Phil101 UD Rogers Test 2
• Would it be better if there just weren't any predators? (Including better for Mr. Bunny?)
- ✔️✔️o No, there's a balance in nature such that if you take out a piece the system
won't work. (So it would mean there are no bunnies either)
• You can have an infinite temporal series of contingent things - like an infinite series of
ancestors - but without a necessary being - something that cannot fail to exist - you -
✔️✔️can't explain the existence of the whole contingent series.
(Why should Aquinas be so influenced by Aristotle, and Augustine much less so? -
✔️✔️Latin speaking Christians, including Christians in Western Europe, in the earlier
part of the Middle Ages did not have access to any but a very few of Aristotle's works.
However, these works were preserved in Christian monasteries in the Middle East.
• A moved mover can be thought of as a "motion mirror". - ✔️✔️It can pass the motion
(change) along, once it's got it. But a series of moved movers, even an infinite series,
cannot explain where the motion comes from. You need a source of motion.
• Augustine gives more credit to the ____ than Plato did - ✔️✔️senses
• Does God conform to an external order of morality or value?
• Does God invent morality or value? (Divine Command Theory)
• No and NO!!! Why no? - ✔️✔️• If He conformed to them, then He'd be limited by
them.
• If He invented them,
o morality would be arbitrary, which is almost unthinkable.
o He would transcend them and "good" would mean only "what God says", I.e. it would
be an empty term.
• In the Middle Ages, in Western Europe, (with the possible exception of the Papal
States) no - ✔️✔️theocracy (in theory or in practice! Indeed, a surprising number of
democratic institutions.)
• Is it a scientific claim - ✔️✔️No
• Questions about what needs explaining and what sort of explanations are adequate
are philosophical, not scientific, questions
• Aquinas would reject the suggestion that science and religion conflict somehow.
Atheism and theism are competing world views, and it's up to philosophy to deal with
them.
,• It's basically the same issue we had with Plato. And Augustine agrees that somehow
you need to be in contact with the "World of the Forms", but it's not Plato's World of the
Forms...
• Plato's World of the Forms has become - ✔️✔️ideas in the mind of God
• NOT FIRST IN TIME!!!! - ✔️✔️First in the order of dependence
• Remember secondary causation? - ✔️✔️God really likes secondary causation.
Objects are just better sorts of things if they have causal powers. So we need a system
of cause and effect.
• St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas both hold that the tenets of the Christian faith
and what reason can prove must ultimately be - ✔️✔️in harmony
• The actual universe - with its casual system and the creatures which depend upon the
casual system - is a very good thing, and suffering is - ✔️✔️an intrinsic and necessary
part. (Pain has a role to play.) (helps protect you for example)
• The actual universe is so good that - ✔️✔️it's worth the cost in pain and suffering.
• The issue of grace introduces one of the great controversies of Augustine's later life,
his disagreement with the ____. - ✔️✔️Pelagians
"Knowledge" as opposed to mere belief, is - ✔️✔️true belief gained through direct
access to the object of knowledge.
"Omnipotence" definition according to our medical guys - ✔️✔️"The ability to do
anything logically possible for a perfect and unlimited being to do."
"What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" Better to just have faith and not
philosophize about it? Our medieval guys respond.... - ✔️✔️Religion needs philosophy
(Aristotle's) Proof for the Unmoved Mover - ✔️✔️1. Things are in motion (potential to
actual)
2. Nothing can cause its own motion
3. Motion must be caused by something already actual (In all cases but one, that will be
something already actually in motion, besides unmoved mover)
4. There cannot be an infinite series of moved movers
• Two standard problems: - ✔️✔️o 1. The proposed cause need not be God.
o 2. ID (Intellgient Design) is arguing to a "God of the gaps". But history shows that
gaps in our present scientific explanations can be filled by more science.
, • What Thomas wouldn't like about ID. - ✔️✔️o He REALLY likes secondary causation.
