Exam 4: Plato the Beginning of Everything

Explain what Clifford means when he asserts that the question is not whether a belief is true or false, but whether it is entertained on wrong grounds. Do you agree with Clifford?

Joyce says, "The existence of _______ in the world must at all times be the greatest of all the problems which the mind encounters when it reflects on God and His relation to the world."

Lammenranta says, "the real question is not whether Descartes's reasoning is circular, but whether it is viciously circular; whether there is anything wrong with it."

Conway asserts that in God there is neither time nor change. Explain why it is important for Conway that God has these attributes. Do you agree that the attributes are important?

At the beginning of the reading, a madman goes around shouting, "I seek God! I seek God!"

In the reading, Demea proposes an a posteriori argument.

Pascal says, "We know truth, not only by our reason, but also by our perceptions; and it is from this last that we know first principles; and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to combat them."

Joyce says, "The existence of moral evil, however, becomes explicable, when it is admitted that man's life is a prison."

Descartes says that, "this necessity is sufficient, as soon as I discover that existence is a relationship, to cause me to infer the existence of this first and sovereign being."

How does Masham define "enthusiastic atheism"?

Mackie calls the question, "Can an omnipotent being make things which he cannot subsequently control?" the ...

Pascal says, "If there is a God, He is infinitely ..."

In the reading, Demea proposes what kind of argument?

Nietzsche's famous line, "God is dead," is not to be taken literally; instead, it indicates the long-standing reliance on religion as the only possible path to salvation.

Explain the following claim of Anselm: "Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible."

Anselm claims that "whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in heaven, which is greater."

Joyce claims that "Man by reason of his Platonic form transcends the limitations of time."

According to Mackie, what is the Paradox of Omnipotence?

Berkeley says that "The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called ___________; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed __________, or images of things, which they copy and represent."

Paley claims that, "It is not necessary that a machine be _______, in order to show with what design it was made: still less necessary, where the only question is, whether it were made with any design at all."