Thursday, November 6, 2014
God -- Or Some Lesser Designer
In Chapter V, Philo devises several arguments that accept that the universe has a designer, but deny that that designer is God. Given our traditional definition that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, is Philo correct? Or is there a response to his arguments? Does it matter if the designer is the traditional God?
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Philo is correct when he argues that the universe has a designer, but that that designer is not God. Philo’s first argument is that the universe is a series of revisions. He says, “If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic who imitated others” (Hume 36). Philo uses this “stupid mechanic” as a metaphor for a designer. He says that the world is the culmination of many trials and many errors. Philo also argues that the possibility of multiple deities. He says, “A great number of men join in building a house or a ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?” (Hume 36). If the world is compared to a machine, why must it only have one designer? Machines can be designed by many different people. Finally, Philo asks why there is not a race of deities. If all living things “renew their species by generation” (Hume 37), why should a deity be any different? All of Philo’s points are accurate, and they lead us to the conclusion which states that an all-powerful deity is not necessarily God. By arguing that a deity designed the universe, not God, Philo addresses important issues such as the existence of evil. If God, who is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient being, exists, why is there evil? In addition to this crucial question, Philo illuminates the blindness of the human race. It is naïve to assume that just because we were created by a higher power, this power is virtuous. There is no evidence to support this claim and the world seems to be full of evil. It is entirely possible that a deity may find some pleasure in creating pain in the life of humans and other creatures. It is also possible that the deity no longer exists. Just because the deity is more powerful does not mean it is impervious to death or aging. Overall, the assumption of a virtuous deity seems to be an assumption that is based on the discomfort humans feel when they are faced with the fact that the universe and existence in general is neither benevolent nor meaningful.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 5, Philo attacks Cleanthes’s definition of God, which describes him as a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, in addition to having a human-like mind, and he does so not by proving any new statements of his own but by offering counterexamples to Cleanthes’s remarks.
ReplyDeletePhilo begins by addressing the continued discoveries in science by humans as well as the state of nature. In this case, he agrees with the notion that some being is omnipotent and omniscient, since it is clear that in some extremely powerful being must always be present in order to run so many universes and so many organisms, both large and small. However, he uses these same examples to oppose Cleanthes’s theories that God has a human-like mind and is omnibenevolent (perfect). Philo explains that since there are always new discoveries and advancements that people will never fully understand everything, and since many of the things on Earth— whether they are new discoveries or not— lack any possible analogous association with the human mind and its creations it is absurd to think that God’s mind is like a human’s. Cleanthes counters by saying that he can think of no mind other than a human’s, but Philo quickly puts down this rebuttal by stating that if there is an endless chain of things that humans still do not understand, including even the smallest of microorganisms, it is impossible that they comprehend an all-powerful deity and its mind. Philo then asserts that it is easy impossible to determine whether there are imperfections in the world, using the same line of reasoning; from our limited vantage point, we cannot comprehend what the true intention of a deity is or how what we perceive as imperfections truly fit into the grand scheme.
The logic of Philo’s argument in his first example is sound. He uses evidence to support Cleanthes’s claim about the deity’s omnipresent and omnipotent nature, which gives the claim further legitimacy, and for his objections he uses no speculation, simply offering counterarguments to the points Cleanthes had previously issued. Therefore, from the reasoning of both men in the first argument it can be concluded that God is omniscient and omnipotent, but it is impossible to determine whether he is omnibenevolent or has a human-like mind. This conclusion is important mostly for the sake of pride and self-importance for people. It is similar to Cleanthes popularly-held idea of God, but without the personal connection to the deity through a similar mind. The uncertainty in Philo’s conclusion will not be pleasing to many people, but he is correct.
In fact, Philo is right in saying that the universe’s designer is not God, at least according to the definition we have provided for God. This definition has been challenged before in the dialogues. For example, Dialogue IV includes an argument by Cleanthes that completely undermines the omniscience of God based on the idea that a simple and immutable mind such as God’s cannot be a functioning mind at all because the mind requires variety in order to create and develop ideas. That Philo allows for flexibility in the definition of the creator of the universe shows that he is heading in the right direction with his argument.
ReplyDeleteThe first problem Philo presents challenges the infinity of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent designer. In fact, Philo accuses Cleanthes of contradicting an earlier part of his argument when Cleanthes assumes the infinity of God. Philo claims that Cleanthes had said, “The cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect… is not infinite” (35). In other words, we have no grounds to claim that God is infinite. This argument alone is enough to support the notion that the creator of the universe is not God as we have come to know him. Instead, a new creator appears that is much more analogous to the inventor who builds the universe-machine earlier in the dialogues: He has a set of skills that he uses to the best of his ability; however, he is still limited in what he is able to create. Considering this, it is not important at all that God be omniscient, omnipotent, or omnibenevolent, because the scope of his infinite power that does not apply to human existence will be completely irrelevant to our understanding of how the universe works.
I think that Philo makes a very good argument when he claims that there is a designer of the world that could be something other than God. Philo, an agnostic, believes that it is a waste of time to try and prove whether or not there is a God, because we will not be able to arrive at a definitive conclusion. Philo says, “If we survey a ship…the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic who imitated others” (Hume, 36). He claims that, maybe, our world is made by a designer who is not omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Our “God” could be the worst of an infinite amount of Gods. Philo also brings up the question, what if we our world is one of the worst worlds? He wonders whether or not our world is not the perfect world created by God, as is said by Cleanthes’ and Demea’s argument earlier in the book.
