Intelligent Design

William Paley used teleology to infer the world needs a world maker like watchmaker to watch. But are they are purposeful? Are we searching the purpose or making them up?

David Hume also pointed out that the creator seemed to make lots of mistakes, a flawed world implies a flawed creator.

Richard Swinburne proposed it was more probable that god created the world, then it went through the evolutionary processes.

These teleologist made claims about probability instead of assertion of certainty. The counter argument is we cannot use probability if the sample size is only one, the world.

Omni-God

If God is omniscient, do we have free wills?

The argument is knowing something does not mean it cause to happen, like seeing a person stuck in the rail while the train travelled from far away.

Can God sin?

Omnipotent says yes, while omnibenevolent says no.

Is God personal?

If he is omnitemporal, he probably will not feel what we feel.

Eleanor Stump argued that petitionary pray make no difference, because God already knows what is the best thing to do(omniscient, omnipotent, omnitemporal, and omnibenevolent).

The Problem of Evil

Tip

Theodicy: an attempt to show that the existence of evil doesn’t rule out of the possibility of god’s existence.

Free Will Defense: the God doesn’t create evil, but evil can’t be avoided without depriving us of our freedom. It covered moral evil, but not the natural evil.

Soul-making theodicy: the harshness of life gives us a robust texture and character that wouldn’t be possible without an imperfect world. But why not God just gives us the very minimum dosage of necessary evil to make his point?