Ayer paragraph 7 text and suggestions

"These considerations dispose of the argument from religious experience, which many philosophers still regard as a valid argument in favour of the existence of a god. They say that it is logically possible for men to be immediately acquainted with God, as they are immediately acquainted with a sense-content, and that there is no reason why one should be prepared to believe a man when he says that he is seeing a yellow patch, and refuse to believe him when he says that he is seeing God. The answer to this is that if the man who asserts that he is seeing God is merely asserting that he is experiencing a peculiar kind of sense-content, then we do not for a moment deny that his assertion may be true. But, ordinarily, the man who says that he is seeing God is saying not merely that he is experiencing a religious emotion, but also that there exists a transcendent being who is the object of this emotion; just as the man who says that he sees a yellow patch is ordinarily saying not merely that his visual sense-field contains a yellow sense-content, but also that there exists a yellow object to which the sense-content belongs. And it is not irrational to be prepared to believe a man when he asserts the existence of a yellow object, and to refuse to believe him when he asserts the existence of a transcendent god. For whereas the sentence ‘There exists here a yellow-coloured material thing’ expresses a genuine synthetic proposition which could be empirically verified, the sentence ‘There exists a transcendent god’ has, as we have seen, no literal significance."

Ayer para 7

He begins this paragraph with the assertion that he has ‘disposed of the argument from religious experience’ on the basis that any assertions arising out of said experience would be unintelligible because they would derive from ‘intuition.’ Since he does not regard intuition as a ‘genuine cognitive state’ and it reveals no ‘facts’ then all we can actually learn from the experient’s experience is about ‘the condition of his own mind’  and no ‘intelligible propositions at all.’

            He makes the distinction between those ‘philosophers’ who don’t see a problem with believing equally the claims of the man who sees a yellow patch and yet who also claims to have seen God. He himself doesn’t think it is irrational at all to believe the former and doubt the latter. They are not the same kind of claims.

He goes on the kind of assertions made about a transcendent being have no ‘literal significance’’ unlike any that may be made about ordinary objects, a pink bus, a purple elephant etc all are ‘empirically verifiable.’

It is the fact that the person who is making the claim is not just saying that they have had this unusual experience but above all are claiming that it is of a ‘transcendent being’ and that therefore this being exists. If they could just make the first claim all might be well but to make the second is not a ‘genuine synthetic proposition’, cannot be verified and is above and beyond the range of the actual experience.

An equivalent might be those strange Americans who believe they have been abducted by aliens. They seem pretty convinced but…

Clarifying of concepts:

• Has religious experience as an argument been disposed of?
• Believing people’s claims
• Differences in the nature of the claim
• ‘no literal significance’?
• Religious language –verification principle – take issue with what kind of assertions Ayer considers ‘verifiable’ and mention those that Ayer wouldn’t consider but which we woud definitely think significant.

Swinburne’s principles of Credulity and Testimony

Is cognitive the only ‘meaningful’ aspect of life?

Ayer as dogmatic as those he criticises

Doesn’t he contradict his own claim in paragraph 1?

Remember what is Ayer actually trying to say? Or claim? Isn’t his own claim that ‘these statements are of no literal significance’ just as meaningless?

And remember Bertrand Russell (LP) who refused to even sit down at the chessboard? (an analogy – to the debate being pointless)

And what have other people said that may have a bearing or comment on his views?

