Aquinas

“The word conscience is best understood as an umbrella term for various factors involved in moral decision making.” Discuss (40)

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We use the word “conscience” every day, but rarely stop to think about what it really means.  In broad terms, it usually refers to our inner moral compass, yet it can also refer to the voice of God within us, reason, how we apply our moral principles, our moral framework or even the internalised voices of our parents within our subconscious mind. Because of this, and because the arguments of those who have attempted to define the conscience as a specific thing are not persuasive, it is best to understand conscience as an umbrella term for various factors in moral decision-making.

Firstly, in the Bible various different words are used to refer to and sometimes translated as conscience.  In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word “lev” for heart suggests that there is an inner moral guide.  For example, “David’s heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the LORD “I have sinned greatly in what I have done…” 2 Samuel 24:10 It was not until the rabbinic period that the Hebrew word matzpun referred to conscience. Etymologically it means “hidden north”, giving the suggestion of an inner moral compass. In the New Testament the Greek word syneídēsis means the capacity to apply general principles of moral judgment to particular cases.  The word is used frequently by St Paul, for example in Romans Chapter 2 “when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” After the 4th Century AD the Greek word Synderesis / Synteresis started to be used in commentaries on both Old and New Testaments. The word synderesis is by most scholars reckoned to be a corruption of the Greek word syneidêsis (συνείδησις).  On the other hand, also in the New Testament, St Paul speaks of those whose consciences have become “seared with a hot iron,” 1 Timothy 4:2 meaning they no longer feel guilt for sin. Conversely, a “good” or “clear” conscience is seen as one that is aligned with God’s will (1 Timothy 1:5). In 1 Peter 3:16, Peter encourages Christians to maintain a clear conscience, so that they may stand firm in their faith and defend it with integrity when challenged. These references suggest that conscience is a distinct faculty that all human beings have.  Given that the Bible uses different words for conscience and implies that it is God’s law, an inner moral guide or compass, the capacity to apply general principles to specific cases, our moral character and a faculty which can be corrupted, it seems that the word conscience is not a single thing, but best understood as an umbrella term for various factors involved in moral decision making.

Secondly, following the Bible, different Christian scholars have used the word conscience to refer to different things. For example, Aquinas uses three different words to distinguish between three things people usually use the word conscience for; Ratio, Synderesis and Conscientia.  For Aquinas, the God-given and rational part of conscience is called RATIO, it commands us to pursue good and avoid evil and cannot be wrong. For Kant, this is reason itself, issuing us with Categorical Imperatives which we must choose to follow.  For St Augustine, Butler and Newman this is conscience as the “voice of God” speaking through our minds and calling us to do what is right, which they admit is not always the same as what is rational. For Aquinas also, the conscience is not a synonym for reason but also refers to a specific habit of reason that tries to work out what good and evil consist in. This practical part of reason (what Aristotle called Phronesis) is known as SYNDERESIS and it requires formation, moving from offering only the most general guidance towards being more and more specific.  While it is a duty to follow the guidance of synderesis, which is after all part of Ratio which cannot be wrong, because its guidance may be too general to be useful it might mislead us, such as leading us to pursue an apparent good and not a real good. In addition, for Aquinas, another part of conscience is CONSCIENTIA, the act of applying synderesis-guidance to specific situations.  This is what Fletcher refers to as conscience, defining it as a verb not a noun.  This shows that scholars use the word conscience to refer to the faculty of reason, the voice of God, the habit of practical reason and the act of applying moral rules to a specific situation… and that conscience is not a single thing, but best understood as an umbrella term for various factors involved in moral decision making.

Thirdly, psychologists have a variety of ideas about what the conscience consists in, that are independent of the Bible and based on scientific observations. While his methodology was criticised by Popper as pseudo-scientific, Freud saw conscience as part of the super-ego, part of the subconscious mind that represents internalised voices of our parents, societal norms, religious beliefs and moral ideals. Conscience is formed during early childhood, particularly through the oral, anal and phallic phases of psycho-sexual development, suggesting that while conscience is a specific part of the psyche, it is made up of the values of our parents or care-givers as influenced by repressed experiences in different ways, explaining why peoples’ consciences seem to guide them in different directions that are not always rational or consistent with prevailing social norms. Freud’s ideas influenced other psychologists, whose methodologies are more credible, again seeking to explain how consciences develop through childhood and differ between adults.  For Piaget, consciences develop from being heteronomous in early childhood to being autonomous during the teenage years, and developmental disorders therefore explain why some adults lack a moral conscience, why others have a strong sense of the conscience being like a moral compass pointing towards fixed rules and still others see it as a more flexible and situational process of decision-making.  Similarly, for Fromm conscience usually develops from being authoritarian into being more humanistic, but some people fail to develop leaving them with an authoritarian conscience into adulthood and conforming to rules imposed on them from outside without really engaging reason. This explains how totalitarian regimes sometimes succeed, and why there will always be those who oppose them on humanistic grounds.  Finally, Kohlberg built on the ideas of Piaget and Fromm to suggest that conscience continues to develop in adulthood for some, towards a post-conventional level which at Stage 6 involves the conscience being reason, applying universal moral rules. Kohlberg explains why some peoples’ consciences demand that they follow rational deontological ethics, while others suggest they should be more situational and relativistic in their decision-making while others still command them to conform with social norms. While Freud, Piaget, Fromm and Kohlberg suggest that there is a specific thing called the conscience, they stress how it develops and changes, giving guidance of different sorts.  They also have slightly different ideas of conscience from each other.  This also suggests that conscience is not a single thing, but best understood as an umbrella term for various factors involved in moral decision making.

In conclusion, the word conscience is not a single thing, but best understood as an umbrella term for various factors involved in moral decision making. From a Christian perspective, Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German theologian and philosopher, agreed with this, viewing conscience as an umbrella term that integrates various factors of moral self-awareness. From a social-scientific perspective Carol Gilligan (b.1936) in “A Different Voice” (1982) argued that conscience is an umbrella term that includes different moral orientations depending on one’s ethical approach (e.g., care ethics versus justice ethics). She suggested that the conscience is influenced by not just reasoning, but also empathy, relational dynamics, and the emotional ties that influence moral judgment.  Whether one is approaching conscience from a religious or non-religious perspective, seeing it as an umbrella term for various factors involved in moral decision making is the most credible approach.

Assess the claim that love (agape) is sufficient as the only source of Christian Ethics. [40]

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In John Chapter 13 Jesus taught his disciples “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.”  The Greek word translated “love” in this passage is agape, which refers to the non-preferential humanitarian love that Jesus showed to people rather than the erotic eros or the friendly philos.  This is why some Christians regard agape-love as the only source of Christian ethics, because it was Jesus’ single new commandment and, of course, Jesus was God. Nevertheless, today few Christians agree with this, given that Roman Catholics follow heteronomous ethics and most Protestants a broader Divine Command ethic based on the whole Bible.  It follows that agape is not sufficient as the only source of Christian ethics.

Firstly, while John 13 does state that agape-love is the one commandment by which Christians will be known as Jesus’ disciples, Jesus said this in context.  In Jeremiah 31:33 God promised that “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” This suggests that Jesus was referring to the new covenant when he gave the commandment of agape-love, and meaning that Christians would follow all God’s law automatically in both letter and spirit, rather than that they would abandon the rest of the commandments and do whatever they felt was loving instead.  This interpretation is consistent with Matthew 5:18 “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished…” and with the rest of Jesus ethical teaching, which is more demanding than the Law of Moses and not less.  For example, in Matthew 5 teaches that Jesus equated anger with murder and lustful looks with adultery.  While Jesus was demanding that Christians should act with agape – treating others as they would wish to be treated and not only following the letter of the law – there is no sense that agape is an alternative source of ethics to the rest of God’s commandments.   The point is that a person acting with agape would neither be angry with somebody nor murder them, neither look lustfully at a woman nor commit adultery with her.  In this way it would be wrong to say that agape is sufficient as the only source of Christian Ethics.

