Religious Belief And The Sceptical Responses Essay

, Research Paper

Describe how a sceptical problem arises in connection with one of the areas of thought we have studied. Then discuss one or more responses to the problem.

Religious belief and the sceptical responses

Although dismissed by many philosophers as nonsensical and irrelevant, religious beliefs are still held by over half of the world s population and therefore the subject must be valid as an area of intellectual discussion. This particular area of thought gives rise to much sceptical debate as the proofs offered by believers seem flawed when held to close scrutiny. It is particularly interesting in that the sceptical problems also go further than merely questioning the validity of the proofs but in fact can be taken so far as to actually question the validity of the original presupposition; that is, that we can even sensibly ask the question, does God exist , in the first place.

There are three primary proofs that have been offered by apologists wishing to defend their religious belief. The first of these was a metaphysical proof originally invented by St Anslem and was formally envisaged by Descartes in his fifth mediation. It is known as the ontological argument. The foundations of this argument lay in the supposition that anyone attempting to deny the existence of God would be contradicting themselves in the act of merely conceptualising the thought. To begin this argument it must first be determined that the idea of God is that of an omnipotent being whom by his very nature is a sum of all possible perfections. Then, the argument continues by claiming that for a sceptic to suggest that there is no God a person would need to envisage within their mind a God who lacks one vital perfection: existence. This, it is concluded, is a contradiction in terms as while this God is being envisaged, another, greater being who contains all those perfections while also containing the perfection of existence must also be possibly envisaged. Therefore the God that it is claimed does not exist can be superseded by another being whom does, which leads the apologist to claim that the sceptics first conception of a God cannot be a God at all but in fact an inferior conceptualisation.

This idea is explained metaphorically by Descarte when he claims that there is no less contradiction in conceiving a God, that is to say, who lacks some particular perfection, than in conceiving a mountain without a valley.

The fallacy of this argument, it would be argued by a sceptic, lies in the logic and the incorrect predicate that existence is necessarily a form of perfection. For example, it is possible to imagine a perfect rose that is immaculate in shape, colour and scent, and to claim to understand the essence of this rose in a theoretical sense. However, the question of whether this rose actually exists in the material world still remains which shows that existence is not a predicate of perfection. An apologists final remark on this subject would be to claim that the definition of existence is wrong and that God s existence would be a necessary existence , which can be thought of as eternity. The sceptic would point out that no object can exist out of necessity as any object that exists may or may not exist and to apply the necessity rule would mean this cannot be so. To argue that that eternity solves these problems is also wrong as it is possible of course that God could be eternal if he existed, but then we are by default considering the idea that he may not exist and therefore we have a conflict with the original supposition that he must exist out of necessity.

The second argument that a sceptic would find grievances with is that known as the cosmological argument. This argument maintains that everything in the universe has a cause. These causes in turn have causes and so on. It seems that we can always regress the question why for the creation of finite matter and yet there must be a point, maintain the apologists, where we arrive at an uncaused origin of these regressions, and this point it is argued is God.

The sceptical challenge to this argument focuses on the claim that every series must have an origin. This is simply untrue. For example, the series of proper fractions has no first term. It is also possible to criticise the way the argument assumes that to explain something fully a full regression of causation must take place, as this again is just not true. Take for example any form of plantlife. It is possible to explain the origin of a weed by explaining how the combination of a seed, the earth, the sun and the rain all combined to produce it. A perfectly adequate answer to explain the origin of the weed can be arrived at without need to explain also the origins of the components that created the weed. The argument also becomes illogical once the final uncaused origin is cited as God, for why can it not simply be called the universe . There are no adequate grounds to assume that the origin must be God.

The third argument for God is that of the argument of design. When we survey the world and universe around us, the apologists say, we must surely not fail to be impressed by the harmonious functional co-existence that we witness. Their argument follows that this harmony reflects that which we see in intelligent constructions and therefore we must accept that there is a designer, and that this creator is God. We a