 

A2 Anthology Ayer text

Textual sources for Unit 4: Implications
Philosophy of Religion
‘God-talk is evidently nonsense’ — AJ Ayer in
Davies B (editor) — Philosophy of Religion: a guide and anthology (OUP, 2000) pages 143-146
© Philosophy of Religion — a guide and anthology, A J Ayer, Dover Publications Inc.
It is now generally admitted, at any rate by philosophers, that the existence of a being having the
attributes which define the god of any non-animistic religion cannot be demonstratively proved. What is not so generally recognised is that there can be no way of proving that the existence of a god, such as the God of Christianity, is even probable. Yet this also is easily shown. For if the existence of such a god were probable, then the proposition that he existed would be an empirical hypothesis. And in that case it would be possible to deduce from it, and other empirical hypotheses, certain experiential
propositions which were not deducible from those other hypotheses alone. But in fact this is not
possible. It is sometimes claimed, indeed, that the existence of a certain sort of regularity in nature
constitutes sufficient evidence for the existence of a god. But if the sentence ‘God exists’ entails no
more than that certain types of phenomena occur in certain sequences, then to assert the existence of
a god will be simply equivalent to asserting that there is the requisite regularity in nature; and no
religious man would admit that this was all he intended to assert in asserting the existence of a god. He would say that in talking about God, he was talking about a transcendent being who might be known through certain empirical manifestations, but certainly could not be defined in terms of those
manifestations. But in that case the term ‘god’ is a metaphysical term. And if ‘god’ is a metaphysical
term, then it cannot be even probable that a god exists. For to say that ‘God exists’ is to make a
metaphysical utterance which cannot be either true or false. And by the same criterion, no sentence
which purports to describe the nature of a transcendent god can possess any literal significance.

It is important not to confuse this view of religious assertions with the view that is adopted by atheists, or agnostics. For it is characteristic of an agnostic to hold that the existence of a god is a possibility in which there is no good reason either to believe or disbelieve; and it is characteristic of an atheist to hold that it is at least probable that no god exists. And our view that all utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical, so far from being identical with, or even lending any support to, either of these familiar contentions, is actually incompatible with them. For if the assertion that there is a god is nonsensical, then the atheist’s assertion that there is no god is equally nonsensical, since it is only a significant proposition that can be significantly contradicted. As for the agnostic, although he refrains from saying either that there is or that there is not a god, he does not deny that the question whether a transcendent god exists is a genuine question. He does not deny that the two sentences ‘There is a transcendent god’ and ‘There is no transcendent god’ express propositions one of which is actually true and the other false. All he says is that we have no means of telling which of them is true, and therefore ought not to commit ourselves to either. But we have seen that the sentences in question do not express propositions at all. And this means that agnosticism also is ruled out.

It is to be remarked that in cases where deities are identified with natural objects, assertions
concerning them may be allowed to be significant. If, for example, a man tells me that the occurrence
of thunder is alone both necessary and sufficient to establish the truth of the proposition that Jehovah
is angry, I may conclude that, in his usage of words, the sentence ‘Jehovah is angry’ is equivalent to ‘It is thundering.’ But in sophisticated religions, though they may be to some extent based on men’s awe of natural process which they cannot sufficiently understand, the ‘person’ who is supposed to control the empirical world is not himself located in it; he is held to be superior to the empirical world, and so outside it; and he is endowed with super-empirical attributes. But the notion of a person whose essential attributes are non-empirical is not an intelligible notion at all. We may have a word which is used as if it named this ‘person,’ but, unless the sentences in which it occurs express propositions which are empirically verifiable, it cannot be said to symbolize anything. And this is the case with regard to the word ‘god,’ in the usage in which it is intended to refer to a transcendent object. The mere existence of the noun is enough to foster the illusion that there is a real, or at any rate a possible entity corresponding to it. It is only when we enquire what God’s attributes are that we discover that ‘God,’ in this usage, is not a genuine name.

It is not within the scope of this enquiry to enter more deeply into the causes of religious feeling, or to
discuss the probability of the continuance of religious belief. We are concerned only to answer those
questions which arise out of our discussion of the possibility of religious knowledge. The point which we wish to establish is that there cannot be any transcendent truths of religion. For the sentences which the theist uses to express such ‘truths’ are not literally significant.