Secondly, for Roman Catholics seeing agape-love as a sufficient basis for Christian Ethics ignores the importance of a well-formed conscience as well as of Scripture, Tradition and Reason (Natural Law) in shaping Christian teaching. Following St Thomas Aquinas’ reasoning, the Catechism affirms that the primary source of Christian ethics is the conscience.  When we face a difficult choice, it is a moral duty to follow conscience.  Our conscientia is that part of our practical reason that applies the general principles of Christian Ethics that we know through synderesis (principles which are consistent with Scripture, Tradition and Natural Law) to the specific situation at hand.  Nevertheless, because consciences can err, leading us to pursue apparent and not real goods, and because synderesis is a habit that needs to be developed, we must take care that consciences are properly formed through a Catholic education.  Church teachings, which underpin Catholic education, provide a short-cut to the decisions that a well-formed conscience would make and when the conscience diverges from Catholic teachings it is a good indication that the conscience is erring.  Pope Pius XII rejected situation ethics in 1952, even before its more agapeistic versions were developed by Joseph Fletcher and JAT Robinson, because while it is consistent with the Roman Catholic understanding of Christian ethics in encouraging Christians to act in conscience, because it ignores the need to form consciences or ensure that their decisions are consistent with Scripture, Tradition and Reason, it leaves individuals vulnerable and without proper moral guidance when they face difficult situations. Fletcher’s claim that there should be no absolutes in Christian ethics, no always and no nevers, conflicts with the Bible’s long list of prescriptive commandments and suggests that agape is instead of the law rather than a fulfilment of it, as Jesus taught.  It is also difficult to define agape-love.  For example, Immanuel Kant argued that human beings are “pathologically loving” and that an action motivated by this love always treat human beings as ends in themselves and never as mere means.  By contrast, Fletcher defends what he calls the agapeic calculus, the greatest amount of neighbour-welfare for the largest number of neighbours possible, making agapeistic ethics seem much like utilitarianism.  While by Kant’s definition, agape could never justify involuntary abortion, suicide or adultery… but Fletcher freely discusses situations in which these would, he implies, be the most loving course of action. Because of this central confusion, it is difficult for people not to confuse a genuinely agapeistic motivation with a more preferential or even selfish motivation. All this shows that it is wrong to say that agape is sufficient as the only source of Christian Ethics.

On the other hand, it is true that Jesus sometimes seemed to break the laws of Moses situationally, for the benefit of people. According to Mark’s Gospel, He healed on the Sabbath and allowed his disciples to pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath, neither of which in life-threatening situations. It seems that Jesus was maximising peoples’ welfare and putting this ahead of obedience to the law, as Fletcher suggested.  Nevertheless, the laws concerning the Sabbath were, Jesus reasoned, there to serve man and therefore could and should be broken when they harm peoples’ welfare.  The same might not be true of other laws, such as the prohibition on murder in Exodus 20:13.  In Genesis 4 God says that Abel’s blood cries out to him from the ground and in Genesis 9 God demands an accounting for any human blood that is shed.  This might suggest that the law against murder is not only to serve humans, but also to serve God because God has an interest in human blood.  As St Paul confirms in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” Which implies that human life is sacred and owned by God, so murder offends against God and not only human beings.  If this is true, then it would be impossible to act out of agape-love and kill a human being, even in situations as extreme as outlined by Fletcher, because agape puts love of God first and ahead of love of neighbour, according to Mark 12:28-32. Kant would be right that agape always treats humanity as an end and never as a means to an end, even of maximising human welfare. This suggests that agape-love is not sufficient as a source of Christian ethics, unless one specifies that it includes love of God as well as and ahead of love of neighbour, which would bring following all of God’s commandments into the scope of agape, rather than accepting God’s laws only selectively. This interpretation would be consistent with a more mainstream Protestant Ethic, which aims to follow all those Divine Commands in spirit at least. 

In conclusion, it is wrong to say that agape is sufficient as the only source of Christian Ethic unless one is very specific in defining agape, stipulating that it includes love of God as well as and ahead of love of neighbour, so leads to a broader biblical ethic which always upholds the sanctity of human life.  Certainly, it is wrong to say that situation ethics is the only or even an acceptable Christian Ethic.

The five primary precepts are the most important part of natural law. Discuss [40]

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St Thomas Aquinas explained his theory of natural law, which shares many characteristics with other versions of natural law, in Summa 2i. 94.2.  He explained how natural laws are discoverable through RATIO, the human intellect, which is made up of SPECULATIVE REASON and PRACTICAL REASON.  Speculative reason reveals abstract notions and principles, such as “good is that which all things seek after,” then practical reason applies these to real life, developing moral precepts for us to follow.  For example, “this is the first precept of [natural] law, that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” Aquinas goes on to explain how “all other precepts of the natural law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man’s good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.” He elaborated on the precepts of natural law, listing and explaining primary and secondary precepts, explaining how “Since… good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance. Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law.” Primary precepts are thus established as “objects of pursuit” or prescriptions and secondary precepts as “objects of avoidance” or prohibitions.  For examples, “whatever is a means of preserving human life, and of warding off its obstacles, belongs to the natural law…” meaning that the preservation of human life is a primary precept and “do not murder” is a secondary precept. Aquinas also lists as primary precepts sexual intercourse, the education of offspring, knowing the truth about God and shunning ignorance as well as living in society, avoiding offending those amongst whom one must live.  Overall, the five primary precepts are not the most important part of natural law.

    Firstly, the five primary precepts are not the most important part of natural law because they are derived from the first precept “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided”, and different scholars have derived different lists of primary precepts, which have gone on to produce different lists of secondary precepts and disagreements in how natural law guides people in practical situations. Aquinas discussed whether or not his list of primary precepts was infallible in Summa 2i. 94. 2 and concluded that the first precept “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided” is infallible, because it is so closely related to the Primary Principle of speculative reason “good is that which all things seek after” and because speculative reason cannot be wrong, its objects being necessary truths.  Nevertheless, the primary precepts of the preservation of human life, sexual intercourse, the education of offspring, knowing the truth about God, shunning ignorance and living in society are known through synderesis, which must develop its understanding of these precepts as it is formed.  While nothing the synderesis suggests can be wrong, the list of primary precepts it provides might be incomplete, which explains why some societies seem unaware of some basic human goods.  Aquinas explains how it is possible to be unaware that living in society and avoiding offending neighbours is a primary precept, “thus formerly, theft, although it is expressly contrary to the natural law, was not considered wrong among the Germans, as Julius Caesar relates (De Bello Gall. vi).”  This would explain why later versions of natural law have listed the primary precepts differently, and particularly why some have added to Aquinas’ five.  For example, John Finnis lists seven basic human goods, including play and aesthetic experience.  This could be because Finnis’ synderesis has developed further than Aquinas’ did, coming to recognise the essential importance of fun and beauty to human flourishing in a way that Aquinas never did.  It follows that the fact that the list of five primary precepts provided by Aquinas, and indeed other lists in other versions of Natural Law, differ and might be incomplete suggests that they cannot be the most important part of natural law.

