Does Demea believe in God?
Demea represents religious dogmatism and insists that we cannot come to know the nature of God through reason. Philo, the philosophical skeptic, agrees with Demea that God is incomprehensible but insists that he might be morally corrupt.
Who is Demea?
A fictional character in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Demea represents the less philosophically inclined person: someone willing to accept theological and philosophical doctrines with less than adequate evidence.
What is cleanthes response to Philo’s objections?
Cleanthes replies that “to prove by experience the origin of the universe from mind is not more contrary to common speech than to prove the motion of the earth from the same principle. And a cavallier might raise all the same objections to the Copernican system, which you have urged against my reasonings.
What is Aquinas first cause argument?
The first cause argument is based around cause and effect. Aquinas stated that this cause (which is outside our world) is the first cause – that is, the one that started everything. Aquinas argued that this first cause must have no beginning – that is, nothing caused it to exist because the first cause is eternal.
What is Paley’s watchmaker argument?
Paley’s teleological argument is based on an analogy: Watchmaker is to watch as God is to universe.
What is Aquinas fourth way?
AQUINAS’ FOURTH WAY. predicated in relation to a “most,” and goodness, truth, nobility, and being are all susceptible of comparison in things. The second step is the argument that whatever is in the genus of being, goodness, or any other perfection, is caused by whatever is maximum in that genus.
Is the design argument a priori or a posteriori?
So according to Paley’s design argument, our knowledge that God exists is a posteriori.
What is posteriori argument?
A posteriori arguments. are arguments one or more of whose premises depend on experiential. verification. Saint Thomas believes that there can be no a priori argument for. God’s existence; any valid demonstration of the existence of God must.
Why is the ontological argument wrong?
In the end, the Ontological Argument fails as a proof for the existence of God when careful attention is paid to the cognitive terms that it employs. When the terms are disambiguated, either nothing philosophically interesting follows or nothing follows at all.
Can there be an infinite regress of causes?
In general, philosophers in the Nyāya tradition argue that since the universe has parts that come into existence at one occasion and not another, it must have a cause. We could admit an infinite regress of causes if we had evidence for such, but lacking such evidence, God must exist as the non-dependent cause.
Why does God necessarily exist?
Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God. Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.
What type of being is God?
In monotheistic thought, God is conceived of as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. God is usually conceived of as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent as well as having an eternal and necessary existence. God has been conceived as either personal or impersonal.