Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac

The Ten Commandments

1. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
3. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5. “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
6. “You shall not murder.
7. “You shall not commit adultery.
8. “You shall not steal.
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Right, let's beef up our Evil notes with the thoughts of some more contemporary scholars:

Read through the three sets of notes below:

RESOURCE 1
RESOURCE 2
RESOURCE 3

Look out for the following people:

HICK
VARDY
SWINBURNE
DZ PHILLIPS
SCHLEIERMACHER

Take your Evil notes and add in details of their contributions IN THE RIGHT PLACE
(I've emailed you an Evil booklet if you need to print off another one )

I'll take in the evil booklets on Monday please

thanks!

The Book of Job

God on Trial

Miracles - they don't have break a law of nature?

DOESN’T HAVE TO BREAK LAW OF NATURE – EVENTS THAT ARE 'LUCKY' OR CO-INCIDENCES CAN BE MIRACULOUS -     Holland – coincidences that do not break natural laws but have religious significance can sometimes be referred to as a miracle: “A coincidence can be taken religiously as a sign and called a miracle”.  Holland’s Example: Boy and express train.

He quotes a famous example where a child is stuck on a railway line in a pedal car. A train is coming, but the driver fails to see the child. However just in the nick of time the driver faints, his hand is taken off the lever and the brake is automatically activated. The train then stops in front of the child. There is no violation of nature, however for a religious person this may have religious significance and be thought of as a miracle.

JUST HAVE TO BE UNEXPECTED AND FORTUITOUS - Davies in ‘Thinking About God’ (1985) believes that a wider definition of miracle is now common.  He argues that miracles are “unexpected and fortuitous evens in the light of which we are disposed to give thanks to God”.  The word ‘fortuitous’ leaves open the possibility that the event is normal, but is perceived as showing the hand of God.  One of the miracle windows in Canterbury Cathedral illustrates such an event.  A man is buried alive in a tunnel and his workmates go for help.  In the meantime, his distant cries are heard by a passing traveller and he is saved.  In the background, a hand can be seen as emerging from a cloud, indicating that the event was a miracle.

As discussed......

Blake illustrates Milton's 'Paradise Lost'

John Martin - Wrath

Pieter Pourbus - Last Judgement

Swinburne argues we SHOULD believe in miracles

We rely on the evidence of senses and perception to give us information about the world, so why do we not rely on the evidence and the testimony of those claiming to see miracles?

We should use the following principles to make our decision

• The Principle of Credulity: If it seems that X is present, then probably x is present. In short what one seems to perceive is probably the case (It is a principle of rationality). He puts the onus on the sceptic to disprove religious experience otherwise it should be taken at face value.
• 
  
• The Principle of Testimony: In the absent of special consideration it is reasonable to believe that the experiences of others are probably as they report them. In other words you should believe other people as well.

Nice presentation HERE

Good summary HERE

Hume's "Of Miracles"

Full text is HERE

image

Miracles

Bertrand Russell - Why I'm Not a Christian

Russell's Teapot

“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”

COPLESTON vs.RUSSELL

FREDRICK COPLESTON

Fredrick Copleston reformulated Aquinas' argument by concentrating on contingency. He proposed his argument in a BBC radio debate in 1947:

1) There are things in this world that are contingent (they 'depend upon' other things to exist– they might not have existed e.g. we would not exist without our parents
2) All things in the world are like this – everything depends on something else for it's existence
3) Therefore there must be a cause of everything in the universe that exists outside of the universe
4) This cause must be a 'necessary' being – one which has no cause outside itself and HAS TO EXIST
5) This necessary being is God

COPLESTON AND RUSSELL'S FAMOUS BBC RADIO DEBATE - 1947

F.C. Copleston proposed his Cosmological argument in a famous BBC radio debate with Bertrand Russell. Russell however refused to accept the notion of a necessary being as one that "cannot be thought of not existing" (i.e. MUST exist) , and concluded that :

1) PARTS OF THE UNIVERSE HAVE A CAUSE - THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE HAS A CAUSE - the regress (chain) of causal events could not be held responsible for the existence of everything in the universe:

“what I am saying is that the concept of cause is not applicable to the total"

Just because each human has a mother does not mean the entire human race has a mother. 

2) THERE IS NO CAUSE OF THE UNIVERSE -He reduced the universe to a mere, brute fact, of which it's existence does not demand an explanation.

“I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all."

Russell saw the argument for a cause of the universe as having little meaning or significance. He established it as a “question that has no meaning" and thus proposed: “Shall we pass on to some other issue?" 

Copleston's response to Russell's refusal to accept the importance of the issue was to claim:

“If one refused to sit at the chess board and make a move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated."

The Cosmological Argument

Way 1 - The Argument from Motion

   

Do we have a “God-given” sense of beauty?

Yes

The Aesthetic Argument argues how that we, and the world, are designed because of our sense of beauty. This means that we have a facility of appreciating beauty and this is present for all cultures. So wherever you live in the world we all look for beauty and enjoy it. It is not necessary for survival or development therefore it’s not needed for natural selection. Tennant was quoted saying ‘From an intelligibility point of view, beauty seems to be superfluous and to have little survival value’. Therefore meaning it isn’t important and needed. However it is in us to look for it throughout life.