    Secondly, the primary precepts are general injunctions and need to be translated into secondary precepts in order to provide useful moral guidance. Whereas the primary precepts are positive, secondary precepts are negative and tell people what they must not do.  For example, preserve human life is a primary precept and “do not murder” is a secondary precept.  Yet there are often multiple secondary precepts derived from each primary precept.  For example, the primary precept of living in society would lead to a huge number of secondary prohibitions, ranging from do not steal to do not lie to do not be jealous or aggressive… It follows that the majority of moral rules that people live by in practice are secondary and not primary precepts, suggesting that the secondary precepts are more important than the primary precepts.  Of course, secondary precepts are all derived from the primary precepts, so could not exist without the primary precepts and would differ if the primary precepts differed.  This might suggest that the primary precepts are more important than the secondary precepts, and yet for most people their moral awareness begins with the conscientia speaking against certain actions in a negative way, such as by warning people not to cheat or deceive.  Although it is true that the conscientia does this because it is seeking to apply the primary precepts to specific situations, in practice people are usually aware of the secondary precepts before or even without being aware of the primary precepts, which suggests that in fact the secondary precepts are more important.

    On the other hand, Proportionalists like Bernard Hoose would argue that the primary precepts of Natural Law are more important than the secondary precepts because there are sometimes proportional justifications for breaking secondary precepts, but never for breaking primary precepts.  For example, the primary precept of preserving human life might lead to the secondary precept, don’t run inside… because running causes accidents and people might get hurt… but in the case of an explosion it might be proportionally justified to run, risking accidents, when this is the only way to save lives. Similarly, the primary precept of preserving human life might lead to a secondary prohibition against abortion, but in the case of an ectopic pregnancy where inaction would lead to the death of both mother and child, it might be proportionally justified to abort in order to preserve the maximum number of human lives. Hoose points out that even Aquinas uses proportional reasoning to justify war, capital punishment and even the toleration of prostitution… so surely this suggests that primary precepts are more important than secondary precepts, given that secondary precepts can be broken in the pursuit of good, but not primary precepts.  Nevertheless, while Hoose is right that proportional reasoning in the writing of Aquinas and later scholars suggests that secondary precepts are less important than primary precepts, proportionalism has been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, the main adopter of Natural Law.  The Church sees proportionalism as a slippery slope towards situation ethics, utilitarianism and antinomianism in ethics. Instead, the Church has chosen to adopt a Heteronomous Ethic, with the Magisterium using Natural Law alongside Scripture and Tradition to develop Church Teachings which are Secondary Precepts.  These are then used as the basis for encyclicals, Catholic instruction and advice as well as for formation. It follows that for ordinary Roman Catholics secondary precepts are more important than Primary Precepts, because they are encouraged to follow Church Teaching rather than to try to develop it!  While the Church accepts Aquinas’ teaching about conscience, it emphasises the importance of formation so that the Synderesis and Conscientia guide Catholics to follow Church teaching in all matters, rather than really to think for themselves.  This suggests that in practice secondary precepts are in fact more important than primary principles, even though this might not be true to Aquinas’ intention.

    In conclusion, the five primary precepts are not the most important part of natural law. As has been established, the list of five primary precepts might be incomplete and is certainly disputed, while also depending on the key precept “good is to be done and evil avoided”.  Further, secondary precepts make more difference in peoples’ lives today than primary precepts.

    To what extent is the cosmological argument a sufficient explanation for the existence of God? [40]

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    The cosmological argument has its roots in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, but is most associated with Aquinas’ first, second and third ways to demonstrate God’s existence and today with William Lane Craig’s Kalam argument.  While cosmological arguments see God as the “sufficient reason” for the universe, overall, they do not provide a sufficient explanation for the existence of God.

    Firstly, Leibniz’ version of the cosmological argument saw God as the “sufficient reason” for the universe. God is needed, he reasoned, to explain why there is anything at all. In “The Existence of God” Richard Swinburne writes how this is the most basic and persuasive argument for God’s existence.  Leibniz’ reasoning built on Aquinas’ third way, which started with the premises that everything in the universe is contingent and that something cannot come from nothing, concluding that there must be a necessary being – a being which exists because of itself and cannot not exist – to explain the existence of everything else. Yet Kant rejected this line of argument in the introduction to his “Critique of Pure Reason”, pointing out that as everything that we experience exists contingently, necessary existence is not something we can posit or discuss.  For Kant, to exist is to exist contingently and to be capable of non-existence… the idea of necessary existence is contradictory and impossible. While there are those who reject Kant’s argument and indeed his whole worldview, such as Willard Quine and Charles Hartshorne, it remains the dominant position in philosophy. While Kant may not have shown that necessary existence is impossible, his observation that it falls outside the scope of our experience strongly supports that conclusion.  This shows that God is not needed to be the necessary explanation for the universe we experience.

    Secondly, as David Hume observed through his character Philo in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, despite being presented as deductive proofs for God’s existence cosmological arguments fail because there is no way to show that their premises are true. For example, Aquinas starts his first way with the premises that everything in the universe is moved and that things can’t move themselves, concluding that there must therefore be a Prime Mover and that this is what everybody calls God. As Hume pointed out, there is no way to know if everything in the universe is moved or that no thing can move itself because our experience of the universe is too limited to support such sweeping claims.  It is possible that while things in the universe are moved and must be moved by other things, the universe itself could be unmoving and/or self-moving.  As Bertrand Russell later asked, why should not the universe itself be considered a “brute fact”?  Although Big Bang theory seems to have falsified the idea that the Universe could be considered a “brute fact,” in other ways science supports Hume’s scepticism, finding that sub-atomic particles like Quarks do not follow standard laws of causation and logic and forcing William Lane Craig to use more limited premises in his Kalam argument than Aquinas did in his Cosmological Argument.  Craig reasons that since “everything that begins to exist must have a cause” and “the universe began to exist” it follows that “the universe must have a cause”.  Although it strategically stops short of concluding that the cause of the universe is “what everybody calls God” – leaving this for people to infer – Craig’s argument seems persuasive in the context of a layman’s understanding of the standard model of Physics. Yet, Stephen Hawking criticised his argument for assuming that causation must or even could apply where there is no time or space at and before the Big Bang. This shows that the cosmological argument fails to demonstrate God’s existence

    On the other hand, other versions of the cosmological argument have been presented as inductive or even abductive arguments, suggesting that God is the most probable explanation for many observations of movement, causation, contingency and other forms of order in the universe.  This approach acknowledges that science could provide natural explanations for these phenomena, but dismisses these as less probable than the simple, elegant explanation provided in God. Yet, while the prime mover, uncaused cause or necessary being supported by Aquinas’ ways seems   to be a simpler explanation than the complex natural accounts presented by science, as Hume pointed out, the prime mover, if such there is, would be very far from being “what everybody calls God.”  In terms of prime movers, uncaused causes or necessary beings, there could be several for all we know and it/they would hardly need to be personal, immanent or good.  Also, the God of the Bible is nothing if not a complex character, being possessed of many characteristics outside the scope of those possessed by the prime mover, so that Richard Dawkins was right to reject the claim that “God” could ever be a simpler explanation in “The God Delusion”.  While Aquinas did attempt to show how the prime mover, uncaused cause and necessary being demonstrated by the cosmological argument was really the God of Christianity, these explanations were outside the scope of the cosmological arguments and unconvincing.  For example, Aquinas claimed that because God is the prime mover, uncaused cause and necessary being He must be timeless-eternal and outside the universe.  It follows that divine attributes like power, knowledge or goodness must be understood as analogies when describing God. Yet Aquinas’ classical theism is unconvincing because although it attempts to provide a philosophical justification for believing that “God” exists – not least through the cosmological argument – this justification is flawed and comes at the price of undermining both the Bible and Christian Doctrine as sources of knowledge about God.  This shows that inductive or abductive versions of the cosmological argument are no more useful as explanations for God’s existence than deductive versions.

