they should and so that the universe is fair. Further, Kant taught that a negative duty i.e. not to kill, lie or steal always trumps a positive duty e.g. to feed the hungry. This suggests that there is a moral difference between killing and letting die; while in some circumstances both are immoral, killing (achieving the end by active means) is always worse. Nevertheless, Peter Singer would reject this conclusion, arguing that there is little moral difference between killing and letting die. In “Practical Ethics” he argued that there is no moral difference between aborting a near-term foetus because it has a disability and killing a newborn infant. In fact, he argued that it is morally preferable, even a moral duty, to kill a newborn who is suffering and who has no hope of a quality life so that money spent on neonatal care could be spent more productively elsewhere. In “Unsanctifying Human Life” Singer and Kuhse argue the same with regard to Euthanasia, suggesting that it is morally preferable to kill an elderly relative with dementia than to allow them to die – slowly and expensively – while others suffer for lack of healthcare resources. Further, in “The Life you can Save” Singer argued that neglecting an opportunity to help somebody and killing them are morally equivalent. He used the example of a child drowning in a pond, pointing out that we would feel a moral imperative to ruin expensive shoes in order to save them… and that we should equally feel a moral imperative to save a child on the other side of the world by sending the £200 our shoes cost to a charity. Through all these cases, Singer makes a fair point in pointing out that we are wrong to place so much weight on the moral difference between killing and letting die. It is helpful to consider that letting die might well cause more suffering and that killing should not be the taboo that it is to most people, when in practical terms it may be preferable. Singer is also right to point out how most people wrongly prefer people who are close to us and choose to ignore those who are further from us, whether in space or time, meaning that we tend to be thoughtless and ignore the moral imperative to use our money wisely and avoid decisions which – however unintentionally – harm others now or in the future. Nevertheless, however right Singer is to make a theoretical point as regards the equivalence of killing and letting die, in practice it is not reasonable to treat the two as moral equivalents, because the law deals in rules and generalities, not intentions and specific situations. Further, as Onora O’Neill has argued, we can’t agree that failing to help somebody in need – such as by giving money for famine relief – is morally the same as killing them. While both are morally bad, killing is worse because it is active and intentionally evil.

Despite this, most consequentialists will agree with Singer, arguing that there is no moral difference between killing and letting die, because the consequences, which justify an action or condemn it, could be the same either way. Take for example a case of assisted dying; the patient is dying, so the only factor that decides the morality of killing them or letting them die is the amount of pleasure or pain that results from the action, so far as the patient and other interested parties are concerned. As Bentham pointed out “all other things being equal, poetry is as good as pushpin” or, in other words, what you do to produce the results is immaterial; all that matters, morally, is the results. This means that there is no essential moral difference between killing and letting die such as would make one better than the other in all situations. It may be that letting someone die produces more suffering than killing them would, as in a case of a patient dying of motor-neurone disease who has asked to “die with dignity” and whose relatives and friends are all supportive. In other cases however, killing would undoubtedly cause more suffering than allowing to die, such as when the law allows passive euthanasia but not active. In such a case, killing might get a doctor struck off and even imprisoned, even when their intentions were altruistic and good. The case of Dr Cox and Lilian Boyes shows how this could be the case. While the situation makes all the difference in terms of the moral status of the action, Utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham would reject the idea that intentions make any moral difference; as he argues “nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters; the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain” so we should “always act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number…” what we intend is not at issue, only what we achieve in respect of pleasure and pain in society. This highlights one of the problems with consequentialism – what Peter Singer has identified as the biggest problem that Utilitarianism faces – the Problem of Prediction. That is, consequentialism depends on our ability to calculate the pleasure and/or pain resulting from possible actions so that we can choose the one which is morally preferable in maximising pleasure and minimising pain, in advance of doing anything. In practice, our calculations are often flawed meaning that while we intend to minimise suffering, in the end we fail to do this. Because intentions don’t count and the only thing that justifies an action, morally, is the consequences the agent takes a risk every time they act, trusting that what they intend will happen and so ensure that they have done what is right. In a case of euthanasia, for example, the situation is further complicated by the difficulty of assessing someone else’s pain, whether in the person dying or in their relatives and friends. How can we measure grief or accurately determine whether it is outweighed by the suffering a person dying, say of cancer, experiences in their final hours? Bentham’s felicific calculus, while well meant, is of little practical use when it comes to making such assessments and only serves to highlight another significant criticism of consequentialist ethics, that they are subjective. Of course, rule utilitarianism, such as that proposed by Peter Singer in recent years, gets round both the problem of prediction and the subjectivity problem by developing rules on the basis of the utilitarian maxim, which are then applied in most or all cases regardless of the details. Yet, as RM Hare pointed out, rule utilitarianism means that there is little difference between a Utilitarian and say a Kantian approach. Also, in answer to this question, it would probably mean that there is a moral difference between killing and letting die because rules tend to be framed around actions, not omissions and because it is hard to imagine a rule prohibiting letting people die being practical in many cases!

