Return Debate on a Clichéd Topic - Arguing about God.

As per the rules, this round will be solely for arguing in support of my two arguments. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument The LCA requires two defences, assuming Con does not attempt to deny premise 3. P1: The first premise is a modest formulation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason; it affirms the existence of two kinds of being - things that exist by the necessity of their own nature and hence have no external explanation, and things that are contingent, explained by the existence of causal factors external to themselves. For example, many philosophers would classify mathematical objects such as functions, numbers or ideal shapes in the first category while physical objects like trees, cats, planets and stars belong to the second category. So what reason do we have to accept premise 1? Well, it seems to have prima facie plausibility: i.e. it makes sense of our initial intuitions so in the absence of a good reason to deny it we should begin from the assumption that it is true. For example, imagine I come across a ball in my garden. The assumption will be that it has an explanation of its existence in terms of its origin (for example, it was produced in a toy factory), its continued existence (because of the particles that constitute it) and its location (someone left it there). If we somehow expanded the ball to a larger size or increased its complexity, that would make no difference to the need for an explanation for it. In contrast, consider abstract objects such as numbers; they don't seem to require an explanation in terms any of these three things - they exist and are maintained because that it simply the way they are: i.e. they exist by necessity of their nature. The same sorts of explanations seem to extend to any sort of object we can think of. We therefore have good reason, on reflection, to accept that PSR is the default position. If there are any exceptions to this rule, it seems obvious that they are rare since every typical example of a contingent fact we can think of requires an explanation. We would therefore need a very good reason to believe that there are any particular exceptions to PSR. One could attempt to escape this argument by arguing that the universe exists necessarily instead of contingently, but I will not try to predict my opponent's response. P2: At first glance, this seems to be an extremely bold premise - how could one determine that the cause of the universe is God? However, upon conceptual analysis of the cause we can tease out certain crucial requirements for it. The cause must be incredibly powerful as the originator of the entire universe. Occam's razor shaves away a multiplicity of causes since we need not multiply the number of causes beyond necessity. The universe contains all space and time, all physical objects; the cause must therefore be non spatial, temporal and physical (prior to the existence of the universe at least). Only two types of objects fit into this category - the aforementioned abstract objects and minds. Abstract objects do not stand in causal relationships (the number 4 does not cause anything, for instance) so the only option left is a mind. In addition, if the cause of the universe were not an agent, it would co-exist timelessly with its cause and the universe would never be brought into existence. The universe would require an agent to freely choose to bring the universe into existence. This argument, while in itself does not prove the existence of the God of classical theism, contributes in a substantial way to proving the existence of such a being and thus falls within the terms of the debate. The Darwinian Problem of Evil Since it would be impossible adequately explore every major instance of "evil" in the world and how it relates to the existence of God, this discussion will cover solely the suffering that results from the way in which the animal kingdom is arranged. Paul Draper summarises the facts like this: "For a variety of biological and ecological reasons, organisms compete for survival, with some having an advantage in the struggle for survival over others; as a result, many organisms, including many sentient beings, never flourish because they die before maturity, many others barely survive, but languish for most or all of their lives, and those that reach maturity and flourish for much of their lives usually languish in old age; in the case of human beings and some nonhuman animals as well, languishing often involves intense or prolonged suffering" That these facts don't sit well with an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God is plausible on the face of it - we would, after all, expect such suffering to be minimised to far less than that which exists in the world if such a being existed. But in what respects, specifically, do they contradict classical theism? Firstly, if God is moral perfection he literally could not care more deeply about the suffering of sentient creatures created by him; in addition, with perfect knowledge and power, he is in a perfect position to prevent the suffering within the animal kingdom. Secondly, many animals have the capacity to flourish rather than suffer, and could flourish rather than suffer if minor changes were made to their environment, and also if major changes were made. A God with the aforementioned attributes would have the ability to bring about both. It is worth pointing out in addition that if one accepts the theory of evolution the intensity and scope of this suffering is increased many times over. The theory of evolution is accepted by the vast majority of scientists and has been established through multiple scientific professions [1]. In addition, the presence of an explanation for the diversity of life (and copious evidence that it is true) that is wholly natural and does not require intelligent intervention is what we would expect on a non-theistic hypothesis and not on a theistic hypothesis, since God could have easily created life without a process such as evolution. The truth of evolution therefore confirms naturalism, or at least a non-theistic hypothesis, over classical theism. [1] http://www.talkorigins.org...