Montaigne 's Skepticism Argument Of Constant Flux

He states that since the series of dependent beings couldn’t be caused by any external or internal source, that it would have to be cause “absolutely by nothing”. He then states that this is a “contradiction to be done in time; and because duration in this case makes no difference.” He also states that it is a “contradiction to suppose it done from eternity.” Since the universe has parts that come into existence at one occasion and not another, it must have a cause. There could supposedly be an infinite regress of causes if there was evidence for such, but lacking such evidence, God must exist as the cause.

Lastly, his fourth argument assumes that things can be created by matter therefore if other things say otherwise it would be disregarded (Paley,

Brian Davies further argued that the verificationism principle itself is unverifiable; one cannot verify whether it is true or false and therefore by its own criteria, it is meaningless. Both Ward and Davies’s arguments significantly weaken verificationism. Hick argued that statements are eschatologically verifiable, so that after someone dies, they can verify all the statements they made when they were alive, however this is a weak argument against verificationism, and it does not weaken the verification principle as much as Hick and Davies.

However, this proof has since been discredited, since it relies on a faulty understanding of causation which assumes, among other things, that all causal chains must have a first term. No "proof" of the existence of God is widely accepted today, and the search for such a proof is no longer a hot philosophical topic. While there is still disagreement over whether or not God exists and what God's nature is, it is generally agreed that God's existence cannot be proved through a feat of the

The real issue behind this objection is whether the mind is reliable source of information and not just preprogrammed and somehow deceiving itself. The sensual properties of a piece of wax change as it melts. The wax as it melts changes. Our senses can detect these changes and might be tricked into thinking two separate objects exist. Our mind, on the other hand, is able to make better judgments and inferences in order to reveal the primary properties within the wax. The senses would only tell us that the object has changed, but our mind is able to piece information together in order to make a valid judgment. The argument is meant to show that the mind is thus more reliable then the senses. To bring the argument into a greater context, the mind being more reliable is able to detect deception by making judgments. So when the mind without using another representation is able to clearly and distinctly think “I exist” then the proposition is true by the light of reason.

The argument also indulges in an infinite regression. It assumes that a transcendent god created the entire universe. However, it fails to account for what created the god. As stated in the lecture slides, a committee of lesser beings may have created the god, but that begs the question about who created the committee. One could object to this idea and believe that god has always existed, transcending time and reality itself. Once again, however, this logic is just as applicable to the universe. The universe is as capable of existing forever as a god is.

This the argument was in reference to the analogy that the watch was the same as the universe. Some came to the conclusion that since it was an unseen event which created the universe, one cannot and should not make a conclusive statement about its origin. Paley attempts to debunk this argument by stating that regardless of the fact that the actual physical making of the universe was not witnessed, there is still a physical universe that is evidence for its origin. He says that there should be no doubt of the universes artist because his existence is easily inferred through the complexity of the universes

The argument discussed is one that has an unending list of contingent beings, all of which need a cause for existence. According to the article, McCloskey assumes that the argument calls for an uncaused cause to start an infinite number of contingent beings. McCloskey believes that each contingent being simply exists with an infinite number of causes that eventually lead back to a case of chance. In “Philosophy of Religion” by Stephen Evans, Evans refers to this way of thinking as a “brute fact.” According to Evans, by claiming this stance would turn the partial argument into a whole argument and concurrently, “this will require the defender of the argument to claim that the contingency of the whole of the universe can validly be inferred from the contingency of all its parts.” Where McCloskey’s ignorance further takes a violent curve against acquiring knowledge about the beginning of the universe connects to his argument is when he said “This means that the first cause must be explained as being a necessarily existing being, one who cannot exist.” What he is alluding to, and is also the focal point of his disapproval of theism, is that humans do not have the right to claim that a being created the universe. If an atheist can claim that there is no such existence of God, then why is it that a theist cannot claim the existence of a God?

God’s existence cannot be proved nor disproved, but this is an attempt to refute the existence of this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being through an analysis of arguments and theories that try to prove or insinuate His reality.

This argument gives the concept that God is pure actuality, if God is indeed pure actuality then there is no potential for God to be any different from what he already is.

This argument states that everything in this world has certain potentials for change. It also states that, for these potentials to be met, another object, that already exists, must set off said potential. That object, in turn, would have to have been put in flux by something else, and so on and so forth. All of this ultimately leads to one object which started all this change, that one object being God.

I think Russell could have done a better job looking for an answer or expanding on the answer he does have. The answer to his argument is puny, but it’s understandable to see why he even offers an answer. The alternative, skepticism, is unattractive; the idea that nothing around you exists except yourself is ludicrous and nobody is going to want to believe that that is the actual case. The case then presented is which is the weaker argument and this is answered abstractly. If you separate the two arguments into a pessimistic view and an optimistic view, skepticism being the pessimistic view and the cat argument being the optimistic view, skepticism automatically becomes the weaker view. Skepticism is weaker because we, as humans, want and feel the need to know that we exist in a world in which we are certain about the composition of objects and knowing that we are in fact living in a reality. The cat argument answers the problem even though there are flaws in the argument, but what it does most importantly is that it gives positive reinforcement. It reinforces the notion we already had about the external world and it is accepted because all that was needed was one reason on why skepticism is false to accept the presupposed. The cat argument simply highlights what was

The second argument is for the notion that the existence of God can be demonstrated. It states that everything has a cause. He claims that by using the theory of cause and effect we can demonstrate the existence of God. If we say that every effect has a cause, we can go further and further to infinity. But because of our own logic, we know that this is not true. We know that it must end somewhere. That somewhere is a first cause, and that cause is God. This is very similar to the idea of the unmoved mover. He goes on to say that through the effects, we can demonstrate that God does exist, but we cannot know what God is like.

Many writers refer to this argument as the uncreated creator proof. All things in nature are transitory and thus may exist or not exist. Because nature is time limited things of the world either exist or they do not. Natural things cannot exist and not exist at the same time. Because of that reality, we can reason that at one time nothing temporal existed. Through this line of thinking we can conclude that not all beings exist as contingent beings but there must be a being that exists because of its own necessity. This being is the uncreated creator that we know as God. This uncreated creator brings all

The first argument derives from motion. This argument holds incredible significance for the following reasons, including that St. Thomas Aquinas inadvertently draws attention to the connection between how modern day science lends legitimate evidence, to the creation story, suggesting a degree of accuracy.Thomas Aquinas states the following “It is certain and evident to our senses that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality towards which is in motion”(CTR p. 335). Despite the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas lived an estimated 400 years before the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton and his laws of physics, he had a relatively accurate concept of what motion is and its nature in regards to the world around us. After all, motion, or movement, is the active changing of physical location, state, or position (Merriam Webster). If one refers to its physical science definition, the term of “motion” becomes a little more complex but remains relevant: motion is the conversion of one form of energy to another form of energy, such as potential energy changing to kinetic energy (Encyclopedia Britannica). Everything in existence has energy to some degree, whether it is potential or kinetic and all matter is made of energy according to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. With this in mind, according to