In conclusion, there is a moral difference between killing and letting die because this is the case in law, in the Bible, in Natural Law and Kantian Ethics. As has been discussed, it is also true in Rule Utilitarianism, which is really the only practical version of Utilitarianism.

Critically assess the view that in Christian teaching, all people will be saved. [40]

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Mainstream Christian teaching explains that not everybody will be saved.  The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church confirms, “The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life”.  It quotes the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats from Matthew Chapter 25, confirming that only the good will be saved and rewarded in heaven while the wicked will be sent to eternal punishment in hell.  Further, the Westminster Confession, accepted by most Protestant Christians, also confirms that “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death” showing that it is not true that “in Christian teaching, all people will be saved.” While a few universalists and inclusivists might argue that in Christian teaching, all people will be saved, perhaps selectively quoting certain Bible passages – such as 1 John 2:2 which suggests that Jesus “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world…” – in practice this is a distortion of Christian teaching.

Firstly, mainstream Christian teaching is that only baptised Christians will be saved.  John 14:6 famously states “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me!” which strongly suggests that only Christians can be saved and go to heaven.  While Karl Rahner and John Hick might suggest that for all we know, God being omnipotent and omnibenevolent, might give what Rahner called “anonymous Christians” a second chance to accept Jesus and thus be saved through him after death, this is not a mainstream teaching.  In John 3:5 Jesus said “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God…” which most Christians interpret to mean that Baptism is necessary for salvation.  Indeed, the Roman Catholic Catechism 1257 teaches that “the Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation…” and the Orthodox Churches teach that baptism is the means by which Christians receive the Holy Spirit, which is necessary for Salvation.  While Quakers, including John Hick later in his life, might argue that sacraments are unnecessary, because the outward signs of grace have no power in themselves and may serve to distract from the spiritual signs of salvation within, this is a minority view.  Most Protestants also teach that Baptism is necessary for salvation, being a sign of election.  The Westminster Confession confirms that “much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever…”  Further, some Christians might argue that unbaptised infants might be saved by the grace of God, so why not good people of other faiths.  Even the Roman Catholic Church, which had taught that unbaptised infants go to limbo, not heaven, changed this teaching in 2007.  Yet Roman Catholic teaching still suggests that “Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.” (Catechism 1257) and while it admits that God “himself is not bound by his sacraments…” and might decide to save unbaptised people, this possibility is not known to the Church and seems to conflict with Scripture.  For these reasons then, in Christian teaching not everybody will be saved.

Secondly, mainstream Christian teaching is that only good people will be saved and that the wicked will be punished eternally in hell.  Matthew 25 (the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats) makes it clear that at the Last Judgement God will divide people into the good (sheep) and the wicked (goats) and send them for eternal reward or punishment based on how they have treated “the least of these brothers of mine”.  Similarly, Luke 16 (the Parable of Dives and Lazarus) suggests that once we are in heaven or hell, based on our choices in this life towards the most vulnerable, then this fate is eternal and cannot be changed.  In John 13:34-35 Jesus states “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This suggests that being “in Jesus” and therefore saved depends on good works, which means that those who do not love others will not be saved.  Based on these scriptures, the Roman Catholic Catechism 1022 teaches that “at the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love…”  and 1033 states “we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbour or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” [1 John 3:14-15] Nevertheless, mainstream Christian teaching also makes it clear that salvation does not depend on works.  Rather, we are saved by grace and God’s decision alone, which does not depend on anything we do or choose.  For Roman Catholics, “Grace is favour, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life” so that being Baptised, taking the sacraments and living a good life are evidence that we have been saved by God’s grace.  Yet, for Protestants, it is possible that a person might be baptised and live an apparently good life and yet still not be saved.  The Westminster Confession explains that “others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved.”  God’s decision to save is one of grace and so independent of anything which we do, or how we might appear to others. John Calvin confirmed that “Therefore, as Paul testifies, election, which is the cause of good works, does not depend upon men.” Commentaries on Election and Predestination. In this way it might seem that it is possible that God saves all people by his grace, including those who are unbaptised and even those who live lives of sin.  Yet there are few Christians who would accept this, because the idea that Hitler and Stalin might end up in heaven alongside the Saints conflicts with Justice, which is one of God’s core attributes.  It follows, therefore, that it is wrong to say that “in Christian teaching, all people will be saved.”