    Further, all versions of the cosmological argument are part of Natural Theology, the attempt to explain that and how God exists using reason. Natural Theology has long been controversial within Christianity, because it assumes that human beings can discover God and potentially salvation for themselves without God’s grace, which idea was dismissed by St Paul (e.g. Ephesians 2:8) and later made a heresy because of St Augustine’s theological arguments.  It follows that for most Christians Natural Theology cannot provide sufficient knowledge of God’s existence or concerning God’s nature for human beings to attain salvation apart from God’s grace.  Instead, Christians must rely on Revealed Theology, such as through Scripture, Jesus and/or personal religious experience, to demonstrate God’s existence, nature and will.  In one way, this makes sense of the cosmological arguments’ failure to show that God is the necessary or even the most probable explanation of the universe and of the disjunct between the attributes of the prime mover and the God of the Bible.  It could be that the cosmological argument, and wider Natural Theology, provides only an indication that God exists, showing that faith is rational and that atheists are as St Paul put it “without excuse”, while maintaining the necessity of revelation and grace for salvation. Yet it seems terribly convenient that Christian doctrine should so cover for the failure of Natural Theology and the cosmological argument. St Paul and St Augustine would both have been aware of versions of the cosmological argument in the work of Plato and Aristotle and that these arguments are not sufficient explanations for the God of Christianity.  Could their theological arguments have been pragmatic rather than principled in their attempt to sideline reason in favour of revelation?

    In conclusion, the cosmological argument does not provide a sufficient explanation for the existence of God. None of the versions of the argument succeed in demonstrating God’s existence. Deductive versions rely on uncertain premises and don’t contain the full conclusion of the Christian God’s existence. Inductive and abductive versions fail to establish that “God” is a simpler explanation of the universe than natural explanations provided by science.  Also, theological attempts to explain why Natural Theology should fail are unconvincing.

    Aquinas successfully demonstrates that religious language should be understood in terms of analogy. Discuss. [40]

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    As the Summa Theologica makes clear, St Thomas Aquinas’ approach to religious language emerged from his concept of God.  As a Classical Theist, Aquinas saw God as timeless eternal, meaning that words applied to God cannot be understood univocally, to mean the same as they would when applied to created things. While the Bible, the Creeds and Christian doctrines use language univocally in ways that make God seem like a person, subject to limitation and change, for Aquinas God is timelessly other and should not be so anthropomorphised and limited by language.  He saw some merits in the apophatic approach to language, which speaks of God by negation if at all seeing direct religious language as equivocal, but wanted to preserve the possibility of affirming some things about God in a meaningful way, recognising that an equivocal approach to language undermines philosophy and doctrine in a way that must eventually be fatal to organised religion.  The result was Aquinas’ argument that words applied to God should be understood as analogies which is successful in avoiding both the pitfalls of univocalism and giving in to equivocalism, although it depends heavily on his concept of God and so may not be useful to all Christians.

    Firstly, Aquinas claimed that claims such as “God is good” should not be taken to imply that God is morally good, such as would imply choice and the existence of independent values but should instead be understood as analogies of proportion. When we say that something is good, we mean that it largely fulfils its nature.  Human nature is to be free and moral, but if God is the origin of our freedom and of moral values it makes little sense to anthropomorphise him by assuming his nature is like ours.  Nothing in this world is perfect; because of time and space nothing can fulfil 100% of its nature.  For example, a person has the potential to be a baby and an adult.  However good they are, they can only fulfil part of their potential at one time, such as by being a good adult.  Nevertheless, God is outside the time and space that holds us back from actualising our full potential and being perfect. When we say that God is good, we mean that God fulfils 100% of his timeless divine nature, being changelessly perfect; what it is for God to fulfil God’s nature is not what it means for us to fulfil our more limited nature.  John Hick used the example of a man and his dog, both of which might be said to be faithful. What it is for a man to be faithful and for a dog to be faithful are not quite the same, but by saying they are faithful we mean that both do a large proportion of what we expect of a faithful member of their species. It follows that our goodness is not the same as God’s goodness… the word good is not used univocally when applied to God… but there is a connection between our goodness and God’s goodness which means that words applied to God are not equivocal either.   In this way, Aquinas’ analogy of proportion is successful in avoiding both the pitfalls of univocalism and giving into equivocalism.

    Secondly, Aquinas claimed that attributes like goodness exist primarily in God as the creator and only secondarily in created things, so that what we say about God and created things is connected while still having different meanings and preserving the otherness of God. To explain his analogy of attribution, Aquinas used the example of a bull and its urine… the health of the bull is primary and the health of the urine it produces is secondary… the health of the bull and its urine consist in different things, but the health of the one is the source of the health of the other, so there is a connection.  Simon Oliver uses the example of me and my breakfast yoghurt… both might be said to be healthy, but the healthiness of the yoghurt is secondary and depends on my healthiness, which is primary.  My health might consist in having clear skin, energy and a habit of going jogging… but the health of the yoghurt does not consist in any of these things.  In the same way, the goodness, power or wisdom of God is primary, and the goodness, power or wisdom of created things is secondary.  What it is for God to be good, powerful or wise might be radically different from what it means for a person to be these things, and not only by degree, avoiding limiting God through a univocal use of language.  Yet, there is a clear connection between the goodness, power and wisdom of God and of created creatures, which avoids an equivocal approach to religious language also. 

    On the other hand, as Anthony Kenny pointed out the analogical meaning of God’s attributes preserved by Aquinas is extremely limited, making this approach to religious language unsuccessful when it comes to sustaining religion in a practical way.  Kenny suggested that the idea of timeless attributes such as goodness, power or wisdom seems “radically incoherent”, which is a fair criticism, as is the related point that many believers do not understand language analogically, even those who lead or have led the Church.  While Ian Ramsey was right to point out how people often use “qualifiers” like “timelessly” to signify that their use of words to describe God should not be taken as “ordinary language” but as religious language which is “logically odd”, in practice many people do not use such qualifiers or seem to understand that there should be any difficulty in using language univocally at all. Further, as Nelson Pike observed, the God of the Bible is “unavoidably tensed”.  It makes little sense to see God as timeless when that would make the creation, the fall and the resurrection simultaneous in God’s timeless vision. This is why Protestant philosophers look for other ways of understanding religious language, seeing Aquinas analogical approach as bound up in a concept of God which is fundamentally unchristian. John MacQuarrie lamented the adoption of the Greek concept of God into the Christian tradition, seeing this as the cause of multiple avoidable philosophical problems that have beset the faith through the best part of two millennia.  In this context, Richard Swinburne and Nicholas Wolterstorff approach religious language in a more straightforward univocal way.  Further, some Classical Theists support a more univocal approach to religious language than Aquinas.  For examples, St Anselm and John Duns Scotus reasoned that God as creator must have created the concepts through which we understand and speak of Him, meaning that we can speak confidently about God using a far wider range of words and meanings than Aquinas would allow.  All of this suggests that the success of Aquinas’ analogical approach to religious language is limited to those who share his concept of God and does not extend even to all of those.

    In conclusion, Aquinas’ analogical approach to understanding religious language is coherent and persuasive if one shares his concept of God, although it is possibly too limited to support religious practice.  Nevertheless, many Christians do not accept either Aquinas’ concept of God or his analogical approach to understanding religious language because they choose to focus on revealed rather than on natural theology as the primary source of their knowledge of God.

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

    / vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

    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.

