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Philosophy Notes – On – Proofs For The Existence Of God – For W.B.C.S. Examination.
দর্শনের শাস্ত্রের নোট – ঈশ্বরের অস্তিত্বের প্রমাণ – WBCS পরীক্ষা।
Something that resembles a moral argument for God’s existence, or at least an argument from value, can be found in the fourth of Thomas Aquinas’s “Five Ways” (Aquinas 1265–1274, I, 1, 3). Aquinas there begins with the claim that among beings who possess such qualities as “good, true, and noble” there are gradations. Presumably he means that some things that are good are better than other good things; perhaps some noble people are nobler than others who are noble.Continue Reading Philosophy Notes – On – Proofs For The Existence Of God – For W.B.C.S. Examination.
In effect Aquinas is claiming that when we “grade” things in this way we are, at least implicitly, comparing them to some absolute standard. Aquinas believes this standard cannot be merely “ideal” or “hypothetical,” and thus this gradation is only possible if there is some being which has this quality to a “maximum” extent: “so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. Ii.” Aquinas goes on to affirm that this being which provides the standard is also the cause or explanation of the existence of these qualities, and such a cause must be God. Obviously, this argument draws deeply on Platonic and Aristotelian assumptions that are no longer widely held by philosophers. For the argument to be plausible today, such assumptions would have to be defended, or else the argument reformulated in a way that frees it from its original metaphysical home.
Probably the most influential versions of the moral argument for belief in God can be traced to Kant (1788 [1956]), who famously argued that the theoretical arguments for God’s existence were unsuccessful, but presented a rational argument for belief in God as a “postulate of practical reason.” Kant held that a rational, moral being must necessarily will “the highest good,” which consists of a world in which people are both morally good and happy, and in which moral virtue is the condition for happiness. The latter condition implies that this end must be sought solely by moral action. However, Kant held that a person cannot rationally will such an end without believing that moral actions can successfully achieve such an end, and this requires a belief that the causal structure of nature is conducive to the achievement of this end by moral means. This is equivalent to belief in God, a moral being who is ultimately responsible for the character of the natural world. Kant’s arguments will be discussed later in this article.
Kant-inspired arguments were prominent in the nineteenth century, and continued to be important right up to the middle of the twentieth century. Such arguments can be found, for example, in W. R. Sorley (1918), Hastings Rashdall (1920), and A. E. Taylor (1945/1930). Although Henry Sidgwick was not himself a proponent of a moral argument for God’s existence, some have argued that his thought presents the materials for such an argument (see Walls and Baggett 2011). In the nineteenth century John Henry Newman (1870) also made good use of a moral argument in his case for belief in God, developing what could be called an argument from conscience.
In recent philosophy there has been a revival of divine command metaethical theories, which has in turn led to new versions of the moral argument found in such thinkers as Robert Adams (1987), John Hare (1996), and C. Stephen Evans (2010). However, it is important to see that there are versions of the moral argument for God’s existence that are completely independent of such a divine command theory, and this possibility can be seen in arguments developed by Angus Ritchie (2012) and Mark Linville (2009). Perhaps the most extensive and developed account of a moral argument for God’s existence in recent philosophy is found in David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls (2016). This book examines a comprehensive form of moral argument and extensively explores underlying issues. It goes without saying that these renewed arguments have engendered new criticisms as well.
Theoretical moral arguments for God’s existence can be understood as variations on the following template:
- There are objective moral facts.
- God provides the best explanation of the existence of objective moral facts.
- Therefore, (probably) God exists.
As we shall see, there are a variety of features of morality that can be appealed to in the first steps of the arguments, as well as a variety of ways in which God might be thought to provide an explanation of those features in the second steps. The use of the somewhat vague phrase “objective moral facts” is intended to allow for this variety. Both types of premises are obviously open to challenge. For example, the first premise of such an argument can be challenged by popular metaethical views that see morality as “subjective,” or “expressive,” rather than something that consists of objective facts, and also by moral sceptics. The second premise can be challenged on the basis of rival explanations of the features of morality, explanations that do not require God. Arguments about the second premise then may require comparison between theistic explanations of morality and these rival views.
It is easy to see then that the proponent of a moral argument has a complex task: She must defend the reality and objectivity of the feature of morality appealed to, but also defend the claim that this feature can be best explained by God. The second part of the task may require not only demonstrating the strengths of a theistic explanation, but pointing out weaknesses in rival secular explanations as well. Both parts of the task are essential, but it is worth noting that the two components cannot be accomplished simultaneously. The theist must defend the reality of morality against subjectivist and nihilistic critics. Assuming that this task has been carried out, the theist must then try to show that morality thus understood requires a theistic explanation.
It is interesting to observe, however, that with respect to both parts of the task, the theist may enlist non-theists as allies. The theist may well make common cause with ethical naturalists as well as ethical non-naturalists in defending moral realism against “projective” theories such as expressivism. However, the theist may also enlist the support of “error theorists” such as J. L. Mackie (1977), and “moral nihilists” such as Friedrich Nietzsche (1887) in arguing that God is necessary for objective morality. Nietzsche, for example, explicitly holds that God does not exist, but also claims that God’s non-existence undermines the reality of traditional western morality. The fact that theists can enlist such unlikely allies does not mean the moral argument for God’s existence is sound, but it does suggest that the argument is not obviously question-begging, since both premises are sometimes accepted by (different) non-believers.
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