On the other hand, some Christians argue that the existence of an eternal hell is incompatible with God’s goodness. Whatever sins we commit in this life are temporary, so an eternal punishment could not be proportionate, which is a core principle of justice.  If hell is not eternal, it would follow that in the end all people will be saved.  Roman Catholic teaching suggests that after we die, we can atone for sin through Purgatory, a temporary hell, before making progress towards paradise and eventually being released into heaven at the Last Judgement.  The Catechism 1030 stated that “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” Yet this still implies that some people – those who die outside God’s grace and friendship – do go to an eternal Hell.  This is also suggested by the Bible, in Matthew 25, Luke 16 and elsewhere.  Karl Barth and later John Hick both addressed this issue, asking how a just God could punish people for temporary sins – however bad – with an eternal punishment.  They came to similar solutions, that God offers all sinners a “way back” after they die, but that God’s gift of grace is freedom which extends to the ability to reject God’s grace and salvation a second time and choose eternal damnation for ourselves.  Despite this, the idea that all people will be saved eventually is not acceptable to all Christians, because it implies that we are saved by our own decision, not God’s.  Barth tried to get around this by saying that it is freedom which is the gift of grace, so when we choose to accept God’s salvation we are saved through grace.  He wrote “The command of God sets man free…” Church Dogmatics p.586 and “The determination of the elect consists in the fact that he allows himself to be loved by God” p.411  Yet for Augustine and Calvin this is unlikely to be acceptable, because it does seem to limit God’s omniscience.  If God gives us freedom as a gift of grace, allowing us to choose to accept the salvation which is offered to everybody or not, then it might suggest that God does not know whether we will accept or not.  It might be that God limits his own knowledge of who will be saved to facilitate his gift of grace, which is freedom.  Yet this implies that God is limited in power, having to choose between giving us freedom and knowing who will be saved. It might be that God does know who will accept salvation – and who will not accept – despite our freedom. Yet this seems close to Arminianism (and so not compatible with Lutheran or Calvinist Protestant Theology) because God’s knowledge of who would accept salvation and his gift of grace in freedom would be simultaneous in God’s timeless nature and God might be seen to choose who to save or not based on whether they will accept.  It follows that mainstream Christian teaching does not embrace the idea that God offers salvation to everybody and freedom as a gift of grace to either accept or reject that salvation.  In the end, some people will not be saved, and this will be by God’s decision alone, according to mainstream Christian teaching. 

In conclusion, it is not fair to say that “in Christian teaching, all people will be saved.”  While there are a few Christians who might like to think that, and while a few Bible quotes taken out of context might imply that, mainstream Christian teaching is united in its view that some people will not be saved.  This will probably include most non-Christians and serious sinners. 

Critically compare Aquinas’ and Wittgenstein’s approaches to defining meaning in religious language [40]

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On first sight, Aquinas and Wittgenstein offer diametrically opposed approaches to defining meaning in religious language. Aquinas argued for a cognitivist understanding of religious language, with claims such as “god is good” being meaningful because they refer to the goodness of God which is analogical to goodness in created things, both in the sense of proportion and attribution. Wittgenstein seemed to argue for a non-cognitivist approach to religious language, with claims such as “God is good” being meaningful only if they cohere with the rules of the language game being played within the form of life or context within which the statement is made. On this level, it is Wittgenstein who offers the more persuasive approach to defining meaning in religious language today. Nevertheless, as Herbert McCabe has pointed out, there is a common cause between Aquinas and Wittgenstein, and a greater degree of similarity between their approaches than is usually understood.

In the first place, Wittgenstein’s approach to religious language is more persuasive than that of Aquinas because he starts from where we are and provides an account of religious language which supports the meaningfulness of claims made by and within different religions which seem to be mutually exclusive. His approach does not depend on us having a belief in God, let alone the very particular concept of God which Aquinas assumes. For Aquinas, God is eternal in the sense of being outside time and space, meaning that all God’s attributes are simple and single and that the apparent difference between God’s goodness, power and knowledge is due to how we understand God from our limited, contingent perspective and not the result of any real division in God’s nature. When we say that “God is good” what we say is meaningful because the goodness of created things is analogical to the goodness of God. This is because “God is good” is consistent with the nature of God; being eternal God necessarily fulfils his nature and cannot fall short of it by any proportion, so contains no evil (privatio boni). Further, “God is good” is meaningful because the goodness of all created things depends on God, so the attribution of goodness in created things depends on the attribute of goodness in God, which is primary. Aquinas’ approach is more persuasive than straightforward univocal predication – such as when St Anselm, for all he accepts that God does not have a body, seems to assume that the meaning of terms like goodness mean pretty much the same when applied to God and to created things – because his approach affirms the “otherness” of God, which is consistent both with the Bible (Job 55) and with Natural Theology. Yet, Aquinas’ approach is rooted in a worldview which sees God’s existence as the creator and necessary sustainer as undeniable. For Aquinas, the fact that claims such as “God is good” mean any more than “God is fully God” or just “God is” depends on the being of God being understood to be primary, so that the being of other things can be understood to be secondary and take their attributes by attribution from His. Just as the meaningfulness of me saying “my yoghurt is healthy” depends on the primary existence of healthy people with whose lifestyles this yoghurt is conceivably consistent, so the meaningfulness of me saying “God is good” depends on the primary existence of God with whom my secondary concept of goodness – drawn from the partial goodness of contingent things – can have an analogical relationship. Aquinas himself admits that “because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us” Summa Theologica 1,2,1 and so rejects any attempt to prove God’s existence a priori, from reason alone, so his approach to religious language depends on the success of his Five Ways in demonstrating God’s existence a posteriori, from effects or observations. Yet Aquinas’ five ways have been widely criticized; his premises have been shown to be untrue so that they cannot support their conclusions – of a Prime Mover, Uncaused Causer, Necessary Being, Supreme Perfection and Intelligent Designer – let alone to their secondary conclusions, that “this is what everybody calls God.” While Aquinas’ failure to demonstrate the existence of God does not mean that God does not exist, or is not just as Aquinas reasoned He must be, Wittgenstein is surely right when he suggests that the meaning of words depends on how they are used and not on what they refer to; the meaning of words changes over time and differs by context. Given this and the impossibility of establishing the existence of let alone verifying the nature of a Godly point of reference for religious claims, the meaningfulness of a religious claim must depend on the context within which it is made. It follows that for those who inhabit Aquinas’ language game and believe in his God, his approach to religious language will be persuasive, but today it is Wittgenstein’s approach which offers the more persuasive account of the meaningfulness of religious language as a whole.