    “It is more likely that the universe was the result of chance than that it was designed.” Discuss [40]

    / vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

    The teleological argument is the oldest and probably the most persuasive argument for the existence of God.  Starting with observations of order and/or purpose in the universe, it reasons that these qualities cannot arise naturally and must have been caused by an intelligent designer… God.  Aquinas’ version of the argument, his Fifth Way, drew on Aristotle’s worldview and likened natural object fulfilling their telos to arrows hitting a target; just as an arrow doesn’t strike true without an archer to let it loose, so natural objects can’t fulfil their telos by chance and their doing so makes the existence of an intelligent designer “which everybody calls God” necessary.  Of course Darwin’s discovery of evolution through natural selection provides a compelling natural explanation for the existence of what appears to be order and purpose without the need to hypothesise an intelligent designer-God, but Paley’s development of the argument in Natural Theology shows that even this did not undermine the attempt to use design to argue for God.  This is because many people misunderstood Darwin’s theory, assuming that the end-point of human consciousness was fixed and that evolution operates through chance, both of which made design seem more probable than natural processes as an explanation.  The fact that these misunderstandings persist is demonstrated by Tennant’s use of them in his teleological arguments in 1930 and more recently by the glut of modern fine-tuning and intelligent design arguments, mostly presented at the behest of the Discovery Institute and via fellows of its Center for Science and Culture.  It follows that despite the persistence of design arguments for God, it is far more likely that the universe results from chance – or at least from the “designs” of natural processes – than that it was designed by an intelligent-designer-God.

    In modern times it was David Hume who first identified the flaw in the design argument through his character Philo in “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” (1779).  In Part VIII Philo draws on the thinking of Epicurus to ask why the appearance of order and purpose in nature could not be the result of chance in an infinite universe.  He points out…“the universe goes on for many ages in a continuous series of states of chaos and disorder. But couldn’t it happen that it eventually settles down, not so as to lose its motion and active force (for we are assuming that that is inherent in it), but so as to preserve a uniformity of appearance through all the hubbub of its moving parts?” This suggests that if the universe is truly infinite, meaning that all possibilities have been realised, then the possibility of part of the universe being ordered and purposeful would have been realised as a result of chance and not design.  Of course the Big Bang Theory seems to falsify Hume’s assumption that the Universe is infinite in the sense that all possibilities have been realised.  The Standard Model of Physics posits a hard beginning to time and space only 13.7 billion years ago, meaning that only some possibilities have been realised, although others will continue to be realised until the universe collapses.  Given this, it seems less likely that we inhabit a patch of order and purpose that has been generated by chance.  Nevertheless, this underestimates the scale of the universe, which is truly infinite… despite having a hard beginning, an edge and shape and continuing to expand.  It also applies a dated Newtonian worldview to a Universe that we now know resists such a characterisation.  Nobel Prize winning Physicist Steven Weinberg has cast doubt on the Cosmological Principle on which the Standard Model depends and which assumes that the part of the universe we see is a fair sample, whose laws and characteristics reflect laws and characteristics everywhere.  This supports Hume’s point that the design argument relies on the Fallacy of Composition and that conclusions about this part of the universe cannot automatically be extrapolated to the whole universe.  Hume’s character Philo asked “can it be proper to argue from parts to the whole? Doesn’t the great disproportion ·between part and whole· bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything about how men come into being? Would the way a leaf blows—even if we knew this perfectly—teach us anything about how a tree grows?”  And it seems that our 21st century appreciation of the scale and character of the universe only makes his questions more apposite.  So, Hume’s suggestion that the order and purpose we see in our part of the universe is not typical and the result of chance in an infinite universe rather than design has survived the advent of modern Cosmology.  Thus it follows that despite the persistence of design arguments for God, it is far more likely that the universe results from chance than that it was designed.

    In Part II of “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” Hume’s character Philo went on to ask how we can hope to pronounce about the characteristics of the whole universe from our own, still very limited, experience.  He pointed out how “A very small part of this great system of the universe, during a very short time, is very imperfectly revealed to us” asking “Do we then pronounce confidently about the origin of the whole?” Philo also asks whether the appearance of order and purpose might not be a property of how we see things, rather than how they really are, not least because of the many examples of disorder and chaos in nature, later documented by Darwin and JS Mill as reasons why they cannot agree that nature suggests an intelligent designer-God.  These observations of Hume’s are again supported by modern scientific developments.  Psychology has documented how the human mind is predisposed to see patterns (order) and faces (purpose) even where they do not exist; the phenomenon is called pareidolia and so common is it that the famous Rorschach inkblot tests rely on it.  Further, psychology has documented how we are subject to Confirmation Bias, being more likely to see, notice and remember experiences which confirm our existing beliefs than those which challenge them.  Given these tendencies, Hume’s suggestion that our impression of order and purpose existing everywhere and confirming our existing belief in a supernatural deity seems very plausible.  Of course, accepting Hume’s point has wider consequences than undermining the design argument for God’s existence.  If we accept that the process of spotting patterns and extrapolating from them “universal natural laws” leads to flawed conclusions, then the whole scientific method is in jeopardy.  The fact that this same method has yielded technological advances and results such as the laptop on which I am typing this essay does suggest that Hume’s point is unreasonably sceptical and that his character Cleanthes was onto something when he called Philo’s reasoning “the most perverse and obstinate metaphysics.”  Yet there is an important difference between science and religion when it comes to the use of inductive reasoning; whereas scientific laws are always falsifiable and produce useful results, God is not a falsifiable hypothesis and the results of believing in him are mixed at best in terms of their usefulness.  As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, religion “teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world…” so that “faith is a cop-out.”  It follows that fear of the effects of Hume’s point on science is not a good reason to reject Hume’s point, so it is more likely that the universe results from chance than that it was designed.

    Of course, recent arguments from Intelligent Design argue that it is more likely that the universe was designed than that it occurred by chance.  For example, William Dembski argues that any natural structure whose existence passes the (somewhat arbitrary) “Universal Probability Bound” of 1 in 10150  is more likely to have been designed than to have occurred naturally “by chance”.  He uses examples of structures such as amino-acids and DNA which exhibit Specified Complexity, being both finely tuned and extremely complex, whose existence he suggests strains the credibility of naturalistic explanations.  Michael Behe agrees, suggesting that there are irreducibly complex biochemical structures which resist standard evolutionary explanations and are suggestive of an intelligent designer.  Nevertheless, statisticians and biochemists have united in their criticism of Behe and Dembski, arguing that they have made basic errors in their science.  In particular, Behe ignores the possibility that structures can evolve out of as well as into existence, making “irreducibly complex” structures explainable through standard evolutionary theory.  Further, it is wrong to suggest that evolution itself operates entirely randomly; in fact it has a “design” of its own although not an intelligent one, in seeking to replicate genes.  Given this the result; a universe saturated with dysteleological suffering, makes sense.    As Dawkins wrote “The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation… The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” [River Out of Eden]  This suggests that despite the persistence of design arguments for God, it is far more likely that the universe results from the pitiless “design” of evolution than that it was designed by any intelligent-designer God.

    On a wider scale, recent fine-tuning arguments argue that the precise conditions necessary for the Big Bang to produce a life-sustaining planet like ours are so improbable that they are more likely to have been designed than to have occurred by chance. For example, Alister McGrath focuses on the fine-tuning of carbon, writing “[The entire biological] evolutionary process depends upon the unusual chemistry of carbon, which allows it to bond to itself, as well as other elements, creating highly complex molecules that are stable over prevailing terrestrial temperatures, and are capable of conveying genetic information (especially DNA). […] Whereas it might be argued that nature creates its own fine-tuning, this can only be done if the primordial constituents of the universe are such that an evolutionary process can be initiated. The unique chemistry of carbon is the ultimate foundation of the capacity of nature to tune itself” [A fine-tuned universe] In 1989 John Gribbin and Martin Rees wrote a detailed defence of the fine-tuning argument in their book Cosmic Coincidences. They argued: “The conditions in our Universe really do seem to be uniquely suitable for life forms like ourselves, and perhaps even for any form of organic complexity. But the question remains – is the Universe tailor-made for man?”  yet Richard Dawkins has rejected this line of argument, pointing out that the improbabilities attached to naturalistic explanations assume that a life-sustaining planet like ours was always bound to happen.  If we embrace the possibility that it was far more likely that no such planet would ever exist, we will really begin to appreciate that “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?” [Unweaving the Rainbow] So, wouldn’t design be more probable than this degree of “luck”?  For Dawkins, absolutely not!  To hypothesise the existence of a supernatural, intelligent designer God, let alone one with the many attributes of the Christian God, only multiplies the improbabilities. Who would have designed and fine-tuned this God after all?  Suggesting a whole new category of “necessary existence” without supporting evidence to solve this question makes God far more improbable than any alternative and. as Ockham’s razor suggests, the simplest solution of science is the best, even when that solution is not very simple!