He would be put out with the thought that God couldn't make the system produce what
He wants, and so He has to step in and "tinker".
• Would Aquinas insist that there is a contradiction between belief in evolution of
species and belief in God?(• ...if we understand evolution to be the theory that more
complex species evolve from simpler species due to mutations and survival of the
fittest?) - ✔️✔️No
• Aquinas really likes secondary causation. He'd just say the whole system is governed
by God.
• But suppose...
• ...we understand evolution to be the theory that more complex species evolve from
simpler species due to mutations and survival of the fittest AND there is no God behind
it all? We can explain everything that needs explaining without God.
• Certainly Aquinas would disagree with that claim
• Would it be better if foxes were vegetarians? - ✔️✔️o Classic medieval answer: But
that's just incoherent. Foxes have a certain nature. Something that's a vegetarian isn't a
fox.
4th way version 2: - ✔️✔️A popular modern version
If there is no God, then there are no objective moral values.
Or, to put it in another way, No law giver > no law.
(That might not look like the Fourth Way, but wait!)
So, when we apply modus tollens to fourth way, we get...
A little Logic
Logical rule, modus tollens: (a>b) > (-b>-a)AND (-b>-a)>(a>b)
If a implies b, then not b implies not a
• Logical fallacies? Should I move on? [Modus tollens is a logical rule, NOT a fallacy. It
says (A>B)>(~B>~A). Sometimes people get confused and think that it's okay to say
(A>B)>(~A>~B). No, no, no! That's a logical fallacy. So it's quite correct to say that IF no
God entails no objective value, then objective value entails God.]
If not -b implies not -a, then a implies b.
So, IF there are objective moral values, then there is a God.
Law > law giver.
(Which is a subset of what Aquinas said.)
A guiding principle of out medieval guys: - ✔️✔️teachings of science and philosophy
can deliver truth
- important to interpret the Bible
A word on ethics (according to Augustine) - ✔️✔️• The goal is happiness
• BIG HAPPINESS!!!
• The key is order.
• Most important thing is God
• Would it be better if there just weren't any predators? (Including better for Mr. Bunny?)
- ✔️✔️o No, there's a balance in nature such that if you take out a piece the system
won't work. (So it would mean there are no bunnies either)
• You can have an infinite temporal series of contingent things - like an infinite series of
ancestors - but without a necessary being - something that cannot fail to exist - you -
✔️✔️can't explain the existence of the whole contingent series.
(Why should Aquinas be so influenced by Aristotle, and Augustine much less so? -
✔️✔️Latin speaking Christians, including Christians in Western Europe, in the earlier
part of the Middle Ages did not have access to any but a very few of Aristotle's works.
However, these works were preserved in Christian monasteries in the Middle East.
• A moved mover can be thought of as a "motion mirror". - ✔️✔️It can pass the motion
(change) along, once it's got it. But a series of moved movers, even an infinite series,
cannot explain where the motion comes from. You need a source of motion.
• Augustine gives more credit to the ____ than Plato did - ✔️✔️senses
• Does God conform to an external order of morality or value?
• Does God invent morality or value? (Divine Command Theory)
• No and NO!!! Why no? - ✔️✔️• If He conformed to them, then He'd be limited by
them.
• If He invented them,
o morality would be arbitrary, which is almost unthinkable.
o He would transcend them and "good" would mean only "what God says", I.e. it would
be an empty term.
• In the Middle Ages, in Western Europe, (with the possible exception of the Papal
States) no - ✔️✔️theocracy (in theory or in practice! Indeed, a surprising number of
democratic institutions.)
• Is it a scientific claim - ✔️✔️No
• Questions about what needs explaining and what sort of explanations are adequate
are philosophical, not scientific, questions
• Aquinas would reject the suggestion that science and religion conflict somehow.
Atheism and theism are competing world views, and it's up to philosophy to deal with
them.
,• It's basically the same issue we had with Plato. And Augustine agrees that somehow
you need to be in contact with the "World of the Forms", but it's not Plato's World of the
Forms...