Secondly, Wittgenstein’s approach to religious language is more persuasive than Aquinas’ because it allows us to say many more things about God meaningfully. Aquinas’ analogical approach supports us in saying a very limited range of things about God, and suggests that the meaning communicated when we affirm that “God is good” or “God is omnipotent” or “God has supreme knowledge” is much, much less than most believers assume it to be. While Ian Ramsey was right to suggest that religious people use qualifiers such as “timeless” or “divine” to signify that their claims are religious, rely on models and so are “logically odd,” this practice is not so widespread as Ramsey suggests. Most believers – even within Aquinas’ Roman Catholic form of life – assume that God’s goodness is much more like our goodness than Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy would allow, so in practice they are speaking of God univocally, which cannot be meaningful given God’s timeless, wholly simple nature. By contrast, Wittgenstein’s approach to religious language supports believers and churches in making whatever claims cohere with the rules of the language game… that they contribute to setting up. Neither the game nor its rules are fixed and static, which suggests that religions can evolve and change over time and accommodate diversity within their ranks as well. This account of religious language is persuasive because it is more consistent with how religion is in the world today than Aquinas fixed, analogical approach. Within Roman Catholicism the claim “God is mother” is highly controversial and would be rejected by most mainstream believers, but that does not stop it being meaningful within some communities. Similarly, the claim that all Catholics have a duty to give the poor a “preferential option” is the life-force of base-communities in South America, while other communities to the north pay lip-service to the idea, if that. Wittgenstein’s approach to religious language is persuasive because it accounts for this diversity and the dynamics of religious meaning much better than Aquinas’ narrow, cerebral approach.