    In conclusion, despite the persistence of design arguments for God, it is far more likely that the universe results from chance – or at least from the “designs” of natural processes – than that it was designed by an intelligent-designer-God. The continuing popularity of design arguments for God despite their obvious flaws stems from our reluctance to accept let alone confront the precarity of the human condition.

    To what extent does Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument successfully reach the conclusion that there is a transcendent creator? [40]

    / vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

    Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument fails to demonstrate the existence of the Christian God.  While the first, second and third ways offer some support to the belief that there must be a Prime Mover, Uncaused Cause and Necessary Being, In the Summa Theologica 1,2,3 Aquinas only asserts that “this is what all men speak of as God.”  Indeed, taking the Prime Mover as an example, it could share only some of the characteristics of God as He is normally understood.  While the Prime Mover is certainly transcendent and immutable, the extent to which it could be omnipotent or omniscient, let alone omnibenevolent or immanent, is slight and unconvincing.  Nevertheless, putting this criticism aside, Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument successfully demonstrates the existence of a transcendent explanation for the Kosmos.

    Firstly, in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Hume’s character Philo criticised the Cosmological Argument, asking how anybody can be certain that everything has a cause. While it is true that the observed laws of nature which form the premises of Aquinas’ argument depend on observations which are necessarily limited within time and space, questioning whether such observations can be taken to be fair and representative attacks the Cosmological Principle on which all science depends.  Newton was the first to express the Cosmological Principle, the assumption that “viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers” or in other words that the universe is homogenous and isotropic and more fundamentally, that the way we observe the universe is the way it really is and that this is a fair and representative sample of the whole. In asking whether there might not be uncaused things in the universe despite the fact that these have never been observed, Hume’s criticism of the Cosmological Argument constitutes a sceptical attack on the human ability to use observations as a basis for understanding the Natural Laws which govern the universe, so by accepting this criticism we lose far more than one approach to demonstrating the existence of God.  It follows that Aquinas’ argument survives Hume’s first criticism and demonstrates the existence of a transcendent “creator”. 

    Secondly, Hume’s character Philo goes on to ask why the cause of the universe, if such there is, would have to be intelligible.  This criticism is no more effective than the first.  The whole point of Aquinas argument is to show that whatever caused the universe must be transcendent and beyond human understanding, impervious to the laws of motion, causation and contingency that govern everything else.  For Aquinas, the cause of the universe is “neither something nor nothing,” a necessary being that does not exist as things exist, contingently, but rather eternally and immutably outside the framework of spatio-temporal reality.  While Kant argued that necessary existence is so far beyond our experience to be beyond possible knowledge, Aquinas does not claim to be able to know or understand God, only to deduce that He exists, albeit mysteriously.  It follows that Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument survives Hume’s second criticism and Kant’s criticism as well, demonstrating the existence of a transcendent “creator”. 

    Thirdly, Hume’s character Philo argues that Aquinas’ argument relies on the Fallacy of Composition, and indeed Aquinas does move from observations of movement, causation and contingency in the universe to claiming that the universe as a whole must be moved, caused and have something to depend on.  Russell used the powerful example of all men having mothers but the human race not having a mother to explain Hume’s point.  However, while it is fallacious to assume that characteristics of the part MUST be true of the whole, it is not impossible that they are true of the whole.  Aquinas (and more recently Craig) appeal to common sense as well as fallacious reasoning when they argue that given that everything in the universe is caused, the universe must also have a cause.  The alternative, that the universe is uncaused or, as Russell put it, a “brute fact” seems unacceptable to most people today, not least because the Aristotelian infinite-universe paradigm has been replaced by Big Bang Theory which shows that the universe had an absolute beginning.  Masses of Scientific evidence now supports the claim that the universe had a cause, even if that cause outside of the normal laws of nature and so transcendent, even if this was not a “creator” as this would normally be understood.  It follows that Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument survives Hume’s third criticism and Russell’s criticisms as well, demonstrating that the universe has a transcendent cause, if not a “creator” precisely. 

    On the other hand, Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument falls short of providing rational support for faith in the transcendent creator-God of Christianity.  As Hume rightly pointed out, there is no way to show that there could not be multiple uncaused causes of the universe, let alone that the cause would be omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent or in any sense personal or capable of becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ.  Nevertheless, the question did not ask whether Aquinas’ argument successfully reached the conclusion that God exists, but rather asked whether the argument successfully reached the conclusion that there is a transcendent creator.  A transcendent creator may, but also may not be, the same as the God of Christianity.  In this case, Aquinas’ argument demonstrates the existence of a transcendent entity that is responsible for initiating and sustaining the universe but no more. 

    In conclusion, Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument successfully reaches the conclusion that there is a transcendent “creator” but does not demonstrate the existence of God. As William Lane Craig has argued, it is for theologians to determine whether the attributes of the transcendent cause of the universe can be reconciled with those of the object of religious faith.  This is why his Kalam argument stops with the conclusion “the universe must have a cause” rather than making the leap to saying “and this is what all men speak of as God” as Aquinas boldly does. 

    Critically evaluate Natural Law as an approach to making 21st century moral decisions. [40]

    / vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

    Natural Law is the most ancient of the normative ethical systems; originating in the work of Aristotle, it was adopted as the basis for Roman Catholic moral philosophy and continues to be applied today. As a result, there are multiple different versions of Natural Law so in critically evaluating it as an approach to making decisions it is important to differentiate between these. Given this, a proportionalist version of Natural Law is a practical approach to making 21st century moral decisions.


    Firstly, Natural Law has the great advantage of offering a clear and universal set of norms. 21st Century moral decisions are often complex and emotive, which means that consequentialist approaches to decision making are impractical. Taking Utilitarianism as an example, even Peter Singer has acknowledged that individuals deciding when to end life-support, use a drone to eliminate a terrorist-suspect or invest in an untried technology are not in a position to calculate the outcomes of all their possible actions with sufficient accuracy and objectivity to make an act-utilitarian approach viable. Because of the Problem of Prediction in particular, most Utilitarians advocate a more-or-less strong rule approach to maximising pleasure and minimising pain today. Further, Utilitarians are divided on how to define the outcome to be maximised and most have moved away from the crude Benthamite claim that “all things being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry…” and embrace Mill’s desire to be more Socrates and less pig! In short and in practice most 21st Century Utilitarians recognise the need for clear more-or-less universal norms designed to maximise human flourishing. While they do not support the traditional Roman Catholic version of Natural Law, they are in fact not so far from a proportionalist version of Natural Law. So much so that Proportionalists are often accused of being Utilitarians. However, Proportionalism is a distinct approach to decision making and one with the advantage over utilitarianism that it considers actions in their wider context, including in relation to the effect they have on the moral character in the long-term. Because of this, a Proportionalist version of Natural Law is a better approach to making 21st Century moral decisions than consequentialist approaches such as Utilitarianism.


