Which argument offers the most plausible justification for the existence of God? Explain why.
This assignment consists of a short essay question, and a short response question. The main intent of these questions is to ensure that you have a sound grasp of the fundamentals of the material presented in this unit. To that end, there is a 3 to 4 page (1000 words) limit for the short essay question. Im not so concerned with whether you agree with a particular author or not. The quality of your answer is based on your exposition of the competing positions, your comparative analysis of those positions and, lastly, your argument in support of the position you defend.
As with all the assignments in this course, the short essay question is not designed to be a research question. There is no requirement to get material from external sources such as other authors, or reference websites, who have summarized, or criticized, the authors you are dealing with. In effect, including such material defeats your purpose in completing your essay because you are essentially telling me what some other person thought about the material you should be explaining and assessing. If you make reference to sources external to the course readings it will be detrimental to your mark. In some cases, I may ask you to re-work and submit your assignment. The point of your essay is to formulate the course material and develop your critical response. You can do this by working with the course material and developing your own ideas about the issue. The essay is simply your opportunity to set that out in paper.
So, the material you need to successfully complete this assignment can be found in the online course materials available through the UMLearn course site. There may also be some reading material that is part of the hard copy course readings package. You can find this information on the course materials section of our course UMLearn website.
QUESTIONS:
1. Short Essay Question: (90 marks) Consider the three arguments in support of the existence of God: the Ontological argument, the Cosmological Argument, and the Teleological Argument. Explain these three competing arguments by making reference to the authors included in our course readings. Which argument offers the most plausible justification for the existence of God? Explain why.
2. Short Response Question: (10 marks) You should try to limit yourself to two or three paragraphs for this question.
The logical problem of evil maintains that the God doesnt exist because of a logical inconsistency. Explain that logical inconsistency.
Assigned reading/viewing/listening
The assigned readings should be read in the following order:
1. Clifford, William Kingdom. The ethics of belief. http://ajburger.homestead.com/files/book.htm
2. James, William. The will to believe. http://ajburger.homestead.com/files/book.htm
3. Saint Anselm, excerpts from Proslogion. (The Ontological Argument) Chapters II V. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcarthun/Anselm.pdf
4. Saint Thomas Aquinas, excerpts from Summa Theologica. (The Cosmological Argument). Question 2 Article 3 Whether God exists? http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcarthun/Aquinas.pdf
5. David Hume, excerpts from Dialogues concerning natural religion. Part II. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcarthun/HumeDialoguesPart2.pdf
6. William Paley. State of the argument and application of the argument continued. In Natural Theology. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcarthun/PaleyGod.pdf
7. David Hume. Part X from Dialogues concerning natural religion. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcarthun/HumeMiracles10.pdf
8. MacKie, J. L. 1955. “Evil and Omnipotence.” Mind 64: 200-212. Available in your readings package.
9. Peterson, Michael, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger. 1991. “The logical problem of evil,” from Reason and religious belief, 94-107. New York: Oxford University Press. Available in your readings package.
10. Hume, David. Skeptical challenge to the belief in miracles. Section X, Of Miracles, Part I. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcarthun/HumeMiracles.pdf