Nevertheless, as Herbert McCabe pointed out, there was common cause between Aquinas and Wittgenstein, which is often ignored. There is no evidence that Wittgenstein read Aquinas directly, but he had several prominent Catholic students, including Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach, who arranged a Catholic funeral and burial for their teacher despite his never joining the Church. While the two lived 700 years apart and in very different contexts, there is in both Aquinas an in Wittgenstein a need to understand the very nature of language. There is also a concern to define the limits of language and not to say either what is untrue or not meaningful. Famously, Wittgenstein concluded his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) by writing “what we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence” suggesting that he had great sympathy for the apophatic approach to language. Ranjit Chatterjee in Wittgenstein and Judaism: A Triumph of Concealment (2005) argues that Wittgenstein must have read Maimonides’ “The Guide for the Perplexed,” not least because he used a number of phrases and metaphors also used by Maimonides. Wittgenstein clearly believed that there is an ultimate, metaphysical reality, but rejected the idea that we can speak about it meaningfully. He wrote “There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.” Tractatus 6:522 and “How the world is, is completely indifferent for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.” Tractatus 6:4321 meaning that for Wittgenstein it is not possible to speak (meaningfully) about God, but that does not stop us from feeling God. He wrote “The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling.” 6:45 In this way, Aquinas was more positive about our ability to speak meaningfully about ultimate reality than Wittgenstein. Aquinas maintained that “we know God from creatures as their principle, and also by way of excellence and remotion. In this way therefore He can be named by us from creatures, yet not so that the name which signifies Him expresses the divine essence in itself.” Summa Theologica 1, 13, 1 And yet, Aquinas felt much sympathy for Maimonides position, which held that “The corporeal element in man is a large screen and partition that prevents him from perfectly perceiving abstract ideals… However great the exertion of our mind may be to comprehend the Divine Being or any of the ideals, we find a screen and partition between God and us.” Guide to the Perplexed Part 3, Book 9 and thus for what became Wittgenstein’s position. He wrote “Univocal predication is impossible between God and creatures.” Summa Theologica 1, 13, 5 and, while he maintained that the creative relationship between God and creatures supported his analogical approach to language, he was always cautious of taking claims about God too literally and forgetting the essential difference between what it means for us to be good and for God to be good. Yet, for Aquinas, the meaningfulness of religious claims depends ultimately on the belief that God is the cause of creatures, which means that God is not as remote as it otherwise might seem (Summa 1,13,2) As I have previously argued, Aquinas’ attempt to demonstrate God’s existence fails. Further, Aquinas’ religious experience towards the end of his life shows that he realized that himself in the end. It follows that Aquinas basis for believing that God is the cause of creatures is faith and not reason, so the meaningfulness of claims depends on faith and has no firm epistemological foundation. Other than that God is the cause of creatures, the meaningfulness of religious claims for Aquinas depends on how they cohere with points of doctrine and what else is known to be true. As Aaron B James pointed out in a 2009 article for Catalyst Magazine, Aquinas was a Theologian at least as much as he was a Philosopher. Similarly, for Wittgenstein, the meaning of religious claims depends on coherence, although that does not mean there is not an ultimate truth at stake. As he said, “let nature speak & acknowledge only one thing higher…” Culture and Value p3. He also said “If one thinks of God as the creator, must the conservation of the universe not be a miracle as great as creation – yes, aren’t the two one and the same? Public and Private Occasions p215 which suggests that Wittgenstein’s concept of God and Aquinas’ were similar. This is supported by William H Brenner in “Theology as Straw: An Essay on Wittgenstein and Aquinas” (New Blackfriars Vol. 93, No. 1046 (JULY 2012), pp. 412-425) In these ways, Aquinas and Wittgenstein are more similar than many would recognize, and yet this is partly because Aquinas’ attempt to root his approach to religious language in epistemological foundations failed, so in the end it is Wittgenstein’s approach to religious language which remains the more persuasive.

In conclusion, Wittgenstein’s approach to defining meaning in religious language is more persuasive than that of Aquinas, but it is worth looking beyond the superficial contrasts between their approaches to the essential similarities between their worldviews. While Aquinas and Wittgenstein were separated by 700 years, most of a continent, by religion and by culture, they both based their life on the existence of an metaphysical truth which we can only experience and can never know, at least within the limits of this life.

Critically compare Plato’s Form of the Good with Aristotle’s Prime Mover. [40]

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While Plato and Aristotle had contrasting approaches to philosophy in many ways, there are some similarities between their worldviews. One of these is that both Plato and Aristotle argued that a metaphysical entity provides the ultimate explanation for our physical reality. In Plato’s case this is the Form of the Good (FOG), which is the form of the forms – which themselves give definition and identity to the things we experience – and perhaps the only true form. For Aristotle this is the Prime Mover, which is the origin of movement and efficient causation as well as the necessary being which sustains our universe of contingencies. Through the centuries theists have seen in both the FOG and PM possible rational support for the existence of God, but in the end the Prime Mover is a more persuasive concept than the Form of the Good and is more useful to theists in this relation.

Aristotle’s arguments for the Prime Mover are rooted in observations, so accessible to anybody.  In the Metaphysics Book IV Aristotle defines metaphysics as “a science which investigates being as being and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature.” For any of the “special sciences” – Physics, Chemistry etc. – to proceed in discovering the causes of specific classes of existing things, we must first identify the causes of existence itself by engaging in metaphysics. As with the special sciences, metaphysics starts with observations and from these uses reason to identify the causes of what is observed. In the case of any thing that is observed, Aristotle reasons that its existence is caused by four types of cause:

  • material causes (i.e. physical ingredients such as the bronze of a statue)
  • formal causes (i.e. the concept according to which the material causes are arranged, such as the idea of the statue in the mind of the sculptor)
  • efficient causes (i.e. the agents which bring the material causes together according to the formal cause)
  • a final cause (i.e. the end or telos for which the thing exists, ultimately flourishing).

Nevertheless, as Aristotle states towards the end of Book IV of the Metaphysics, identifying the causes of existing things raises the question of what caused the causes. For examples, what is the formal cause of formal causes, which explains their existence? What is the uncaused efficient cause which started the series of agents that leads to what we observe? Aristotle hypothesises the existence of a “Prime Mover” which exists necessarily, outside time and space, and which sustains contingent existence, being the unmoved mover and uncaused causer of all things. Clearly, this reasoning has been adopted and adapted by many other philosophers since Aristotle’s time and has become the many versions of the Cosmological Argument for God’s existence. William Lane Craig is just one example of a contemporary philosopher who would support Aristotle in reasoning that this contingent universe must have a cause outside itself. Craig would also agree with Aristotle in limiting speculation about the nature of this cause, because its existence is necessarily beyond our conceptual framework. While the classical cosmological argument for God’s existence, such as was presented by Aquinas, has been roundly rejected by David Hume, Immanuel Kant and later Bertrand Russell, Craig points out that modern science and Big Bang Theory demolishes some of those criticisms, while others of them can be overcome by stopping short of claiming that the necessary being sustaining the universe is “what everybody calls God”… which Aristotle recognized 2400 years ago. As we now know, the universe is not what Russell called “a brute fact” which makes Aristotle’s concept of the Prime Mover persuasive.