    Secondly, in terms of Proportionalism’s concern to place actions in a broader context and to consider their effects on character, this is nothing new in the tradition of Natural Law. Both the versions of Aristotle and Aquinas Natural Law was intended to sit alongside virtue ethics; actions in themselves and broader character development were intended to be considered side-by-side. While the Roman Catholic Church has often been legalistic in its application of Natural Law, making it inflexible and reducing the role of the individual in making their own moral decisions, this goes against even the thinking of St Thomas Aquinas and was criticised by Pope Francis in his 2016 encyclical Amoris Laeticia…“We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them. … Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others”….” Aquinas argued that the first duty of each person is to follow their own conscience, pursuing good and avoiding evil as they see fit. While this does not excuse evil actions, chosen by pursuing an apparent good over the real good, it is worse for someone to go against their conscience because of the effect this has on the wider moral character. This point is emphasised by Proportionalists like Bernard Hoose, who argue that Natural Law should be about “trying to discover what is the morally right thing to do in any particular set of circumstances.” Hoose rejects the idea that 21st century moral decisions are clear-cut and stresses the importance of making decisions in conscience and in relation to the specifics of the case. Because it is able to combine a clear and universal set of norms with a degree of flexibility with regard to complex situations, a proportionalist version of Natural Law, such as that proposed by Hoose, is a practical approach to making 21st Century moral decisions.


    A common criticism of Proportionalism from Roman Catholic moral philosophers is that it seeks a proportional way of justifying morally wrong actions. However, Hoose argued that “We should always do only what, in conscience, we judge to be morally right, and we should never do what we judge in conscience to be morally wrong…” pointing out that actions and those carrying them out should be understood and judged as a whole rather than focusing on bits in isolation. Hoose wrote, ‘An evil like pain, death or mutilation is, in itself, pre-moral or non-moral, and should never be described as ‘moral’. It is the act as a whole which is either right or wrong, and it is the person, or the person in his or her acting, who is morally good or morally bad.’ Where a traditional Roman Catholic approach to Natural Law would see the action of terminating a pregnancy as morally wrong in itself, Hoose sees the termination as a non or pre-moral evil, which only becomes moral as part of a whole decision made by a whole moral character and then in context. Where a traditional Roman Catholic approach to Natural Law would see any decision and any person involved in terminating a pregnancy as evil by association, Hoose would distinguish between terminating the pregnancy of a 10 year old rape-victim and of a healthy married woman. The termination may become part of a morally evil action and contribute to the corruption of one or more moral characters – such as when a healthy married woman in India is forced to abort a female foetus – or the termination may become part of a morally good action and contribute to the development of a good moral character – such as in the aftermath of war and with the consent of all concerned. Proportionalism does not attempt to justify morally wrong actions, but rather it rejects the idea that actions are wrong in themselves and insists that they are evaluated in their proper context. So, in this way, a proportionalist version of Natural Law, such as that proposed by Hoose, is sufficiently sophisticated and nuanced to support 21st Century moral decision making.


    Further, it is clear that following some of the moral rules laid down by the Church blindly strikes most people as morally wrong in the 21st Century. Take for example the case of Bishop Kevin Dowling in Rustenburg, who came into conflict with the Church for handing out condoms to sex-workers in the middle of an HIV epidemic in his South African Diocese. Church teaching from Humanae Vitae, developed by Germain Grisez on the basis of Natural Law, clearly forbids the use of condoms in any circumstances as they prevent sex from having the potential to create life; promoting human life being the most basic of human goods. Nevertheless, Dowling argued that the sex-workers were engaged in “survival sex”, meaning that selling sex is the only means available not to starve and so to promote the most basic of basic human goods, life. Dowling reasoned that the sex-workers were going to have sex with or without condoms, while without them many lives would be destroyed, so proportionately and in the interests of promoting the basic human good of life it was the right thing to give the sex-workers condoms. This accords with Aquinas own writing on the subject of prostitution, which acknowledged that “those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred.” Summa II(II) question 10, article 11 and it accords with the Roman Catholic Church’s own teaching on warfare, which again permits “those in authority” to use even lethal force when it is proportionate and necessary to pursue a good cause, such as to protect more lives. It follows that Proportionalism is both faithful to Aquinas’ Natural Law and more consistent than traditional Roman Catholic ethics. In this way also, a proportionalist version of Natural Law, such as that proposed by Hoose, is the best approach to 21st Century moral decision making.


    In conclusion, a proportionalist version of Natural Law, such as that proposed by Hoose, is the best approach to 21st Century moral decision making. Proportionalism is more suited to making complex, emotive decisions than consequentialist approaches such as utilitarianism, and more practical, nuanced, and consistent than traditional, legalistic Roman Catholic Natural Law. As a result, much more attention should be given to Proportionalism as a way of addressing moral problems as they arise in the future.

    Christians should not show favouritism or prioritize one group over another. Discuss. [40]

    / vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

    On first sight it seems that there is little to discuss here.  Showing favouritism seems opposed to treating people fairly and equally, as the Christian principle of the Sanctity of Human Life seems to demand. Famously, Jesus taught “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:32), suggesting that Christians should love all people equally and not prioritize one group over another, and his brother James clearly wrote “…believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism…” (James 2:1). Nevertheless, when in 1968 CELAM’s Medellin conference called for what in the same year Fr Pedro Arrupe had called a “preferential option for the poor,” many Christians responded, agreeing that Christian teaching on social justice demands that the Church should prioritize the poor.  Further, in recent months many Christians have supported the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which seeks to prioritize black lives now to address the fact that these lives have long been ignored.  On closer examination it seems that there is a lot to discuss here, not least because the ideas of favouritism and prioritizing one group over another have been conflated in the question, when in fact – as Stephen J Pope argued in 1993 – they are distinct.  In reality, it is true that Christians should not show favouritism, but that does not mean that they should not prioritize one group over another.

    In his article “Proper and Improper Partiality and the Preferential Option for the Poor”[1] Stephen J Pope opened by acknowledging that “the preferential option for the poor has become a major theme in contemporary Catholic Ethics.”  The theme is often attributed to the influence of South American Liberation Theology from the late 1970s, but as Todd Walatka argued persuasively in 2015[2], the origins of the preferential option for the poor are really in Vatican II documents “Gaudiem et Spes” and “Lumen Gentium” (1965) and Pope Paul VI’s “Populorum Progressio” (1967), which predate CELAM’s Medillin conference in 1968 and Gustavo Gutierrez’ “Towards a Theology of Liberation” (1971) and far predate the famous articulation of the concept in CELAM’s Puebla conference in 1979.   In this way, Christians have long argued for the poor to be prioritized as a group.  Indeed, there is good Biblical justification for prioritizing the poor.   Arguably, Jesus himself gave a preferential option to the poor and to sinners; he chose to become incarnate of an unmarried mother and to live as and with the poor.  In a society that saw wealth as a reward from God and misfortune, including poverty, as a sign of sin and God’s displeasure, he rebuked those who questioned his spending time with sinners, saying “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners…” Mark 2:17.  Of course, he might have meant that the righteous and, by implication in that society, the wealthy were in no need of his help as they would achieve salvation anyway, but in Mark 10: 23, 25 Jesus remarked “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”…  25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God…” as if wealth is a barrier to salvation.  This suggests that God gives a “preferential option” to the poor, making it easier for them to enter His Kingdom.  Nevertheless, in Romans 2:11 St Paul teaches that “God shows no partiality” and in Galatians 3:28 confirms that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  How can it be that Jesus gave the poor a preferential option and taught that God made it easier for the poor to enter His Kingdom, while “all are one in Christ Jesus” and while “God shows no partiality”?  The answer is, of course, that there is a difference between giving the poor a preferential option and showing favouritism, treating the poor equitably and treating them with what Stephen J Pope calls “unjust partiality.” 