• Plato's World of the Forms has become - ✔️✔️ideas in the mind of God
• NOT FIRST IN TIME!!!! - ✔️✔️First in the order of dependence
• Remember secondary causation? - ✔️✔️God really likes secondary causation.
Objects are just better sorts of things if they have causal powers. So we need a system
of cause and effect.
• St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas both hold that the tenets of the Christian faith
and what reason can prove must ultimately be - ✔️✔️in harmony
• The actual universe - with its casual system and the creatures which depend upon the
casual system - is a very good thing, and suffering is - ✔️✔️an intrinsic and necessary
part. (Pain has a role to play.) (helps protect you for example)
• The actual universe is so good that - ✔️✔️it's worth the cost in pain and suffering.
• The issue of grace introduces one of the great controversies of Augustine's later life,
his disagreement with the ____. - ✔️✔️Pelagians
"Knowledge" as opposed to mere belief, is - ✔️✔️true belief gained through direct
access to the object of knowledge.
"Omnipotence" definition according to our medical guys - ✔️✔️"The ability to do
anything logically possible for a perfect and unlimited being to do."
"What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" Better to just have faith and not
philosophize about it? Our medieval guys respond.... - ✔️✔️Religion needs philosophy
(Aristotle's) Proof for the Unmoved Mover - ✔️✔️1. Things are in motion (potential to
actual)
2. Nothing can cause its own motion
3. Motion must be caused by something already actual (In all cases but one, that will be
something already actually in motion, besides unmoved mover)
4. There cannot be an infinite series of moved movers
• Two standard problems: - ✔️✔️o 1. The proposed cause need not be God.
o 2. ID (Intellgient Design) is arguing to a "God of the gaps". But history shows that
gaps in our present scientific explanations can be filled by more science.
, • What Thomas wouldn't like about ID. - ✔️✔️o He REALLY likes secondary causation.
He would be put out with the thought that God couldn't make the system produce what
He wants, and so He has to step in and "tinker".
• Would Aquinas insist that there is a contradiction between belief in evolution of
species and belief in God?(• ...if we understand evolution to be the theory that more
complex species evolve from simpler species due to mutations and survival of the
fittest?) - ✔️✔️No
• Aquinas really likes secondary causation. He'd just say the whole system is governed
by God.
• But suppose...
• ...we understand evolution to be the theory that more complex species evolve from
simpler species due to mutations and survival of the fittest AND there is no God behind
it all? We can explain everything that needs explaining without God.
• Certainly Aquinas would disagree with that claim
• Would it be better if foxes were vegetarians? - ✔️✔️o Classic medieval answer: But
that's just incoherent. Foxes have a certain nature. Something that's a vegetarian isn't a
fox.
4th way version 2: - ✔️✔️A popular modern version
If there is no God, then there are no objective moral values.
Or, to put it in another way, No law giver > no law.
(That might not look like the Fourth Way, but wait!)
So, when we apply modus tollens to fourth way, we get...
A little Logic
Logical rule, modus tollens: (a>b) > (-b>-a)AND (-b>-a)>(a>b)
If a implies b, then not b implies not a
• Logical fallacies? Should I move on? [Modus tollens is a logical rule, NOT a fallacy. It
says (A>B)>(~B>~A). Sometimes people get confused and think that it's okay to say
(A>B)>(~A>~B). No, no, no! That's a logical fallacy. So it's quite correct to say that IF no
God entails no objective value, then objective value entails God.]
If not -b implies not -a, then a implies b.
So, IF there are objective moral values, then there is a God.
Law > law giver.
(Which is a subset of what Aquinas said.)
A guiding principle of out medieval guys: - ✔️✔️teachings of science and philosophy
can deliver truth
- important to interpret the Bible
A word on ethics (according to Augustine) - ✔️✔️• The goal is happiness
• BIG HAPPINESS!!!
• The key is order.
• Most important thing is God