In addition, Aristotle’s Prime Mover is more persuasive than Plato’s Form of the Good because Plato’s “argument” for the forms – and thus for the Form of the Good – is unclear and inconsistent. Plato is unclear about precisely which forms exist metaphysically.  As Julia Annas observes, “Plato never offers an argument for Forms that would establish them as entities suitable for a theory”[1] In Book X of the Republic, Plato implies that there are separate forms for tables, beds etc.  Socrates says to Glaucon: “Whenever a number of individuals have a common name we assume them to also have a corresponding idea or form.  Do you understand me? [I do]  Let us take any common instance; there are beds and tables in the world – plenty of them – are there not? [Yes] But there are only two ideas or forms of them – one of the idea of the bed, the other of a table.”[2] Yet, in Book VI of the Republic, through his Allegory of the Sun, Plato implies that only one form ultimately exists – the Form of the Good – and that our impression that a diversity of things exist is a belief rather than actual knowledge, a result of our ideas being clouded by sense-experiences and so not being clear or distinct.  Here, as Julia Annas explains, “Plato contrasted Forms, which are objects of knowledge, with particular instances of Forms (things that ‘partake in’ Forms), which are objects of belief…” [3] The lack of any explicit argument for the forms and the inconsistency of Plato’s position make Plato’s theory of the forms unconvincing. In addition, where Aristotle’s Prime Mover is supported by observable evidence and persuasive argument, it is not possible to support Plato’s theory of the forms, however it is presented, through either evidence or persuasive argument.  Nothing we can observe supports the existence of “forms” whether separately of beds and tables or indeed of the good.  Plato’s position – and that of modern Platonists who accept his theory of the forms – depends on reason alone.  Plato – through the character of Socrates – argues that the existence of the forms is known a priori, before and even without experience, because their necessary existence is contained within our understanding of all other things.  Yet what is the difference between this sort of rational argument for ultimate reality in the world of the forms… and speculation?  Even if the need to verify the forms is discounted, what could possibly falsify or count against Plato’s argument for the forms, especially if all experience is discounted?  It follows that Plato’s concept of the Form of the Good is less persuasive than the concept of Aristotle’s Prime Mover.

Further, Aristotle’s Prime Mover is more useful in supporting the existence of God than the Form of the Good. The concept of the Form of the Good might seem to have more in common with the Christian concept of God than the concept of the Prime Mover. While both the concept of the Form of the Good and the concept of the Prime Mover are of beings which exist metaphysically, eternally and immutably, only the concept of the Form of the Good is conceivably “the creator” or identified with truth and moral goodness. The goodness of the Form of the Good is the same as the goodness we experience in things and more conceivably the moral goodness Christians associate with God, while the goodness of the Prime Mover only relates to the Prime Mover necessarily fulfilling its nature and sustaining good things in existence. Yet, identifying God with the Form of the Good encourages univocal predication – assuming that attributes affirmed of God mean the same as when they are affirmed of other things – which leads to problems. If God’s power, knowledge and goodness are the same as our power, knowledge and goodness then God is limited by the laws of logic and possibility and therefore not supreme. Further, univocal predication quickly leads to confusion and the anthropomorphisation of God, pulling God away from what the rational demonstrations of God’s existence support so that faith becomes fideism and divorced from the Philosophy of Religion.Yet, as Aquinas showed in the Summa Theologica (1264), the concept of the Prime Mover is consistent with the Christian concept of God. Isaiah 55 confirms “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Because of this, Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy is successful in showing that all of the classical attributes affirmed of God [when identified with the concept of the Prime Mover] convey some (if very limited) positive meaning. It follows that Aristotle’s Prime Mover is more useful in supporting the existence of God than the Form of the Good, because identifying God with the Prime Mover forces believers to confront the otherness of God and thus to avoid limiting or anthropomorphising God in a way that is as dangerous as it is enticing.