An interesting feature of this conclusion is that it accords with what many theists are accustomed to say themselves. For we are often told that the nature of God is a mystery which transcends the human
understanding. But to say that something transcends the human understanding is to say that it is
unintelligible. And what is unintelligible cannot significantly be described. Again, we are told that God is not an object of reason but an object of faith. This may be nothing more than an admission that the existence of God must be taken on trust, since it cannot be proved. But it may also be an assertion that God is the object of a purely mystical intuition, and cannot therefore be defined in terms which are intelligible to the reason. And I think there are many theists who would assert this. But if one allows that it is impossible to define God in intelligible terms, then one is allowing that it is impossible for a sentence both to be significant and to be about God. If a mystic admits that the object of his vision is something which cannot be described, then he must also admit that he is bound to talk nonsense when he describes it.

For his part, the mystic may protest that his intuition does reveal truths to him, even though he cannot
explain to others what these truths are; and that we who do not possess this faculty of intuition can
have no ground for denying that it is a cognitive faculty. But the mystic, so far from producing
propositions which are empirically verified, is unable to produce any intelligible propositions at all. And therefore we say that his intuition has not revealed to him any facts. It is no use his saying that he has apprehended facts but is unable to express them. For we know that if he really had acquired any information, he would be able to express it. He would be able to indicate in some way or other how the genuineness of his discovery might be empirically determined. The fact that he cannot reveal what he ‘knows,’ or even himself devise an empirical test to validate his ‘knowledge,’ shows that his state of mystical intuition is not a genuinely cognitive state. So that in describing his vision the mystic does not give us any information about the external world; he merely gives us indirect information about the condition of his own mind.

These considerations dispose of the argument from religious experience, which many philosophers still regard as a valid argument in favour of the existence of a god. They say that it is logically possible for men to be immediately acquainted with God, as they are immediately acquainted with a sense-content, and that there is no reason why one should be prepared to believe a man when he says that he is seeing a yellow patch, and refuse to believe him when he says that he is seeing God. The answer to this is that if the man who asserts that he is seeing God is merely asserting that he is experiencing a peculiar kind of sense-content, then we do not for a moment deny that his assertion may be true. But, ordinarily, the man who says that he is seeing God is saying not merely that he is experiencing a religious emotion, but also that there exists a transcendent being who is the object of this emotion; just as the man who says that he sees a yellow patch is ordinarily saying not merely that his visual sense-field contains a yellow sense-content, but also that there exists a yellow object to which the sense-content belongs. And it is not irrational to be prepared to believe a man when he asserts the existence of a yellow object, and to refuse to believe him when he asserts the existence of a transcendent god. For whereas the sentence ‘There exists here a yellow-coloured material thing’ expresses a genuine synthetic proposition which could be empirically verified, the sentence ‘There exists a transcendent god’ has, as we have seen, no literal significance.

We conclude, therefore, that the argument from religious experience is altogether fallacious. The fact
that people have religious experiences is interesting from the psychological point of view, but it does
not in any way imply that there is such a thing as religious knowledge, any more than our having moral experiences implies that there is such a thing as moral knowledge. The theist, like the moralist, may believe that his experiences are cognitive experiences, but, unless he can formulate his ‘knowledge’ in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we may be sure that he is deceiving himself. It follows that those philosophers who fill their books with assertions that they intuitively ‘know’ this or that moral or religious ‘truth’ are merely providing material for the psychoanalyst. For no act of intuition can be said to reveal a truth about any matter of fact unless it issues in verifiable propositions. And all such propositions are to be incorporated in the system of empirical propositions  which constitutes science.

UA018356 – Anthology – Edexcel GCE in Religious Studies (9RS01) – Issue 2 – April 2008 © Edexcel Limited 2008

AS Cosmological Argument 2008 Question

(Question Oct 2008) Cosmological Argument for 2007 question notes from student discussion about what should go in to the essay.

(i)                               Examine the main ideas of the Cosmological Argument.

Definition – the idea that the universe is an effect which needs a cause and that cause is God.