People who believe in the Aesthetic Argument use the sense of beauty to attempt to refute evolution by saying  that there’s no survival advantage which would allow us to pass the trait down among our offspring. Our sense of beauty is not a result of evolution and natural selection; the only way we can have a sense of beauty is if God has given it to us.

No

However, materialists argue that  the sense of beauty could have been a product of evolution and natural selection. Not in the sense of hiding or hunting, but in the sense of mate selection. Materialists believe that the original reason for humans to create art or music is to attract the opposite gender. The sense of beauty could have  also been passed down due to the females sexually selecting artists/musicians, believing they’re smart and talented and that their children will be smart and talented. They also argue that during primitive times, primates/early forms of humans used colour and shapes to help them recognise and find food. This old trait could influence us in appreciating paintings and pictures.

Mill and Schopenhauer both argue that  the world isn’t really that beautiful anyway. Schopenhauer says “Console yourself by remembering that the world doesn’t deserve your affection”, saying how the world isn’t beautiful at all, rendering the aesthetic argument redundant. Mill however goes more detail about how the world isn’t beautiful and even questions the Deity’s morals/powers. Mill states that, because the world is filled with so much suffering, the world isn’t beautiful and argues against traditional Christianity by saying God is either not good or how God is limited in some way.

The Anthropic Principle

Is the universe something so right 'just for us' that it must be designed?

 

IS THE EYE DESIGNED?

Yes it is designed - Michael Behe

Michael Behe claims that science can only go so far in explaining how organisms develop over time. He argues Darwin’s theory is weakened when he is asked to explain how something as complex as an eye is created by natural selection. (Even Darwin himself thought that this was a tricky one)

Behe uses the term ‘irreducible complexity’ to explain parts of nature which can’t be explained by evolution. An eye consist of many different features that form a process of sensation. The components have no use of their own without each other – so, when they evolved separately, the question is WHY did they evolve? How did they help their owner SURVIVE? They were of no value until they came together.

Michael Behe believes the only way that the eye is possible is if it all was designed/made whole at the start and didn’t go through evolution. He claims the eye is like a mouse trap - if any of the components of the trap was missing, the trap wouldn’t work. The components work in harmony with each other like this because a designer wanted it to be this way. This is same with a human eye if a part was removed the eye wouldn’t work and would be pointless. This concludes Behe’s point that the evolutionary theory fails to explain about how such amazing structures like an eye exist.

Summary: Behe argued the eye is far too complex to be made by evolution and purely random mutations, as all parts of the eye work together in perfect sync to function. Therefore there must be someone who has designed this (God).

“A single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning”

THE EYE IS NOT DESIGNED

 

However, Richard Dawkins argues against Behe, saying that the eye went through multiple small changes throughout thousands of years. He pointed out that Behe was viewing each stage of evolution as being one massive step, whereas Dawkins believes that each stage of evolution is one tiny little step generation by generation. He began saying how the eye started out as a light sensitive cell, so the organism was able to tell when it was day or night. As the generations went on, the creature began to develop a cone around the light sensitive cells, allowing the organism to see where the light was coming from. As the cone grew through the generations, the organism’s ability to see where the light was coming from increased. It got to a point where the cone only had a small hole which allowed the light sensitive cells to see precisely where the light was coming from and to see a very rough image of their surroundings. He then went on saying how the eye began to grow lenses over their eyes to allow the hole to be protected and to have a more precise image. Dawkins also stated that this happened with many different organisms in many different ways. He used a Swedish scientist’s prediction, what was gained through computer analysis, for how long this would take. It would take roughly 220,000 years which, although is a long time for us, is a very small time for how long the world and the universe is.

Summary: He believes that the eye was created from the process of evolution over millions of years through natural selection. This is possible because the eye formed over such a long period of time that there were ‘baby steps’ towards the production of a fully functioning eye. This started by one mutation which caused the species to see slight light/movement and as this gave them a huge advantage this mutated gene survived (naturally selected) and was passed down generations eventually evolving so much the full eye was formed.

Certainly it seems that literal Creationism and Evolution theory are difficult to reconcile. Is this true of the Design argument and Evolution theory though? Here are some of Darwin’s thoughts;

1. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” (Autobiography)

 2. “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

 3. “I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as [Edward Pusey] desires… But I most wholly agree… that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness.” (Letter to J. Brodie Innes, November 27 1878)

 4. “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

 5. “I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

 6. “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the son of God.” (Letter to Frederick McDermott, November 24 1880)
 
7. [In conversation with the atheist Edward Aveling, 1881] “Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind?” (Edward Aveling, The religious views of Charles Darwin, 1883)

 8. “Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Letter to Graham William, July 3 1881)

 9. "My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design." (Letter to Joseph Hooker, July 12 1870)

 10. “I can never make up my mind how far an inward conviction that there must be some Creator or First Cause is really trustworthy evidence.” (Letter to Francis Abbot, September 6 1871)

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The Nature of God (including list of attributes)

The attributes of God (use links at top of page for each attribute)

More on the attributes of God (scroll down a bit for links)

Another list (nicely laid-out with good scripture quotes)

Huge list of quotes