Clearly neo-platonists such as GE Moore, Iris Murdoch etc. would disagree with this argument, suggesting that the existence of a universal concept of goodness known through rational intuition is a persuasive argument for the existence of the Form of the Good.  They might draw on Kant’s so-called “moral argument” which suggests that the existence of the Moral Law, which presents itself synthetic a priori, makes it a duty to postulate the existence of a “God”… although “within the boundaries of reason alone”, as Plato would surely have agreed! CS Lewis’ moral argument also supports this view, suggesting that it is the rational concept of fairness, which so often causes atheists to reject God, which provides the best evidence for His existence. The concept of fairness cannot have its origins in experience after all, and yet even 2 year old children appeal to it. Nevertheless, intuitionism is not widely accepted today. Firstly, despite the big claims of Kant, Moore, Murdoch and Lewis, not everybody shares the same concept of goodness. While it is probably fair to say that the occasional sociopath does not disprove the existence of near-universal moral laws, these are better explained through psychology (Freud) and/or evolution (Trivers, Dawkins) than through a metaphysical Form of the Good today. This is partly because the Form of the Good relies on the wider Platonic world-view, where ultimate reality is metaphysical and reason a better guide to it than the evidence of the senses, when this is not widely shared in the modern – let alone the postmodern – world. It follows that Plato’s Form of the Good is not a persuasive or useful concept today.

In conclusion, the Prime Mover is a more persuasive and useful concept than the Form of the Good.  The Prime Mover is supported by more persuasive arguments than Plato’s Form of the Good, arguments which are consistent with modern science. The Prime Mover also presupposes a worldview which was widely accepted through the 19th and early 20th Centuries, while the Form of the Good depends on a worldview which has been out of favor since the Renaissance. The concept of the Prime Mover is also consistent with the Christian concept of God and, as Aquinas showed, identifying God with the Prime Mover helps Christians avoid some of the problems inherent in the univocal predication which identifying God with the Form of the Good encourages.  

Critically compare the logical and evidential aspects of the problem of evil as challenges to belief. [40]

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The problem of evil presents such a severe challenge to Christian belief that Hans Kung referred to it as “the rock of atheism.”  On one level, the problem of evil can be presented as a logical puzzle.  As John Hick noted “As a challenge to theism, the problem of evil has traditionally been posed in the form of a dilemma; if God is perfectly loving, He must wish to abolish evil; and if He is all-powerful, He must be able to abolish evil. But evil exists; therefore God cannot be both omnipotent and perfectly loving.”  As such, the logical problem of evil demands Theodicies or logical defences of God against charges of creating or allowing evil. On another level, the problem of evil can be presented as conclusive evidence that God cannot exist – at least in any form that would be worthy of worship – rendering any attempt at Theodicy… and religious faith… nigh-on impossible.  For example, Dostoevsky’s character Ivan Karamazov presented an evidential challenge to the simple faith of his brother Alyosha, rendering him speechless and certainly not rushing to God’s defence.  In the end, the evidential aspect of the problem of evil is a greater challenge to belief than the logical aspect. 

So challenging is the evidential aspect of the problem of evil to faith that it was presented as an argument for atheism by William Rowe in “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” (1979) Rowe focuses on a particular kind of evil that is found in our world in abundance: “intense human and animal suffering” which is, Rowe argues, intrinsically evil…meaning that it is bad in and of itself, even though it sometimes is part of, or leads to, some good state of affairs (p.335)  He uses this kind of evil as the basis for a DEDUCTIVE disproof of God, which is clearly VALID.

P1: There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

P2: An omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

C: There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

If there are rational grounds for accepting its premises, to that extent there are rational grounds for accepting the conclusion, atheism.  Rowe gives two powerful examples to support his first, factual premise; the fawn and Sue.  While Stephen Wykstra tries to reject this premise, arguing that “if we think carefully about the sort of being theism proposes for our belief, it is entirely expectable – given what we know of our cognitive limits – that the goods by virtue of which this Being allows known suffering should very often be beyond our ken” (1984: 91) playing the “mystery card” in this way will only ever persuade those with deep and unfalsifiable faith to the point of being what RM Hare called a BLIK.  The author of the Biblical book of Job tried what became known as Wykstra’s CORNEA argument centuries before Christ and it hardly reduced the force of the evidential challenge to belief.  Attempted defences of Wykstra from Alston, Hick and Swinburne do no more than restate the claim that human beings are in no position to judge why an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God would allow the fawn and Sue to suffer.  They do not make this claim any more persuasive in the face of the agonies that Rowe describes.  Rowe sees his second, theological premise, as self-evidently true.  While advocates of OPENNESS THEOLOGY disagree, suggesting that God’s existence as everlasting-in-time rather than eternal outside time places logical constraints on God’s power and knowledge so that God may not prevent instances of intense suffering that come about as a result of human free-will.  They argue that “the theistic worldview is not only compatible with, but requires or demands, the possibility that there is gratuitous evil” [Nick Trakakis IEP article on Evidential Problem of Evil] because it hinges on the existence of genuine free will.  Nevertheless, this fails to answer the question posed by JL Mackie in relation to his presentation of the logical problem of evil; why could not an omnipotent God create free beings who always choose what is right?  In practice, advocates of Openness Theology are advocates for a limited, anthropomorphic God for whom there is no credible evidence at all.  It follows that Rowe’s first and second premises are true, making his deductive disproof of an omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good being is sound, making his evidential argument the biggest possible challenge to belief.   