Aquinas 1,2,3 ways of his 5 Ways

·         Unmoved mover – explain and significance           )               i.e. why God is it

·         Uncaused causer – explain and significance          )               i.e. why God is it.

·         Possibility and necessity – explain why God becomes the Necessary Being.

Explicitly explain the concept of infinite regress and why it is rejected in this argument.

Explain Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason and how God is sufficient reason.

State the Kalam Argument:        P1 everything which exists has a cause

                                                                        P2 the universe exists

                                                                        IC therefore the universe has a cause

Aquinas’ conclusion                        that cause is God

‘Any effect of a cause demonstrates that its cause exists…the central link is not what the cause is…but what the name of the cause is used to mean; and as we shall see the word God derives from his effects.’

(ii)                             To what extent is this a weak argument?

Things you could take issue with:

·         The idea that the universe needs explaining in the first place – Bertrand Russell’s ‘Brute Fact’…

but if it does then perhaps God is a good enough explanation at the moment

·         And why look outside the universe for a cause? When all other causes are found within the universe

on the other hand this suggests God is a God of the gaps (only good enough while there is insufficient evidence)

Hume and Kant queried whether cause and effect were necessarily linked or only in our experience? But as Hume put it: ‘we can never ascribe to the cause any qualities but what are exactly sufficient to produce the effect.’

·         In addition why reject infinite regress – just because in our experience it isn’t logical doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

(there is even a modern – very- theory that instead of the Big Bang there was a Big Bounce!)

·         And if Cause and Effect are linked then God becomes the only exception to the rule that everything that exists has a cause! And that seems to invalidate God as a conclusion.

·         We can perhaps go so far as to agree with the intermediate conclusion but theists will never go as far as Aquinas’ conclusion.

However its strengths lie in the apparent logic of its a posteriori nature and in its flexible conclusion; though the evidence is perhaps more circumstantial than robust.

Evaluation:

This argument does at least give an answer even if to some it is unconvincing.

While some would suggest that God is the simplest answer – is it?

Atheists will never accept.

Theists can find their faith supported and given a rational basis.

However none of these arguments are convincing on their own but maybe taken collectively they could be?

But to make God the only exception to cause and effect undermines the effectiveness of this argument.

Ultimately even if this argument were to convince that God was the Prime Cause of the existence of the universe it would tell us nothing about the nature of that God.

AS Cosmological Argument Essential Viewing Strengths and Weaknesses

Describe the main strengths and weaknesses of the Cosmological Argument

This argument centres around the idea that for everything there is a cause
As Aristotle said ‘nothing can come from nothing’
So Aquinas went on to formulate his five ways, the first of which is the argument from the ‘uncaused cause’ and the second the argument from the ‘unmoved mover.’
This whole argument arose from human observation that everything around us has a cause; things come into existence and later cease to exist including ourselves. Indeed for every effect that we could think of there is a cause and for that there is a previous cause and so on as far back as we care to take it.
Thus the argument suggests, and as the 2 Muslim scholars Al Kindi and Al Ghazali, put it:

• Everything that exists has a cause
• The universe exists
• Therefore the universe has a cause
• And that cause is God.

This is the whole point of the cosmological argument, that the first cause of the existence of everything is God.

Aristotle himself was an atheist but he believed that the universe had a cause, it was Aquinas who refined the argument and concluded that God was the cause.

This argument is both an a posteriori and an inductive argument and to some philosophers this makes this a weak argument because an a posteriori argument is one which comes to a conclusion based on the evidence available, in this case the fact that the universe exists; and an inductive one is one in which the conclusion lies outside the premises of the argument itself.