    As Pope argues, “the preferential option, properly understood, refers to an expansion rather than a contraction of love and wisdom… this form of partiality must not be associated with those forms which encourage a disregard for fairness…”  In this way offering the poor a “preferential option” does not take away from the love God – or Christians – shows to others.  A parent does not love a child less by choosing to have another child; love is not a finite resource but expands to meet the need.  Further, no Christian who proposes giving the poor a preferential option proposes to treat other groups unjustly from now on.  Of course there will be those who perceive any measures taken to curtail their unjust privilege as unjust treatment, but is it unjust to stop a thief from enjoying the proceeds of their crimes? As Marx said, capitalism is theft because the capitalist relies on seizing the means of production and paying the workers less than he charges for their labour.  Even the father of free-market Capitalism Adam Smith agreed that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.[3]”  In this way, the rich are criminals and justice demands that they should not be allowed to enjoy the proceeds of their crimes with impunity.  Further, as Rawls pointed out “The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”[4]  Could those who would complain of the injustice of being deprived of unjust privilege say that they would choose for the unjustly privileged to go unchallenged if they did not know that they were so privileged?  As Gutierrez pointed out[5], the poor are in the vast majority, both now and through history.  They occupy the underside of history and have suffered in every possible way because of material deprivation.  Any theory of justice decided on behind a veil of ignorance could not accept Capitalism, because it is only to the advantage of a tiny and shrinking minority. Further, because Capitalism is structurally sinful it causes even to that minority to be dehumanised and distanced from God, both in this life and the next. Oligarchs and ultra-high-net-worth individuals might appear to benefit from Capitalism – and they certainly enjoy the supercars and mansions – but their property and investments force them to be complicit in the oppression of workers and the destruction of the environment and so ensures that so long as they remain rich, they cannot show agape or follow God’s commandments.  By challenging and even by stopping the continuation of a systemic injustice which has so long and so severely oppressed the poor the Christian does not show unjust favouritism, she works for justice – liberating the rich as well as the poor from the structural sin that is capitalism.

    In addition, in Luke 6:20 Jesus taught “blessed are the poor”, continuing in verse 24 “woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.”   In this way Christians who commit to giving the poor a preferential option and so prioritizing the poor seem to do only what Jesus said that God would do.  Further, even if that is to misinterpret Jesus’ teaching about how God will treat the rich, unlike God whose relationship with the poor and other groups is timeless, the preferential option CELAM called for is time-bound and in response to millennia of injustice and oppression.  Where the poor have been given a worse and manifestly unfair option through all recorded human history, addressing this by committing to try to give them a preferential option now is not unfair or unjust.  Just as the Black Lives Matter movement draws attention to the value of black lives now and going forward in the context of addressing the effects of centuries of discrimination and oppression, the preferential option for the poor is a step towards – and only a step towards – combating injustice and not in itself a new injustice.  In calling for some sort of affirmative action to address injustice, Liberation Theology, Black Liberation Theology and other contextual theologies like feminist and Dalit theologies all draw on the thinking of John Rawls, who pointed out that injustice is done when we treat different groups with different needs differently.  He wrote: “The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.”[6] For Rawls, justice demands that institutions focus resources on those who have need, according to their needs, rather than sharing them out equally and giving to those who already have more than they need.  This echoes Marx’ mantra “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,”[7] a principle that was previously adopted by the Early Church, as described in Acts 4-5. In this way, by prioritizing the poor over wealthier groups, Christians treat all people equitably and so justly rather than equally and so unjustly.  To treat all people equally when some are, to quote George Orwell “more equal than others” is actually to prefer the rich and treat the already-privileged with favouritism. 

    Of course, the title-quote does refer to prioritizing “one group over another” and it is true that this might imply what Pope called “unjust partiality” of the type which takes from one group in order to give to another.  If the title is so interpreted then it is fair to say that “Christians should not show favouritism or prioritize one group over another.”  St Thomas Aquinas taught that a good judge should not show any favouritism for or discrimination against the poor when passing sentence[8] and indeed, impartiality seems to be a condition of justice.  For example, Immanuel Kant taught that a “good will” must “treat humanity, whether in the person of yourself or another, always as an end and never as a means to an end,” suggesting that moral decisions should be made in respect of humanity without consideration of any particular characteristic, protected or otherwise.  Nevertheless, Rawls was strongly influenced by Kant and saw no necessary conflict between treating humanity always as an end in itself and demanding that the poor and disadvantaged are prioritized when it comes to resource-allocation. Not giving more to somebody who has enough is not the same as taking from them and so using them as a means to an end of improving conditions for those who lack.  It follows that Christians can prioritize the poor by treating them equitably, without acting unjustly with respect of the rich.

    Having said that, those who call for a “preferential option for the poor” often call for the abolition of private property in the same breath, and this could reasonably be seen as using property owners as a means and not as an end in themselves. Kant distinguishes between negative and positive duties, arguing that a negative duty – not to do something evil – always trumps a positive duty – to help.  So, while not giving more to those who already have enough might be consistent with Kantian Ethics, taking from the rich would not be.  This implies that there should be a line for Christians when it comes to giving the poor a preferential option and so prioritizing them and that endorsing the wholesale abolition of private property would cross that line.  Nevertheless, Populorum Progressio confirms that for Catholics at least “the right to private property is not absolute and unconditional…” because “The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich” and “No one may appropriate surplus goods for their own use when others lack the bare necessities of life.” This relates to 1 John 3:17 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” and to Jesus’ own reaction to the Rich Young Man in Mark 10, in asking why – if he has truly followed God’s commandments – he is still rich.  While Christians should stop short of supporting Marxist revolutions and a legal abolition of private property, that does not mean that Christians should passively accept the capitalist status quo and its concomitant injustices, including the grossly unequal distribution of private property, a large proportion of which was originally appropriated from what was held in common ownership and more would not have been possible without that appropriation. As CELAM affirmed in “A message to the peoples of Latin America” (1979) and as Jon Sobrino reminds us any “solidarity in faith must of necessity pass through solidarity with the poor.”[9]  Christians must choose; even while they should not endorse Marxist revolution, if they want to remain Christians they must divest themselves of their property and stand in solidarity with the poor.  Similarly, the Church must now become a “Church of the Poor” as Gutierrez put it, because there is no way for the Church to passively accept its own wealth and privilege because in doing so it implicitly endorses and seems to advocate for injustice. It follows that Christians should prioritize disadvantaged groups such as the poor and while they should not foment violent revolution as a means of abolishing private property, they should set a positive example, both individually and as a Church institution, in divesting themselves of the spoils of Capitalism as the necessary first step on a journey towards a fair and equitable redistribution of resources. 

    So, in conclusion, Christians should not show favoritism in the sense of displaying what Pope calls unjust partiality, giving to one group by taking from other groups, but they still should – must – prioritize disadvantaged groups and show what Pope calls “just partiality” for them to the extent of sacrificing self to work for justice and their equitable treatment.  Jesus’ own example in doing this is one that Christians should follow.  Jesus chose to live poor, in solidarity with the poor, and sacrificed himself to change an oppressive, structurally sinful system which benefited nobody in a real and lasting sense.  In the same way Christians should accept his challenge to “pick up your cross and follow me,” giving all they have to the poor in the knowledge that – if not in the next life then in this one – this is the only way to build the Kingdom of God.

    [1] Theological Studies, Vol 54, 1993

    [2] Church as Sacrament: Gutiérrez and Sobrino as Interpreters of Lumen Gentium by Todd Walatka, published online by CUP in 2015 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/horizons/article/abs/church-as-sacrament-gutierrez-and-sobrino-as-interpreters-of-lumen-gentium/512E3C124F371744588801B105E72C34

    [3] An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 1

    [4] A Theory of Justice

    [5] Towards a Theology of Liberation

    [6] A Theory of Justice

    [7] 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program

    [8] ST 2-2, q. 63, a. 4, ad 3

    [9] Jon Sobrino, 1985:37-38