This conclusion is further supported by Gregory S Paul in “Theodicy’s Problem” (2007).  Where Rowe begins with very specific examples of dysteleological suffering, Paul widens the scope of the evidential argument by citing  “THE HOLOCAUST OF CHILDREN” as proof that there cannot exist any omnipotent, omnibenevolent God.  Like Rowe, Paul fine-tunes his argument to evade classical theodicies, but he also improves on Rowe’s argument because it is much harder to suggest that God could have an unknown purpose for designing the whole world to create maximum suffering than it is to suggest that he has an unknown purpose for allowing specific instances of animal or child suffering. As Paul writes, “The full extent of the anguish and death suffered by immature humans is scientifically and statistically documented… Probably hundreds of billions of human conceptions and at least fifty billion children have died, the great majority from nonhuman causes, before reaching the age of mature consent. Adults who have heard the word of Christ number in the lower billions. If immature deceased humans are allowed into heaven, then the latter is inhabited predominantly by automatons. Because the Holocaust of the Children bars an enormous portion of humans from making a decision about their eternal fate while maximizing the suffering of children, the classic Christian “free will” and “best of all possible worlds” hypotheses are falsified.”  He goes on, “The situation could not have been much worse than it actually is. If prenatal and juvenile mortality and disability were significantly higher than they actually are, then the population would not be able to grow, and would be at high risk of crashing, leading to human extinction. The level of natural evil has been about as severe as is practically possible.” p.132 Continuing… “If a creator exists, then it has chosen to fashion a habitat that has maximized the level of suffering and death among young humans that are due to factors beyond the control of humans over most of their history.”  It is very difficult to respond to Paul’s challenge as a believer.  Just as Darwin, Mill and Dawkins found, when faced with the “pitiless indifference” of nature laid bare, it becomes impossible – even ridiculous – to maintain a faith position.  This shows that the evidential aspect of the problem of evil presents the greatest possible challenge to belief.   

Of course, the logical problem of evil is still a significant challenge to belief.  JL Mackie (in his essay “Evil and Omnipotence” (1955)) pointed out that Christians usually believe that

P1.  God exists and is omnipotent

P2.  God exists and is omnibenevolent

P3.  Evil exists

Mackie went further than Hume, who had called this an “inconsistent triad” of beliefs, stating that holding these three propositions as co-beliefs is “positively irrational”.  In this way, the logical problem of evil seems to force Christians to choose between God’s omnipotence and His omnibenevolence, or else deny the existence of evil. Yet it has been the attempt to show that faith is (possibly) rational that presents a greater challenge to belief than the logical problem itself.  If only theologians had been content to admit that faith is irrational, or to choose which of Mackie’s propositions to drop!  The effect of doing so on belief would have been far less dramatic than the logical gymnastics of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas have been.  Firstly, both thinkers demanded that Christians believe that evil is “privatio boni” making God less responsible for its effects. Aquinas used the analogy of silent pauses which add sweetness to the chant!  Yet, as Rowe and Paul have shown, it is difficult to categorise evil as a simple lack of good when the whole of nature seems designed to inflict maximum suffering.  Can the suffering out of which evolution is fashioned really be explained in terms of silent pauses making the totality of nature better?   This Theodicy only serves to highlight how out of touch Christian theology is and this to challenge peoples’ belief.  Secondly, St Augustine claimed that human beings deserve the effects of both moral and natural evil because as a species they misused their free will.  Again, this fails to account for the suffering of animals, which is hardly to be dismissed as an illusion.  It also fails to account for the suffering of innocent children, documented in such detail by Rowe and Paul, without appealing to “Original Sin”, a concept as incredible and abhorrent as it has become necessary to mainstream Christian doctrine.  These examples show how it is the logical gymnastics resorted to by Christian theologians in their blind attempt to defend their position against the logical aspect of the problem of evil that has twisted and distorted the position they sought to defend and presented an enormous challenge to belief, not the logical problem in itself.  As Marilyn McCord Adams noted, to a large extent philosophical reflection on the problem of evil makes the suffering worse.  She wrote ”There is a time to drop philosophical reflection, to forget about questions of meaning… in order to act to get the suffering to stop…”  

In conclusion, the evidential aspect of the problem of evil presents the biggest possible challenge to belief, closely followed by Christian responses to the logical aspect of the problem.  The logical aspect of the problem in itself is not so much of a challenge; believing that God has the all three attributes of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence and as defined by Mackie is not really demanded by the Bible or by Religious Experience or by the rational arguments for God’s existence, Cosmological, Teleological, Moral or Aesthetic.