In this case the problem lies in the conclusion that the cause is God. This is a major weakness of the argument because the conclusion is not necessarily the most obvious, after all why should the cause be God? Can there not be any other cause? And even, as David Hume objects, if the cause is God what does it tell us about God? 
Nothing.In fact he suggests, ‘we can never ascribe to the cause any qualities but what are exactly sufficient to produce the effect.’
Another problem with the cosmological argument is with Aquinas’ third way: the argument from possibility and necessity. This is the idea that God is indeed a necessary being. This means that unlike us who are dependent for our existence on other factors for example our parents, God is not contingent (dependent) on anything but is in fact the cause of his own existence.

This is a strength in terms of the fact that if there is an outside cause of the universe then it would seem logical that that cause could not be caused by anything else. Indeed it fits with St Anselm’s definition of God as ‘that than which no greater can be conceived.’

But the weakness lies within the idea that God is necessary. A first cause is only necessary if we consider that the idea of infinite regress is an impossibility. Can there be such a thing as an infinite chain of cause and effect? Theologians reject the possibility because we cannot envisage this idea any more than we can grasp the true scope of infinity; our human minds are too limited.David Hume also objected to this on the grounds that our minds are indeed too limited but this does not mean that the concept is impossible. We cannot get outside of the universe to see if the concepts of cause and effect hold sway in the rest of the universe. And even if we could, even if everything in the universe does have a cause it is too great a leap to argue from specific causes to something as general as the universe’s cause itself.

However one of the great strengths of this argument comes from a new direction proposed by Leibniz and what he called the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He suggested that we need to discover why there is something rather than nothing and if we do not accept the idea of infinite regress and if we trace the chain of causes back to the very beginning then once there must have been a time when there was nothing. If that is the case something must have willed what now exists into being and that suggests a creator. In other words there is sufficient reason to suppose that there is a God which / who deliberately willed the universe into existence.

 As Swinburne put it, ‘it is extraordinary that there should exist anything at all,’ and goes on to say that God is probably the simplest explanation for it all. On the other hand Bertrand Russell would disagree since he believed the universe just existed ‘Brute Fact’ and we shouldn’t bother to try to explain it since it is beyond our capacity to do so adequately.

To what extent do the weaknesses of this argument limit its effectiveness?

Overall the strengths of this argument lie within its logic. We see cause and effect all around us it is logical to presume therefore that the universe’s existence too has a cause.
However, the main weakness is that in fact it does not prove God exists. Of course no argument could for after all where would faith be then? but the antagonists have a point in their objection that if it doesn’t prove God exists the argument must fail.
Maybe as Hume suggests it is too great a leap to conclude that its cause is God but…

 Perhaps we can conclude as William of Ockham does that the simplest solution is often the best one and until further evidence is forthcoming then maybe God is indeed the best explanation for the fact of the universe’s existence.

In conclusion whatever its strengths or weaknesses the cosmological argument can provide support for someone who already has faith in God’s existence but it is unlikely ever to persuade a non-believer that God exists.

AS Cosmological Argument Quotations

AS RE Revision Quotations: The Cosmological Argument

For:

Aquinas         Three of his Five Ways: the argument from an unmoved mover, the uncaused cause, and possibility and necessity.

The Kalam Argument        everything that exists must have a cause for its existence

                                                The universe exists

                                                Therefore the universe must have a cause.

Anselm          “That than which no greater can be conceived.” i.e. God

“God has wanted to make an orderly world because beauty is a good thing.”           Swinburne

“God is a necessary being because something must have started the process off. He is not contingent on anything else.”    Coplestone

“Some thing causes in all other things their being, goodness, perfections… and this we call God”                        Aquinas        

Against:

“We can never ascribe to a cause any qualities but what are exactly sufficient to produce the effect.”          Hume

Even if there was a first cause – why God?

“We observe an event and a consequence and separate the two into cause and effect. But because we are limited and cannot get outside the universe, so we cannot assume they are always linked.”            Hume

“If God is the first cause then he is not the God of Classical Theism because the earth is flawed.”             Hume

“There is no value in faith, it weakens man and prevents him from taking responsibility.” Russell

“The existence of the universe is Brute fact – it just is.”      Russell