ReplyDeleteThese are very interesting points that are presented by Philo and I have never thought of these situations as possibilities. The biggest point that I saw within Philo’s arguments are that they are formed as questions. Different from numerous arguments that we have read about throughout the course, this is a question. By proposing it as a question, he establishes the point of agnosticism, because we cannot determine a correct answer to these questions. Through agnosticism, it does not matter what type of designer we have, but rather we should accept that there is a designer, but we should not debate the details of this God.
I would go beyond the fact that God cannot be the designer and say that God should not exist altogether. Philo is correct and his case against God’s involvement, I believe, also serves as a solid base for the case against God’s existence in the first place.
ReplyDeletePhilo makes the statement that, “there are many inexplicable difficulties in the works of nature, which, if we allow a perfect author to be proved a priori, are easily solved.” In saying this, Philo claims that the “omni-perfect” God can most definitely not be the creator of the nature because nature, itself, is not perfect. His argument holds ground because the reality of it is truly as simple as that. For the most part in this world, the common image of god is this “omni-blank” being, period. The world that exists today does not represent this, period. Without even having to attack God’s existence, it is pretty clear that he can simply not be any justified creator of the world as we know it; his characteristics matched with that of the world just do not match up.
However, Philo’s argument also serves as a pretty decent basis for an attack against God’s existence, anyway. Once people begin to back-track and defend God’s role in creating this universe, they attempt to alter the vision of God or try to prove that a different rendering of him might have designed the world. They come up with different possibilities, or better yet, claim that because they have faith, they do not need to explain. This just goes further to prove that the image of God is solely a product of imagination. The fact people in this world are so desperate as to credit someone for our existence that they will easily redefine or recreate this image goes to show how unreliable and unlikely this concept is in the first place.
Philo is correct when he says that the designer is not an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being called God. To prove that it is not a designer with those three characteristics he provides three counter argument. In his first counter argument, Philo argues that our universe was just a result of trial and error. He says that God attempted many times to create a universe and just happened to create the universe we have today. His second argument is that we cannot prove that there is only one deity. He gives the example of a ship. When a ship is being built there isn’t just one engineer building the whole thing; there is a whole group of engineers, one assigned to a specific task. So when our universe is compared to a machine, the possibility of having multiple deities, who each designed their own part of the universe, cannot be ruled out. Philo’s third argument is that if God is those three characteristics then why is there evil in our universe. If God were omniscient then he would know about evil. If God were omnipotent then he could get rid of that evil. And if God were omnibenevolent then he would want to get rid of that evil; so why does evil remain? Philo argues that it is because God truly does not have those characteristics.
ReplyDeleteIt does matter if this designer is God because a proof for the existence in God is extremely sought. With a proof for God’s existence a plethora of arguments can be made so Philo’s disproving of the designer being God is a major blow.
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ReplyDeleteIn this argument, Philo has a very good point in stating that humans have no way of proving that our God/deity really is omnipotent or omniscient in any way; as we have only experienced our own world, it is impossible for us to compare it to anything else and therefore be able to say that it is good or bad. Using the example of a ship and its builder, Philo says that when we step onto the first ship we have ever seen we are amazed at its intricacy and grandeur, and applaud the builder of this ship for his hard work. However, he then goes on to say that when we realize that this ship is nothing more than a poorly constructed copy of other ships that were made far better and far larger, we will see the designer as an idiot and a copycat who has no true skill or perfection in his work whatsoever. This concept can be directly applied to our universe as well; even if we think that our universe is truly grand, we have nothing to compare it to. For all we know, we could be warped to another universe to find that its creator constructed it in a far better fashion, and that our universe is the runt of a group of thousands of other bigger and better universes with better and more powerful creators. Additionally, the very idea that there is more than one creator that is omnipotent is contradictory in and of itself; it is logically impossible for two beings to be omnipotent, because if they have conflicting interests and try to use their powers against each other nothing will happen, and they therefore aren't all powerful as something has power that matches theirs. Essentially the point of this argument is to say that even if our creator is omnipotent the existence of any other creator of equal power proves that the creator actually isn't omnipotent. Thus, a multitude of creators governing a multitude of universes also makes our creator not omnipotent. So, as a result, we have no way of proving that our creator is all powerful, or even that he is the only one. So, in this case, If there are multiple Gods, our God cannot be all powerful. This argument seems to be very sound to me, and there is really no response to this argument as even Cleanthes admits that there is some truth in this. As far as any of us know, God could also have made our universe as his first try, saw how bad it was, and abandoned it. Until we have some kind of divine intervention or something, there is no way to prove that God is perfect, all powerful, a single being, or even that He exists! ARGUMENT CONTINUES IN POST BELOW
ReplyDeleteOne other argument surfaces in Chapter V which Philo raises against God. He says that “the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect [the world/universe], so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite”(Hume 35). Essentially the argument here is that the universe isn’t infinite (as far as he knows) and therefore there is no reason to assume that God is infinite because the cause has to match the effect. As a result an argument once again suggests that, while there is no proof that God isn’t infinite, there is also no proof that he is. In this point, Philo is trying to prove that we cannot give God infinite power and infinite existence when there is truly no reason to do so. Although this argument makes sense, it seems to be slightly weaker than the previous one; just because the universe isn’t infinite (and he doesn’t even have proof that it isn’t) doesn’t mean that the creator also isn’t. As a God of infinite wisdom and power, God could have had a reason for making a universe that wasn’t infinite, or he could have created an infinite one and Philo just doesn’t know it. Overall, however, Philo does make some strong points against the idea of an infinite God between these two arguments as he essentially says that without a reason to think God to be perfect/ infinite, people should not just assume that he is. Although he does not intend to deny the existence of a creator or deity entirely, Philo is successful in Chapter V in his effort to support the idea of an imperfect God. Once again there is no rebuttal to this argument, as no evidence stands against it to prove any part of it wrong.
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